Reflections and Transformations with Jen Kilbourne, Founder of Pro Organizer Studio

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“But for people who get online and create a lot of content and who are leaders and do all these things—you’ve got to really be committed not just to your message, but to the fact that your message will evolve over time, because of you and who you are and the things that you learn.”

— Jen Kilbourne

I grew up in the eighties. I'm probably a little older than a lot of the people that are in our audience.

But I also know there are quite a few of you who are going to know exactly what I'm talking about!

We would have these afterschool specials—long before there was streaming—so you had to wait for your show to come up at the time that it was supposed to be on TV!! But these after-school specials, it would be a “very special episode of XYZ” show that you always watched, but it would be a different episode, and they'd be going really deep on something that they wanted us kids in the eighties to think about. And it would have all sorts of life lessons and all sorts of things.

So for a lot of different reasons, this podcast interview is reminding me of those times of my childhood. So I decided that we're just going to call it a afterschool special episode of the Pro Organizer Studio blog!!

Jen Kilbourne is on the interview couch today. She is the founder of Pro Organizer Studio. She is the visionary behind everything that we do here. If you are a longtime podcast listener, you have heard Jen's voice on the podcast so many times—she began all of this magic. She started the Inspired Organizer program, which has helped 900 women across the globe on five different continents start or grow their organizing businesses. Everything you see at Pro Organizer Studio was her vision.

And as I was trying to think about how I could introduce this episode, and how I could explain what you're going to be hearing, I was having a really hard time encapsulating it, because we go a lot of different directions! And a few months ago, I did a podcast where I was talking about using AI, artificial intelligence, in your organizing a business to do useful things for you. And what's funny is I was just about to upload something and I was thinking about, “oh, how can I explain this?” And one of the pieces of software that I used has AI capabilities and it encapsulates an episode and it went ahead and titled it: Reflections and Transformations. And honestly, I can't think of a better name to name this interview.

Reflections and transformations is everything that we were talking about. We are talking about buying and selling businesses. We are talking about personal, deep journeys. We are talking about the challenges of running a business. How important the impact of major life changes are on you as a business person? We are talking about marriages, divorces kids relationships. So many different things here.

And this is something that is not just about Jen and me and our journey together as business owners, although that is what we are talking about, but it's really about organizers and about you running your businesses too. We always want to be able to bring it back around to how are some of the things that Jen and I are dealing with as business owners, also things that you are probably dealing with or thinking about, or that we want you to think about.

I am thrilled to bring you this conversation. It will also be up on YouTube as a video, if you would like to watch it there, if you would like to see us on the screen.

We are serious….about loving organizers!

But this vulnerable and very personal conversation is for everyone who follows us, because one of the things we talk about is how much we genuinely care about this industry and the community of organizers and making women successful, no matter what your definition of success is. And I really hope that comes across as something that is super important to both Jen and myself.

While I will say we get into some pretty deep conversations with us, when we started out, we typically just hit record, and then we talk and talk. And then eventually we start to get around to the subject. But—when we were starting out, she and I are just having kind of a personal conversation about aging and hair coloring and beauty standards for women as we age, all sorts of things.

There's a much longer conversation there at the beginning that I edited out. If you would like to hear that entire, unedited, raw version of this conversation, you can access it by clicking HERE!

But just so you know, when we get into it, the story is that Jen is talking about how she has decided not to color her hair anymore. That's our starting point.

I am thrilled that you are here. I am going to stop typing so that I can start the interview with my friend and the founder of Pro Organizer Studio, Jen Kilbourne, about her journey and what's next.

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Melissa Klug: All right. We're talking about hair, really important stuff.

Jen Kilbourne: Jump right in. I haven't even worried about it. It's so much less stress. I am so happy. 

Melissa Klug: I also think too—snd I mean, by the way, I'm vain enough that I am not ready to go to this place yet, but I really genuinely admire all of the women now, especially celebrities, you know, Pamela Anderson is not wearing makeup anymore. She’s like this is who I am, the end. Jamie Lee Curtis is a good example, or there are a lot of celebrities. Now they're like, this is what I look like.

Jen Kilbourne: I have two for you. One is Andie MacDowell, who I've been told

Melissa Klug: oh, she looks so good—you look like her!

Jen Kilbourne: I know. I've been told that's my doppelganger my whole life. Especially when I was younger—when I was younger and my face was a little more youthful and when I wear my hair naturally curly, I got that three times a week. 

I mean, anyway, and then the other thing I want to, I would definitely recommend for anybody listening to this is, and I'm sure you've seen this, Melissa, or I would be surprised if you hadn't. Justine Bateman's interview on Mayim Bialik—how do you say that? On her podcast. And I don't listen to Mayim Bialik's podcast, but I had heard that I had heard Justine Bateman referenced enough, and I was like, all right, I'm just going to go dive in on it. 

And I actually watched the entire thing. And it truly was the last thing that I watched and heard before I made the decision. So when I went to my hairstylist, the next time I was like, I was in tears a little bit because we had already had the appointment scheduled and I was like, am I really going to do it?

Am I really going to do it? And she was just like, are you okay? Are you good? And I was like, I know that I seem like a crazy person. I was like, but like through tears, I was like, I think I'm going to stop coloring my hair. And it was like internally, I was afraid that she was going to think that I was, dumb or or that I wasn't going to be a good client anymore. I mean, gosh, I have all kinds of hangups about that. And she was just like, it's totally fine. That's okay. I'll see you when you want to get it trimmed next time. And now I'm just thinking, let's go all natural again and just see how long I can rock that. 

Melissa Klug: I love it. And also, you can go through phases, right?

Like you can say, this works for me for right now. And maybe two years from now, you'll change your mind. And that's also fine. We, I think we sometimes feel like about some of these decisions we have to draw a line in the sand and then we can never not do it again. Nope, you can start coloring your hair again if you really feel like it.

But you also can lean into, this is who I am. I'm going to be authentic about a lot of things in my life. And I do think that as a lot of us get older, there are things about the aging process that are harder for women than they are for men. And I think accepting that and just being okay with it is really I think that is next level life planning.

Jen Kilbourne

Jen Kilbourne: Girl, I could not agree more. And maybe this is a perfect intro to everything that we're going to talk about today. But I also you know, made that decision about my hair a couple months before I turned 40. I had a big like internal, I mean, I was a little bit nervous about the closer it got, the more I was nervous about it.

And I kind of went through it a little bit, in terms of just thinking about life and about what I am and what I'm not and what I want to be. And you're right that when you start to realize that—you know, you're making decisions proactively and not just reactively. It's “Oh, this actually feels good.”

And I'm like, I don't hate being 40. I was like, wait a minute. I fought really hard to get here. And now right—I can do brunette, I can do blonde, I can shave it off and put a wig on if I wanted to, but I would do that because I wanted to, and not because somebody told me that I had to and that's very freeing. So I get it.

Melissa Klug: The expectations of a lot of things like even just so this is since we're talking about hair like you and I both we are both in our 40s we both have really long hair there used to be a proper edict that like once you turned a certain age you were automatically required to get like a mom haircut, and nothing wrong with a mom haircut but I think it's all about it's a set of expectations that have been pretty traditional and it includes like not talking about perimenopause and menopause and not talking about things that happen to women that are real life things.

And I think there are a lot of things that are happening that are really good about all of us being able to say this works for me or this doesn't work for me, as we're having this conversation about really embracing—and I know that it's a life journey.

And because, you know, we both have children who are going out into the world who are going to have to figure these things out. But, I see now a lot of women in their 20s now that are like, oh, I have to get Botox—it kind of bums me out when I hear that because I'm just like, oh, this expectation of what you have to look like as a woman, start so early and all, like all that stuff that's come out recently about 10 year olds going into Sephora and buying like really expensive, makeup and skincare and stuff. And I don't know, clearly you have gotten me started down a rabbit hole.

Jen Kilbourne: So yeah, I'm like, yeah, I would tell this girl, especially girls in their twenties, work on your personality—that will never leave you. And it will open doors everywhere you go. Oh, man. Well, speaking of personalities, I love yours. 

Melissa Klug: Well thanks. And I love yours right back. That's why we get along so well.  

Jen Kilbourne: We really do. That's why things work for us. So, I texted you earlier to ask you if you knew your Myers Briggs type.What did you say? Did you reply? Yeah. 

Melissa Klug: Okay. So here's my sitch with the Myers Briggs. I took the full thing, like the real deal test, many years ago as a work thing. And and so, I'm actually interested in your thoughts on this because you know it much better than I do, but at that time and for a long time I was an ENTJ. 

And I know that obviously your personality is a lot more set, you know, you don't really change core aspects of your personality, but I will tell you, I would like to take the full thing again because I wonder if I have changed quite radically.

First of all, I'm definitely not an E. I'm for sure an I. I am very much an introvert. Oh, I definitely am. I do not recharge by being with people. I frequently say, could I please go to a cabin in the woods by myself for a month? I'm definitely an I, I think that has changed over time, but I think some of my other things have changed as well.

So I need to take it again.

Jen Kilbourne: That makes sense. Yeah. We definitely have something that is complimentary. I was just curious. Cause I I've noticed recently that there's a lot of patterns around me in my wife ENFJs are all around me. I used to think that I was an ENFJ until my mom told me she was an ENFJ and I was like, that's not accurate because we're not the same type.

Melissa Klug: You're wrong or I'm wrong. 

Jen Kilbourne: And she was like, sorry. And I was like, no you'd be sorry. No, wait, I'm sorry. No way. Anyway, it was just like an opportunity to pick a fight that I didn't want to, but I actually came to realize that she was, I actually don't think she is an ENFJ, but. I realized that was not an ENFJ.

It's just that in an earlier stage of my life, where I was much more people pleasing and much less aware of what my abilities were, it was very easy for me to be like, Oh yeah, that's, you know, that's totally me. And I am extroverted but I'm an introverted extrovert. So I can see how you're like, what did you say?

You're an extrovert…

Melissa Klug: I am an extroverted introvert. So I will talk to anyone. I will talk to strangers on the street. But I don't want the stranger on the street to then go. Would you like to go on a walk with me? No. Oh yeah. No. I want to have a two second conversation with you and then we're good. But I recharge by being alone and I am very good at being alone, and I kind of always have been.

Jen Kilbourne: See, I really like being alone and I prefer to be alone. It's just that it actually probably wasn't until COVID where I was like, Oh my God, I would talk to anybody that would come up to my door. I was okay, wait, maybe I am an extrovert and maybe I do need that a lot more than I thought it would.

And this is something I say to people all the time now too. Cause you know, there's still a lot of people who haven't gone back into their offices. Yes. And so I'm like, Oh, you know, are you working remotely going into the office? And they're like, yeah, 50%, whatever. And they're like, how about you?

And I'm like, well, I've been working remotely for myself now for, eight years, it's like during the shutdowns, when everybody had to work from home, that was the first time that I was ever like, Oh my God, but wait, no, I want to leave my house. Like I needed that ability to do that. I wanted to retain the ability to do that.

