THE BLOG

Jacqueline Snyder, founder of The Product Boss is one of the most honest voices I know in the entrepreneurship space.

I’ve watched Jacqueline navigate one of the hardest years imaginable and come out the other side with a clarity that I think a lot of us are searching for.

The Year the Old Way Stopped Working

Jacqueline supports physical product-based business owners — she’s a fashion designer who’s launched over 2,000 brands and built a community of 100,000 students. But even with all of that behind her, 2025 had her stumped.

She was up through the night creating webinars. Running ads. Trying the things that had worked before. Breaking even. Over and over. Meanwhile, the LA fires were literally burning near her home. The tariffs were hitting her community hard. And she was doing all of it — running a multimillion-dollar business, being a mom of two, not sleeping — without telling a single person she was struggling.

“I just kept trying and trying and trying the old way,” she told me. “And then it felt like I was going upstream against everything.”

She wasn’t just describing a business problem. She was describing what happens when we refuse to let go of what isn’t working.

The Floor

In June, at a mastermind event in Texas, Jacqueline started feeling dizzy at the outdoor table. She didn’t say a word. Our mutual friend Bunny was sitting right next to her. She said nothing.

“I thought I just needed to get inside,” she said. “I can do this. I just need to get to the cold air.”

She made it inside, then collapsed. Woke up bleeding on the hotel floor. Got rolled out on a gurney past the bar where all the women she’d been trying not to bother were having drinks. Bunny rode in the ambulance with her.

And from the ambulance, Bunny asked: “What did we learn?”

Jacqueline’s answer: “That I need to ask for help.”

What strikes me about that moment isn’t the drama of it, it’s how familiar it is. How many of us are sitting at a table, not feeling right, and absolutely refusing to say so — because we don’t want to be perceived as weak? Because we don’t want to draw attention? Because we’ve somehow decided that needing support is the same as not being able to handle it?

Two weeks after that hospital visit, Jacqueline lost her mom, who had been battling stage four cancer for five years. She’d been fighting to get back home to LA to be near her. The last weekend she ever had with her mom was the weekend of the collapse.

And something cracked open.

Business as a Mirror

“Everything was breaking in my business,” Jacqueline said, “but it was a mirror of me trying to hold onto this pathway of being — brute force, control, if I just push harder, it’s going to happen.”

This is what I hear from so many entrepreneurs who are stuck. It doesn’t look like a business problem at first. It looks like the wrong funnel, or the wrong offer, or bad timing in the market. But underneath it is usually that we’re trying to do our way into having the life we want, so we can finally feel the way we want to feel.

Jacqueline calls this the backwards model. Do → Have → Be. Do the thing, have the result, then finally be free, be fulfilled, be at peace.

The framework she came back to — which she learned through a program called ALA — flips it. Be, Do, Have. You first get to be the person. Be in gratitude, in surrender, in excitement. Then do the thing from that place. And then you’ll have what you want.

“It sounds simple,” she told me. “But it changes everything. I start every morning with a declaration: who am I going to be today? What’s the environment I’m creating for myself? And then I figure out what I’m actually doing.”

Not the whole event. Not the whole launch. Just today. Just this.

The Most Profitable Month — By Doing Less

In January or February of this year, Jacqueline did something that terrified her. She called her team on a Friday and told them she wasn’t coming in the following week. She would show up for one revenue-driving workshop. That was it.

No one-on-ones. No podcast. No content.

“Normally I’d be like, ‘But my clients need me,'” she said. But instead this time she knew, “I won’t be there for anybody if I don’t really learn to prioritize.”

Her team had it handled. That month was the most profitable her business had ever had.

Not because she found a better strategy, because she got out of the way long enough to trust the team she’d built, regulate her own nervous system, and let her business prove it could function without her in the center of everything.

That’s a Modern CEO move. And it took everything — the fires, the collapse, the grief — for her to get there.

The 12% Stat That Keeps Her Up at Night

Before we wrapped, Jacqueline brought up a stat she’d shared on Instagram: only 12% of women-owned businesses cross $100K in revenue. Less than 2% hit a million.

Meanwhile, 40% of new businesses being started right now are started by women.

So what’s happening?

Jacqueline’s take: some of it is external — access to capital, networks, the conversations that still happen on golf courses that most of us aren’t invited to. But some of it is internal. How high is your ceiling? How big is your belief?

“The glass ceiling only exists when it’s in somebody else’s building,” she said. “We’re entrepreneurs. We literally have our own names on the door. The question is — how high is our ceiling?”

She made us laugh with the murder basement analogy (low ceiling, weird mannequin head in the corner — if your belief system feels like that, you’ve got some work to do). But the point landed: the inner ceiling is often the one we need to look at first.

The goal, she said, is to blow the roof off entirely. To decide that money is replenishable — time is not — and that the only question left is what you’d create if anything were possible.

What I’m Taking From This Conversation

A few things stuck with me.

