Episode 5 | How Stillness Can Benefit You As an Entrepreneur with KJ Nasrul

Laura: 0:00

Welcome everyone here at Boss It. We would love to hear from you. Join us in our Boss It community, by heading over to our website Bossitclub.com and join our mailing list. As we grow, we will be launching our community of fellow Boss It BFFs, and we want you to be a part of it. Okay. Sophia Noreen. Let's dig into this.

Sophia Noreen: 0:20

Hello Everyone. Welcome to another amazing episode of the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen, and I'm going to be your host for today. Before we get started, I wanted to share another review with you. This review is called Balance and it's from Bisma09. And she left it on iTunes. Thank you Bisma for your review. This is what Bisma had to say. "It's always about balance. And these ladies share amazing tips to keep the balance, but also some real raw hurdles that they overcame. When life throws you lemons. What do you do There are always business pressures and family obligations. Finding balance is key". Guys. This review is so timely. Thank you Bisma not for leaving a review. Remember guys, you can leave a review on iTunes. It really helps us out as new podcasters. And then we also know what you guys are enjoying. Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup and launched it in big box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family and self care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day. There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you. Hello everyone. And welcome to another amazing episode of Boss It Podcast. Today our guest is KJ Nasrul. I'm going to tell you a little bit about KJ. KJ is a transracial adoptee. She's a licensed psychotherapist, a writer and a musician, and she has a secret talent of rollerskating and making grilled cheese. She guides healers, educators and artists, as they uncover their unique stories that heal themselves, prevent burnout and support them of uplifting, and healing their communities. Oh my goodness, guys, this is so perfect. And right now I know many entrepreneurs are having the sense of burnout, even with the fact that we're in COVID, there's a lot of additional pressures on us. As we record is we're at the end of September, and as some areas of North America, United States and Canada are going through a little bit of a shift with COVID. So hang in there and, let's turn it over to KJ. Hi KJ. How's it going?

KJ Nasrul: 2:48

Hey there. My dear. I'm doing very well. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Sophia Noreen: 2:53

Yes. I'm so happy. You're here. So KJ tell everyone, we usually start off with our mantra. What's keeping you motivated, like how, before we get right into your story, what keeps you going in life and work? what is that I guess North star or your mantra? What is it?

KJ Nasrul: 3:10

It's very simple. And I don't even know that I had an exact mantra until fairly recently. My mantra is to drop into stillness, to receive. That is from a place of knowing that everything is moving so quickly. And I am a very busy lady. I want to get into everything and anything. And at times I need to remember that, it may not need to be everything all at once at the same time. And to do that is to drop into some of the quiet and start doing some self reflection. So I started to chant and remind myself each day that it's the stillness, I'll really find my North star will, where I'll find what to do. A lot of times it's because I already know what to do. But I haven't listened to it. I haven't gotten quiet to listen to it.

Sophia Noreen: 4:00

Your inner voice in some ways, what would you yeah, it would be similar to that you would say, or would you classify something else? I'm just trying to dig a little deeper.

KJ Nasrul: 4:09

Yeah, no, it is the inner voice. It's the intuition. It's the quiet knowing voice that was probably already there. Maybe since we were children, but we had built up all sorts of reasons to talk ourselves out of it. So it's yeah, it's our quiet. It's our, I don't want to say it's our inner child as much, but it could be. It's really when we move away, all of the labels that have been put onto us, or if we remember every time someone has told us not to do something, if we remove all of that, remove all of the '"shoulds" and the expectations, there is a part of us that instinctually already knows what to do.

Sophia Noreen: 4:48

Yeah, totally. that's beautiful. And I think, that's a good way to start your story. Okay, tell us how did you get there and maybe start, where do you want to start your story about being an entrepreneur or how did you come to this realization that's your mantra? Stillness.

KJ Nasrul: 5:04

That's good questions. Okay. Where do I start? Technically I've been a licensed practitioner, so I'm actually a licensed marriage and family therapist very specifically. And I have been for about 13 years. And when I first became licensed, I hadn't planned on being a private practitioner with my own business. And so I would say that I stumbled into entrepreneurship. I didn't realize that. but that's what I could or should be doing. I knew how to connect with people. I knew how to be a therapist. I knew how to build relationships, but I didn't realize that needed to be and could be translated into sales. And that in actuality, I. And starting a private practice. I was also starting becoming an entrepreneur. I was licensed about 13 years ago. I decided to start my private practice 10 years ago. But yeah, but I didn't. Actually really do it. It never really took off. I did for about six months, start to slowly build and have some one on one clients for, short periods time. And then I ended up getting back into the workforce. So there was a time period there where I wasn't working. I've had about like 15 jobs and that might even be not enough to say or it might be more

Sophia Noreen: 6:20

So you, were you working as like a, an independent practitioner, a private practice therapist, and then you went back into the workforce, meaning you went back into an employee based position.