Cause that was where I was like, I'm losing my option.

Melissa Klug: You wanted the option to be able to do it.

Jen Kilbourne: Yes. Yes. So, so that was very revealing actually.

Melissa Klug: Whereas for me, I have frequently referred to the dark days of COVID as my ideal lifestyle. Couldn't go anywhere. People had to bring you food to your front door. You could not socialize. You couldn't go out to dinner. That was totally fine with me. 

Jen Kilbourne: So I can imagine introverted children, decades from now, they'll be like, “tell us of what it was like in the utopia.” The rest of us are like, no, we're still panicking of April, 2020. Oh God. That's so, man. We're okay. So we're, this is good because I think we're going to bring up a lot of, I think we're going to work through a lot of this. Okay. For some of us, it was traumatic for Melissa. It was like a vacation. Not really. 

Melissa Klug: We're, I mean, we're joking. I'm glossing over everyone. It was just…that is another part of my personality. Sometimes I don't even know when I'm being sarcastic. So everybody calm down. 

Jen Kilbourne: Well, I feel like I'm leading our conversation so far, even though you're interviewing me, but I keep seeing like these perfect things. And to bring up, we're going to we're going to go straight into it. 

Melissa Klug: Ready.

Jen Kilbourne: Melissa, during those dark days of 2020, and we're talking literally April, May, June. But it was during those dark days of 2020 that Melissa and I got really close. So this is pertinent to the conversation today because there was a period of time and you know— Melissa's been a part of the podcast for a really long time. And this was a little bit prior to me starting to reach out and say, okay, like it'd be good to maybe have some co hosts on and Melissa had volunteered for that. But the thing is that I had gone into this period of overdrive over responding for everybody that I knew. And that was a lot to do with, because everybody's at home, and they couldn't go out. For example, for the organizers, they couldn't go in-home. 

Jen teaching at a Pro Organizer Studio retreat

I had just completed my coaching degree with the University of Texas and everybody who had been in my class, they were like, wait, Jen already has an online business. Like they were becoming certified in coaching so that they could then go on and have a business. And I do things backwards. So I had already done that first. And then I got my certification. 

And then there were other like random people in my life. We're going to circle back to this later—people like my father who, they're professional speakers, musicians. That's what he does, but a lot of his friends too, were similar where they run events or they speak in public and it required—people in public in a event space to be able to do that.

So I had this huge group of people in my life who all of a sudden definitely needed or were looking for support in, not necessarily building an entirely new business, but how to at least even temporarily take their work online and do like my dad was doing like Facebook lives with his stories and songs and guitar.

And so I was like helping him with that. And then some of the organizers were starting to do virtual organizing sessions. And then some of my other coaching friends wanted to know much more about like how I was building out like a course and a Facebook group and a podcast. And it was like, Whoa, like so overwhelming.

So, my personality, my response was to—talk. There goes that extrovert. And everybody knows that about me. Like I when asked, I’ll talk your ear off about something that I'm excited about and if I'm not excited or if I'm not asked, I look like an introvert. So that's interesting. So that was a period of time where I went into full speed, 100 miles an hour, like I got on Facebook live every single day for well over a month straight until my voice—

I actually lost my voice and while recovering from that, I was like, Whoa, I'm tired. And I had to stop. 

But I got on Facebook live—every single day. So this wasn't for Pro Organizer Studio, it wasn't for anything specific. It was just like, okay, I'm going to get on here and answer questions because I knew that these people in my life had the concept that you could make money online, but I was like, hey, you do know somebody who's doing this and I do have a different point of view.

And I saw a whole bunch of other coaches, online business gurus who were suddenly trying to sell you their course. And I was like, No, I'm like, you don't need to buy a course just to understand the basics. I'm just going to teach the basics for free. And I did that. I had nothing to sell for it.

I didn't want to. I really actually had no idea what I was doing other than just to keep that momentum going and answer questions. 

Probably around the time that I burned out, cause I do recall some really specific conversations with Melissa when I say burned out, I mean, I, like I said, lost my voice.

Melissa Klug: You didn't lose it, you literally burned your voice out. 

Jen Kilbourne: Yeah. And you know, Brie, who was working for me at the time, she was just like, Jen, I'm a little worried about like are you gonna be able to sustain this? And I was just like, I got this. Don't worry about it. Thank you for your, thank you. And she was awesome. because she, she knew better. She was like, I can see this is not going to end well, but bless her heart. 

Melissa was one of the people, and I'm not saying that there was not more than one, but there was very few—there were not that many people who knew and we were close, I mean we had met each other in person at the Las Vegas retreat for Pro Organizer Studio which took place in October of 2019.

Yep. So we had just met six months before that. You know, stayed in touch a little bit, but she was somebody who reached out to me on a personal level and was like, she didn't say the words, but it was her in her energy. I know you're not okay. And it's okay that you're not okay. And that being willing to see through what I was showing to everybody and and to not try to, I mean, you were not coming at me with like happy positive.

You were just like, this sucks. And I know that this sucks. And I can see like how, you know, challenging this. I mean, you were saying all those things that I was just like, thank you. I felt like I could just sort of have that sigh of relief. And so that beginning of our friendship being in those dark days, which were definitely some of my worst times that I've ever had.

And I, again, it doesn't hurt my feelings at all. I love that was the ideal lifestyle for you. A week ago. I mean, I, it wasn't, there were a lot of, I know, but you had it in you to reach out and to build our friendship. And that ends up, in this story becoming so much more than just being there for me when, stuff was challenging and difficult, but something that clearly has become a long term change and benefit to both of us and to the entire company for Pro Organizer Studio. 

So, all right. So that's how I wanted to set this up, which is that you have literally been a force of good not just in my life, but for everyone here who's listening—it is not an understatement to say that if Melissa had not come along at the time that she did and in the way that she did, and us beginning to work together in the way that we did, that I am pretty sure…I'm pretty sure that although certain aspects of the business may have still existed today, it would not at all be standing. 

It would be like a house that I built and then moved out of and just left it. Or I would have had to just really downsize. This is good because I want to use this house metaphor. I built the house, Pro Organizer Studio. I could not continue at the level that I had been. And so it was either, okay, we're going to downsize and Pro Organizer Studio is going to be a smaller house or somebody like Melissa comes along, not only wants to be involved, but wants to build a second level on it.

Yes, people. This is not something that you come across every day, like this kind of partnership and this kind of relationship and her ability to, see that was what I needed and to take it seriously and then to go all in on it is. Like an actual miracle and, I don't I—Melissa I will sing your praises.

This is not to get everybody to be like, oh my gosh, we didn't know. But like that, it really truly was you know, that's you end up—but you end up changing my life, but you end up changing this industry and doing what people needed and that I knew that I could not do. And the most responsible thing was to allow Melissa to help me and, but Melissa built that relationship with me by saying, girl, I know, like you were like, Hey, just go watch Schitt's Creek.

You're like, this is what you need right now. And I was like, okay, I’m—and I did. And it was like, I let myself chill out and relax and just laugh at a time that I was like I can't even feel emotions. It was. Amazing. Thank you. 

Melissa Klug: Because I think it, well, first of all, that was very kind and I'm not sure that I deserve all that, but I do appreciate it very much.

Also, watching Schitt's Creek or watching TV in general is always going to be my go to suggestion for you when anyone's having a hard time. So if you would like a TV suggestion, I have millions of them for you, no matter what kind of mood you're in. 

But! I would also like to say, I think that, people come along in your life for at different times for different reasons.

And I think that it was mutual in terms of how we saved each other because I also needed something to, because you, you said something, you're like, you told me to go watch Schitt's Creek and chill out. And I'm like, you and I are not generally described as chill out people, neither of uswould be described as chill out people.

Jen Kilbourne: I had never considered watching TV before. It was really wild. I mean, I was like, had prided myself on I'm not one of those TV people. And I was like, wait a minute, I really like this. 

Melissa Klug: I am like a go do, we're both very go do we want to go do things and we want to, go achieve things and whatever.

And I think that learning along the way that you don't have to be that person all the time, but then also for me—I needed an outlet for some of my, let's just call it my old corporate skills, they weren't old but the pace that, or the, I needed something exciting and a project—but I also, and we can get into this because I think this is an important part of our partnership is we're good at different things.

We have a Venn diagram of things that we're both good at, and then we have the things that are on different sides that we're both good at very individually. And one of the things that has always been about me is I don't want to come up with the—I just want to take the existing house. I don't want to draw up the plans for the house. I don't want to find the lot for the house. I don't want to do any of that, but I'll build that second level for you. And then I'll go, you know what? Let's also throw in an attic playroom. So what I am good at, I like the foundation laid for me and then I can build onto it.

And so, and you are a consummate entrepreneur in my mind that you get a lot of really great ideas and you get energized by those new ideas, whereas I would like to take something existing and make it even more beautiful and take it even further than it was. So I think that we were good for each other at the exact right period of time.

Jen Kilbourne: you're, you could not be more correct. 

Melissa Klug: And with anybody that's thinking about a change in their business or their life or whatever, it's about, you know, maybe there is that magical person out there or maybe you just need to start thinking differently because I, this—is it fair to say that until that time, you would not have thought necessarily about Oh, there are maybe other options for what I want to do?

Jen Kilbourne: Well, I, okay. So I will say it wasn't off the radar at all, but I just knew here's the thing.

Here's the way I look at it. The house that was built by me was built with these certain flaws, and this is true for every business and is true for every single brand. We talk a lot about branding, or I made a big, portion of my content about branding during my tenure as the main host of this podcast.

And, branding is always personal because it has to be something that reflects you. And, when I look back at the things that were, such a core piece of Pro Organizer Studio and Inspired Organizer, and everything else that we did, it—it’s not a judgment of right or wrong, but when I look back, time passes and then you're like, Oh, I wouldn't do that today because this, and this.

But it's like your mindset and who you are at that time becomes a part of the business that you build. 

And then eventually, here's the next part of this metaphor. So it's okay you know, you build a tent. And then you're like, okay, now I have a roof. Now I have an actual house. Oh, there's people coming.

I can have a party. And there's people that come along to that party who think it's the best thing they've ever seen. Of course, there's some people who pass on by and don't care. But that's how a business sort of starts to grow. And of course when you have employees or you have team those become your co hosts of the party. And some of them come and go at the end of the day, though, when you've got a crack in a foundation or there's a leak somewhere…

First of all, your co hosts of the party, this isn't in their house, like they've freaking scattered. Right? And your people that are there to attend the party, which is your customers and your clients.

Who is laying awake at night? Who is laying down their ego, laying down their money, their time, their blood, sweat, tears, their life, in order to do what you said you were going to do. And again, this is true for every business. I'm not just talking about myself. And so I saw it as my responsibility to one, fix as many of those cracks as possible. And to not let down the people that were already a part of it. But when, if I cannot, if I reach a point where I cannot be the host of that party anymore, it is my responsibility to do something about it.

