JANA SHORT: EPISODE LINK

BEST HOLISTIC LIFE MAGAZINE: LINK

TRANSCRIPT:

Colleen: – Welcome back to Hot Flashes and Cool Topics. We are excited to have this

conversation today with our guest, Jana Short. Welcome to the show.

Jana: – Thank you.

I’m so excited to be here. I’ve been waiting for this.

Colleen: – Well, you graciously

invited me on your show and it was such a fun conversation. I was like, we have

to continue this on Hot Flashes. You wear so many hats at this stage of life and

you’re so inspirational. What has given you this energy to kind of redefine,

reinvent, engage in this time, in this stage of life?

Jana: You know,

I had a real awakening when I hit 51 and I had a near -death experience and I was

an interior designer and I really didn’t realize that I hated what I was doing. I

love designing, I hated working with people because I worked with couples and they

never could decide on anything and I was always that person stuck in the middle.

And when I started getting better, by the way, I still live in the same diagnosis

that I had, you know, two months, less than two months to live. And here I am

thriving in the same diagnosis 13 years later. But having said that, it was a real

awakening that time was short and precious, what wasn’t important to me anymore was money

and possessions because I had this realization that you aren’t taking any of those

with you. And so what was important to me was creating those precious memories and

moments with the people I love, with my friends, with my family. And I had like a

real awakening about what was important to me. And I started moving in that passion.

I love writing so I became a writer. I think I’m working on my fifth book now. I

started publishing because I wanted to hear those other stories from other people who

have gone through very similar situations and had their aha moment and their whole

life trajectory had changed. And so for me, that awakening came from not thinking I

had any time left and how could I shove it all in these days and it’s filtered it

out over 13 years now.

Bridgett: – Yeah, that is so amazing. You were talking about, you

know, you’re publishing. So you have the Best Holistic Life Magazine. And that is,

it’s really got some great articles. Can you share how that came about? How you decide what’s gonna be in

the magazine and kind of what the message you’d like to create with that.

Jana: – I wouldnlove to do that. When I was searching for help online. I was told at the hospital

after three months that they can make me comfortable there. They can send me home,

make me comfortable there. I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to go home so

bad that I’m like, send me home. Well, I started searching on the internet for

healthy holistic options. And I had typed in all of my symptoms, all of my

diagnoses, and I started searching for help. And here’s the most magical thing.

When you do that, you can extend your reach around the entire globe and find

information. But it’s also got a double -edged sword where people roll out of bed

and like, “Wow, people are making money at this, I’m doing it.” And they had no

training, no experience, or they were just peddling a product, which by the way, it

was a product that helped me. And so I’m not poo -pooing product. I’m poo -pooing

people who say, “That’s product will cure you.” And So when I got healthier,

I wanted to create a bubble for people who are like me, scared, desperate,

willing to do anything, and I’m searching for some help and some answers. So the

way it started was, first of all, I went back to school in my fifties and I

became a coach. I learned so much about the way the mind works because I wanted to

be a mindset coach. I wanted to understand why am I still here? What’s happening?

Nothing’s changed in my body, but I’m feeling amazing. So I went back to do that

and I started coaching some celebrity clients and because I live right here in

Studio City where we’re surrounded by them and my story caught on so I started

doing coaching. I remember when I started backing away from coaching because what

had happened is I built a coaching life which meant I had no time again.

And what was precious to me was the time. So my beautiful little grandson called

and said, “Hey, I’m in a plane, Anna, can you come?” And of course, yes. And then

I looked at my calendar, how do I do that? That’s a whole day for me ’cause I

gotta travel five hours. And so how do I do this? And I had to reassess, why am

I here? What is important to me? So as I backed off my coaching,

I had clients saying, “Well, how do we keep in touch with you? Can you do a

newsletter with some of the stuff you’re teaching on? I was too lazy.

So my magazine came out of just being lazy and trying to find a quick fix. So I’m

like, you know what? You guys have beautiful stories. Why don’t you share your

stories with me? I’ll put them in my newsletter. And I got like 35 of them. And

I’m like, how do I share these 35 in a newsletter? So because of my interior

design background, I’m like, I could probably go on Canva. I could probably create a

little booklet. I’ll make it look like a magazine and I’ll put it out. I had over

38 ,000 people subscribe to that little newsletter with that magazine attached.

