Mosaic Business Mastery

The Language of Leadership & The Power of "No" with Jennifer Maneely

• Laura Wagenknecht • Season 3 • Episode 4

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How often do the words we use—with ourselves and with others—create invisible barriers to our success? In business and in life, the frameworks we build with our language and the boundaries we set (or fail to set) determine our path.

In this powerful episode, I sit down with the incredible Jennifer M., a certified ontological coach with a profound mission to support the families and caregivers of those affected by addiction. Drawing from her own 17-year recovery journey, Jennifer shares game-changing insights that apply to every leader, entrepreneur, and human being.

We dive deep into:

  • Ontological Coaching: What it means to align your body, emotions, and language for success.
  • The Power of Language: How shifting from absolute terms like "always" and "never" can break down limiting beliefs.
  • Boundaries as a Lifestyle: Why setting clear boundaries is the ultimate act of self-care and a non-negotiable for sustainable leadership.
  • The Parallel Journey: A raw look at why your personal growth is inextricably linked to your professional success.

This conversation is a masterclass in communication, resilience, and the art of building a life and business with intention. Listen now to discover how to assemble these crucial pieces of your own mosaic.

#MosaicBusinessConsulting 

#Leadership 

#Communication 

#Boundaries 

#Entrepreneurship 

#SelfCare 

#WomenInBusiness 

#BIPOCinBusiness 

#AddictionRecovery 

#FamilySupport

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Speaker 1:

Good afternoon. Just like a mosaic is made up of a bunch of broken tile pieces that create a beautiful whole, your business is a tapestry of interconnected business parts. On the Mosaic Life, we'll explore those parts of a business, from marketing to finance, and mindset to innovation. I'm your host, laura Wagner-Konestian. Together we'll discover how to arrange those pieces of your business to create a thriving and fulfilling and successful business. So welcome and thank you for tuning into the show To reach me. Contact Laura at. So welcome and thank you for tuning into the show To reach me. Contact Laura at mosaicbusinessconsultingcom.

Speaker 1:

I'm thrilled to have Jennifer Menealy here today on our show today. She is just fantastic. She is a certified ontological coach with a profound dedication to supporting families of families not people who are addicted, but the families affected by addiction, and, with over 17 years of personal recovery from substance abuse, jennifer draws from her own experiences to guide others on their journey toward healing and empowerment. For the past six years, she's been instrumental and amazing in helping families navigate the complexities of addiction, focusing on the importance of effective communication and establishing supportive boundaries. And Jennifer isn't just a coach, though. She is a passionate advocate for change, a sought-after speaker and an overall powerhouse in the field of addiction recovery, so we are super psyched to have her here today, and her commitment to uplifting families and fostering resilience makes her a remarkable ally for anyone facing the challenges of addiction. So welcome to the show, jennifer. It is so good to have you here.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. I'm really honored and glad to be here.

Speaker 1:

It's just great. And I have to start out with one quick question what does ontological mean?

Speaker 2:

You know the thing, the thing it took me a while to even figure it out, even as I was going through the training, but I'm going to keep it really simple and it's basically a coaching style that focuses a lot on body, emotions and language, and for me in particular, I focus a lot on emotions and language, and, yes, I include some of the body in there, and when I say body, I mean, you know, the way people talk and the way that they carry themselves while they're talking is really important, and so sometimes you can change a person's emotions just by changing the way that they carry themselves while they're talking is really important, and so sometimes you can change a person's emotions just by changing the way that they're holding their body. I think that was a simple, I think that was simplified.