The small daily re-promise. Not the whole year, not the whole quarter. Just today. Who am I being? What am I doing? By when?

The blend over the balance. Balance is about trying not to drop things. The blend acknowledges that some days are more mom, some days are more CEO, some days you’re flying to Vegas at 9 PM to get a puppy because your family needs a new beginning. Life lifes. The question is how you move through it. 

I also loved the reminder that your business will only grow as much as you do.

Then the work of building a business is also the work of building yourself. The two are not separate.

Episode Transcript

 I am so excited to be here with you today, bringing a guest to our episode, Jacqueline Snyder, the founder and CEO of The Product Boss, where Jacqueline has helped more than 100,000 product-based business owners worldwide hit incredible milestones like Shark Tank appearances and top seller rankings, five million podcast downloads.

Jacqueline is known for delivering actionable strategies and mentorship to help entrepreneurs navigate challenges of building resilient businesses. And I don’t know about you, but business, there are ups and there are downs, and we’ve got to have that. But I really want you to listen in for some of Jacqueline’s unique approaches to navigating these seasons, including her mirror method, the thumb print, and making re-promises to yourself every single day.

This is gonna be a fun one. I can’t wait to hear what you think. Hey, before we dive into the show, I want to invite you to subscribe to this podcast or YouTube episode wherever you are watching, because when you subscribe to the show, the algorithm’s gonna be more likely to show you the best of the best episodes that we’re gonna be sharing in the coming weeks Declan, so happy to be here with you.

Oh, Amber, I’m like so- I’m so excited to be here with you. I wanted to catch up more, but we had to hit the record button, ’cause you just said something incredible. Everything is breaking, nothing is working. Mm. So present tense you, what does this mean? Where is this coming from? Because it, it hit me in a moment, I’m like, I feel it, I’m sure other people feel it, and you’re moving through it so beautifully.

I’m sure it doesn’t feel that way all the time, but I gotta know more. Yeah. Well, I actually think I’m on the other side of it, so that was really my experience of w- I would say last year, 2025, which, ooh, it was a fun year. And even before that. So I think that, and a lot of people have seen this, whether people in the space of like digital marketing, service businesses.

For me, I’m a coach for advisor and strategist for people who make and sell physical products. And last year, 2025, I live in Los Angeles, and January was, it was the fires. So it was like literally things were burning down around me, and at the same time there was this, the tariffs were, you know, being announced in the beginning of the year last year, which was really affecting product-based business owners.

And to me everything just felt like what was working, what worked in the past, it worked in 2019, 2020, ’21, whatever it is, it’s like I would try the thing that worked and then it just didn’t work. And I’d try something else and it just didn’t work. And I think I just kept trying and trying the old way, and then it felt like I was like going upstream against everything, right?

The world being the world, life life-ing, and I was like, it’s breaking, and it really got to this point where it all had to fall, it all had to crumble down to then decide, how do I rebuild what’s next? Okay, that was the beginning of the year. Yeah. And so as you’re moving through the year, it continues to crumble as, and you’re moving- I will say the first six months was just resistance to it all.

Mm. So while I support physical product-based business owners, my background, I’m a fashion designer and I’ve launched over 2,000 brands, two of my own, then I’ve had 100,000 students make and sell physical products, right? So that’s that world. But I am a service provider, right? I am, I have courses and programs and, and all of that.

And so I think last year, one, yes, within this physical space that I was in, I had sprinklers on my roof and abandoned LA and drove to Palm Springs, right? We were like, “We don’t know what’s going to be left.” So there was this literal burn down. And then I would say that for me, I, one of the ways that I’ve always supported my community and my students is that we’ve done free webinars, free workshops, free challenges.

And so every single month last year, I would say up until June, I was trying, I was doing the thing, I created a different class. I mean, I wasn’t sleeping. I would spend… We were just talking about a friend of ours building a webinar for someone else, and I was like, “What? Can she do it for me?” Because when I do a webinar, it takes me…

Uh, since I’m an artist, I, I kind of feel like I work through the night. I go into this, like, really focused quiet time. That’s sort of when I work the best. So I wasn’t sleeping ’cause I was creating in the night, being a mom to two kids during the day, running a, a multimillion dollar business. And so we would run the ads and then things, like, wouldn’t…

We just would break even. Like, things just weren’t working. And then partially too, a year before I’d moved back to Los Angeles ’cause my mom was battling stage four cancer for the last five years, and we were living in New York and New Jersey and then decided to come back. And so the crazy thing that happened was, I don’t know if you know this, but it was June and I was at an event.

It was, like, an event, it was a mastermind with moms, okay? So it was nuts. I’m sitting at this table outside in the Texas heat wearing a jacket ’cause I didn’t want the mosquitoes to bite me, and I started feeling really dizzy. And I didn’t tell a single person around me that I wasn’t feeling well. Even our friend Bunny was at the table, and I did not ask for help.