KJ Nasrul: 6:30

I moved back into nonprofit organizations I've worked for counseling agencies, or like currently I'm working actually with the government, which is that's another fun thing. Just never, it never really materialized into becoming my full time gig as a private practitioner. So I didn't really call myself ever really an entrepreneur until literally, maybe in the last three to four months.

Sophia Noreen: 6:57

Okay.

KJ Nasrul: 6:58

That's because I decided that I wanted to start a podcast,

Sophia Noreen: 7:03

Yeah. So your story is very interesting cause you started your entrepreneurial journey technically 10 years ago. But, you are only now attempting to make it a full time job; like you want to replace, or you left your other job at this point. Are you still working now?

KJ Nasrul: 7:22

Okay. I'm still working. And so that's why it's perfect that you and I have met when we have. You have a lot of information and experience and knowing what that's juggling it all we've met when we have

Sophia Noreen: 7:33

Isn't that interesting?

KJ Nasrul: 7:35

Really did and I've stopped questioning I always was a believer that there's never been a coincidence per se, but I've always felt that things have just been beautifully divinely; however you want to call it. The universe has a way of providing, and I've always believed that it has been extremely apparent in at least for me, just in the last year or so. And that includes why I had made the shift from staying in this corporate job, but knowing about three or four months ago that I wanted to make a shift and that I was ready to step into the actions of, but also to embody and actually embrace what it might mean to be an entrepreneur.

Sophia Noreen: 8:15

It's a different world altogether. Yeah, a totally different world, which is we can talk about the good part of being an entrepreneur, but there's also some rough patches, for sure. And being a practitioner, I feel I never worked anything, but being a physio therapist and then a manager, but have you taken on any other jobs other than being a psychotherapist?

KJ Nasrul: 8:35

Yes, that's what I'm actually doing now in the corporate job. I am in maybe the least sexiest, aspect of my work, which is in, privacy and compliance.

Sophia Noreen: 8:49

Oh, very nice.

KJ Nasrul: 8:51

So it is very structured. Sorry, with lack of better. Yeah. Terminology. It can be very rigid. a world of policies, procedures, and regulations. And so that's new in the sense, but what I'm discovering because I've become still, because I've been opened up to it. I realized that "A" entrepreneurship actually exists even there as my work, as a psychotherapist, because it really is all about making connections and in providing a service and it's very clear what that service can be and what it can mean when we're talking about policies and procedures and privacy.

Sophia Noreen: 9:29

Exactly. it's a very important role, even though it may not sound as sexy as you would like it to be, but it's definitely an, a very important role. And knowing that it's a secure government job. But now you've taken the plunge. And so take us right now. what are you offering to your customers or your clients?

KJ Nasrul: 9:48

Yeah. So believe it or not, even though I have been for the most part in corporate or I've ever turned to, agency work, over the last 10 years, I always did maintain at least a handful of clients at the same time. So I do have, my one-on-one services. But what I'm hoping to do, and what I'm starting to do now is expand, the programs that I offer. And that includes, our healer program, which is a coaching and psychotherapy hybrid of creativity and self care and compassion for our frontline, essential workers,

Sophia Noreen: 10:25

Beautiful. Oh, my goodness. So well-timed,

KJ Nasrul: 10:29

it's good times. It really became obvious to me, obviously, during the pandemic that the toll that it was taking, on our healthcare workers. But when I realized that really it's a toll that all of us are taking on in terms of being, healers and service providers and helper. The frontline workers are not just healthcare workers. We're talking about the grocery store clerks. We're talking about our mail delivery people or the restaurants that are trying to remain open and the grocery stores. We have a lot of brave service people that are not getting the replenishment or the healing that they need to continue to provide these essential services

Sophia Noreen: 11:11

Exactly.

KJ Nasrul: 11:12

And so it just became very clear to me. I've actually started a program and I'm running it now in the agency that I work for.

Sophia Noreen: 11:22

Okay.