Speaker 1:

And it's so true because I know sometimes they tell you, you know, if you're really feeling down to smile and smile at somebody and they will smile back and that in and of itself changes some chemical reaction for us or something right.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it absolutely does and you know you can really call it out. You know, if you've ever experienced this, if you're talking to someone and they're talking about a really challenging situation they're having in their life or something that carries a lot of emotion for them, you'll oftentimes see people like scrunching in a little bit and they'll like scrunch their body down there, put their shoulders down, and it's they're almost like reliving that experience in that moment. And then a lot of times, if you can just ask people in a polite way of course I'm a coach, so it's really awkward to do if you're just talking to someone in general, but as a coach you know, if I noticed that happening I can ask them to kind of change their body position and then their experience at telling the story is vastly different through just changing their body position.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and because I also think it, yeah, and because I also think it comes back to thinking of how are we human? It's like that basic, those basic elements of being human. Sure that our language either is matching our framework or that our language is more accurate, if you will, to describe things. So do you want to share a bit more about that, because I really think that's a key factor.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Well, I love what you just said, because you use the term framework, which is what I use a lot, and it's like, I think, words and language and the words that we use within that, if we have certain goals in our life, we have to also make sure that our language is matching our goals.

Speaker 2:

So if our language isn't matching our goals, it leads us into a different framework, and so when we're operating in a different framework, it's hard to have a matching framework that aligns with the goals that we want. So a lot of times I will focus on language and make sure that people are using the language that they're saying they want, based in the framework that can get them from point A to point B. I was like, well, that I might. If someone's using a particular language, I may call them. I don't want to say call them out, but I may have them go in and actually really look at that and gain some clarity around that language and say let's just change that language just a little bit, because this is the framework that you're going to operate on under that set of semantics or language or language and language matters.

Speaker 1:

Language is important and so I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Speaker 2:

Go ahead no, I was. I was finished.

Speaker 1:

Please go ahead well I was just thinking of those thoughts we have sometimes where we say say something like you're, like this, or you're you never, do da-da-da. And it's those what we're thinking about in terms of the all or nothing approach, versus the truth, the true statement, the real statement which allows us to get out of some of those limiting beliefs too, is this idea that, is it really that way always? Is it really that way never? Or is it never that way right? It's asking ourselves to be much more accurate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Like using absolutes, especially for ourselves, really doesn't lend a whole lot to being able to achieve the goals that we say that we are wanting if we're not very clear about, you know, really diving in. So when we say never again, like you said, is it really never? Or do we get to explore that and say, can we notice a pattern when it isn't versus when it is right? And that's a totally different type of language and a way of thinking. It goes in curiosity and it's just paying attention more to our language. So that's you know. There's so many different styles of coaching out there, but one of the reasons why I chose that specific style is because it just so much more aligned with what the skills that I feel like I needed to bring to the table, to the types of clients that I work on, which is a lot around emotions and language and, yes, sometimes even potty body positions.

Speaker 1:

Well, and communication, which I thought was absolutely yeah, and what I loved is reading is that the communication and the boundary setting, because I think so many of us struggle with that boundary setting and yes, yeah, so maybe you want to share a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and boundary setting, like when I really dive into because I spent that's most of like the kind of work that I do is really helping people get very clear around boundaries.

Speaker 2:

And it's more coming from a lifestyle, because, especially with the types of clients that I'm working with, the lifestyle lends to being able to actually achieve the goal. It's not one-off stuff. We have to really integrate this stuff in everything that we do. We say we believe, because boundaries at the end of the day, is really just about being clear about what you're okay with, what you're not okay with, and then being able to communicate that with others. And that's very simple. And yet when you really dive into the clarity around what you're okay with and what you're not okay with, and then add the dimension of the language around being able to communicate that not only with yourself but with others, it starts getting very. You can get into the weeds very quickly with that and so. But it really does revolve a lot around language, including both with ourselves, the way we use it with ourselves and the way that we use it with others.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I love how you're talking about it, because I think that it's so important that we first attribute our language to ourselves, so we have clarity about ourselves. And what are our boundaries? What are? Where do we begin and end right, and what framework are we comfortable with when working with other people? Or, you know, and I'm thinking about teams and businesses, and I'm thinking about leaders and businesses and leaders and, in particular, like middle management, folks get inundated from all sides, right, and they're never right. They're always wrong from somebody's perspective. And so the question is you know, how do they frame things so that they can be more accurate in describing information, etc.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, yeah and I think, yeah, and I think I think, like you know, when we really start, you just bring up middle management and you know leaders and all of those things.

Speaker 2:

When I, when I think about it, it's like, well, we have to be really clear about our life, because I think so many of us spend so much time actually trying to figure out what we're okay with and not okay with that, we actually become a lot less productive too.