So we started releasing quarterly the first year. I think we added three issues the

second year and now not only releasing monthly, we have a couple of special issues

that come out like this month is a special issue. And so we have a couple of

special issues that come out, and now we’re releasing a new magazine on top of

that.

Colleen: Can we talk about that? Because you have, I think, well over a million

subscribers to the magazine now.

Jana: We have two million now.

Colleen: Two million. So that is

well over a million. And you’re now expanding that into Ageless Living,

which is a new magazine that’s coming

September, which, you know, our demographic, our listeners will be all over that.

Bridgett and I will be all over that. How did, was that a natural progression? Were

you specifically inclined to say, okay, I’m getting a lot of information on aging?

Let’s talk about it. How did it come about?

Jana: – It came about because we read

the information you sent us, the DMs, the emails, we read them. And one of the

biggest things people were asking about was, “That sounds great, but where do I find

it in my area? Like, I live in Idaho. I live here.” And so we wanted to, because

we’re a global magazine, Best Holistic Life is global, but we wanted to go more

into your zone. And so what we started doing is researching the blue zones. Why are

they blue zones? Like, what is it that’s so different? And the three main things we

found in blue zones is of course their diet, they eat really healthy, they grow

most of their foods. The second is movement. They’re always in constant movement, but

the first one, the most important one, I think, was their community. They were

surrounded by this very powerful community and family. And so we’re like, how do we

combine that into a magazine and tell them what’s available to them locally? So

that’s how we pulled together that magazine. So we’re starting in LA, so we have

just Living LA coming out, but then we’re going to be moving into Manhattan into

Miami. So we’re going to metropolitan cities, but I will tell you, we do a lot of

what I call adjacent areas. So I  put things together that they can find

online. We have five incredible women editors, and they always do their top 10

picks. And that’s kind of how we put the magazine together, because we’re all from

different variations of aging, different, like some are still raising kids, some have

never had kids. And out of these five women, they have different things they bring

to the table, different personalities, and they pick their top five things.

Bridgett: – that is so important because women might be moving in this time of life. A lot of

changes happen and they might be going to a new community or they’ve retired or

lost their jobs. And that is so important. I heard from my mother -in -law, she

lives in the Cincinnati area and she’s 80 and she moved, you know,

she took a job there, but she said, you know, I feel like I have friends, but I

want to belong to something where she lives. She might have been on this board for

the theater or something like that. So I think that is really important and this

will be available online. Is that correct?

Jana: It will be online, but we are with this

magazine, we saturate the area. So now our magazines are of course on Amazon in

Barnes & Noble, but this one we’re going to saturate the areas with as well because

what we’re trying to do with this one is drive traffic within like 20 mile radius

to those amazing things that they can get locally.

Colleen:  We’re just going to

suggest Nashville because that’s where we are. We love Nashville.

Jana: I would come to

Nashville.

Bridgett:  Come visit us and we’ll show you some of the top 10 places

Colleen: And in our demographic, it’s not so much Broadway or it is in the afternoon,

but the younger people show you every restaurant on Broadway or musician or musical

area. But you know, you have this desire to grow and to inform and connect.

Where does that come from?

Jana: When I try to described to people who’ve never been through an experience where you

were told you had no time left. And I felt like at 50 I was still young and I

had a brand new grandson. He was born right before I went in for the surgery that

changed my life and when I came out of the hospital he was about three and a half

months old and my daughter brought him to see me and I didn’t understand how he

would have a memory of me. Like where will he get a memory for me. And I still

remember to this day, and I talk about this all the time, I remember how my

grandma felt when I hugged her. She was a larger woman and she was soft and she

smelled like my grandma with that old lady perfume. I remember when she’s gone, I

just wanted to smell it again. And I wanted something, a laugh, anything that I

could share with him. And so for me, all of this passion kind of came from me

wanting to create memories, like create travel memories with my grandchildren, create

memories with my husband, create memories with my friends. When I have clients that

I work with, I think the reason I’m so successful is they become deeper than

clients, like I listen now. Before I was surface listening and thinking of all the

things in my head, but now I try to stay present in the moment when I’m with them

and it has totally changed my life, my perspective on what life is. My perspective

on the value of what things are. When I was an interior designer was pretty

successful. I drove a Bentley. I never didn’t wear Louis Vuitton. I was looking for

like Louis Vuitton slippers because you know that was prestige success and I had to

have my Hermes bag on my arm and when I walked up to a new client I knew they

were going to hire me because I looked like success and at the end of the day

that was just a facade. None of that was real. And I wasn’t taking any of it with

me. And I never made really one solid connection that I felt like I really know

those people. And I wanted that to change. So that the last 13 years, that’s what

I’ve been feeling my world up with.