KJ Nasrul: 11:22

Three days a week, I offer 20 to 25 minutes of what we call self care. And I facilitate that with a small team of ladies. we just were determined to offer some sort of comfort and some sort of landing place in our very busy and hectic schedules to get quiet. And again, back to that instilled illness and then the listening. So three days a week, we offer 20 to 25 minutes of either meditation yoga music therapy sound healing, writing, dancing, all the creative, expressive arts that maybe, we wouldn't normally take the time to do, we are saying we are providing the space for you, to do this with us so that you know that you can make it through the day and that you can come back tomorrow to continue to heal the community.

Sophia Noreen: 12:17

That's so nice. Okay, KJ that's so beautiful. I wish you were closer. Cause I would definitely be there.

KJ Nasrul: 12:22

that is one of the beauties. It sounds so strange to say this, but pandemic has actually been able to produce a way for that to happen. So we do it all on Zoom. You could attend.

Sophia Noreen: 12:32

I had no idea

KJ Nasrul: 12:34

You could, but that's what I'm saying is that's what I'm actually offering in my private practice, as I'm facilitating these, the healer groups outside, and it's going to be available to anybody.

Sophia Noreen: 12:44

Wow, KJ. That is fantastic. So we will talk more about how everyone can at the end; KJ is going to give all our handles and tell us where exactly we can follow her on this amazing journey of entrepreneurship. But I think KJ would be perfect to tell us a little bit of advice, because she's been on this journey for awhile, as a clinician as well. And now she's breaking into more of that. I would say the digital stuff based by offering digital education. Yeah. And what are amazing a venture you're taking on by offering it to frontline workers. That is so nice and so spectacular. Give me one piece of advice to somebody who's starting their entrepreneur journey today? What would you like to say to them?

KJ Nasrul: 13:30

I would say definitely be open to learning from a number of different resources. There's a lot of people that have businesses and are entrepreneurs, but not everybody has a style that could jive with you or that you may learn from in the most effective way. So definitely just meet people. And see if there's people that you work well with, or, even as a peer group, like Sophia Noreen and I are; we can bounce ideas off of each other and see what has worked, what hasn't worked. So my advice is to be open to working with people, of course, networking, but also having support .It's a, an extraordinary journey, but it's also one that it requires all hands on deck. So to be emotionally present, to be physically present, to be, willing to do some tough work in that, sometimes that might mean that you have to have some super late nights or sometimes might mean that you might not be as connected to your family and loved ones, as you would like to be, or as they would like you to be. And so have support hav. Have a team, almost have your own squad. I have someone helping me out with nutritional discussions because I'm so busy with my daytime job, and then now launching the new programs, I forget how to plan meals. I forget to stop and eat. So I have a friend who helps me stay in line for nutritional and meal planning purposes. I guess bottom line is get a team, get support, be open to working with a number of different people, because there's something you could learn from everybody from every single one of them, whether it's a style, whether it's, A method or whether it's, whether it's a referral, whether they may know someone who they think you might work well with, or that you could learn from; down to a very specific skill. How to create a particular sort of a business? How to create a certain course that you might want to teach? As I'm getting into learning how to do a digital course, I need the right guides for that. So that seems a little, maybe general what I'm saying, but like bottom line is get a team, get in with people, get support.Because it's a, it's an extraordinary journey, but, it's, there's a lot involved

Sophia Noreen: 15:58

It's I forgot one. I think that is beautiful advice. I think a lot of people are shy as well to reveal that's actually their goal and their want, and then they shy away from taking the courses and taking the action. And so that actually does really nicely into our next question for you, which is, how do you keep yourself moving? Like you have so many things on the go, you're still working a full time job. And you have a podcast now you're launching a course in the future. You're still counseling and taking on clients on the side. So that's a lot KJ. Like how are you managing it all? What's your strategy with time management?

KJ Nasrul: 16:34

It's been through a number of trial and error, and then it became more back to basics. I am a big fan of lists to do lists. I write to do lists down and I have a planner that I write everything down in.

Sophia Noreen: 16:48

Nice

KJ Nasrul: 16:49

That literally has, the hours of each day, lined up so that I can plug in what I need to be doing at a certain time. So I'm super old school. I use my planner. I write things down and have a, to do list, but maybe this is the trick I actually schedule in everything. I write lunchtime at 12 noon. How busy are we where we actually realize at the end of the day that we hadn't stopped to have lunch, And but when I look at my calendar and my planner and I see 12 o'clock, Oh, it's lunchtime. Okay. I'm going to go take lunch. It's an actual, intentional choice. To insert breaks and self care time and, to not be overwhelmed with or too consumed with the day's tasks, especially when it's work. I absolutely have found it's key to schedule in right down the health care piece of it. The self care piece, the loving, kindness piece. So at seven o'clock I literally wrote down today, mantras meditation.