Speaker 2:

Like we start bouncing all over the place, like we, we just start focusing on so many different things and I'm I won't say wrong things, but things that aren't leading us to like the goals right that we want to achieve, whether it's you know in business, uh, if you want to achieve, whether it's you know in business, if you're a middle manager, you're you know, you sit there and you get overwhelmed with all of the stuff that you have in front of you and it's really hard to even know where to start sometimes with that, that we spend so much time focusing on the overwhelm that we forget to actually just start. How do we break this down? How do we look at this? And that's part of the boundaries. Being a lifestyle is really learning how to take a couple deep breaths and really look and prioritize and break things down differently and start checking it off so that we don't get so sucked into the overwhelm.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so, so well said, Thank you for that, yeah, and I am kind of wondering, though, you know, on your own journey, if you will, in what you've tried to accomplish, what has been your biggest lesson that you've learned in, let's say, your business journey, or your personal journey, or both?

Speaker 2:

I you know, I think probably the the biggest lesson that I got pretty early on when I started this journey into my business was, honestly how much work I still needed to do on me, and we all need to do our work right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

There was but, but I really had to actually be diligent, because sometimes we can drag our feet on doing our own work because it's hard Um, it's, it's, it's challenging. We don't often want to take a pause and look at ourself, because it's like we just want to go focus. And how does this relate to business? How does me being, you know, focusing on me and my personal journey how does that relate to the business? Oh, it's for me, it's so. So the first one of the first things that I did was I actually had to get some coaching for me on me First. That was like the first thing I dove into this business and I was like, oh, maybe I'm not as ready for this as I thought I was.

Speaker 1:

I was like I need to do right.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly. But I figured out real quickly I need to work on me and so I did that before I even got business. So the business coaching for for me actually turned into Jen's personal coaching, because I also needed business coaching, because I didn't know what I was doing. I was like I had this great idea, right, have this thought, this thing that I want to do, and then I start doing it and I was like, oh, I have, I don't.

Speaker 2:

I, I know what I'm doing in terms of the coaching, right, but it's all of the things around it that I'm unfamiliar with, i'm'm unclear, it's, it's, you know, that's like the business essential stuff, the stuff that you kind of got to know, but you know there's skills and stuff that I needed to develop in that business realm. So I think that was probably my biggest lesson. And now I've, just for me, on an ongoing thing, I always have something professional development going on and personal development going on, because they go hand in hand. So I've always just kind of made that very much. A part of my ongoing business is to continue moving forward in that growth, and that's been probably the most helpful thing for me to be able to sustain myself and continue to move forward Because I've had a lot I don't want to call them setbacks, but I've had a lot of really great learning opportunities through that that if I hadn't started changing my perspective and my mindsets on certain things, I think it would have crushed me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow, wow. Well, I'm. I am wondering because you're talking about business and personal and I find that, and maybe you found this I don't know if you found this, but I found from my own experience that it's been a parallel process. At times it's like I'm building this part of my business on the business side, but some of it means I have to develop content and write something and I'm like, oh, I can't go there, you know personally, I'm not ready 100% parallel, which is why I focus on them both right, which is why it's like I always have the professional with the personal, because there's really no difference.

Speaker 2:

You know it's how you do. Anything is how you do everything. There is no separation. I know we love in this culture to think that there's some way we can go to work and separate ourselves from life balance, our work, life balance and all that stuff.

Speaker 2:

But at the end of the day, it's how we do. Anything is how we do everything. So how we're showing up personally is always going to impact how we're showing up professionally as well. And so there is a, there is a parallel and you can really start telling when you've been focusing too much on the professional and not enough on the personal, because things get a little shaky, things you know, you almost got to catch up like you got to take a step back and catch up with your personal self. So you're absolutely correct in the parallel.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's got to be both you know you got to. There is no difference. Yeah, yeah, my, my power just went out.

Speaker 1:

I saw that Um. Do you still have connection, though, somehow?

Speaker 2:

I do. I'm sorry if this ruins your thing. It does not. It does not. We're going to make it work.