And in leadership,  I was reading a book at the time—Mike Michalowicz is a long time favorite of mine. 

Melissa Klug: So good. So good. 

Jen Kilbourne: The book that he had just come out with, and this was during quarantine that I read it, so I'm not sure exactly when it was published. It had to have been like right before that.

The book he had come out with at that time in 2020 is called Fix This Next. I ended up getting the Fix This Next certification because I just loved his whole book and concept so much. But one of the pillars of what he talks about and he uses Maslow's pyramid of hierarchy of needs, but he makes it like a hierarchy of business needs.

So he kind of uses that analogy and near the top of it is. Planning for turnover of leadership. It's not an—“oops! We didn't know we're going to have to turn over leadership.” It's planning for the eventual growth of the biggest leaders in your company and you know, everybody has to have an exit plan, even the CEO or the founder at some point.

And so the truth of the matter is it comes down to yeah, like you could get into this like totally automated passive business where you are just the owner and you do absolutely nothing. In an online business, in theory, if you wanted to, you could completely just be like having all of your stuff running on automated and have a team, to handle customer service.

And that they literally just never call you like, Oh, Jen is off in, you know, Europe and she has no clue what's going on, but she's just like collecting checks. And I get that in, in theory that's a concept that some people would talk about, but I absolutely could not do that. 

I built the company with the purpose of being a real person who is there dedicated to real people. And so therefore, if my real person needs to go into a—and I don't want to be overdramatic. It's not like I, I literally had to hide away from the world, but if I cannot do my job, it is my responsibility to find somebody who can do my job.

That's, it's just, it doesn't matter who you are. That is just true. So Melissa, you know, coming along and me just having read that book about planning for the eventual turnover of leadership, Melissa became not just somebody who was going to help me host the podcast, but somebody who could, for example, create the Organizing Essentials course.

Guess how many years people have been asking for that guys? Like a million. And I knew that I was not the right person to do it. It was a big sort of potential project of I don't, you know, I just kind of didn't know. 

And so when Melissa came along and I saw that she had all of these skills and abilities, yes, from her corporate career, but she also—key point—was in a period of time where she was ramping up her energy and ability to give and serve people. I was like, yes, it's like seeing a stock that's rising. 

It's yep, that's the one. Because I was entering a period where I was like, I'm literally not going to be able to even get on a video or a podcast, which is why most of y'all have not seen me on anything in four years.

We're doing good now. We're happy. And of course I get on here and I talk to Melissa absolutely anytime she wants to, but leadership is not a joke. That's the bottom line to me is that I never felt like it was a joke. I sacrificed. 

And what I had to put in to even get it to the point that it was a one story house this was my time with my children when they were younger, my adult relationships, my relationships with my family. 

When you were a leader of a company and you have put yourself out there and said, I'm on the hook for this, it comes above everything else. So I had to find somebody who I know Melissa said, she was like, and I remember you saying this to me at the time, you were like, Jen, I would never do what you did in a million years.

And she was like, and I would never try to start to even try to compete with you because it looks false. So true. And I was like, yeah, I was like, by the way, it is. But Melissa, and I don't know, have you talked about have you shared on this podcast about being a surrogate? 

Melissa Klug: I have not actually. When people ask me, yeah, when people ask me like why my business is named what it is, I'll explain to them, but I've never actually talked about it on the podcast. 

Jen Kilbourne: Oh my. Well, I don't want to like out that story, but 

Melissa Klug: I don't care. It's not a secret. It's out. 

Jen Kilbourne: Okay. So it's not lost on me that Melissa this years ago, obviously before, before I came into her life, but I was like, damn, you know, it takes a special kind of person to be a surrogate mother.

And so when Melissa just talked a few minutes ago, she was like, well, I'm not a starter, but I can take over something that's already started. I was like, yeah, like a whole baby growing. Like you're like, that is such a special gift that you would even do that.

But that was what my business needed. And I didn't put all of that together at the time, but I was like, I don't just need Melissa to come in here and you know, half, half host a podcast. I need her to want to continue to nurture it in the way that it deserves and to take it seriously and to take on what I put out there is my mission of serving professional organizers.

And guess what, y'all? Yeah, that's what you've been seeing. That is what you've been seeing since the middle of 2020. And, you know, of course that was a long transition process. But this baby ain't mine anymore. It's Melissa's. It's seeing your child—you’re always going to be the baby's mom. Always the baby's mom. Always the baby's mom. And there's a little bit of so, okay, let me take a pause. And then you ask a question before I keep telling you how I feel about this. 

Melissa Klug: No problem. Well, I think, I mean, you have said. So, so, so many things there that, I mean, I, this might be a seven hour podcast, so everyone buckle up.

Jen Kilbourne: I've been waiting for four years to talk about it, so it's all right. Right. 

Melissa Klug: So, but it's so funny. I've never thought about that. The surrogate baby, like I've never connected those two stories until now and I'm like, oh yeah, that is kind of what happened. It totally does. So, yes, by the way, I'll tell anyone the story. If you ever want to know the story, just email me, I'll happily tell you the story about my belly buddy, but I have a new belly buddy, which is Pro Organizer Studio. 

But I think that something that we don’t acknowledge as much is you know, organizers tend to run, even if you have a very large team, they are what are termed small businesses, right?

Just because they are small businesses, just because we are not running, Apple or Google, whatever. It does not make the challenges of running those businesses inconsequential or insignificant. The challenges of running a small business in a lot of cases are a lot more significant and a lot harder than running a great big business, and I know this because I was in multi billion dollar businesses, and I have been in a business that made $11,000 right? 

I mean, what you're saying about leadership is really important because what I want to teach organizers is you are a CEO. I don't care if you're a CEO of a one person business. You are still a leader and you have to think about big leader things. So just as great big companies have very intense succession plans, small businesses have to have those too. And you recognize that and you saw signs in yourself that said, I am not going to be able to be a steward of this forever. I have to find someone. 

And the word stewardship, I think is really important because when you are a steward, you are a steward of resources, you're a steward of people, you're a steward of all those things.

And I think one of the biggest things is you and I actually care very much about the people that we serve. This is not lip service. It is not a sales tactic to be like, oh, I care about you. No, I really do. 

I lose sleep thinking about the people that are in Inspired Organizer and what can I do to help them and how do I grow their businesses?

And so, I think that you recognizing I maybe am at the end of my ability to serve and steward this group. I need to find someone who's energized and ready for it. And I happened to be that person at that time. And I continue to be that person because I love our people. I genuinely do. 

Jen Kilbourne: I love our people too.

And this is my love letter to them is I got you, Melissa. You know, every once in awhile people are like, Hey, are you doing okay? And of course, like I'm always, I'm around I'm not, I'm not there, but obviously Melissa's, jumping in and being the face. But every once in a while, people are like, you know, we miss hearing from you.

I mean, of course and here's the thing—I miss being heard from a little bit, but at the same time, There's the energy and the change that comes with time and knowing that I can't say the same stuff that I've been saying when I have changed as a person. And we're not talking about evolved as in getting better, because that's not really what it is.

But I have realized a lot more things about myself and it just takes a certain maturity to, not just get up there and phone it in. I’m physically incapable of doing that. 

Like I remember, I think I said at the beginning of this when I feel when I feel like I have something to say, I can't stop talking. When I am called on to speak about something and my emotions and my thoughts are just all over the place. This person that is here is not there in those times. It sort of feels like being frozen, but for people who get online and create a lot of content and who are, leaders and do all these things you've got to really be, committed not just to your message, but to the fact that your message will evolve over time, because of you and who you are and the things that you learn and it's like you have to have the confidence to get up in front of people in the first place, but you also have to check your ego at the door because you're going to get roasted alive, by comments or by yourself, like just tearing yourself apart because you're just like, getting up there and saying the same crap you said 10 years ago come on you know, things do change and you do need to be committed to your perspective shifting over time.

But also, here's the thing, I know that what I built here was the exact right thing for me at that time and the exact right thing for a lot of people who jumped on board with the way the way that I was teaching, the way that I was doing things, and I'm grateful for that. And now, women jumping on board today that might need to hear those same things that I said eight years ago. And the good thing is that they're recorded and you can go back and watch it too. And those were the exact right things that I needed to say and that people needed to hear at that time.

But I can't in good conscience still get up and—get on my soapbox, you know, I like to preach a little bit. It's no, the things that I would say today are a little different. But the heart and soul is absolutely still there. I mean, if you've been around for a while, it's like you do see things change over time and you can tell there's a big difference between Jen's stamp of how she does things and Melissa's stamp of how she does things. 

And I love that I just I just recently, so I didn't even realize that Melissa had rebranded the Pro Organizer Studio website. Yes, y'all. That's how uninvolved I am because this is hers. This is her business. But recently I told her, I was like, hey, I need to log into our YouTube channel, because I was trying to locate a, like a really old video. And it was such a weird feeling. Cause I was like, it feels like she gave me the keys to a house that I used to live in. 

Melissa Klug: Well, yeah, it is the house you used to live in, but also like you went back to high school and you've got in your old locker.

Jen Kilbourne: Weird. Yes. That was what it kind of felt like. Cause I was like. I was like, 

Melissa Klug: wait, I sort of recognize things, but was that where I had government class or was that math? 

Jen Kilbourne: Yeah, no, that was really funny. And so I logged into Pro Organizer Studio and then it like accidentally took me to Melissa's email and the way that she manages her email is so different.

Cause you know, she's got like a million things going on all at once. And I was like, I don't know. I was like, get me out of here. I can't be here anymore. I know, but it was so great. And then I went on the website and I was like, this is Melissa's Pro Organizer Studio. This is clearly, this is not Jen anymore.

And that was why I was like, Hey, we should just go ahead and have this episode because the commitment that is at the heart, it has not changed. Melissa's style is slightly different. And I love how you're always going to have this blend of, here's where we started, and here’s how it's going. And Melissa is that person who is to your point about not starting something, but being willing to grow it and build on it and answer what people are going to continue to need.

That is such a long term commitment that my little, 32 year old brain at the time, if you had told me, Oh, you can't start this thing unless you're willing to see it all the way to the end…And if you had told me what all the way to the end would be, I would have been like, absolutely not.

I mean, that's the thing is that you have to have somebody like me who just sort of has blinders on of—just, I don't know what's going to happen a year from now, but we're going to deal with it and we're going to grow with it. 

And I’m blessed. I am very blessed with relationships with people like Melissa who were like I got you, it's not like I was wrong, but I wasn't the right person for forever. And Melissa's forever can also, of course change, but I don't know what my forever looks like. 

Melissa Klug: I don't know what my forever looks like

Jen Kilbourne: Right. Right.I don't want lock you in. Right. 

Melissa Klug: Yeah. I'll be like 95 still talking about organizing!

But I think this is really important because what the business was for the first five years is going to look very different than what five years from now looks like. The difference between 2020 and 2024, why we couldn't have envisioned some of the differences that we would have, like you do not have a crystal ball.

