From Wall Street to Wellness: Jasmine Bilali's Journey to Holistic Life Coaching

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Now joining no Wrong Choices is the holistic life and wellness coach and former finance executive, jasmine Balali, whose career journey is a unique and wonderful example of the art of the pivot Jasmine, thank you so much for joining us.

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Hi Larry, Thank you for having me here today.

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Of course and you know, jasmine, as we like to do with all of our guests, can you set the stage for us?

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Can you sort of lead us into who you are and what you do and in some ways describe what a holistic life and wellness coach is?

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Of course, I'm a holistic life and wellness coach and what that means is that I help people refine and optimize their minds, bodies and spirits so they can get I guess you could say unstuck from where they're standing and go on to create the lives that they want and think about and dream about and ultimately, to thrive.

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Hey Jasmine, this is Larry Shea.

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Really nice to meet you.

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Thanks for joining us.

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I think Samuels just described that it was the art of the pivot.

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So talk about the early stages, the very beginnings, because I know you had a career and you were on one path and then you shifted to another.

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But let's go back to when you were younger.

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I know you were in finance.

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Is that what you always wanted to do, or did this present itself on your journey?

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Talk to me about what you dreamed about when you were a kid.

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So I'll answer that going backwards.

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When I was a kid, I had lots of different interests and I was interested in everything.

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I was interested in the arts, I was interested in physical activity, sports, and I liked writing and drawing and, most of all, I loved people.

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I loved all different kinds of people and I was the little kid in the neighborhood who went and knocked on everybody's door and said hi and was kind of the family PR person.

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So it wasn't like I was five years old and I thought, oh well, I'm going to have a career in finance.

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Actually, I didn't know what I was going to do for a very long time because I dabbled in a lot of different things.

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So what was that upbringing like then for you?

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So I mean, obviously, as you said, you were the family PR person.

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So what were your parents like that?

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They were so supportive of you being going door to door knocking and saying hello, I'm Jasmine Balali.

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How are you?

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My family experience was rather unique in that my parents were both refugees from communism in Albania and the both of them separately escaped from there.

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They had very treacherous escapes and they each spent separately at least 10 years in various refugee camps and whatnot.

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And then they arrived to Manhattan's Lower East Side the typical immigrant story Typical story.

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right typical immigrant story.

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Exactly when they met.

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And then they married and they thought that it would be better to raise a family across the river in New Jersey where there was green grass and all of that and good public schools and everything.

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So they moved to Hackensack, which is where I was born.

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But I was the first grandchild born on each side of my parents' families, so I had very much of a first generation upbringing in the suburbs.

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Oddly enough, Jasmine, I live in Hackensack, New Jersey.

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Oh, that is so funny Really.

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So maybe this interview was meant to be yeah.

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And you're also the son of immigrants, if I have that correct.

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I am also a child of immigrants.

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Obviously I'm a first generation immigrant myself, or immigrant kid right.

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So it's a little bit different.

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You're familiar with it then.

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It's kind of a bridge experience right.

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We were the only immigrant family in our little neighborhood so we had a very modest upbringing and also that made it very motivating.

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At the same time we had a wonderful neighborhood and the neighbors were lovely, but it also made it very motivating.

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You're kind of the first people that are there, that are foreigners in our little neighborhood.

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So tell me a little bit about the upbringing then for you, because I mean, I'll tell you that you and I probably had a very similar kind of upbringing.

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My family was not the first foreign family in our neighborhood, we were the second.

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But I can understand what you're saying because I was one of very few immigrants in my elementary school.

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Going all the way through high school, I don't think I saw that many kids of other colors, and definitely not many who were like me in my elementary school until much later on, although I would say that my upbringing was diverse in that sense right, I would not say it wasn't diverse.

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But at the same time I understand what you're saying is that that kind of upbringing does become a great motivator for you.

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How was your family influencing you to say, how do they push you to say now it's upon you to kind of build a life here in America and fulfill some of our dreams?

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So I would say that very much in those situations and you're probably aware of that your parents are also living vicariously through the children.

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And then there's a lot of motivation to accomplish and also there's an emphasis on safety and security, right?