And I was like, “I can do this. I just need to get inside, and if I get inside the hotel in the cold, I’ll be okay.” Next thing I know, I, like, stumble my way in and then smack down on the ground once I hit the cold air, and I woke up bleeding on the floor Had to call Bunny from my phone. No, I don’t even think I told you this Oh my gosh.

I- You woke up from the floor bleeding. Yeah. Like, I- How long were you there? I don’t know. Probably just seconds, but, like, I… Bunny goes, “What did we learn?” What did we learn? She’s in the, as she’s in the ambulance with me, where I’m being rolled out on a gurney, plus all the girls that I was trying to avoid telling them I needed support, they’re at the bar, and I’m like, “Bye, guys,” on a gurney.

Oh my gosh. I got a concussion, I sprained my neck, I sprained my hand. Bunny was at the hospital, she’s like, “What did you learn?” And I was like, “That I need to ask for help.” I need to ask for help. I need to ask for support. Like, who do I think I am thinking… I was at a table with moms. And didn’t feel comfortable saying, “I don’t feel good.”

No. Or, or were, was it discomfort? Was it you’re like, “I don’t want to bother everyone?” They were talking, I’ve never been queasy, and they were talking about this, like, terrible birth story, and I don’t know if it was the heat, dehydration, but I think for me it was a sign of weakness. Like, what do you mean I can’t listen to them tell this story and then all of a sudden I’m not feeling well and it was gonna bring attention to me?

I just was too self-involved and thinking, like, I’m gonna draw attention. I’m gonna be perceived as weak. Weak means I need support. Like, I got it. Mm. I didn’t got it. Wow. It’s so interesting. I’m feeling things as I’m hearing you say this, ’cause I can think about how often we don’t say something ’cause I’m gonna look weak, or for me, it is I don’t wanna bother them.

Mm-hmm. Like, when we’re talking about business, like, oh, everybody’s talking about their stuff, but I got a question. Unless it’s a specific question, I w- I hold back a little. So I’m like, I don’t really know- Mm-hmm … what my question is. I just need them out. I wanna be focused ’cause I don’t wanna bother you, or I don’t wanna- Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But for whatever reason, we’re holding back- Yeah. And then you wake up bleeding on the floor Floor. Oh my gosh. Okay- Not too dramatic … you went, and you went to the hospital and- Oh, yeah … what happened? I went to the hospital, and in Texas, in Bastrop, Texas. It was right by Buc-ee’s if anyone’s been there.

And anyways, so, and I remember, like, calling my mom from the hospital, or Bunny was calling my husband, and everyone’s like, “Are you okay?” And so, you know, actually, what’s crazy, I actually found these texts today that were from that weekend. It’s so weird. It popped up in my phone. And literally two days later I’m…

or I’m, like, maybe it’s the next day and I’m texting them. I’m like, “You guys, I have this idea for a mastermind.” And they’re like, “Well, you bounced back quick.” ‘Cause I’m a psychopath. Like Okay, so where was that coming from? Did you have a spark of inspiration, or did you feel pressure to, like- I had had this-

I gotta dig my way out of something? No. I had had the spark before all that happened- Okay … ’cause I’d been doing a lot of personal development work, a lot of transformation, a lot of, like, realizing, and this is where we’re gonna go, is strategy’s not the thing. Like, strategy’s the thing, but it’s not the thing.

That’s not the thing that’s gonna get us. So I was really excited, and I was, like, doing this. I launched my first course from a hospital bed because I’d had my gallbladder out. I was, like, an emergency gallbladder surgery. This is, like, in 2019, overriding my body. And remember crying the whole night, and then the next day it’s out and I ask the nurse for Wi-Fi, and my business partner was like, “Should we pause?”

And I was like, “No, we go.” This, Amber, this is like Go. I felt that. I felt full Jacqueline in that. I This is my unraveling. Oh my gosh. Where it’s like, I, that need, one, not asking for support, and two, the need to keep going. And the craziest thing that happened that weekend was- I should have followed my gut.

I didn’t actually wanna be there. I, I wanted to go home and I should have followed my gut because I get back that weekend and turns out to be the last weekend I’m ever having with my mom ’cause she was battling cancer and I had a freaking concussion so I like real- My mom’s like, “You know you told me this story already,” ’cause my memory was super spunky.

She’s just so straightforward, she’s like, “You told me this already.” I’m like, “Okay, I’m sorry.” Always. It happens. Um, and then on the Monday she ends up catastrophic in the hospital and then everything changed and two weeks later she passed. And so I think that I real- like I said, I woke up on the floor bleeding then all of a sudden my entire life was rocked and in the hospital with her, my mom was such a fighter you guys have like no idea.

Like she got, she was blind when she woke up from this like event and then she got her eyes back and then she couldn’t move her hands and she got her hands back. Like she was such a warrior. She, my mom never stopped. Like she had done Pilates the morning of this event, right? She’s just, she was incredible and so I was looking at her even to the, the day she passed she was still fighting, she was still, we called her a warrior ’cause she just was like she would not let herself go there and she’d always tell me, “Jacqueline, you cry for the both of us.”