Bridgett:  Right. And then your book, The Yet Factor, can

you talk about, I was reading that and I was reading your kind of your history and

how your mother kind of was like, Oh, don’t, you know, you don’t want to be

smarter than the man and your family. Can you talk about how that came about?

Jana: Yes. You know, my grandkids inspired the yet factor because as they were growing up and

they would say, I can’t pass my math exam, you haven’t passed it yet, but you’re

studying hard to get there. I can’t get on the baseball team. I’m too short. Well,

you know what? You’re growing every day. Keep working at it. You’ll get there. You

haven’t gotten there yet. And so when I was writing the book, I wanted people to

understand, again, the difference of what we put in our brain. Our brain is like

your computer. It only receives what we program into it, right? It doesn’t just

automatically go pull stuff unless we program into it for it to do that. And so

we’re programming a lot of doors, closed doors in our brain. And I think if you

just switch one small word, for me, it’s changed my world. But if you switch one

small world like you haven’t done it yet. Instead of you saying I can’t do that

and the door completely slamming and that lock turning saying well she said she

can’t so we’re gonna shut that off. It hears yet and as that door is closing it’s

like wait don’t close it. She said yes so what does that mean? Should we be

preparing for it? I mean your brain is working constantly in your sleep all the

time it’s bringing in all these things and if you can just change a few simple

words, it will change your life. And there are these old barriers that we don’t

even realize we had. I did not realize what you just said about my mom until I

got into learning more about mindset and what was holding you back. And my mom was

afraid when I asked to go to college and we had that conversation, she didn’t think

women should have an education. Women were meant to have babies, stay home, do the

cooking, the cleaning and make sure their husbands were happy. Like you walked on

eggshells when they were coming home to make sure everything was perfect, and that

was her generation. And if you were too smart, they would feel threatened.

If you made more money, then they would feel small. And if they felt like that,

you could not possibly have a happy marriage. And was my mom trying to hurt me?

Absolutely not. That was her vision of what she learned was the perfect household,

and she’s wanted me to be happy. But my husband’s assured me I can make all the

money I want and I can be as smart as I choose to be I mean we’re gonna be fine

so I’m okay with that now but I had to wrap my head around it that. I went to

corporate meetings where I dumbed myself down. I kept my mouth shut. I sometimes this is

the worst, I lean over to the guy next to me say you know what they’re saying? I

think and I would make this man think it was his idea so it could get brought up

at the table and me say, wow, great idea, like that is amazing. What can I do to

help? And so I gave them the ideas and bled it into their ear and let them move

forward with it so that it could get done, but I didn’t get shot down as a woman

or I didn’t look like I was overshadowing these men. And now I realize I see all

these stay -at -home dads, all these incredible positions shifting. I don’t feel like

they become equal yet, but I do see a lot of change from my mom’s generation. So

I think things are happening. –

Bridgett:  Right, right. – We certainly hope for our daughter’s

generation that it’s happening.

Colleen: – Absolutely. – Do you think that age came with that,

that age kind of opened that door for you to realize, I can be whoever I choose

to be. Life experience brought that to your door. What, What transition,

what evolution came for you to say, I can be as smart as I want, I can be as

successful as I want, and I should not feel like I can’t intimidate, well, not to

intimidate, but can’t be on an equal footing with any male work person.

Jana: – Colleen, 100 % age has a lot to do with it. I think our confidence spills as we get

older, we realize it’s just not that big a deal and we were losing sleep over it.