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So, as I was exploring my world and playing around with all of the things that I love to do, which was many of them were things like, as I mentioned, they were creative pursuits like drawing and writing and things like that probably not the most, you know, if you fast forward into the future, probably not the things that would have created the most security.

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Right, had the likelihood of creating the most security, but at the same time, because I was motivated, I actually sold.

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I sold Girl Scout cookies, I sold holiday cards door to door In the spring, I sold flower seed plantings and things like that.

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So I had my own little business going on in grade school.

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When I think back and recall that, so I had that aspect of me and I really kind of hang it all up on the people component, I think I just I loved meeting new people, so that that is something that followed me through my school years and then later on we'll get to it to my finance career.

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Yeah, we're a product of our experiences, right?

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So it sounds like you had a little bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, going through your neighborhood there and selling things and doing things like that.

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Were you a good student?

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Because you talk about the arts, but obviously you're smart and you started your own business, etc.

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Was that something that you focused on?

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Were you naturally bright?

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Did you get good grades?

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How did that work?

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My parents' educations were abbreviated because of the circumstances of the war that they went through, and there was always a big emphasis on education in my household.

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But in addition to that, I loved school and I loved learning new things and I was a very good student, and I think part of it was that I liked a lot of different subjects.

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So I would be an art class and there would be people in my art class who really didn't like the academic work but loved the art classes or the creative pursuits, and then, vice versa, there would be people in my academic classes who weren't as creative.

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So it was difficult for me to really narrow down where I was going to make my career.

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So did that allow you to kind of see both things equally, to kind of tap into your artistic brain and tap into your motivation for higher education and things of that nature.

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It allowed you some balance there.

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I felt like my left brain and my right brain were equally capable.

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So it absolutely did.

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It allowed me balance and also I was fairly intuitive, so I felt like that helped me with my creativity.

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Creativity can be seen in different places.

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It's not just putting a painting together or writing something.

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It's how you approach your business or how you cultivate your business.

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So I feel like that was a trait that really helped me.

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I was going to ask were you also musical?

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How did you express that creativity?

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So it's interesting.

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I did love music and for a few years I played the violin, but my expression really went through drawing, writing short stories and also poetry.

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I was writing poetry in grade school.

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I won an award in grade school for one of the best poems.

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They did a little collection of works by the kids in the grade school.

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I wrote a little bit in college that was published of poetry.

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I've had this conversation with my other friends and obviously my other friends growing up, other immigrant kids like myself, other Indian kids like myself.

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The one thing that first generation kids always seem to come up with is that their parents normally want them to go into what I call the big four careers law, medicine, business or engineering.

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So usually, or engineering, those are the big four and usually that's how they really really put that.

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I won't say pressure, but they try to really influence you when you go to college.

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Now, hearing your story growing up, it's not that dissimilar from my own, where, very creative, I was a musician growing up.

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I was something of a small musician growing up and then obviously you were very much involved with the arts.

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So this notion of you wanted to go into business.

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I'm wondering how influential your parents were to say you should go into a career path with a great deal of stability.

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Well, that was really the subtle messaging all along.

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I remember I was in seventh grade and when they had an open house and my parents went in, my English teacher I believe it was my English teacher at the time and my homeroom he was both my English teacher and my homeroom teacher and he said to my parents she should really pursue a writing career.

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And I remember my mother, being their eyes probably bugged out of their heads.

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Being scared by that, because she was the oldest of eight and she had several younger siblings that were very much interested in the arts and it was very challenging for them to really get to a place of stability, so she was afraid of seeing that again.

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She didn't tell me until much afterwards.

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You know there was a subtle messaging that if you were going to go to college and you were going to pay for it, that it should take you somewhere where you felt that you were going to be able to be safe and stable and secure.

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So it wasn't.

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It wasn't overt or anything that they were constantly lecturing about.

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So that was good, but it there was definitely a subtle messaging there.

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It was definitely a nudge Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, so they're steering you in this direction.

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You get to college, ultimately, and is there an epiphany moment where you actively Pursuing trying to figure out what you wanted to do, where we just, hey, I'm in college and see what, see where life takes me?