Mm-hmm. It’s like ’cause my mom is British so there’s a whole thing there. So I remember like thinking like when she passed I was like I gotta live. Like I get to live. Like if I would did anything in her name it was like to live and to love and to be present and like I can no longer continue the way that I had continued up until that point.

And so that for me was like literally everything had to break for me to become this next version of myself and it’s almost a year later, we’re almost exactly at a year later and it’s been a year but also the most magnificent like transformative year of my life Okay, so I wanna hear about that. And, but first, so, and maybe this’ll take you there, but you talk about business being a mirror.

Mm-hmm. And as you think about, going back to the statement you made at the beginning, everything is breaking. Everything was breaking. Mm-hmm. And so the reflection, the mirroring, okay, w- where, how did this come to be? You’re like, “Okay, everything’s breaking. This is a reflection of my life, life, business.”

Well, it’s like how many times can you try the same thing and it’s not working, right? I was like, “Oh, we’ll just do another webinar for another $500 product.” Yeah. And the- Change the name. Change the- Oh my God … the clothing … stay up and change the webinar that night and like do it the next day. And it’s, and it was a mirror of me trying to hold onto this pathway of being.

And I would also say this like brute force control. If I just do it, if I just try harder, if I just push harder, then it’s going to happen. And also not asking for support, not being supported, feeling very alone. And I would also say comparison. Why is it working for other people and not for me? And so, so in terms of the reflection, it was like everything for me, my business was mirroring everything needs to change if you want this to go forward.

Mm-hmm. Or else you’re just going to keep hitting up against the same wall, suffering in a, in a, in another way, physically hurting myself, right- Mm-hmm … and pushing through. And that was my, I’ll say my breakthrough this year. You know, the holidays are hard if anyone’s ever lost anyone. It’s grief, grief comes up in, in different ways.

And so I go- went through the holidays crying on a paddleboard in Hawaii. My son’s like, “Mom, I think you need a therapist.” I was like, “I think- Oh. “… you’re…” You know, I was- He did … I ha- I was like, “I have one, and you know, this is my moment.” I’m like, I’m crying on a paddleboard in Hawaii. This is where I’m hit.

But that’s the process, right? It’s like, and I have been supported. And I would say that the biggest shift that I did, and I’ll tell you this, is like actually what my business was asking me to do and what my life has been asking me to do is surrender. Mm-hmm. And so in, I think it was J- January, February, I decided, I was like, I have not, I ha- I did not take time off aft- again, I did not take time off after my mom passed.

I mean, I did. I slowed it down. But I just was still in this like survival mode in my nervous system, and so I actually did the craziest thing. I called my team on a Friday and I said, “Next week I’m not coming, I’m not doing anything. I’m not coming to work.” The only thing I was doing was my one… I do a workshop once a week that like drives revenue, and that was it.

Mm-hmm. And normally I’d be like, “But my clients need me. I have these one-on-ones. I have this podcast scheduled.” And I was like, “No, I get to see how my business functions by removing me,” ’cause the belief that I was holding was I gotta be in the middle of all of it. And that was the first month that we were the most profitable ever by me actually taking, stepping back and surrendering to it all, and knowing that I was supported and I had built this team, and that, like, I got…

If I was regulating my own nervous system, everything else was regulated. And so that was really this, like, the, I would say, like, the end cap to self-trust and trusting the team I had built, and then trusting, I like to say, like, ch- well, I’ve, this is from someone else, but, like, trust the process. Mm-hmm.

Trust this whole process of breakdown to rebuild to then- Surrender, I would say. Okay, I hear it, I believe it, I know it. The surrender is why the name of this podcast came to me right on time. And, uh, still, it is hard sometimes. Mm-hmm. Was it hard for you? Oh my God. Well, that’s what my, uh, my head of ops is like, I kept trying to get back into calls and she’s like, this- She’s like, “This is literally why this is your stretch this week.”

She’s like, “No.” Wow. I needed someone to hold the guardrails for me once I said it, because you can talk yourself into whatever. And what was the feeling? Like, because you obviously have, I know you, you have trust in your people, and you’re a excellent owner, leader, a- and you’re a great… Uh, so you knew that they could handle it.

It’s, it wasn’t even- But what was the job? Yeah, it wasn’t the operations, it was me centering myself as the… In fulfillment, let’s say, right? So- Mm-hmm … as the consultant. Mm-hmm. As the person who… Well, one, if I had someone booked on a podcast and I canceled, I was like, “Oh, I feel bad. I’m out of integrity,” right?

Instead of being like, “I need to rest and put myself first.” Ah, yeah. Right? And so, and then the other thing is like, I had some one-on-one clients that I, I got to push, and I was like, but wait, like, I told… I think it was an integrity thing. Like, I told them that I would be there, I’ve got to be there no matter what, versus I won’t be there for anybody if I don’t really learn to prioritize.