You have to know your own strengths and weaknesses and where you're good at pivoting and where you're not and where your flexibility is. There are a million things that go into it and it does not mean that there's only one person who can ever do something. 

I definitely do certain things differently than you. It doesn't make you right and me wrong or me right and you wrong. They're just different. The end. And I think that's, something that organizers can relate to if they decide that they're going to build a team and they start to have a lead organizer that goes out and does sales calls for them.

And that's a control, letting control go. And I'm sure for you, it was hard to let some of that, you know, you were giving your baby away. 

This is a photo from the retreat where Jen and Melissa first became friends—Las Vegas, 2019!

Jen Kilbourne: Okay. Let's talk about that for a second. Because—in case anybody out there has ever considered selling their organizing business or what it would look like to release control over to even a lead organizer say you're on maternity leave or say you just need to not be physically out there for a while.

Cause it's a highly physical job. It's a hard job organizer. Very hard. So it makes sense that over time there's gonna be times where you have less energy and times where like you just physically, you get to a point, you're just like, I can't do the stuff that I used to do anymore.

So in case you have ever thought about selling a business, here's what that feels like. 

First of all, when it's the right person, it's like probably getting married to the right person. You're like, this was the best day of my life. This was a godsend this is a win, win for everybody.

But it also feels yeah hey, there goes my child that I have given up and there's a little bit of, I will tell you you know, moments where you're just like, it's like seeing your kid and you're like, Oh, that's, Oh, but her hair's not brushed. Like how I would have brushed it.

And, you know, it's just little things where you're just like, I'm just not going to look away, you know, it's I know it's all good. 

Melissa Klug: Yeah, that's why she stopped looking, you guys, because she couldn't see it. 

Jen Kilbourne: I could see it, but I was also like, hey, the other thing that was really important too, is that long before Melissa and I made this transition, I had already backed off of, I had already grown through some of my challenges, which, in the early days were that I was absolutely tethered to my phone at all times of the day, answering questions on social media, talking on Facebook private messaging people. 

People think of it as like being. chained or chained down. But I was like, no, I'm serving, I'm doing what I'm supposed to, I'm doing and being the person that I needed to be. And to a large extent, when you're getting a business off the ground, you have to but that issue alone caused more damage that I inflicted. Or that I did not see was so harmful to my children and my husband at the time. Then I could have even been aware of, and I had worked through that issue like already way before Melissa came on. So there was already way less of the expectation that Jen personally was going to respond to every single thing.

I mean, I used to respond to every single email that I got from anybody in the early days. I mean, it was all hours of the day, personal replies. I built the business on personal replies. So there was a time that I had already gone through where I had already backed off of that.

So, by the time Melissa came on, it was not like we, I had to say, Hey, you're not going to hear so much from me. People were already not expecting me. I had the mentors in Inspired Organizer and I had Brie and we had, the podcast and I wasn't managing our social media personally.

So that was already sort of off my mental plate. And so when Melissa came on, it's not like it had to be this big transition. She just became another face and voice. 

In the whole entire business, and it wasn't so much of a, you challenge of having to hand over the keys one day and feeling like I got kicked out. That was not it at all. It was a long transition period of just bringing Melissa on and familiarizing, and having everybody familiarize themselves with her as a face and voice of the business that was equal to my own and or better, especially once she launched the Organizing Essentials course and she got her Master KonMari certification.

I was like, see, this is the organizer—I hesitate to say this, cause I don't really want to compare myself, but I'm like, this is the type of person that should be running this business because she can do all of these things. And it does help that Melissa is a little older than me and her kids are a little older than mine.

So she was already at a little bit different phase of life, which was very helpful. Which makes a big difference too. 

Melissa Klug: I mean, let's not gloss that over. My kids were at a very different point of life. 

Jen Kilbourne: But I do also want to say something that I want you to leave this in and not edit it out.

Okay. The other big difference is that you have Tim. I do. Tim, as in Melissa's husband, who I think is one of the most fantastic people that I have ever met in my life. 

Melissa Klug: He’s pretty great. 

Jen Kilbourne: The partner that is the partner to the person who was running the company that you look up to makes a huge difference.

It's it's not to say that the partnership that I was in did not help build this business because it absolutely did, but it was not conducive to continuing to run it at the way that I had. Because essentially I was at the end of what I could do. 

And so, you know, a part of me, I mean, again, not secretive, like y'all can stalk me, but a big part of me stepping back from the business was also, me taking care of my personal life and yes, I did get divorced. You know, through and over covid—I mean, it began during covid, and has been complete for a while now. 

And when we talk about the challenges that I had as a leader, I still went and tried to smooth over—going back to our house analogy, smooth over as many of those, I'm not going to say cracks, but just flaws, like flaws in the foundation that it was like, oh, I thought, you know, if I was Melissa and I had a Tim I would have never set it up that way.

There was a certain point where it was not so much that I didn't want to , watch what Melissa was doing. Of course, I'm always supportive, but it was partially to like looking back at a house that you grew up in that some really sad things happened.

It's not just a business. That was my life. That was my entire life, for so many years. And so for Melissa to come in and not just love it, but make it better. Is worth like all of the little moments where I was, you know, I'm you know, you see our personalities are different.

Look at our backgrounds. Look, this is, you know, this is Jen and that's Melissa and the website, there's a lot going on back here. Website looks like Melissa and the podcast sounds like Melissa and it's supposed to because she's the person who has the ability to do all of these things.

And I have a much more limited, like black and white. Melissa's got a lot of color. So again, it's not right or wrong. It's just kind of an understanding of the business and life are not two separate things. Your relationships contribute to it a lot.

I know that there are many other organizers that either one, we're trying to build their business as single mothers like I did early on. There's just, there's so many challenges that come with that. There's, and I know what those are because I had been through that part.

But when you're in a leadership role and you're like fully embracing that leadership role, I believe that everybody, I truly do believe this. I don't think I used to, I think I used to think. It's not that big of a deal because I was coping like it's not that big of a deal.

If your partner is not involved in your business—Hey, this is my thing. It doesn't have to be his thing. And we don't have to see eye to eye. Well, it really does matter. If you're going to be the best leader that you can be, then your other half needs to be actively supporting it, not just tolerating it and not just being there and not just checking on it and not just, you know, it's just, but like actively really in it.

Not like I'm saying that Tim is in the business, but he is in like y'all's relationship and how he is and the way that you guys work together is one of my top five couples of all time that I look up to. That's very kind. I love you, Tim. I know it's awkward that I keep saying that, but I really do. He appreciates it.

Melissa Klug: He absolutely loves you in return and he really appreciates it. And if he did not have COVID right now, he would be down here to say hello. 

Jen Kilbourne: Stop. He has COVID? 

Melissa Klug: He really does. He is really sick. I'm gonna send him some flowers. I am counting the minutes until I get it. But no, what you've said is really important because I do think there are a lot of things that building a business and by the way, many different kinds of businesses.

The work that I have done since I joined Pro Organizer Studio, you know, I have Pro Organizer Studio. I also still have my organizing business. Although that now I term it as my side hustle because Pro Organizer Studio is my full time job.

Jen Kilbourne: It's a lot. 

Melissa Klug: Yes. It's a lot, but every single one of these things-

The line that I say all the time is my answer to any question that I ever get inside organizing is “it depends” because it does. And your business depends on your support structure. And when I look at, you know, there are women that like Megan, I interviewed a few months ago. She has four kids, she has a single mom running a business. I don’t—I bow down to her, right? Because I have a structure in place that allows me to be able to say I need to work till 11 o'clock tonight. And he goes, cool. You can go watch TV. I don't care. He'll bring me dinner at my desk. And so I am very fortunate in that.

And I do not take that for granted at all. And also my kids are older. My kids have always been pretty self sufficient. So, I have some things in place that allowed me to do it, but that's again, another, a little bit of that serendipity of I happen to be the right person for you. You were the right person for me.

It has been a really good partnership for that reason. 

Jen Kilbourne: Yeah. Bless Tim for bringing you food. See, I just can't quit complimenting him. I think he's, 

Melissa Klug: he's going to get like a giant head when he I'll bring him in 

Jen Kilbourne: He deserves to have a giant head. He should have, 

Melissa Klug: when he wakes up, I will bring this to him and be like, listen, do you want to feel a little better? Jen said nice things about you and it's going to go on the internet. 

Jen Kilbourne: And it's funny because you and I don't have the same personality, so I'm not looking for somebody exactly like Tim either. It's just that his energy, like with you and the way that he shows up and supports you and I've only, been in person at your house once a few years ago.

And I was just like. Whoa. Is this what it's like for you? It's just, he's just so he's just a joy. Like he's so fun I just feel like I was like, yeah, like he can deal with, he can deal with my crazy and Melissa's crazy. All of them. I was like, this is really cool.

This is great. Anyway. Oh yeah. 

Melissa Klug: I have had, someone in my prior business life who was like, Wow. I feel really sorry for your husband, like having to deal with you. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, no, we’re great. It actually hurt my feelings.

Jen Kilbourne: I was going to say that was not a very nice thing for anybody to say. 

Melissa Klug: I can also be a little much.

Like I always say I'm not everyone's cup of tea and that's fine. But Tim is able to deal with, with my level of, intensity about things and he deals with it very gracefully. The other thing that works for us is we get ratcheted up by different things. So like parenting, I mean, this is, you know, we're kind of going off the subject, but yeah—in parenting or in life, like he'll go level 11 on something that I'm super chill about. I'm like, Nope, we'll figure it out. And then all the level 11 on something. And he's like why are we getting worked up about this? This is no big deal. Well, and so are we're off at different times, which I think is actually good.

Jen Kilbourne: So no, I think that's beautiful. Y'all must be like perfectly complimentary personalities. Yes. 

Melissa Klug: But I want to go back to something you said because, and then this is kind of funny, but well, it's funny to me. I can laugh about it. But one of the things that and this conversation is, having people think about whether it is their future plans or, building a team, anything like this conversation can take you a lot of different directions.

But one of the things that we can be upfront about is it isn't always easy. So it wasn't always easy for you to be like, yep, here's my thing. And Oh, you're doing it really differently than I am and all that. But it also on the flip side, and this goes for organizers too, if you are used to being the only person that goes out and then all of a sudden you have a lead organizer come in and it's not you showing up at things, like—sometimes you have people react to that. And there are definitely people, you and I are different about how we do a lot of things. I have, I really, it was important to me to keep the, the spirit of the programs and the spirit of the company, but I will do things differently because I am a different person.

And so there are some people that are like, Well, I miss Jen. 

Jen Kilbourne: They do? They say that?

Melissa Klug: Yeah. Especially at the beginning, they're like, I don't know you. Like you just came out of the blue. I don't know you. One person was very blunt about it. 

Jen Kilbourne: You didn't tell me about that. 