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so I definitely feel that on my Career trajectory was not a straight line and I didn't know exactly where I was going.

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I was looking to see where it took me.

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But I did take on a business major, but at the same time I had a minor in French and then somewhat in psychology.

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I was really trying to get the best of both, you know, have the business major but also keep my other interests going.

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And you know, the business major was interesting.

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There are some interesting courses but I felt as if I needed the other stuff to really keep me inspired.

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And so I I had a minor in French and it developed into a major because I began to love it so much that I even I went on a semester abroad and Studied in France and I at one point I was even wondering if whether I should go on and pursue a Masters in French, but again it came into the continuing the education, until finally I had an epiphany and I said you know what?

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For now this is pretty good.

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I was enjoying it, having a good time, doing well, and I thought the business major makes me capable of going in a lot of different directions.

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Absolutely.

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I really.

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You know, every arena is has business going on.

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So I felt that it was the broadest way to go.

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And Then I was able to, as long as I kept juggling my other interests enough to keep me satisfied, because I Would not have been Happy with just the business courses.

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I needed to have all of those other things going on at the same time.

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So as long as I was doing that, I was happy and I thought well, as I get closer to the end of this four years, I'll probably have some more clarity.

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So you know, jasmine, I'm curious, before we take the leap into the world of finance, in terms of what you're doing now and what you ultimately got to In college, or by this point, had you begun Exploring meditation and things of like that, things like that, yet, or did that come later on?

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No, unfortunately I did not, and I can share a good story with you plays.

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Junior year I was living off campus and our apartment was upstairs and the upstairs window was very close to the house next door and it looked in into their living room.

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And there must have been they weren't students, maybe they were grad students there must have been a Buddhist group that would meet there, because they would come in once or twice a week with their robes and they would all sit in the living room and I would look out the window and I remember once my roommate, jackie, came over and said what are you looking at?

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And I said Look at this.

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I said what do you think they're doing?

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And and she said well, I don't know that we thought.

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I said they look like Buddhists and she said well, what would Buddhists be doing here?

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And and because you know, when I think back and I think about where my life went and where my interests went, I regret that I never stopped anyone then and asked what they were doing, but I didn't want anyone to know that we were peeping in right but no, I didn't you know, and Meditation wasn't talked about as much, and I didn't do it.

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then I didn't begin meditating until I was Probably I was living in Manhattan, I was in my later 20s already.

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I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you this question which school did you go to?

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I went to Rutgers College in New Brunswick.

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Okay, all right.

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So you spent all your time in Jersey.

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Look at you.

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Yes so you've now spent your time at Rutgers and You're going into the business world.

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So let's say, was your first foray into the business world through an internship or did you just manage to Sign on, to sign on to a firm?

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I Initially started looking for opportunities in the advertising industry because I thought that advertising would be the best mix for both my creative and and organizational and strategic skills and all of that and for some reason they just there weren't as many opportunities.

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So many of the opportunities that we're seeing were coming from the financial services sector and that really pushed me in that direction and I was qualified for them.

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But it wasn't my number one choice.

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But as I learned more about it, it seemed very exciting Wall Street, park Avenue, the markets, lots of action.

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I liked action.

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It seemed like a lot of fun I was Waiting to.

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I just couldn't wait to move to Manhattan because I didn't mention that when I was growing up in Hackensack, new Jersey.

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From the hill in Hackensack you can see the Manhattan skyline.

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Later in the you know exactly what you're saying.

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I live on the hill, yeah, so I grew up with that as the backdrop there and I remember when I was in art class in middle school and high school, I would often draw the skyline.

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You know, I even I even have one of those drawings still of the skyline and I was just mesmerized by it.

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And, as I had mentioned, my parents had moved to New Jersey from the Lower East side, but by this time some of my uncles had I come here and they had we're living in Brooklyn, so my father would drive us to visit them and I can still see myself when we'd be driving over the George Washington Bridge, and then there would be, and I'd be in the car and there was the view of the skyline on the right, and I was always mesmerized.

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By the age of three I Said to myself I'm going there, not I'm going there, and so it was just something that was always in my consciousness.