Speaker 1:

We're going to make it work, um, but I it work. But I am wondering, you know, when we're dealing with the caregiver because that's what you're talking about the caregiver of the person with an addiction, or you're dealing with a family member of the who has the addiction, not necessarily the person who's addicted, the who has the addiction, not necessarily the person who's addicted. And you know, we have this perception of working with people who are addicts. What is the difference between working with the addict themselves or the person who has the addiction? I should be very clear about that, rather than because it is a disease, and let's be clear, but then working with them versus working with the caregivers or family members of those people. What's the difference?

Speaker 2:

Well, I, you know there's well one. There's a big difference, because you're talking about someone you know that has that's more in the drug mindset and it's a little bit oftentimes it's a little bit more chaotic, and I think it's really easy. What I'll say is it's really easy to overlook the caregivers, just because the people with the substance abuse issues, the addiction, so to speak, can really overshadow the caregivers. And so sometimes I think we forget because it's so like in your face, so like the addiction is kind of like in your face. It's a very dramatic kind of look and feel towards it.

Speaker 2:

And then the caregivers and they even often spend so much time thinking about the addict that they do forget about themselves. Because it's so easy to forget about the caregivers in that situation, because everyone wants to just help them, because it's so desperate and there's so much fear and everyone's just worried about the worst possible outcomes, and it can get people like their anxiety can go up. I mean it's just a little bit more chaotic working with the people with the substance abuse than it is the caregivers, but for me there's so many people out there working with the addicts themselves. They have the tools, they have the resources, rehabs, other organizations and stuff I'm like for me, I want to work on these caregivers because I do think it's an underserved community. Oh yeah, just as much support in that.

Speaker 2:

If not more, because they're the ones that are really having to deal with their emotions in that. So when someone's on substances, they're just not feeling the same way, they're not really being present to this world. And when someone's a caregiver, they have to watch all of that, right, they have to watch, you know, their loved ones really doing a whole lot of damage to themselves and you know it's it's really bad. And so the families and these caregivers are the ones that are actually having to sit in with what's happening. They're the ones that are actually in reality. So they're the ones that are dealing with a lot more emotions, the guilt, the shame, all of those things that come up in that, and they don't have anywhere to go to kind of get the support that they need yeah, and to to work through it as effectively.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of like um, when you were thinking about, when you were talking about the person who has the um substance use or substance abuse that they often are in that chaos, right, and they almost, because of the lifestyle, keep it going in that milieu, if you will. But the caregiver is often receiving the blame of well, they're receiving the blame from the person who has the, the substance addiction, right, and then they're receiving the blame from society that says how can you support this or how can you? Why did you? How did you raise this child?

Speaker 2:

how can you let your kid do that?

Speaker 1:

Right, and let's be clear, we're talking a lot of the time about an adult person who has the addiction or substance use issue and the family. It's an adult. It's like we don't have control over their emotions, but it also feels like, so I just feel like there's all this blame going into them, right? Oh yeah, we're talking about the guilt they might feel. Can you expand on how that influences two things their communication and their boundary setting?

Speaker 2:

So it's been in my experience that a lot of times when you have, you know, someone that is using substances, they do learn how to get under people's skins, to get under to get what they want right. So there is a quite a bit of, you know, manipulation and I don't want to use that they want right. So there is quite a bit of manipulation and I don't wanna use that in a negative way. It's just a term, right, it's a neutral term, but there is a lot of manipulation because they learn what works. That's it. They learn how to get what it is they want and they'll do anything, including blaming their parents, and oftentimes, from my experience is that these parents often take that blame because they feel like they should have done something different.

Speaker 2:

Maybe there was a situation they didn't know how to handle it when they were younger, and there's all of these like mental health things going on and they're like I should have seen it sooner, I should have seen you know all this stuff. So they absolutely do blame themselves and so that's really easy for you know their loved one to then be able to use that blame against them, right? These parents carry the energy of having all this blame and guilt and shame in what they think that they've created which, by the way, I will say, this is nothing to do with you. You did not do anything wrong for any of those who are listening. But I will say that because they carry that energy, it's really easy for other people in society to look at them and I even, you know, kind of pause people sometimes when they're talking about oh, I would never let my kid do that.