Melissa Klug: But like there, there is a changeover. And so some of those growing pains are also things that you need to be realistic about, there are people who were like, well, wait—I’m used to Jen. I'm used to hearing from Jen. I'm used to getting emails from Jen. I'm used to Jen doing the podcast.

And eventually those people, most people have gotten used to me. And then someday, if I decide that I want to do something different, they'll get used to someone else. It's we get a new president every four years, right? Like people are very upset about that, but the old president doesn't come back to the White House and is like, “Hey guys, I'm going to stick around a little bit.”

Jen Kilbourne: Right. Right. 

Melissa Klug: But it's just important to know that if you're going to go through a business transition, there are a lot of things you have to be prepared for, whether you are the person that is saying, I'm stepping back or the person that is taking over. So being open with your team about those things, I think is really important.

Jen Kilbourne: Very true. Just understanding.

It's good for people to realize this goes back to what you said earlier about, even if you're a one person company, you are a CEO and to just recognize that the way companies work big companies, the way companies work is. People end contracts, people move on, people get new jobs and somebody else fills the job.

Even CEOs step down. Yeah. I mean this is normal in business, the corporate world and therefore, even when something starts with literally just me and my face like on Facebook Live hey guys, it's me. It's 9 p. m. on Tuesday. Even when something starts like that, It will grow to the point where it's okay, I know it looks like it's just me.

And it's not there's all these people behind the scenes that contribute to this. And so it's just helpful to recognize because, you know, I'm sure Melissa actually had a really great answer and told people like, Hey, Jen's not disappeared. It's just, I'm part of the front facing team now. Of course people don't watch every single piece of content.

So it's you know, yeah, you're probably tuning into your favorite show and you're like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. This guest host never leaves. Like where's my person? 

Melissa Klug: There's a different Phoebe on Friends. What's going on? What happened to Phoebe?

Jen Kilbourne: Right. Right. And yeah, people do have to adjust and, but when you do recognize that and when you say to yourself, Hey, like this is the way it comes, you know.

It gives you the permission to change too, because you're going to want that one day. You're going to need to have the ability to grow and to, either have somebody else step up with you or step up on your behalf or possibly even replace you longterm. 

I never said to Melissa that I was like ghosting her and y'all and saying, see, and see, and never, I'm like, I will always be here like, Hey, Melissa, I feel like I haven't been talking enough about something lately. Do you think we can just do a podcast because it makes me feel like loved and useful and she's just tell me the answer is always yes. Yeah. And then by the time, yeah. And so, right. And so it's kind of nice because I love, I still love talking about the big picture of what professional organizing is about.

I did reach a point for a little while. Ooh, this is a really good segue. Are you ready? 

Melissa Klug: I’m ready. I'm ready. 

Jen Kilbourne:  I did reach a point for a little while where I was like, I want to do something that has nothing to do with organizing. I don't want to talk about organizing products. I don't want to hear the word Container Store. I do not want to—I just didn't want to talk about decluttering. I get it. I was like, I just, I, so there was a period of time. 

So I just to, give you more personal details guys. I moved and moved myself and my children. There's a larger story behind the scenes on why all this happened, but in in 2020, my my children's father and their stepmother relocated. Their stepmothers from Maine and if y'all know my story or whatever, but my kids, dad, and I had always been like right down the street from each other for the majority of their lives. And so the biggest change going into 2020, I was like, Oh my God, this is going to be so hard because my kid's dad is moving and I was going to be the school year parent and they were going to start spending summers up there and holidays up there.

And I was like going into therapy because I thought the biggest problem I was going to have in 2020 was helping my kids adjust to that change. Guess what? That problem didn't even make the top 10 of 2020. At the end of the day, I was like, that didn't crack the top 25. Holy moly. Like it was so wild how life was just like, Nope.

Now let me readjust all the way down here and then make it seem like that was easy. Still not easy. But what ended up happening was a couple years into this, I was, I said, okay, self. What do you need? And I relentlessly had to be honest with myself about now that I was the full time parent, just to be honest with you guys, I wouldn't have been able to build Pro Organizer Studio in the first place if my kids had not been 50/50 with their dad. 

So there were nights and weekends that I could stay up all night, get up early in the morning and only focus. Like I'm such a single focused person. The only reason why I could even do it to begin with was because we had the 50/50. So this was actually not only about having the right partner, but having the right co parent who was taking up that part. Multiple layers of things going on there. 

So, so in the summer of 2020, and this was another big reason why me stepping back from the business was absolutely critical was because my children went to Maine for the whole summer the first time in 2020. That had been planned for about a year prior. So it wasn't like, that wasn't a, surprise, it’s just that there was so much else going on at that time when it finally happened that I was just like, “Oh, my.”  I, it was a lot. Melissa was there for me on that friend level during that time.

After, you know, a period of readjustment. I determined that the best thing for me to do in order to make sure that I was in the best supported place possible is we moved from Greenville, South Carolina to Charlotte, North Carolina.

I grew up outside this area but I had a lot of friends from college and high school up here, and I'm a little closer now to one of my sisters and so getting up here was the best thing that I have ever done cause it was like an instant upgrade for me and especially, for my daughter was like instantly she really needed to be in a new place and my son caught on pretty quick, you know, not everybody's on the same timeline, but we have been so good.

I'm like, so happy here. But I did have a period of time where I was, like, laying low on work in general because I had just moved and I was really involved with my daughter is turning out to be an incredibly talented volleyball player. 

Melissa Klug: She’s so gifted. 

Jen Kilbourne: Yeah, we're hoping, her club has been talking to her about doing recruitment for colleges. So that's really fun. 

Melissa Klug: Get those scholarships. Yes, mama. It's so expensive. 

Jen Kilbourne:And right. So I was just heavily involved with like her volleyball at that time. And so I said, okay what can I do? I need a work project.

I need a client. I need something that is, has nothing to do with organizing. Along came the perfect person who, this is a wild story y'all, I I took up with a client who I met with locally we were connected locally through a mutual friend, and she is a channeler, and if y'all are not familiar with channeling, it is a spiritual gift and she channels angels, from I'm not saying this sarcastically.

It's just that I know that Pro Organizer Studio is not usually the type of audience that would be listening maybe to stuff like this. I don't know. You're like, y'all seem like a practical bunch. So I went the opposite. I went to like way woo land, way into woo land, so my lovely client channeling angels from the seventh dimension.

She initially had reached out to me because again, through our mutual connection, she was like, she was asking around about so do you have anybody that can help me with social media, that kind of thing. And my. Oh, you know, well, Jen's Jen has been doing online business for a really long time.

Like maybe y'all could talk. And I was like, I don't manage social media for nobody. I don't even do that for myself. Not posting on Instagram. I mean, I literally just can think of nothing else. I would rather not do those too many negatives anyway. So, so I was looking at her stuff and I was listening to some of her recordings.

I hadn't even met her in person yet. And here's what happened. It wasn't a matter of whether I agreed with their content or not, I could see that the intention was very positive. I mean, it's, it ultimately whether you believe that you're praying to Jesus or speaking to angels or the Archangel Michael or channeling the Pleadians from another galaxy, and I'm saying all this because I understand this vocabulary so well now. I was like, it wasn't a matter of whether I agreed with it or not. I could see that the intention was positive. I could see what she was trying to do and that there were other people, in that same sort of niche, like spirituality, but new agey sort of out there.

But like the messages and her presence and the way that she spoke was very strong. And I was like, okay, let me suggest this. I told her, I said, I don't do social media, but I was also like, if you took this online as a business and really treated it at consistently, and as a business, this would blow up and here's the thing I didn't understand necessarily I mean, I understood her message. I actually did understand the content very well, even though it was very unconventional. What I did understand was the mechanics of, if you're going to have this be self-sustaining and be monetized, I knew exactly how to do it, because I had done it with Pro Organizer Studio. 

You know, the Inspired Organizer course—I’m like, well, if I can build an online company and have it be functioning and really doing well enough to the point to sell it, and if I can go and do the same thing with a woman who channels angels, I felt that qualified as a project different enough that we weren't talking about organizing products.

And then I was like, okay, we'll just see how this goes for a while. It wasn't like a, is it's always been a month to month client relationship, and it was not cheap for her, but she trusted me and her husband trusted me. 

Going back to partners. This is so, it's good. He believed, he also believed in the power of what she was doing. He did not understand the Internet. In fact, we butted heads a little bit because I was like, you just need to trust me. And he was just like, why are you girls messing around on YouTube? I was like, 

Melissa Klug: don’t sir, back up, sir.

Jen Kilbourne: Just hold on, give it six months and I will just show you, I'm not going to keep explaining it to you. You know what I mean? I got, I like to, you know, I'm a little feisty. Does anybody know that? Anyway, so, I got into this with her and. It was, it challenged me deeply because at times and I told Melissa this, I was like, I this woman, she's lovely.

She's a little crazy. I was like, she's really awesome though. We get along really well and we worked really well. The key was, is that she trusted me. She trusted me 100 percent and there were things that I didn't have to go back and forth. This was where I got actually really happy again, where I got happy again was that, that it wasn't me and my face out there.

I needed a period of rest. I was like, I can't be, I can't be the face of anything. I didn't have the conviction of anything that I was willing to get out and talk about for a while. And so I was like, I can just be behind the scenes. I can just. Do all this online business and the mechanics and the metrics.

And, we published a book for her. We published a course for her. Now I got her on all these things, I’m skimming over the last year and a half because yes, I'm still working with her a year and a half later. And it's funny because at the beginning, every single month I was like, I don't think I can do this.

Because I kept thinking, this was just a one off. I'm going to go back into teaching online business and teaching like more general, like all those videos I had done during COVID shutdown. I was like, I'm going to go back to that. And I'm going to teach online business in general.

I stuck with her and she stuck with me and not everything was easy because sometimes you know, she was like I'm feeling that we need to go in this intuitive direction because I'm getting all of these visions and downloads about what we need to do. And I was like, nope.

We're going to put that on a list for you and we're going to get to that in the right order and later. And I just kind of kept filtering out the stuff that she would come out up with because some of it was really good. Not everything. It's kind of like organizing. It's you got to do a little bit.

You got to cut through and be like, Nope, this is really useful. Stick to this. And I kept her on the right track. And she trusted me long enough that a year and a half later. Everybody in her industry is like, where did you come from? How did you get this successful so fast? She's charging $300 to talk to her for 45 minutes.

And at the beginning of us working together, she was like, you're going to slap me on the hand because I'm just not gonna be able to ever charge anybody anything to talk one on one. Oh girl, wrong. We'll get to that. But here's the thing. Remember when I said that all of these growing pains that I had been through with Pro Organizer Studio and in the early years of all the things that I was like, Oh, I wouldn't do that now.

I got to apply all of that to her and she knew that I knew what I was talking about because believe me, I have made these mistakes and you don't want to set it up to where people think that there's like a free hotline and you're on the other side of it. And you want to make sure that you're charging for some of your content.