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And then I became older and I would draw the skyline, and then nothing against New Brunswick, new Jersey.

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But while I was living there for four years, it was always in my mind that I would move to Manhattan.

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And so Eventually that's what happened after college several of my friends and I, we all moved to Manhattan, and you know that's when the next chapter started.

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It's all right, you can.

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You can dump on.

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New Brunswick New.

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Jersey.

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There's not much of a skyline there, right?

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No?

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I can pretty much attest to that one.

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As a lot has a quote-unquote skyline.

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Not much, but there's something there.

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At least it's got a hill.

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Yes, yes, so let's, let's start this chapter.

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So you graduate college.

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You are now, I assume, living in Manhattan.

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You're in your young 20s, probably.

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You start your career in finance.

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What was that like?

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What did you do?

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What is finance is so vast, right, like it could be anything like.

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What exactly did you start doing in that field and did you enjoy it?

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So I Graduate, I'll go back a little bit.

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Yeah.

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I graduate from college and I don't have the job yet.

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So at this point, what?

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yeah, I'm sorry.

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What year are we talking about here?

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Oh, so we're talking about the 80s.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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So I don't have the job yet and I'm looking for a job and I'm I'm trying to get this job as quickly as I can, because I'm trying to avoid you know what Moving home.

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Right, right, right.

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So I'm trying to get this job and so I'm not really sure exactly what it is that I want to do.

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And an opportunity comes up at Chase Manhattan Bank In the accounting department.

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It was an entry-level position, it was on the professional staff.

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There was a lot of great exposure, great experience and all that, and after one year you were eligible for an internal transfer.

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And what did that open the doors to?

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an opportunity that I came across that felt Intriguing was in the commercial real estate construction lending department.

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Now, I knew nothing about about real estate or commercial real estate, but, tying back into the fact of that skyline, I Thought it was super interesting to be working somewhere where the bank was lending money on Projects that that, as we see today, have created this skyline, these big, tall buildings, and I thought and I appreciated the creativity of someone having had a vision that there would be some type of a building somewhere and then expanding on top of that vision and then basically Creating something that contributed to and re-engineered the skyline.

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So I thought, wow, this seems a heck of a lot more fun than accounting and it's something new that I could learn about.

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And I wound up interviewing and getting that opportunity and then transferring to the commercial real estate division, again in somewhat of an entry level opportunity, which taught me everything that I needed to know about the time, about commercial construction lending, and then I went to at night, I attended NYU's School of Real Estate Finance and took some courses in underwriting and all of that to get a you know, a better idea of what was going on and how to do it, and I was very happy there in that position and I wound up moving up and eventually becoming a vice president in that group until I felt like I needed a change, but never really thinking that that choice of that commercial real estate construction lending, entry-level opportunity was going to be something that actually would form the foundation for my entire career.

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Wow, yeah, and I certainly want to run through that opening that you just presented us with.

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But you know I find an interesting theme here of the, the young girl growing up in Hackensack looking at the New York City skyline and drawing pictures of the skyline and then moving towards the skyline now trying to build the skyline.

00:23:40.426 --> 00:23:49.761
You know the adventure of being in New York City in the 1980s like jumping off the career stuff for just a moment.

00:23:49.761 --> 00:23:56.741
What was that adventure like for you personally, away from the, the professional journey?

00:23:58.066 --> 00:23:59.107
It was fabulous.

00:23:59.107 --> 00:24:04.503
My first apartment was down at Union Square.

00:24:04.503 --> 00:24:08.537
Now, mind you, mind you, my parents had escaped this.

00:24:08.537 --> 00:24:24.770
In addition to escaping the situation in their own countries, they ran away from the Lower East Side, and you know, here I was running back to that's right, yeah, so that's interesting as well.

00:24:24.872 --> 00:24:35.038
But my first apartment was down at Union Square with two friends from college and it was fabulous.

00:24:35.038 --> 00:24:36.481
You know New York was.

00:24:36.481 --> 00:24:54.797
You know people say it was dangerous, but I felt it was extremely creative, I am, and exciting and there was a lot happening in fashion and music and all of that and it from it was a wonderful experience for me.