And I think, you know, you and I are different. Like, you… When we’re together, ’cause we’re in a mastermind together, and you guys are like, doing Pilates in the morning, and like, do… And like, honestly, you wanna know what my stretch is now? Three meals a day, snacks, and drinking water. We gotta start somewhere.

Especially water before coffee. Water before coffee. This is, that’s a good rule. I should probably do that too. Like, water before coffee. But not everybody, like… A- and I wanna make this, like, normalize this for everybody, like, not all of us have, like, the perfect di- like, morning routines or, like, for me, I did not priorit- if we just talk about the story as a whole, I didn’t prioritize my body at all.

Like, my bo- like, I was like, I live in my brain, my body just functions and moves me forward. Mm-hmm. To the point that I don’t eat… Like, it’ll be 2:00- And you haven’t eaten … because I’m, I’m working, right? Like, I’m like, on… You know? So it’s, so that was really a shift for me, where it was like, all right, I’m in my 40s.

I got to take care of myself. And like, to the simple part of feeding myself three meals and water, come on, like, are we kidding? So that’s like- Yeah … it’s so basic, but- Yeah … so for me, that’s my stepping stone. Oh my gosh, I love it. I, I’ve been thinking a lot lately because I do work out a lot. I’ve been doing less pushups lately.

Mm-hmm. And so I’m thinking like, “Oh.” You got, you got some good arms, my friend, so… Thank you. Thank you. I mean, okay, there’s w- always, uh, work to be done. But especially when you get in it and you’re like, “Okay, okay, tweak, optimize.” Yeah. It’s fun. It’s a game now. But when I look back four years, three and a half, four years, I couldn’t do a single pushup.

And it was like, so I’ve been thinking about this lately ’cause I’m like, “Okay, do I need to get back to the pushups? I think so. I think that’s part of my arms formula. I don’t wanna lose it.” Yeah. And, uh, but I couldn’t do one, and I had to just, okay, just show up. Mm-hmm. Just show up.

Okay, now you can do a pushup on your knees. Okay, now you can do a pushup. You can do three of them whole, then you’re back to your knees. They’re a full pushup. And then just show up another day, just show up another day. Mm-hmm. And the, the trainer that was leading these group community sessions, like, it… I don’t believe in no pain, no gain here. Like, all you have to do is show up.

You have to have- Mm-hmm … enough energy to come back again. And so it starts so small, like a drink of water before coffee. Yeah. I had a coach say that, and he used to be a physical, uh, like a physical trainer, and he said that he would even just have his clients put their gym clothes on and just drive to the gym and then leave.

Like, you don’t even have to go in the gym, just drive to it. If you decide you’re gonna step in the doors… And so I think that, like, especially as women, we hold so many things, so many moving components, right? You and I were just talking, ’cause my husband is an actor. He goes and comes sometimes. Like, it’s, it, sometimes it’s, like, great partnership, and sometimes it’s 100% me, and sometimes it’s 100% him.

Yeah. And so it’s, like, how to flex between that and… Yeah, so i- it’s this idea of, one, it’s like this thumbprint. It’s like how do you thumbprint the processes that you wanna do? I think, I say balance is bullshit. What a- … lie. Okay? Balancing anything, like, means you’re just constantly trying not to fall. Yeah.

And juggling- Right … trying to not drop things. Like, what are we actually doing, right? It’s so much- Yeah … energy. So I really, and I get to really start to live this more so is, like, I believe in the blend. I call it the blend. It’s like a smoothie. One day you want more bananas, sometimes you want more chocolate, more protein powder.

Sometimes it tastes like crap. And, like, literally our day needs to be blended in a different way, and giving ourselves grace of this idea of- Okay, I’m more momming. What’s crazy, Amber, is I’m hosting the biggest event I’ve ever hosted in Chicago in two weeks, and my husband last minute goes out of town.

Full-time mom, have a puppy, putting on this event. And I am like, “Well, hello universe. Thank you for this test.” So how do I get to blend the next two weeks where I still drink water before coffee, feed myself three meals, be a present mom, take care of this puppy, and create this epic event for 75 product-based businesses that are all flying in?

75. I was wondering. I saw on your Instagram you just had a few more tickets available. Yeah. I’m like, how, how many people are coming? Uh, that’s incredible. So it’s like, okay, cool universe. Thank you for this test. I said I want it. I said I want to blend. I say I want to take care of myself. I say I want to hold this really big business.

So then, cool, here it is. Like, here’s your test. And the shift is really not… And this is what I actually want to say about what you were saying. There’s this framework. So basically, a lot of times we think if we want to have the thing we want, we’ve got to do something to get it. Mm-hmm. I just got to do to have what I want.