And when you get to a certain age, you have that attitude, I just don’t give a,

you know, flying you know what. And so, yeah, I don’t care what you think. And you don’t care,

you really just don’t anymore. You get so confident in who you are. I think it

comes from, especially for women, I think comes from raising moms and telling our

children to stand up for themselves. You know, there was a time where one of my

daughters got very sick and I took her to an emergency and she was five, I took

her to an emergency room and they told me she had gas and I felt so silly. I get

her home and I realized something is still not right. I take her back and they

refuse to see me and I threw such a fit that they had a security guard walk me

to my car and stand there until we drove off the property. I drove immediately

about 45 minutes to another hospital. Her appendix had ruptured and she had to go

in for emergency surgery. And I think of me fighting in that emergency room,

screaming at them and being walked out forcibly and going to another hospital. I

don’t know that I would do that for myself, but I would do that for my child. And

I think we learn as we get older, we can take care of ourselves like we would our

children. We can stand up for ourselves, we can find that voice. And I look back

on that moment all the time and I think of all the times I walked to the car

crying, knowing something was wrong with me after a doctor’s appointment to find out

later. It was something that was killing me and go and cry in the car, like and

not say a word, just say, they’re the doctor. I’m not going to argue and I’ll go

home. And then going in six months later, it’s still happening. What’s going on

where I found the strength to say it again. So I think as we get older, absolutely

we don’t care. There’s now, I tell the doctor, I’m not leaving here until we have

any answers. So get some coffee and I just, I’m not disrespectful, but I am going

to be heard and if that doctor isn’t someone who will hear me, I find another one

now because I have those options. So I absolutely think that the age plays a huge

role in it, but I’m feeling as a matriarch woman of the world, we can inspire

women and show them, they don’t have to wait until they’re in their 50s and 60s to

do this. They can respectfully stand up and have a voice and speak up for

themselves and just not give a crap of how they feel about it. T

Bridgett:  And that is so important too. I love that you said, you know,

let’s show them that they don’t have to wait until they’re 50 because I feel like

we’re hitting this magic time and it’s great, but I would love it if that,

you know, that they never even had to worry about a magic time. That they all

just—

Colleen:  – That they took it for granted.

Bridgett: – They took it for granted and that they were

confident. I would love the confidence, not to be, you know, not like, I don’t know

what the word I’m even looking for, not arrogance, but a confidence.

– 100 % confidence.

Yes, yes, I would love to see that in them. And, you know, just the

things too about the generational issues that happen with women.

Just like you said, your mother was not, I know your mother probably loved you

dearly and wanted what was best for you and I could remember things too that my

mother said from her generation. Just like when I met my now husband, she’s like well when you know y ‘all

are going to different colleges, he’s probably going to meet somebody else she said

that to me! And I’m like why did you say that? She didn’t want me to be

hurt if he did .He didn’t so, but it is amazing the generational thing that that

gets passed to women and then what can happen if it’s just freeing or for the girls

or the women that follow us.

-Colleen:  Can we talk about the

fact that your definition of success has changed as you’ve gotten older. And I think

it has for a lot of us. As a former attorney, if you had asked me at 20, was it

professional suicide to open doors for other women to come into the firm? I would

say absolutely. And now, if you ask me, I’d be like, if I can lift up other

women, that is my success. That is my legacy. And That’s kind of how you believe

that true success is keeping the doors open so other women can come in. Why do you

feel it’s so important that we lift everybody up?

Jana: – You know, we were just talking up before the show about the changes of women

competing. And I have an old saying and it’s still true to this day, sadly. But

when I would go into a corporate office, men put me in my place. This is your

job. You’ll get the coffee. You’ll, you’ll grab this for me. You’ll do what I ask

and women compete it. They would climb up you to get wherever they

thought they could get. And it still happens, unfortunately. And I was just invited

to do this reality TV show here in LA and it’s called Entrepreneurs with an F in

front of it. So I’m not sure how they pronounce it, but I did the interview and I

got through all of the stages and then they said it’s a competition for women in

business. This is women entrepreneurs and we’re going to put you in a competition

space to see how you grow competing against each other. I’m like, no, I’m out. I

am totally out. It’s completely opposite of anything I have or I believe in. I will

never compete with another woman. I will only lift them up. How can I support you

in that? I have people call me all the time other women like I want to open my

own magazine. Great. It’s a lot of work. How can I help I can send you to the

people that we use I can like I want to help people build. There is room in this

world for everyone to be abundant to receive what they want what they’ve earned.