Speaker 2:

And I was like oh, you think these parents did Right Like. They're like oh no, no, we're going to keep a really close eye over our kid. I was like it has nothing to do with parenting. Like and this is what I want to get across is like this is not a parenting problem. This is something totally different.

Speaker 2:

It's going on very much internally with the loved one, whether it's mental health, whether it's how they are receiving information and how they're interpreting it into the world, and then they grow up with these belief systems that, honestly, the parents just can't stop. Right, like it's something's going on and so. But because we do carry so much and, I think, a lot of the blame from society, deep down, I think people are just happy that it's not them. And so then they're like oh look, I'm such a good because look at how much we compare our parenting styles with each other just culturally take drugs away from it, right, right, it's just something we do because we're like I think we're all so insecure about I'm not a parent, by the way, but I've seen so many parents just get so insecure.

Speaker 2:

I think every parent I could talk to in this world would admit that they were insecure about the way that they brought their kids up, that they somehow did something wrong. So I think we're often just looking for ways to make ourselves feel better, and I think that's one way, and that's something that I work really hard on trying not only with the individual but also culturally, to help people steer clear of that, that kind of language and that kind of belief as well, that this is somehow a parenting issue, because it's not no, and it comes down to so many different words that come into my head like judgment and comparison, as you're talking about, and and trying to keep up with the joneses, as we say, you know.

Speaker 1:

But the truth is that I don't think. I think that what you're doing in working with the family members, it is the. It's like the gap in the services, the gap in the delivery of services, that we aren't paying attention to, the support mechanism that's requisite when they leave right, or we aren't paying attention to how that is going to have to continue itself. You know, for quite some time. It's not like they go through rehab. They get out of rehab, they feel better and it's all fine. No, they may relapse, they may do any number of things, but in the meantime, that caregiver or that family member continues to have to give care to that person.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and this is one of the things that I'm trying to really reinforce to people is that this is just as much both the addict's journey and the family journey. Right, like this is this has to be both, and this is why I focus a lot on boundaries as a lifestyle, because it's like, listen, they could, they could totally go to rehab and get out, and this is, honestly, this is what happened with me. Right, I go to rehab, I get out of rehab, I stay clean.

Speaker 2:

For a couple of years my mom thinks everything is cool, everything is over, right, she doesn't have to worry about me anymore. But then I relapse. He doesn't have to worry about me anymore, but then I relapse, right, and things get really bad. And then I have to go back into rehab and now she doesn't know, like it took her a lot longer the second time around. I only had to go to a rehab twice, but it took her a lot longer the second time around to actually kind of start feeling like, oh, I don't have to worry about gender anymore, right, and then, in that concern and that worry, how do you live like that? How?

Speaker 1:

do you make?

Speaker 2:

sure it doesn't swallow you. How do you start building trust back? Because building trust back can be hard, it can be challenging. You don't actually know, like a lot of the parents I talk to, their kid gets out of rehab and they're like, okay, let's just move on with your life now. And they don't know some of like the signs and like what they're looking for in terms of are they doing the right things, what are the red flags? And so that's a lot of times like where I come in and kind of give a reality check of like this is the reality and this is how you support yourself through the realities of this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I really appreciate you saying and because I think so many of us think it's either or but it's, and so I really appreciate that. This has just been fantastic, jen. We could continue chatting till we're blue in the face, I think, because absolutely great, great info. I love it. I love it. If people want to reach out to you, how can they contact you? How can they reach you?

Speaker 2:

So the the rep. The website is with the recovering familyorg. It is a nonprofit organization so they can go check out the website and contact me there. They can also just shoot me an email at info at the recovering familyorg.

Speaker 1:

The recovering family, so recover ing familyorg, Correct. I love that. That's fantastic. Well, I want to thank you so much, Jennifer. It is just a delight to have you on the show and I want to thank you the audience for listening to the Mosaic Life with Laura W. Be sure to tune in next week for a conversation about leadership with Linda Ruland. So love talking to y'all. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great rest of your day.