Sophia Noreen: 17:54

Oh, that's beautiful. And isn't it so important, right? To basically write those self care actions in your planner, along with everything else. I think a lot of people. They don't make those commitments to themselves. And, even if they try, they don't follow through and that's where they're not able to fill their cup as most people say, and they're running on empty. And so guys like, KJ's advice, just schedule in self care along with everything else. Because if you don't take care of yourself, how can you take care of anything else?

KJ Nasrul: 18:29

And it becomes habit as well. If you go through the movements because it's what you do at 10:00 AM. You take your break at 10:00 AM, which also means hydration. I've written down hydration too in my to do list. Make sure I'm drinking enough water, especially right now with everything; right now we're currently experiencing wildfires in California where I am. And how important is it that we're taking care of our skin and our bodies by hydrating? So I've lived literally written down under body and wellness, my to do list is to hydrate.

Sophia Noreen: 19:02

Wow, right? Yeah. it's just as important as everything else. i

KJ Nasrul: 19:05

It's the bread and butter. It is water's life. If we cannot find ourselves hydrated and feeling, strong and well rested, even like the basic needs. Are you getting enough rest at night? If you aren't getting these things, there's no way that we're performing at our optimal level. There's no way that I can be a healer trying to heal somebody else when I haven't even taken the time to heal myself.

Sophia Noreen: 19:28

I think that's, beautiful and very well said to KJ. I think a lot of people could definitely schedule in a little bit more self care time, along with everything else and writing it down on pen and paper and not always your phone. That's also very helpful. You went into our next, question. Cause we usually ask, like how do you do the mental checks and how do you keep yourself in check? And I don't know if you want to expand on that at all. I know you spoke about how you do your mantras and your meditation. Is there anything else you do to help, with mental health and your physical wellbeing

KJ Nasrul: 20:02

Number of things. In addition to having routines and having a plan written down, I ensure that I schedule in and connect with family and I have accountability partners. And that doesn't necessarily have to be, my family per se, although it is nice to have an end of the day, debrief and family meeting. It's my husband and I, and he, and I have sometimes very different schedules. And so at the end of the day, when we're both in the house and it's time for dinner together, we check in with each other on how our day went. It's just nice connecting with and having a conversation, that's natural and it's yeah. With somebody who genuinely wants to know how I'm doing. In fact, instead of a cursory like that, we ask everybody, "Hey, how's it going?" This person actually really, and truly wants to know how it's going. And then another piece of support that I do is I actually have my own coaches. I have my therapists. So I definitely advocate for when I had said earlier, have a team. They're my team. I have a coach, I have a therapist. And then I also integrate physical activity, which is really important. I really enjoy walking and running and hiking as well as I do Bar Method. And so I have found activities that I really enjoy, which means I'll keep doing them versus something like, I feel like I have to do, out of obligation, but it's actually because I enjoy it.

Sophia Noreen: 21:30

Oh, that's fantastic. Thank you so much, KJ. I think this has really been insightful for so many of our listeners. They are, I'm sure, wanting to find out more about you and what are you up to right now in regards to your digital education and would it be appropriate for our listeners?

KJ Nasrul: 21:48

Oh, gosh, I think any type of self care investment and healthcare investment is good for anybody listening. There's a number of things that I'm into and really just exploring right now. That's been, the blessing in this really difficult time as COVID is that we've had to find new creative ways to pivot and find ways to get needs met that normally wouldn't have been an issue. So for instance we in California, we've been in shelter in place since March. So we're going on six of having to figure out how to be for the most part remote, especially distance. But at the same time have our essential needs met food, water connection. And so I've just been noticing, I'll just say that I've just been noticing what challenges have come up now that we're at home together a lot, or now that we are, yeah, we're with our families all the time now. And how to do that. And for folks with kids, how do you maintain these new routines with these new ideas and how do you explain to our family members and kids what's going on? So I've realized that there needs to be, or, could be some interest in learning how to communicate Communication

Sophia Noreen: 23:10

education is so key and during COVID, especially when you're all together in one cozy home for so many hours a day, sometimes communication can be very difficult. So yeah. KJ is going to have something fun, come out soon for maybe how to communicate with their families who knows.