What they’ve worked for. We do not have to pull somebody else down and climb up

them to get there. One of my biggest sayings and things I remind myself every single

day up is kind of my little saying to myself, that when you finally get to that

top of the stairs and you’re going through that door, rip that damn thing off the

hinges or put a wedge in it, and don’t just walk in, wait, who can you pull in?

Just imagine if we each brought one person with us, what that would look like as a

chain of us going through our successful doors, whatever that looks like to you, and

success did change for me. For me, success then was about putting money in the

bank, right? You were successful when you say, “Oh, my business brought in $5

million in two years.” And you’re building all this up and it’s nothing. You’re not

taking any of that with you. Now for me, success is legacy. I have

three daughters, two granddaughters, that are women and I want them to benefit from

what I’m doing right now. I want maybe the great grandkids I’m here to see or not

here to see. I want them to benefit from it. And don’t think I leave my grandsons

out of it. I have five grandsons. Man, I tell them how women should be talked to

treated and how they should share their life and it’s okay to be equals with

someone and of the opposite sex. You don’t have to be stronger than them. I always

talk about women because I don’t really understand the male world and how they were

raised. Having said that, think about the pressure on them. They have to be the

breadwinners. They have to be the strong person. They can’t cry or show emotions.

They have their own thing they’re dealing with. So I just focus on what I know

best, how women are raised and what they’re doing. But it’s got to be really tough

for all of them. And honestly, if you are competing, you will find yourself losing

every single time.

Bridgett: – I love that. I love that you said no to that show,

because I feel like so many of those shows try to put you in

situations where they edit to show where people are fighting? And

that brings a lot of tension. And I’m at this age where I don’t want that in my

life at all. And I love that that message that you’re bringing them up. What do

you think are most concerns that your readers from the magazine, what are some

issues that they are really concerned about?

Jana: – We get a lot of information on our

request about mental health. And I know mental health is really tricky right now. I

have an article coming out soon and a couple of issues out that is all about

triggers because my girls do this to me, that triggers me. Well, now you know of a

trigger, fix it. It’s not my responsibility that something I said triggers it, You’re

aware of it. But we have these little phrases we use all the time to protect us

and to not do the work. And to just tell people, this is my boundary. Don’t ever

say that. Don’t ever do this. Don’t ever look that way. And you cannot control what

others do. You can only work on yourself. And here’s the thing. A trigger is that

beautiful moment and opportunity that it tells your brain, this is bothering us, we

need to work on this. And you have an opportunity to remove it and be

stronger, more powerful. So I think that really what I would like to see people do

throughout the magazine and with what we’re doing coming in on mental health is

having a space that we’re allowed to say things. We’re allowed to be like, “It’s a

bad day for me. I just could really use a hug or let’s laugh.” My daughter calls

me now and says, “Hey, I just need a joke. I’m not going to tell you what’s going

on. Just make me laugh. Say something.” And we’ll giggle together and she’ll go back

on for her day and that’s just what she needed from me at the time. I am a

fixer, especially of my kids. That is, my hardest lesson to learn is I cannot fix

them. They’re adults now, like 47 to 37. But when there’s a problem in their life,

you know, that super mom doesn’t want to see them in pain or suffering or

struggling. I come out, I want to fix them. Now I have a phrase, “That sounds

horrible. How can I support you in it?” instead of just giving them all the

solutions, I now step back and ask them, “How can I support you? I’m here.” And

they’ll tell me what they need, if they need anything at all. But what we’re doing

to our children right now, I don’t even want to go off on a tangent with mental

health, but we are not giving them the skills to take care of themselves when we

are not here. We will not be here forever. If everything works out the way it’s

supposed to be, we will be gone long before our children. And we have not given

them one skill to get through any situation because we’ve come in with our superhero

mom jackets and took care of it all for them. Sometimes the success is sitting back

and watching them struggle as hard as it is. I know you’ll lose sleep, you’ll cry

over it, but the rewards when they figure it out and they have the skills now to

do it over and over again and just get better at it. My goodness, it’s hard. I go

on a tangent on that all the time because my daughter is daughters do with their

kids, and I’m like, just let them figure it out, please. That’s good advice.

Colleen: Yes, so hard to do, but so important to, and it’s great when you have something

that it’s just in there. How can I support you? Like you don’t have to think about

it. You just got your, how can I support you come out?