And then when I have what I want, then I’ll feel, I’ll be free, I’ll be abundant, I’ll be passionate, I’ll be courageous. Right? I’ve got to do the thing, so we have the thing. Which is kind of like I got to get stretchy before I go to yoga. Yeah, right. And then I can go to yoga, right? And then maybe I’ll buy the cute outfit.

So instead, and it’s this framework from this program that I’m in called ALA, but it’s be, do, have. Mm-hmm. So it’s this idea of actually first we get to be, be the person, be in the being, be abundant, be courageous, be brave, free, passionate first. Mm-hmm. And then we do the thing, and then we’ll have what we want.

But if we’re trying to always do, do, do from this brute force and pushing through to have the things so then we can feel the way, it’s like there is no there. Mm-hmm. And so that’s really, like, in the eye of the storm and even in this, like, how do I wanna feel? Who do I get to be in this moment? I get to be in gratitude.

I get to be in surrender. And then work on two days of content and pick my kids up from school and do the fifth grade dance and… You know what I’m saying? And that’s really, I think, if you wanna talk about my biggest shift, it’s my ways of being before I do the thing. So I love how you broke that down, ’cause often times the similarity is to be, doing, and having, be, do…

Wait, what’s the order? What’s the order that you say? Be, do, have. Be, do, have. Okay. If before I go to do or before I have, sometimes I’m in that space of being, but I think it needs to be bigger. Mm-hmm. I need to be calmer, surrendered longer. Mm-hmm. And I need to not do for a minute, and I love how simple you made it.

I need to… What am I, who am I being right- I’ve got gratitude, I’m surrendering. Okay. You made it feel less. You… It was easier. That is an easy, “Okay, w- who am I being right now? All right. What am I gonna do? Wait, hold on. Nothing.” Or w- maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m surrendering now. Maybe- Yeah … I’m not doing as much.

Maybe I’m letting go of some things. Maybe- Like, it gets to be fun, right? Like, it’s like, “Okay, I’m gonna have fun now.” Like, like how lucky am I that all these women are flying into Chicago? Like, how lucky am I? So instead of feeling the weight of, “I’ve got to do this thing,” oh, my gosh, this is literally a dream come true for me.

Mm-hmm. And so yes, like, how exciting. Okay. How does that contrast? Because you’re carrying a lot now. Yeah. Clearly. Surprise. It wasn’t planned that way, but surprise. 2025, all of last year- Mm-hmm … it was just coming, and it kept coming. Yeah. And so how would you say you’re different in that now? ‘Cause that was a big challenge.

This is a pretty big challenge- Yeah … in a compressed, short amount of time. What… The difference is the being? Yeah. I, you know, it’s my personal development transformation, and I think that… Here’s the thing, everybody. Being an entrepreneur, being in business is, like, the greatest form of personal development and therapy.

Holy mo- All the stuff that comes up for us- Mm-hmm … in every other part of our life, we will face it in our business, and our business is a cool container because- Yeah … we own it. We can work through it. Like, it’s what we want it to be. So it’s if I’m, you know, overriding myself, my body, it’s happening in my normal day-to-day.

It’s happening as a mom. I’m not putting my oxygen mask on first. Mm-hmm. So of course it’s gonna come up in my business. If I have a fear of failure and I’m not trying the thing, it’s gonna be reflected in my business. A fear of success, it’s gonna be reflected in my business. Lack of passion, right? So, so really I think what it is is it’s like if we really get to use our, our businesses as these playgrounds, and that’s been my journey over the year.

It’s been really going back into knowing that I have a choice on how I wanna feel and who I wanna be. It’s like, um, Viktor Frankl, um, Man’s Search for Meaning is a, a book- about him during the Holocaust in the concentration camps, and how he was able to still feel joy and forgiveness in the heart of the worst.

And that’s like, that’s extreme. And then of course, even in the loss of my mom and the tear down of all the stuff, I got to just shift to be like, what does it mean to be alive in this moment? And then from that point forward, it’s just a choice. And you’ve talked about them as being small, daily re-promises.

I love that phrasing. Yeah. I mean, we beat the shit out of ourselves when we don’t do the thing, right? Oh, I said I was gonna get up early and I didn’t go to the gym, or like whatever. It’s like, okay, cool. So like you said, just like the one pushup, or just getting on your knees and being like, “All right.

Let’s see. Let’s see how far I can go.” Or maybe I just fall with a lot. Yeah, just fall. Just for a while. Maybe I’m like, “Oh, that’s cute.” Exactly. Oh my gosh. So it’s really, it’s just like every day, you know, every morning I make a declaration to myself on like the day. I- I’m like, I’m going to… This is the environment I’m gonna create for myself today.

So passion, fun, right? Connection. You really do that every day? Yeah. Every day you make a declaration to yourself? What am I gonna do? How am I gonna- The, the environment I’m creating is this, which is two ways of being. Okay. So I know, ’cause like it’s this idea of like how do you, like what’s the environment that you’re gonna thrive within?