KJ Nasrul: 23:29

Yeah. That's. To where I was leaning. And I think, you know this about me, but I'm a bit of a word nerd too. I tend to like to write scripts. I tend to like to have some role playing involved. I believe that they're like. Oh world of possibilities. I love finding new words and new ways to communicate. And that's basically all these last six months have been, is trying to relearn how to be with each other, and kindly and compassionately when probably it's the very last thing that we're feeling. We might be feeling pretty irritable with our partners or our kids or our coworkers at this time, because of all the stressors that are going on in this world. We tend to, rightfully so, react in a way that is very natural, by the way, but in a way where we probably take it out most harshly on those that are closest to us.

Sophia Noreen: 24:19

It's unfortunate, but it's only, you're only human, and it happens. And, we can't wait for this new digital education that KJ can basically provides to us because I think everyone, even if you're not in a, state where I'm living cozy with everyone at home, I think communication is so important and I'm sure, you could still take away golden nuggets from her course KJ, I'm so happy that you made it on to the Boss It Podcast. They didn't give you our backstory, but me and KJ met; we did a podcast course together and it was a eight week, "make your podcast and launch it". So we both were able to do it in that time frame. I think we did it within six weeks KJ, right?

KJ Nasrul: 25:01

Six weeks

Sophia Noreen: 25:01

We were, yeah, we just got down to it and got it done. Me and her met then, and we just connected, which was fantastic. And, yeah, we're continuing to take some education together, so that's exciting and we didn't plan for it. So the stars keep aligning for us. I'm just so I'm so happy. KJ so for our listeners, how are we going to find you? How are we going to follow you? Tell us I'm going to, I'm going to link everything in the show notes, but for those who are very good at quickly, getting out their phone and following you, what are your handles? Where do we follow at you?

KJ Nasrul: 25:36

Okay, so there's a couple of different places. I hang out a lot on Instagram. I'm a big sucker for pretty pictures. So that's where you can find me. I've got a couple of handles there. the first is @blissbeginswithin and the second one, which is more my personal and you'll maybe see more pictures of my family and that's @musingsonother. And then I also have just launched my website so you can check out some of what I'm doing and some of the programs I'm working on and that's also at blissbeginswithin.com.

Sophia Noreen: 26:07

Okay. Amazing. And we'll link everything in the show notes, guys, go follow KJ. You've heard her wisdom. If you have any questions for KJ, the best way of them corresponding with you.

KJ Nasrul: 26:17

My email is [email protected]. And then also, I can't believe we forgot to mention this, I have a podcast, so you can reach out.

Sophia Noreen: 26:27

We just talked about the podcast and how she launched. We forgot to mention. What the podcast is

KJ Nasrul: 26:32

We're just so excited.

Sophia Noreen: 26:33

We are so excited. I think, and we just have a lot to say, so

KJ Nasrul: 26:36

We have a lot to say,

Sophia Noreen: 26:37

And we're on a podcast. So I guess that's probably forgot that KJ also has a podcast and it is so beautiful. I listened to it regularly. So subscribe to our podcast. I will also link that what's your podcast.

KJ Nasrul: 26:48

Oh, the podcast. Thank you, my dear. The podcast is Stories Of Astonishing Light, and you can find me there or like I said, you can hit me up or DM on Instagram and then you have my email. So all of these different ways you can find me.

Sophia Noreen: 27:02

Thank you, KJ. I'm sure one of our listeners will reach out because you had such big insight and we're so excited to, basically learn from you and take your digital courses and listen to your podcasts. So thank you again. Thank you. Ok guys, as always, thank you for listening to boss podcast. Remember make a plan and take action and yes, you can have it all. Bye for now. So my fellow bosses, did you enjoy that episode now? It's time for you to make a solid plan and take action. But first, remember to subscribe and follow the Boss It podcast. So you receive a notification whenever we drop an episode. Remember to leave us a review on iTunes. Take a screenshot of your review and shared on Instagram as a post or a story and tag us @BossItclub. If Instagram is not your thing, no worries. Email your screenshot to [email protected]. As a massive thank you. We will be sending you our top 50 tips for starting and scaling a business. This list is exclusively for podcast reviewers. So don't miss out. Now remember bosses, make a plan and take action in all aspects of your life. Yes, you can have it all.