Yes, of course. A lot of it can be free, but you have to have something that is a paid offer that goes deeper with you. And I know that people think that you. Can't or shouldn't, or it's weird to charge money for spiritual content online, but I was like, nope, just trust me. Just trust me. Churches pass the basket around every week.

100%. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Since we're talking about that, my father and actually the majority of the people in my family, even though I never really shared this on the podcast either, Ooh, we're going deep. I love it.

A lot of people in my family work in ministry or have a career that is spiritually related. My father is a professional musician, he's been like a resource person, like a speaker and a a musician, performer in churches for my entire life. I used to talk about on this podcast in the early days, I was like, well, I always wanted to, be an entrepreneur like my dad.

Well, that's the kind of entrepreneur he was. He was a spiritual leader that worked for himself. And he sold, I mean, the way he monetizes his career is, yes, he sells CDs and tapes. Of course, this was back in the day dad doesn't want to put his music on Spotify for some crazy reason, but anyway, he has a moral issue.

But yes, he sold physical CDs and tapes. Churches would pay him a certain fee to book him, and then, yeah they'd pass offering around to help, you know, contribute to his work. I mean, that is a large part of how how he monetized that without charging a million dollars for him to just show up.

So that was his way. And it's funny because he talks about, he was like, well, I just wanted to be a rock and roll star, but the only way I could see how to do that was to combine it with being in, in church because he was the son of a long line of missionaries 

and so when he came over, when he, when I say he came over he grew up in Korea. On the mission, field with his family and all of his cousins and all, I mean, I'm telling you the Kilbournes are missionaries generations back. And so he came over to, he came back to the U S to go to college and he went to seminary and got like the whole thing.

And he was that really straight laced, like product of that environment. And then he hit like maybe his mid twenties and he went like full, like hippie, like he like moved to Colorado and was being a musician but the way his ministry evolved was he became like this young, cool guy.

He was an ordained minister. He didn't stay serving just one church, but he his own personal philosophy, about his beliefs came through the storytelling that he would do and he modernized Bible stories so that they felt like they were present day and not like a million ancient years ago, and so he just sort of made church and Sunday school cool and that was his thing and that was his whole entire career. 

And so when, you know when I'm looking at someone like the Angel Channeler and then I combine that with my experience with Pro Organizer Studio and the online business aspect, I was like, well, who are you going to find?

Not to toot my own horn, but a little bit, I'm like, I'm a weirdo. Like I'm tooting my weirdo. I'm one of the few people who one has been raised in that environment of this is how I was supported as a child. That was like the family source of income. And he really made his own path out of being himself. Okay. 

And then I made my own path out of being myself with Pro Organizer Studio and then I helped this woman make her own path out of channeling multidimensional beings and it's not funny to the people whose lives are changed By her work, because there are people, I mean, there's always going to be a subset of people, especially on the internet, who are interested in what exactly it is that you do.

They don't want to hear from other people. They love, yes, they love your style, they love your presentation, they love your teaching style. And that's why, There's so many flavors out there because we are all different and even if you feel like you're like a first grader in the scheme of things, you can still teach the people something that they're at the baby level.

You're so far ahead of them. You don't have to be like graduate degree master. So, so yeah, so I going back to what I was saying a few minutes ago, and then I promise I'm going to take another breath. I turned 40 recently and I've been working with the Angel Channeler and you know, now at this point I'm like, we're in deep.

Because our relationship is so tight we really work well together. She's killing it. All the people that I talked to that I know now in her industry cause I'm really close with several several of the big podcast hosts and I have worked directly with a couple of companies that she has partnered with who have also asked me, they're like, we see what you did with her—can you come do that for us? 

And I finally realized, I was like, I don't know why I'm running away from this because life seems to be telling me, it's like, Jen you keep having these people fall into your lap. They're not all in the spiritual realm either. 

So my website today is everydear.com. Every DEAR communications. That site was registered in 2020. Because I knew that I was going in a more general communications and online business teaching direction.

I took my first clients that were not professional organizers in 2021. So we're going on three years now. The type of people that like my personality or see my work, it's either these high level, spiritual people, which again it's, I'm not judging what they believe. It's just that for me, it's not about their beliefs.

It's about communicating that message and communicating it to the people who need it. The other type of people that tend to fall in my lap are extremely visionary entrepreneurs. So we're talking about people who they're really smart, but they're the type of people who are so smart that they don't really communicate to other people very well.

So I sort of become like the translator. 

Melissa Klug: Sort of the book, smart not street smart type of people that they can't communicate their very brilliant ideas. 

Jen Kilbourne: Understand the language, highly technical people who don't really present super well, they need sort of like an in between person.

Now, this makes sense to because an earlier part of my career, I was working in communications at Michelin, North America in the IT department. This was in Greenville, South Carolina. And let's, and so my job was to listen to the highly technical guys that were like talking about systems down, this processing and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you're just like, okay, let me write an email that says, here's how long this webpage is going to be out of order. All right. And have it be accurate. I mean, so it sounds simple, but it's a very important job because for the other people of the whole other 10,000 people of the company that are not tech savvy, they're going to email us about a billion times if we are not communicating exactly what is wrong and exactly what’s happening.

And so my job is to understand that and translate it into normal humans, like normal human speech. So those are also the kind of people in my private clients who tend to be attracted to me because I have some kind of gift, Melissa, and I'm just now realizing this. See, this is long term eye opening information that I didn't know at the beginning of Pro Organizer Studio.

My gift is that I understand them, or at least that I make them feel understood. Now, I can process the details of what they're talking about. I can't turn around and necessarily teach it to somebody else. But I get the gist. I make them feel understood. I make them feel taken care of.

And I'm like, we're going to simplify this. Organizing. Simplifying. We're going to organize what you're trying to say. We're going to simplify it. We're going to make this easy to consume for everybody else that needs to hear this message. When I finally realized, I was like, I don't want to, I was like, I can't believe this, but I don't want to run away from my spiritual client.

I don't want to run away from my highly technical weirdo clients. I want to bring them all around to them. Yeah. Bring them all to me because they need this is a very unique skillset that I've got now at this point. I'm like, who else is going to do it? And now we're going back to talking about leadership and service and being a steward.

If I don't use the gifts that I have, there are real people out there who will always feel, first of all, like there are failures because they're trying, but they're not really doing it right. For example, a lot of people who just. They want to teach something and they're really passionate and they have this big message and they're very visionary and they're just like, Oh, I'll just start a YouTube channel.

And then they're like, wait a minute. Only two people viewed my video? There's so much more strategy that goes into these things than what even starts to be apparent at the surface. And I've lived all of that for so long now that it's easy for me to just say, if you can just trust me, I'm going to take your message and I'm going to.

Put it in the right containers at the right time. And we're going to build out this system and we're not going to take you out of the business. We're just going to keep you in your right place and so that you're not messing with all this stuff behind the scenes. And that's what I've done for several people now.

And so as of. My 40th birthday and the new year, it kind of all comes together. I was like, well, Jen's doing a new program. Jen has to get back out on the soapbox, even though Jen as a person does not necessarily want to. It's nope, I found a new thing that I have to do. That is very similar to how I felt when I started Pro Organizer Studio.

I was so convicted and I couldn't shut up about it anyway. And I was like, well, let's get on Facebook live and let's do this course. And that was how all this started. And so we have come full circle because, you can't necessarily plan for these things, but once they happen, it's like what else I know?

I know myself better now. I'm like, I can't run away. I can't not do it. I have to. 

Melissa Klug: What you're talking about right now, and we'll just use the word compulsion, which is a word that has a lot of negative connotations to it, but 

Jen Kilbourne: I’m fine with it. I’m compulsive. 

Melissa Klug: But that's how I felt about starting my organizing business.

It was the only thing I could think about. And I read this quote, I'm not usually into cheesy quotes, but there was a quote that just happened to come along at the right time. That was , if you can't stop thinking about it, you need to start building it. A hundred percent. And that is how I felt about my organizing businesses.

I was just convicted that this is what I wanted to do. And I wanted other people to feel the way that I had felt about getting my shit together. And. I wanted other people to have that magic. And then I also then became very convicted that I saw people making so many mistakes, building their business.

Just like you said, I just, you were like, wait a minute. Why are you doing blah, blah, blah. No, we're going to, we're going to re reorient right over here. And so sometimes those are gifts that you are given from the seventh dimension, from God, from, I don't know who, from whom. 

Jen Kilbourne: It's true. Thank you for saying that.

Melissa Klug: But you know, that was my conviction of no, I would like to teach other people how to start organizing businesses and how to stop all of the garbage that you waste time on for a year. And so when you have that feeling, which you did, you have to run toward it because you have to see it play out.

Otherwise, 10 years from now, you're going to be like, man, what if, 

Jen Kilbourne: what if? I, it's, there was definitely a feeling of there's healing and there's rest. And there's like taking a sabbatical. And then there's like, when has it become selfishness in a way and stubbornness in a big way.

And that feeling definitely hit me because, you know, it takes me a while to process things. I don't know why that is especially compliments. It's it's hard for me to process a compliment, it's actually very difficult when people who I have met through this company, you know, in person and we did meetups, we did retreats and people be like, Oh my gosh I feel like I know you, like you've changed my life and then your YouTube channel.

And I'm just like, Oh my gosh, like that's crazy. And it's like I could not ever connect the fact that they were talking about me because i'm like when I was doing the content I felt like I was talking to myself and five other people but the impact of putting yourself online and the videos and how that just

It is almost as close to magic, I guess, as you can get, but it was so crazy because when people would say things like that, I'm just like, that's so exciting that you, your life was changed, but I'm like, that wasn't me that did that. I just could never connect that. And I don't know if maybe it's just it's not false humility. I just was like, that's just such a weird feeling for me. I just couldn't ever get it. Maybe if I had. I don't know. I don't, I can't really say. I 

Melissa Klug: think you and I are both uncomfortable with compliments. Or when people say things that are very, like, when people say things like that.

It's hard. It's hard to accept that. Well, I'm just like, I know you think I'm not saying anything that is, you know, I am not a senator. I'm not a, I, you just 

Jen Kilbourne: think well, I see what you're saying. No, yeah. And it's not that I didn't feel appreciated in my role at Pro Organizer Studio, because I absolutely did.

It was, but it was just that when somebody would meet me and say that, I was just like, yeah, this is too, this is so weird. It's like real life. Like what? And none of it felt really real. I guess, cause I was so focused and so honed in on doing all the things that I was doing anyway with this other client though. She compliments me constantly, all the time, and I'm just like, I was like, I mean, yeah, I definitely had a certain amount of, I told you so, energy, not towards her, I told you so energy towards her husband, because I was gonna say toward her husband, for sure I knew this was gonna work.

I was like, it's just math. It was like, I knew it was gonna be fine, but he didn't understand the internet at all. But anyway, but it wasn't until I really had to see it I, you know, I'm tracking like her metrics over the whole year. And finally, like something just kind of hit me where I was like, I did this now she did it, but she wouldn't have had any, she would have still just been like, I don't know, sharing a random post on Instagram or maybe trying to literally type up a transcript herself, on her blog.