00:24:55.961 --> 00:24:59.029
I have to ask you about becoming the vice president.

00:24:59.029 --> 00:25:01.117
You were taking classes.

00:25:01.117 --> 00:25:05.000
You were training because you didn't know much about underwriting and lending and things of that nature.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:13.897
Do you think you would have been promoted and gotten the opportunities that you that you received had you not been training along the way and taking those classes?

00:25:15.540 --> 00:25:26.323
No, I don't, I think, and there are a few reasons, and I'm glad that you asked that because it also ties into something else which is a little bit tangential.

00:25:26.323 --> 00:25:27.666
But we'll get there.

00:25:27.666 --> 00:25:28.730
I think.

00:25:29.353 --> 00:25:47.890
Number one it gave me a more thorough understanding of what I was doing and it allowed me to take my position to the next level and it also showed my senior colleagues that I was motivated and interested in learning.

00:25:47.890 --> 00:25:54.756
But it by understanding all of that, by taking the extra courses, it helped me in learning more.

00:25:54.756 --> 00:26:13.511
So I don't think that that would have happened, but interestingly I've always been taking lots of courses while I've been living in New York, and lots of different things, and in the same way while I was in banking.

00:26:13.511 --> 00:26:27.123
We'll get there but I began taking lots of courses in wellness and empowerment modalities and mindset techniques and all of that.

00:26:27.123 --> 00:26:40.082
So while I was still in finance, I was already taking courses in the not unknowingly, in the things that would be taking me to my next place.

00:26:40.301 --> 00:26:46.912
Sure, this is where you're planting those seeds and and taking care of the garden, and you didn't know you.

00:26:46.912 --> 00:26:48.979
You were gonna have a big part of this later on in your life.

00:26:50.103 --> 00:27:17.807
No, and and what I think that is, which I've heard from different teachers and I fully embrace now looking back, is that it's so important to you know, while you're doing your job and doing all of your, all of your obligations and everything that you need to do, also continue learning about the things that I'd say hit your radar.

00:27:17.807 --> 00:27:23.732
You know where is your intuition pulling you, what type of things are catching your attention.

00:27:23.732 --> 00:27:32.722
You know, have you, have you twice or three times stopped and thought about that meditation class you saw advertised?

00:27:32.722 --> 00:27:35.894
Or the yoga class or you know whatever it was?

00:27:35.894 --> 00:27:40.655
I did training and positive psychology and integrative hypnosis and things like this.

00:27:41.337 --> 00:27:55.392
But you know where is your attention going, because I feel like we do have intuitive ability that we're really not aware of and we have this internal radar that, if we really let it, it leads us in the right directions.

00:27:55.392 --> 00:28:24.259
And I've seen this in my own life where I've taken courses and things that later on, when I've been in it, I haven't realized as much how important it was and then later on I've realized that it was really great that I followed my inclination to do whatever it was so, with that in mind, let's jump ahead to the role that set you up for what you're doing today so I eventually was picked up by the private bank, which was perfect for me.

00:28:26.424 --> 00:28:26.967
It was perfect.

00:28:26.967 --> 00:28:28.732
It was what I wanted and I was.

00:28:28.732 --> 00:28:31.624
I couldn't have been more excited at the time.

00:28:31.624 --> 00:28:35.156
Our offices were over at 30 Rockefeller Center very nice.

00:28:35.458 --> 00:28:36.359
I used to work there.

00:28:36.359 --> 00:28:41.479
It was very fun going there every day beautiful lobby.

00:28:41.619 --> 00:28:42.923
You know I was still really young.

00:28:42.923 --> 00:28:44.428
It was great it was.

00:28:44.428 --> 00:28:48.419
It was, it was wonderful.

00:28:48.419 --> 00:28:51.730
So after my nine months there, then I went through.

00:28:51.730 --> 00:29:05.008
There was a program where you went through another few months of what they called rotations, a very formal process, and then at the end of your rotations you were matched up with almost like the med school thing.