And that applies not just

to your children, but to business as well. 100%. How have you supported women in

our demographic? A lot of them have they wanted pivot careers. They want

to go in a different direction with their lives. How does your magazine? How does

your brand support women in this time of life?

Jana:  We do a lot to support women.

I wish there was more we can do there probably is and when I find it I will be

doing it. Having said that I give them a voice. And not only did I give them a

voice, we have boundaries against what you can say in our magazine. So for instance,

I’m very protective of our two million writers, our readers, their subscribers come

looking for help. And I make sure that there’s never a curative claim, any type of

diagnosis or treatment plan in there, because there’s no such thing as a blanket one

that will cover any single person that comes in there with those same symptoms. And

so we’re giving the women who are building businesses, building lives, building brand,

building confidence. We want to give you that space. So we do let people have one

time free article. We leave half the magazine for that so that they have an

opportunity to be seen, heard, draw attention to them. I meet with every single

person who ever writes in our magazine. I have a quick 15 minute call. I go over

the rules. I, like, get to know them a little bit better, what they’re bringing to

it. I would say about 80 % of our writers are women, but we are growing in the

men’s area. So we are, we have men writers now, and our men demographics has really

grown. But I feel like giving them a voice and a platform, for me, looking for

help when I was sick and I had little time, was like finding a needle in the

haystack online. There are millions of things that come out you. What’s right? For me,

fortunately, two of my daughters were in med school at the time and my husband’s a

veterinarian. So you know something about medicine. My ex -husband’s an internist, so

they all help me. So I have some support at home. They, some people don’t. Like they’re just doing

Google, Dr. Google and they’re pulling information. And even Dr. Google, you guys

double check what you’re pulling out. Make sure it’s legit space. If you have a

weird feeling about something, even though you’re scared, you’re desperate and you

really need help, sit back. That weird feeling is telling you something, like listen

to that intuitive voice inside you. But the reason we created this is to pull those

needles out of the haystack. We vet them, we make sure that if they say they’re a

doctor, they’re a doctor, a licensed doctor. If they say they’re a therapist, that

they’re licensed and where they’re working. We vet them first, we make sure that

what they’re telling you isn’t curative claims, diagnosis, or treatment plans, and

that they’re opening the doors for you to ask questions, to give you strength, to

ask questions, to do some research, or to connect with someone who’s an expert in

that field. And that’s the whole reason Best Holistic Life is here, is to pull that

out for you. I think this is our fifth, going into our sixth year of publication.

The other thing we’ve done recently this year, in January, we opened our publishing

house. As the boutique publishing house, we’ve decided so we want it to be very

personal. So we only bring on 12 writers a year. They’re women writers with women

businesses, and I work personally with them getting their books out into the world

and helping them navigate how to get seen, how to get it in stores, how to get

book signings. And so we’ve started doing that for 12 books a year. And to me,

that’s another way of women putting that into the world, writing, getting their

stories out, getting their information out, their education, and creating that legacy

change that I want to create in my life.

Bridgett: It sounds so trustworthy too.

Like the way that you vet, then we know that we can trust this magazine. We know

we can trust these writers. So I’m very thankful for that.

Jana: Well, I will tell you

Bridgett, twice people have gone past us. We have a very large legal team. Yes,

twice. One time the FBI reached out to us and said, Hey, this is not a doctor.

I said, what? We vetted her. She goes, Yeah, she’s very good, which is why we

reached out to you because all of the Instagram was going crazy about sending goals

and like, is this real? And we had to pull, we had to pull our whole issue,

readjust it and release it again. But we try our best to keep it clean. But

sometimes they’re better than us, and they’ll get by us, but twice in almost six

years, someone still gets by us. So it does happen, but we work very hard to

protect you.

Colleen: Wow. And we’re so grateful that we were in your, I think it

was March. Yeah, So and you everything you said that you did to vet you did we

talked to you and and we didn’t make any claims not that we were medical doctors

and would make any claims, but definitely people can rely on what the

magazine says and just the fact that you’re putting so much positive energy out into

the world is so important right now, especially in these times,So Thank you so

much. We appreciate you coming on the show and we’ll make sure to have the links

for the magazine and we’ll have a little link so that people can sign up to make

sure they know that September, Ageless Living will be coming out and Jana, thank you

so much for coming on the show. We appreciate it.

Jana: Thank you ladies It’s been such

a pleasure