That was where she started. She had no, she was just like, Oh, I don't know. Like maybe, you know, maybe somebody will want to have a private session with me. Now she does zoom sessions and she's making more money than I ever have. Yeah. Wild actually. And and so when I finally realized, I was like, wait a minute. I Oh, like I have to see my own compliments or I have to see my own measured success. I think that when somebody gives me the compliment, I mean, I love it and I feel good, but I don't feel that deep emotion of—so like patting myself on the back. I don't let other people pat me on the back.

I have to be the one that did it. 

Melissa Klug: Well, and for you, it needs to be maybe a little bit more data based. I need to see the actual number that indeed says, yes, you do know what you're doing. Right. And so then you go, okay, yeah, I can acknowledge that. 

Jen Kilbourne: yeah. Yeah. But also it's like, why am I surprised?

'cause I did have faith in myself and I knew that I knew what I was doing. But I mean, at the end of the day, I was a little bit surprised that I stuck with it as long as I did because there were times where I was just like, this is not my, this is not my people. This was a sidetrack.

I'm gonna get back into like business. And I'm like, wait a minute. These spiritual people don't have other people giving them really good business advice because it does help. And this is what I did with professional organizers. It's helpful for somebody to translate general business advice to your industry specifically.

Melissa Klug: To a specific, very specific niche. Yes. Not just a generalized service industry or whatever. 

Jen Kilbourne: If you're just getting started as a professional organizer, you can read the best business book in the world and you're not going to know exactly how to apply it specifically for all of the little intricate details that organizing has to bring with it.

And so I'm doing the same thing now. I'm doing the same thing now for spiritual, visionary highly head in the clouds, woo people, whether they're entrepreneurs or just spiritual teachers. So, this was this was not the plan. But I had faith that, that something was going to come together, that eventually I would feel passionate about enough to be willing to come out of hiding and be out there making new content on. 

So if y'all see me around the internet and I'm talking about the seventh dimension or AI, like artificial intelligence is, comes up a lot. That's why is because this is what my people, this is what my, my, my set of people that have found me on their own, they say that your vibe is your tribe, like that's, but I'm like, well, this must be my vibe. I must be a freaking weirdo. And I guess I'm ready to just admit it let's go. But also what I think that what they like about me is that I can understand them. I'm also keeping it super real. And that's what I was always trying to do here also. And so that's where I'm at now.

And I have not truly left the Pro Organizer Studio house. If you're inside the Inspired Organizer group and if you tag me, I will always see it. You know, but nobody's tagged me in like years, actually, probably like a few times a year because they know they've got Melissa and they've got the other mentors and there's probably a bunch of women in there now who don't even know who I am.

And that's fine too. I do not need I'm totally good. But do you want to know who, who built this house? I'm responsible. Melissa is the person who has made it truly a home and a long term comfortable home for everybody here.

Melissa Klug: I want to go back to a few things, though. I think that there, there's something that weird that I want to pick out of that is well, maybe not weird, but when I first met you, I'm like, oh, a famous person.

You 

Jen Kilbourne: did say that. I did. 

Melissa Klug: I was like. You're famous, and you're like, what? And the funny thing is, now people will say it to me. Because your voice is on the internet, and they don't know you. And so, and the point is, you are just a regular person. I am just a regular person. We just happen to have a microphone that we speak into, and people listen to, which we are appreciative of, deeply appreciative that people listen to us, and that people take our advice. 

But what I want to go back to is that, even you as successful as you were in building Pro Organizer Studio, which you built a very beautiful and very safe house. And as successful as you were with that and as successful as the data has shown that you have been, with these new clients, with your new venture, with other entrepreneurial ventures you've had in your life, you have had moments of doubt, of I can't do this. I don't, I can't.

Jen Kilbourne: Absolutely. 

Melissa Klug: I just want to say, and I have it every day I get up and I'm like, okay, I can do this. I am capable. I am. I actually have a post it note on my computer that says I can count on myself, which is something that I just read in a book that I love. But the point that I want to make is as organizers are out there and as the people in our community are listening to this and are out there and they're doubting themselves. Doubting that a client sees them as an expert, doubting that they can run a business, doubting that they have what it takes, whatever.

I don't want people to feel like, well, the rest of us have it together and you're the only one who doesn't. All of us, no matter what our results are, no matter how successful we have been, have those moments of the self doubt and imposter syndrome and all the words that you want to throw at it. We've all got it. So please don't think you're alone because you're not. 

Jen Kilbourne: Yeah. I mean, there's nothing really else to add to that other than picture me like laying in bed for three years just going, okay, like the energy that I used to have was gone. The motivation and the confidence that I had was gone.

I mean, I was just like, I was back to going through motions and going through emotions. I guess that's really the big part is that. Like emotional crap. I mean, that all takes time and sort of acceptance to that. It's going to take time. I do want to speak directly to anybody who couple things, anyone who was listening, who first of all, I want to invite this. I do I don't expect this but I want to say the words because I have learned over the past few years about myself, especially when I went through my coaching certification that at times, even though I feel like I'm being very welcoming and I feel like I'm being very empathetic that sometimes I don't directly say the words.

And so I want to directly say the words to our audience here that If you want to do a business coaching session with me and it is about organizing, but it's not really about organizing cause it's about some of the stuff we've been talking about here, Like I at times I have been connected with a couple of organizers who have been looking to possibly sell their business or what am I going to do in this next stage of life?

Like when I'm having a baby or something like I want to step back. It is okay for you to come to me. I'm saying this, it is okay for you to come to me if you are an organizer and you don't really want to talk about organizing. You're like more of just a general business or life because it all connects to each other and.

I do have business coaching sessions that you can book like just one, you know, like that's fine. I mean, first of all, the Inspired Organizer program still has all the stuff that I teach in it.

It's just Melissa has added to it and changed, things that have evolved over the years online with business and websites and that kind of thing. Okay. So of course all of that's there, but in the bigger picture, maybe you started your organizing business at a time where it felt like the exact right thing to do.

And that has now become your baby and you really don't know what to do about it now. I'm not going to be the one who you know, if you're looking for coaching on starting your organizing business, I'm going to send you right back to Melissa with love, just because that's her, that's, she owns that, that piece of how we teach and how we coach.

I am willing, able, and ready to go there emotionally in a business coaching session. I have worked through my crap. I can handle yours. Like I know that life I mean, again, my life has changed in some ways that I had no control over, you know, my, you know, when my kids schedule and all of that changed.

And now they're teenagers. They're not little kids anymore. I mean, all of this stuff impacts our energy levels and impacts our decision making. If you do not have a partner that helps you with decision making, please. Come book me. Okay. And this is not, I mean, I don't care whether anybody books a coaching session again, cause it's I'm not trying to sell that for organizers.

I just want you to know that I am still that person who can get it and that it is available and that I would never turn you down. It would never turn you away. Even if you don't care about. being a visionary or spiritual entrepreneur. So when you come to my website, what I'm saying is that back door is always open for you guys always.

And I guess like it just needs to be said, it needs to be, it's not just the fact that it's there. It needs to be said that I am willing, able, and ready. And I can handle it. And. You know, we can have a private conversation that will hopefully, again I'm a certified coach now.

I'm not just making this up. Like I know how, you know, and when I got into my business coaching program, I was so excited. 'cause I thought I was gonna learn all this like crazy business stuff that I'd never heard of before. And they were like, well really business coaching is life coaching.

You just talk about business at first and then it becomes like, oh, you dig into like real shit. And I was like, yeah. Damn it. I didn't want to do that. But I mean, that's not what I signed up for. Obviously that was what I needed. I needed the actual skill set of you know, people come and it's about one thing, but we've got to address like the underlying beliefs, behaviors.

What's your purpose? What's your mission? If you want to come talk to me about your purpose and you don't care about building a YouTube channel out of it or share or writing a book about it, that's what I'm helping some of my clients do. But if you just want to come and talk about your purpose and why it is that you got into organizing in the first place and what it is that you want to do next, I am the perfect person to come talk to about that.

Of course Melissa can talk to you about that too, but because I have ridden this specific ride and not that many people have we. We will always have this connection here because me and Melissa are like we're belly buddies for life. You said that at the beginning, like we're not like we're always going to be, you know, spiritually, mentally, physically, maybe not physically, but emotionally connected.

And so these two businesses are our sisters. 

Melissa Klug: Yes they are. 

Jen Kilbourne: And I…the sisters that I gave birth to? Is that a weird metaphor? I kind of like it. No, I like it. We're gonna go with it. 

Melissa Klug: But I think this is important because first of all you are moving on from Pro Organizer Studio, but you are not ever shutting the door.

We're just going to beat this house analogy into the ground. You are never shutting the door. You are never burning down the house. You are leaving that door open.

Jen Kilbourne: and not burning down the house. 

Melissa Klug: Yeah. It's just a matter of you are very gifted at helping with a very certain set of decisions that you might be making.

And you are the perfect person to be able to say, I have done this. You know, I have sold a business. I have started multiple businesses. I have started something brand new. That was scary. I have built all these things from the ground up, which is a lot of work. You guys, if you only knew how. Much work goes on behind the scenes of all of this.

And that's why I love when I see people that start coaching businesses and they're like, Oh, this must be easy. Nope. No, it's not. But also that you know, you are starting something new, but it does not mean that the people that you started with are not still incredibly important to you. Our audience.

Jen Kilbourne: Absolutely. Absolutely. Always. 

Melissa Klug: And Jen is always going to be a part of the program, like Jen is in videos and you are always going to be a part of the DNA of this program and you're doing something new, but it's not a goodbye. 

Jen Kilbourne: Oh, yeah, absolutely not. And like I said I'm in, I'm on Facebook.

 I use Facebook a little bit differently now than I did way back in the day. I used to be friends with everybody. I don't really accept friend requests unless it's I use my friends really more as like friends and family, not for business. For business For Pro Organizer Studio. I am in the Inspired Organizer group.

Maybe now that I've said that I'm in there and I always respond to tags, maybe people will tell me more often. I don't care. I'm just not going to I will only answer a question that I'm absolutely positive. I have something. Otherwise, I'd be like, Melissa. I don't know. Like I said, it's like she knows the content now better than I do.

I used to be the person who was just like, yep, go to minute number 11 on lesson four. So she will still be able to navigate that, but I am absolutely there. I have a Facebook page for this was the one guys, the same one that I started during COVID where I have all of my online business Content, how to 101, all of it is on there.

The name of that page, it says Jen Kilbourne, Every Dear Communications. And I still post occasionally. I haven't done a Facebook live there in a while. I did, gosh, I did maybe five in 2022. And then I haven't done it a long time, but I'm ramping that back up now that I have some new things happening.