00:29:05.008 --> 00:29:31.381
At the end of your rotations you were matched up with one of the areas and it could have either been entrepreneurs, which is where I wanted to be, or it would have been corporate executives, where I did not want to be, or it was going to be law firms, so different private bankers targeted different markets.

00:29:31.381 --> 00:29:45.446
And you know I knew the corporate executives you know would be really easy to work with and all of that because they're great at following instructions and getting advice and being strategic and all of that.

00:29:45.446 --> 00:29:55.670
But I didn't feel it would be as interesting as entrepreneurs and then nothing against lawyers, but I just felt that it was.

00:29:55.930 --> 00:29:59.321
I felt that it was too lawyers yeah poor lawyers.

00:29:59.824 --> 00:30:06.469
I felt, yeah, no offense to any lawyers who may be listening, but I felt that it was too narrow.

00:30:06.469 --> 00:30:09.887
So I was hoping that I would match up in the entrepreneurs group and I did.

00:30:10.549 --> 00:30:28.247
Take us through that next phase, sort of towards the pinnacle of your business career and where that wound up, and, and try to you know, give us a feel for when some of these other life interests and passions work their way in.

00:30:30.351 --> 00:30:47.884
So, as I mentioned, I was taking lots of classes all the time, really dabbling, you know, committed to my career but trying to also feed that other side of me every once in a while, and at the same time I was.

00:30:47.884 --> 00:30:54.910
I now, by this time, begun taking meditation and I become a daily meditator.

00:30:54.910 --> 00:31:26.755
So I was meditating every day and feeling some shifts in my life because, as they say, meditation changes lives, yoga changes lives, these mindfulness practices after a certain amount of time they really do get you beginning to look at life differently, just become more present, take more time and think about the purpose behind everything that you're doing.

00:31:26.755 --> 00:31:41.064
And so I was taking, taking yoga classes, taking meditation classes, getting more into, kind of the realm of wellness, and all this little by little.

00:31:41.064 --> 00:31:43.326
The way it happens is usually one door.

00:31:43.326 --> 00:31:47.867
You open one door first it was the meditation and then you kind of go through that.

00:31:48.549 --> 00:31:49.631
Did you start to do that?

00:31:49.631 --> 00:31:54.374
Because the financial stuff was stressful and you needed this as an outlet.

00:31:55.194 --> 00:31:55.775
Absolutely.

00:31:55.775 --> 00:32:02.098
As a corporate executive I had to balance my own health and well being.

00:32:02.098 --> 00:32:14.107
I worked pretty much for my entire career in a fast paced, demanding, stressful arena that I that I loved.

00:32:14.107 --> 00:32:15.671
I really enjoyed it.

00:32:15.671 --> 00:32:27.363
But I became aware really most of it through watching some of my colleagues not feeling well, getting sick, taking pills.

00:32:27.363 --> 00:32:34.329
I had always been very healthy and rather health conscious, not crazy health conscious, but definitely health conscious.

00:32:34.329 --> 00:32:40.757
It made it apparent to me that our mind, body and spirit are one.

00:32:40.757 --> 00:32:50.707
And then, combined with the meditation I began, I began looking at my life differently and applying a more holistic view to myself.

00:32:50.707 --> 00:32:57.712
And because of the stress I thought, well, you know, I should be taking care of myself.

00:32:57.712 --> 00:33:15.727
And I started getting educated in natural healing and I met a Japanese healer who does acupuncture and herbs and anytime I didn't feel well, I began treating it naturally with him.

00:33:15.727 --> 00:33:19.309
And I haven't taken even an aspirin in over 20 years.

00:33:20.751 --> 00:33:35.309
Yeah, so so I saw this empowerment from the mindfulness and from the natural healing that I started to feel like I wish that everybody knew about or could have an appreciation for.

00:33:35.309 --> 00:33:47.519
And, as I mentioned, I was taking classes along the way and after a while, the creative classes started to morph into some of these wellness type things.

00:33:47.519 --> 00:34:02.070
I took a six month program and positive psychology and I was very intrigued by the fact that the research shows that wealth does not necessarily correlate with happiness, happiness.