And it’s like, it again, it’s our internal environment. You were talking about those morning routines, and I joke that to get my morning routine, move to Africa, move to Europe, move to a different time zone where people are still sleeping and you can do whatever you want- I know, right? … and not feel like the pressure.

Uh, but you got a pretty solid morning routine. I feel like this is huge. This could have a massive impact. Right, could, could it be, could that be enough, right? Like, like is that enough? And that’s the thing, it’s like I d- so I declare the environment I’m creating, and then something for me that, like I do something for me.

So like today I’m going to walk by 10:00 AM, and then as a team we’re gonna do X by this time. Because we all have these massive goals, but what- what’s the thing that we can do in the day, and then have a by when on it. Like by when, not like, okay, I’m gonna get like this event, right? I’m gonna get the event all planned out by Friday.

Great. That’s freaking overwhelming. So it’s like, well, what do I wanna do today? Today I’m gonna write the outline by this time, and then just hold myself within this like container in the environment where I’m like, “I’m gr- I’m in gratitude and joy and play.” And so it’s like, if I find myself not in that, then I get to shift.

Like play some music, dance, like do something that shifts… Again, it’s a ch- it’s always a choice. Life is gonna life, you guys. I’m literal proof of life lifing. And even a month ago we had a, like another loss in our family and I… Actually, this will be like a, a good example. We lost our dogs in this like terrible accident a month ago, and it ripped grief open again in our family, and especially for my kids, ’cause the dogs are…

It is freaking terrible. And I was like, I went back into my grief, back into my victim of like, “Why us? Why…” Even my daughter was like, “Why do things like this keep happening to us?” And I was like, what do I get to do if I was gonna shift and make a different choice? My old self would be in victim to it, victim to my story, all that.

All right, cool. So where is like fun that we could go to from Los Angeles? Like we’re flying to Vegas. My kid’s gonna do his baseball game. Mm. And at 9:00 I’m like a crazy per- I’m booking a flight, we’re flying to Vegas ’cause all hours there’s energy going on, so we’re not… You know, I was like, “Do we go to the mountains?

No, we’ll just cry. We’re gonna go to Vegas.” So we went, and it was like the energy, and it was like, “What do you guys wanna do?” And we went and did like cool things with the kids. And then I was like, “You guys,” ’cause in Vegas there’s all sorts… Bad things can happen in Vegas also. I was like, “Forget it,” like we wanted dogs, they want a puppy.

We’re just gonna go get a freaking puppy. We’re gonna go look at puppies in Vegas. Like you can’t get puppies in LA, okay? And I know, don’t come at me with whatever ’cause it was like I’m problem solver mode, okay? And we found this dog, this breed that like my husband and I had talked about in the past, and she was this little thing, and I took my kids.

And literally we came home, and the entire environment that we had created at home shifted. New life, like we were able to like move through our grief faster. We got to have fun, be together, and it was like that was just on a choice of like, do I wanna stay in victim to this and stay in my grief, or like just make a different choice?

And that was like- I’ll say I was so proud of myself, ’cause I was like, cleaned it up and I moved through something terrible faster. And that is the tool, and that comes with practice every single day. Wow. And the small reprompt. It’s all… Okay, it’s coming together. Coming together. I see you, Jacqueline. Okay.

Crisis. Ah, I’m obsessed. So your business, and actually speaking of businesses, there is a stat that you posted, caught me on your Instagram. Uh, what was the- It keeps me up at night, that stat. This one does? Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I got- we gotta tell people what it is, and then I want to ask you about that. Yeah.

The 12% of women-owned businesses cross 100K. 12%. Less than 2% hit a million. What is going on here? And Forbes just came out with a report that 40% of new businesses being started are created by women. By women. 40%. So I think there’s gonna be a, we’re on the cusp of a shift. You and me, like we’ve been doing this for a lot of years now, where we’re like, “This is possible,” right?

Where- Yeah It’s, this is what we’re creating. And so I, here’s the thing, okay, so 100K if anyone is not there yet, it’s easy. Money is so easy to make. If you believe money is easy, it is a replenishable resource. There literally, we’re not gonna run out of money. Like, you can… My son made $300 with a lemonade stand to buy a lightsaber, ’cause he went to a street with a good location, and people with Maseratis handed him 20 bucks.

You just need to know where your customer is, location, and sell them something, okay? Okay. So we got to really understand that money’s replenishable, time is not. That is, again, another massive lesson for me, right? Time is our most precious resource. And so here’s the thing about that 2% stat. And in all, literally, all of us together, let’s just make a promise right now, we’re all gonna shift it together by knowing it’s possible and then we just keep going.

We gotta keep going. Okay? Yeah. We got… Cool? Okay. I’m in. Good. So I think the 2% is interesting, because I wonder how much of it is, like, created from outside versus inside. Of course, we have so much more to hold as women. Like, our bodies literally need to slow down, I mean, once a month or, like, with babies, right?