LinkedIn. Okay. So I'm just going to run through all my things really quick. Yeah, do it. And let's talk about LinkedIn. Well, so LinkedIn, I  completely shut down my old LinkedIn. This was during the period of rest and rehab. I completely closed down my old one and now I have a new one. Jen Kilbourne, come find me.

You a thing that you guys could do for me if you love me and just want to do something positive, please connect with me like you have to connect with me on LinkedIn and something that would be highly beneficial to what, where I am and what I need right now is if I have impacted you like in a longterm way in your business as an organizer, Jen Kilbourne.

I welcome and would really appreciate one of those LinkedIn recommendations. You can write it on the person's profile because I'm literally starting my LinkedIn from scratch, which makes it a little bit look like I'm starting business from scratch, which is not true, but I only have 20 connections on LinkedIn, which is so funny.

Cause it's aren't you an online business person? Why don't you have any friends? 

Melissa Klug: I'm not a LinkedIn person though. Stop yelling at me. 

Jen Kilbourne: Instagram don't come on Instagram. I don't like Instagram. Melissa's killing it with Pro Organizer Studio. I have one for my personal. I do not this very, it is private.

So that's not a thing. I will probably have an up and running YouTube channel. I do have currently as of this recording, a couple of videos up on YouTube for my new program that I'm running, which is called the powerful presence method. And it is going to be a year long mentorship and coaching course plus program.

And that is for anybody who, falls in this category of like visionary or spiritual. Leaders, you know, I keep using a few different words because some of them like you'll know if it's you, if it's not you, that's totally fine. But if you guys can think of anybody in your life, or if you know, for example let's say that you have somebody in your life who is

like for example in my family we have several retired like clergy members who were like, yeah, I've always been meaning to get around to write a book Maybe you want to do a podcast. I'm sounding like my father now. It's like the way No, I'm like almost 80. I'm like dad, write a book. He's I don't know.

Okay. These are the kinds of people that I want. Send me all of these people who are just like, I don't know how to do that. But if you're trying to share your life's legacy online before you die and you don't know how to do it because you don't understand any of the tech stuff, I'm your girl.

Okay. So what we've kind of ran through platforms. My website is everydear.com. Every Dear, to the subscribers on your email list, every Dear Melissa, Dear Jen, like dear—like all of those things that you see yourself on an email list and you're like, Oh, I'm just a number.

I'm just another that's a little automatic you know, in your email provider, you can make it like populate their name. And yeah. This is funny because this was over that quarantine during COVID, I was like, I'm going to start a company that cares. I'm going to teach people how to care about their email list and not send out these dumb automated stuff that makes it look like a robot wrote it, right?

And so I'm trying to help people build scalable, automated email systems without it feeling like Sterile. I still want it to feel personal. So Every Dear Communications is about looking and sounding like yourself when you're on a video or when you're writing, like when you're writing your emails, especially this is for, this is great for the kind of person who has never been a writer professionally.

I don't know how I don't know how to make it sound all formal. I'm like don't make it sound, just be yourself. Proofread it and double check that you didn't say something that you know, you didn't intend to, but make it sound like you, that's my whole philosophy here. So that's what Every Dear Communications is about.

My private client list currently is full, but I do have a, I have a new webinar for these visionary anybody who considers themselves like, like a spiritual gift that they have, whether it's teaching, healing, coaching, Being an expert on something, but they have a little bit more of a spiritual side to them where they want to talk about some of that woo stuff without sounding crazy, I can help you with that.

So that's a long list, but like just for all of you guys that want to know what's up that you have heard it today. 

Melissa Klug: I love it. I just want to say something that you were just talking about, which I had written down earlier that I wanted to talk about. When I came into Pro Organizer Studio and we were transitioning things, you know, and again, people were used to you and then they start seeing me and they're like, who's this? And I, for a while tried. I didn't ever try to be you, but I tried to do things the way you would do things.

And it didn't feel authentic because it wasn't me. Right. We have slightly different communication styles and we are all our own. People. So true. And so the more you can just be yourself, and when you doubt being yourself, like when you go, well, maybe people won't like me, or maybe people don't want who I am.

Or I talked to an organizer the other day, actually this all aligns, there's an organizer that I spoke to the other day who also likes to do intuitive she calls it the woo side of organizing. Yeah. And she goes, she wants to do some energy work, wants to do some of those types of things. And she was hesitant to put that on her website.

And I said, there might be people that go to your website and go, that's not my jam, but there are going to be people who go to your website and go, Oh my gosh, she gets me. And so when I. Let go and started being myself and not trying to be you and when we all let go and let those things happen your people come to you, and you are trying to get people to be able to translate that and just say I want to be my authentic self and explain who I am.

Jen Kilbourne: That's what I made Inspired Organizer to be, guys.

That's why I named it that. Is because I said that from the very beginning. I said, you can be any type of organizer that you want to be. You can be the color coded, super happy, upbeat, like everything matches, and we have the pretty labels. Or you can be the super zen, minimalistic, more earthy, whatever, or something in between, including the woo.

That was what Inspired Organizer was. Yeah. It is. So yes, I'm so glad you brought that up because it's like you do have a path. If you are being authentic to yourself and building a business that feels right and true to you and your soul, as long as you plug that into just a system, which is what Inspired Organizer gave you, a system for how to build out the business side.

I said, it doesn't matter. What your particular inspiration is or what your particular point of view is, or what your organizing method or style is. This is for everybody. You put it in a framework and put it in a system and you can be successful. So yes, I'm so glad you said that because right now I'm doing that for a larger audience.

And that does feel, that's why these businesses are sisters. So accurate. You really nailed it there. You nailed it. 

Melissa Klug: Well, that's why we work well together. I know. 

Jen Kilbourne: God, I love you. I'm glad we have each other. I love it. 

Melissa Klug: And the other thing, too, that I will say, and just be ready to accept a compliment even though you don't want to.

Jen Kilbourne: Okay. Watch me try. 

Melissa Klug: Okay. So you said a lot of nice things about me at the beginning. I could say a million nice things about you. I am not going to spend as much time as I could talking about all the great things that I love about you. But one of the things that. Has made me a much better person, a much better coach, a much better business owner, a much better parent, a much better everything is.

I have always been the kind of person that was like, okay, someone brings me a problem and I'm like, I got it. Like here are your five answers and here are the five things you need to do above and I barely listen. Right. And I had a guy many years ago, there was a, I'll never forget this. You know, you have those moments in your business life that you're like, Oh yeah, I'll always remember that one.

And there was a system we were learning and it was L A E R where that was the acronym. And L was listen and A, I don't even remember what A was, if I'm being honest, because my coworker goes, “Melissa goes straight from listen to attack.” Okay. So, I was like, okay point taken that, that's fair. 

But one of the things that has been an evolution for me in my career is and just in my business journey is listening and stepping back and not giving the answer right away because sometimes you have to sit with it and sometimes you need to ask a lot of other questions.

And sometimes you need to say. It's not really the thing. And this is good for organizing too. It's not the thing. It's not the pile of stuff. It's what's underneath the pile. And then what's really underneath the pile, right? Yeah. And that's what we do in our groups is we will sometimes someone will say, here's my surface question.

And it's really not that they're really asking about something else and being it. You have taught me how to ask those questions and how to get deeper and how to really not just go from here are the five things you need to do, it's here's what you need to think about because that's really where the growth is.

Jen Kilbourne: Did I consciously teach you that? Because I don't remember. Are you saying you just No, you didn't con No, it's just what I've learned. Seen me do that. Working with you. Yes. Hey that's a really nice compliment, Melissa. And I do fully accept that. And I really didn't know, I was not aware until this moment that was it. 

Melissa Klug: It’s a really bigdeal. Because I, instead of just reacting immediately of, I know how to solve your problem, just do this. I want to solve your problem. But I also want you to think about how is this not going to be a problem 10 more times. Because a lot of times it's not the surface problem, it's really a bigger thing underneath that is a global way you look at things and then that is going to affect all the other 20 things.

And I mean, this is going to, this could be its own separate podcast, but that is the gift of what coaching brings to you. And yes, we can all run our own businesses, but when you have someone to do that, hey. Let's step back and think about all of these other things. It makes you a better business person, a better leader, I think.

Jen Kilbourne: Well, I really love that. I really love that. And I think that applies to organizers too, because we have always said, or I have always said there's a lot of different types of organizers because there's a lot of different types of clients and some clients don't want to solve their ultimate problem.

They want you to fix what is on the pile today. And if you get deep with them, they're going to say, don't come back. I'm not interested in that. Yes. And so, right. And then there are other people who want to figure out the long term efficiency of how to prevent it happening 10 times over. I love that because this is not to judge any of you guys.

It's there, you can be yourself and find the people who need your level of willingness to go deep. Because again, not everybody wants to be coached and challenged. Some people just want you to literally just that's helpful at times. But I get what you're saying is that you can't be a coach who's only ever just telling people what to do and doing it for them.

You also have to be somebody who is willing to challenge at the right time. Yeah, you're right. And I think, you know, it comes with maturity. The maturity is not that you always go deep. The maturity is to know when it's correct to do it. And when it's not, when is it by 

Melissa Klug: the way, I've I'll be happy to tell you the five things to do.

I do that all the time. Here's how to solve your problem. Here are the five things to do to solve your problem.

Jen Kilbourne: Sometimes surface level is, that's what you're supposed to do. The maturity is to know the difference of not pushing somebody at the wrong time. Totally. All of it's all connected, you guys. It's all connected. It's all connected in this dimension and every other dimension. And Melissa, I really appreciate you having me on today and in your house. 

Melissa Klug: I always, you are always invited to my home, either literally or metaphorically. Love that, yes. Anytime. Thank you. Jen's house is also very cute, by the way.

We didn't really talk, you just talked about moving to Charlotte, but your place is also so nice. 

Jen Kilbourne: Melissa has visited me here, and that was lots and lots of fun. It was. 

Melissa Klug: And if you think that this conversation is imagine if, imagine the conversations that are not recorded.

Jen Kilbourne: Between me and you. Yes.

Melissa Klug: Yes, they go on a long time. A lot of things are talked about. And I just, I appreciate you as a friend and as a mentor and as building this very beautiful house that a lot of people have. I mean, thousands of people across the literal world. I was telling someone yesterday, it's five continents.

Jen Kilbourne: Five continents. 

Melissa Klug: That is maybe six. I'm going to have to check. 

Jen Kilbourne: Wow. This is great. 

Melissa Klug: just, it really is amazing what you have built. And I've told you that on many occasions and every once in a while, even though you're not in the house all the time, I will just send you a little nugget and I'll just be like, this is the house you built.

And this is this I do because you were the very visionary founder of this organization and you will always be a part of it.

Jen Kilbourne: Thank you. This was highly meaningful to me. And I feel like I'm in a place where I can really hear that and have this conversation today.

So thank you for giving me the opportunity. 

Melissa Klug: Well, thank you as always for being there for all of us. And we will see you at everydear.com.

Jen Kilbourne: yes, you do. And yes, you will.