Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessie Ellertson.
Hi Jessie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I became a military wife in 2007 when my husband joined the Utah National Guard. So many lessons learned along the way particularly during deployments which can be the hardest part of military life. Right before Brad‘s deployment in 2018, I was low and pretty overwhelmed. It felt like very little was in my control or going the way I wanted it to go.
Brad’s first deployment a few years before that was so challenging and I just didn’t want him to have to go again and for our family to have to go through that again. Not only that, but I had even more kids this time and I just couldn’t see how it wouldn’t just be even harder than the first one.
I had several friends around that time recommend a podcast to me called Better Than Happy created by Jody Moore. She is a life coach as well and she focuses on helping women live their lives more without changing any of their circumstances. I was skeptical at first but gave it a try and I’m so glad I did. I ended up listening to pretty much every single one of her episodes that she had available at that time before Brad even left for his deployment.
Before that point, I had never listened to any podcasts, which is one of the reasons I was skeptical, and I already felt like I was barely keeping my head above the water. But I just told myself, “I can make time for a podcast. I can listen to it while I’m getting other things done.” What was amazing to me and the miracle that I didn’t even know was possible from just listening to a podcast was nothing in my life changed, but everything started to feel better.
I had no idea that just making tiny adjustments to the way I was thinking would create such a real change in the way I was feeling about my life. It was exactly what I needed at that time and changed the way I experienced that deployment, so dramatically that I decided to become a life coach and start my own podcast to help other women in the same way. I host the Simply Resilient podcast and I coach military wives. I’m having really incredible experiences with my clients helping them find peace and love and happiness while their husbands are deployed.
It’s amazing because those feelings don’t even feel possible when you’re really low and in the thick of your challenges. I’m also helping them be more open and comfortable with the negative emotions that come along with military life and deployments and to champion themselves along the way. These women are so brave and strong, but they don’t always feel brave and strong because the struggle is real and they are also not spending nearly enough time honoring themselves for what they are doing.
Thought work is an amazing journey!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
While starting a business is always an adventure with ups and downs, this particular journey has been relatively smooth for a couple of reasons:
1-There are few things in my life that have excited me more than coaching which brings so much energy and passion to the whole process.
2-I’m a stay-at-home mom of six kids and I don’t want to give up any of that so I only work a handful of hours a week which has made the whole process slow, steady, reasonable, realistic, manageable, and fun. Plus, I get to practice patience and I spend time reminding myself that this journey wouldn’t be more important if it were going faster. Going slowly is just as important.
3-Because coaching is such a good fit for me, I feel very inspired and confident, am full of good ideas, make decisions pretty easily, and love making time for my business.
It has been a struggle to juggle all of the things I want and need to do. It has been a struggle to learn all of the technological things that come with starting an online service-based business. It has been a struggle to be continually and consistently accountable to myself since I’m my own boss.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I started my life coaching practice in 2018. My specialty is working with military wives who are ready to improve the experience that they are having during deployments. I host the Simply Resilient podcast and do one on one coaching and group coaching, mostly over Zoom but some in person. I am a certified life coach through The Life Coach School.
My goal is to reach as many military wives as possible with my podcast. The power of my podcast and coaching is feeling the truth that nothing in our life’s circumstances needs to change in order to change the way we are feeling and experiencing our lives. I’m known for being a deployment coach, but spending very little time talking about military life.
I believe that there are so many amazing resources out there for the day to day problems that military families face, but that what these women need is help from a brain expert who is intimately familiar with the problems military wives face but they want to talk about the deeper issues and the real solutions to those problems.
They already have enough military in their lives and they mostly know what they need to do in those areas. They need someone to help them stop exhausting and overwhelming themselves with their own thoughts and how to be way nicer to themselves. When they are able to do these things then they are in such a better place to face the problems and challenges that come up with military life.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
My advice would be to set big goals and go after dreams just because you want to, not because it will make you any more worthy or awesome. It’s so much more fun to go after your dreams and do the hard work of dream getting when you want to do it (no need to do it in order to feel better about yourself).
Also, as I mentioned earlier, learn to be patient and just keep going. Going slowly doesn’t make it less important. Achieving things quickly doesn’t make them more important. If you’re willing to take consistent small steps you’ll achieve so much more than if you take random huge steps.
Contact Info:
- Email: jessie@simplyresilient.net
- Website: http://www.simplyresilient.net
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/SimplyResilientLifeCoaching
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/SimplyResilientLifeCoaching
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-675453495
Image Credits
Laura Affleck Photography