We, there’s a lot that we hold. There’s the glass ceiling, right? There’s a glass ceiling. You’ve heard of it. But I believe that the glass ceiling only exists when it’s in somebody else’s building. We’re entrepreneurs. We literally have our own buildings, our own names on the door, and the question is is how high is our ceiling.

Mm. So do we have, like, an Oprah ceiling? You know, are we, a ceiling lower than the glass ceiling? I mean, I think some people have really, really low ceilings. It reminds me of this, like, creepy basement that I saw in a house we were looking to buy in Jersey that was, like, low ceiling, really damp, dark. There was, like, a weird mannequin head in the corner that was, like, so creepy.

I was like, “We’re not buying this house. This looks like a murder basement.” So ask yourself, do you have a murder basement ceiling? Do you have, like, a drop ceiling? Like, how high is your ceiling? And so when we think about that 2%, of course there’s things up, there’s up against us, like, uh, access to finance and, you know, the conversations that, I’m gonna be really, like, generalist here, but, like, men have certain conversations on a golf course, and I’m like, where are we talking about these things?

Mm-hmm. So there’s, there’s of course there’s outside circumstances. But then my other question is is like how much of it is from us? How low is our ceiling? Because I know that- depending on your mothers and your grandmothers, great-grandmothers, some of you had entrepreneurial parents. Others of us had moms that were stay-at-home moms or maybe teachers and had the summers off, right?

Mm. And if your mom was in career, she was battling against like, “Are you a latchkey kid?” It was crazy. Yeah, the judgment- Yeah … extreme. Yeah. Like, “Oh my God, your mother works?” Like- Mm-hmm … “What is happening to you, the children?” So we’re coming out of this path of like there’s, of course, there’s women before us that have done epic things, but more of us are doing it now.

And so the question then becomes, what is our own belief ceiling? And I wanna like encourage everybody, like, we don’t need a ceiling. Can we just blow the fricking roof off the top and it’s like infinite blue sky? Because like I said, money is replenishable. So what if thing was possible, what would you create?

And I think that’s the limiter. That’s the place where we get to remove the glass ceiling so that we just start to believe more is possible, and that’s why being, listening to shows like yours, being in programs, being surrounded by other people, especially entrepreneurs, that are like, “Oh, they’re doing it.

I can do it, too.” It just creates possibility where maybe we didn’t, we don’t have access to that in our normal day-to-day lives. So good. I had someone reach out… Actually, even me, I sometimes think, uh, I don’t really have anything to contribute right now in- Mm … the room because I’m going through the change.

Everything’s breaking and nothing, and I don’t even know yet, or I’m in the middle of a transition, and I’m in the middle of surrendering. So sure. I, I don’t know yet. Yeah. I can’t… Oh, it’s funny, Jacqueline, my numerology this year, another year of surrender. And I was like, “Well.” That’s cool. I was petrified when I first learned it.

Mm-hmm. Uh, because, you know, those years of surrender can sometimes be a challenge. Uh-huh. But it feels like an easier year this year. But it comes around, like with new being, staying in the room to get the support, even just to hear, “Okay, stay in it,” because at some point it’s gonna unlock. And it is unlocked, and I feel like you’ve blown off the ceiling.

Mm-hmm. It’s unlocked for you. I feel like you’ve blown off the ceiling. Yeah. And- And it took a whole dark night of the soul slash times 10 to, like, get here. And so- Thank goodness. And I gotta say, I knew you were going through a lot of this. Not every detail, but I’m say, “Oh, my gosh. Gosh, I’m watching.” Yeah, it’s unbelievable.

And you really handle, you navigate with such heart. So even hearing you speak now and inviting all of us to commit, like, no, we’re not gonna be the 2%. Mm-hmm. Let’s turn this into 5%. Let’s turn this into 10. Let’s turn this into 50. Uh, let’s turn- let’s going, so I’m committed. I hope everyone here is, too. And as people commit to this and wanna share it with you, where do they find you?

How do we connect? Oh, yeah. I love it. Like, let’s, it’s one of us at a time, right? Like, I want everyone to realize, like, you are literally a light. You’re a candle, so you’re either lighting the path for people to see. And a candle, when a candle lights another candle, does not lose its flame. It doesn’t lose its flame.

So can we each be the light that lights the next light? There’s no competition. It’s, like, collaboration over competition. It’s gonna take us holding each other and lifting each other up. So, you can follow me @theproductboss on any social channel, but mainly I hang out on Instagram. YouTube, been working real hard on my YouTube channel, so please go and subscribe and support.

Yay. It’s The Product Boss on YouTube and anywhere you listen to podcasts. I have a podcast. And even though, even if you’re not product-based business, a lot of this sort of transformation business as, you know, business as your mirror to what… Like, ’cause again, I believe your business will only grow as much as you do.

So there are episodes for everybody there, just so we can continue to support each of us in blowing the roof off and knowing there’s literally infinite possibility and no cap to what we get to create. Oh, my gosh. Love you. We’re in it. Thanks, everyone.