00:34:02.070 --> 00:34:13.146
But the research did show that health, authenticity and purpose had a direct correlation with our well being.

00:34:13.146 --> 00:34:22.329
Yeah, and I thought, yeah, wow, I scratched my head and I thought about the fact that I was working with such wealthy clients.

00:34:22.329 --> 00:34:54.907
I think I mentioned that several of them were billionaires and I came to know them very well over the years because the years started adding up, and I became intrigued because I saw that the research was right, that the wealth did not correlate with happiness, and I was always the type of person who wanted to get the most out of my experience and I thought, well, I want to get the most out of this life experience.

00:34:55.028 --> 00:34:56.329
So what is really important here?

00:34:56.329 --> 00:35:15.226
What is really the core of what's really important and I went back to the health, authenticity and purpose and I think it led me to slowly start viewing my life in a different way or reviewing it in a different way.

00:35:15.226 --> 00:35:18.269
And I also traveled a lot for pleasure.

00:35:18.269 --> 00:35:53.286
I'm a big traveler, I love travel and I would travel globally and I felt when I was traveling I often came across healers and then down in Mexico and Peru and in Jordan, indigenous healers that I was very intrigued by and I would ask them lots of questions and learn about their philosophies and what they did and it struck a chord with me.

00:35:53.286 --> 00:36:14.309
So this is really how it all started and until it became that I was living this Monday through Friday corporate life and then Friday evening through Sunday evening I had all these other things going on.

00:36:15.731 --> 00:36:18.034
It's interesting as you lay all that out.

00:36:18.034 --> 00:36:42.519
Part of me is wondering if this journey created sort of a in some ways, a confusing juxtaposition of circumstances, meaning you started to do all of these mindfulness type things to create, I imagine, an ability to cope with a lot of the stresses that you were dealing with on the other side.

00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:57.329
And as you discover those things and explored that world, did it make it easier to do your other job and did it create a set of circumstances where you can you consider doing that job longer because it became more manageable?

00:37:00.072 --> 00:37:01.353
Probably a little bit of both.

00:37:01.353 --> 00:37:20.208
It definitely made it easier to do the job and I feel like I was able to do it in a better way than it had I not had that exposure, but maybe it kept me there longer.

00:37:20.208 --> 00:37:21.509
I don't know.

00:37:21.528 --> 00:37:29.023
I don't think so, okay but just sort of struck me as we were talking, if it created any confusion along the way.

00:37:30.710 --> 00:37:32.514
It definitely.

00:37:32.514 --> 00:37:38.210
I'd say it created a broader view of things.

00:37:38.230 --> 00:37:38.309
Yeah.

00:37:41.132 --> 00:38:01.289
I think it was helpful for me with my clients, because often they would be going through a lot of different things and I feel like my background in those other areas would sometimes leave me with tidbits that I could share with them, and it was helpful to them as well.

00:38:02.813 --> 00:38:07.628
So Jasmine, the length of your life in the financial world.

00:38:07.628 --> 00:38:08.289
How long was that?

00:38:09.213 --> 00:38:12.266
It was 30 years Total.

00:38:13.554 --> 00:38:15.322
So you were in finance for 30 years.

00:38:15.322 --> 00:38:20.760
So at what point did you finally say to yourself okay, it's time for a change.

00:38:20.760 --> 00:38:22.603
I'm done with this.

00:38:22.603 --> 00:38:23.844
I'm through with this chapter.

00:38:23.844 --> 00:38:25.268
Let's move on to the next chapter.

00:38:28.092 --> 00:38:28.692
So it was interesting.

00:38:28.692 --> 00:38:42.945
The entire thing was very organic and all of a sudden I started feeling like this was all great, but I'm a very privileged kind of board.

00:38:43.264 --> 00:38:43.925
What does that mean?

00:38:43.925 --> 00:38:44.586
What does that mean?

00:38:45.329 --> 00:38:45.791
It's fabulous.

00:38:45.791 --> 00:38:47.773
It's like a movie set.

00:38:47.773 --> 00:38:54.983
It's a glamorous setting on Park Avenue with glamorous clients.

00:38:54.983 --> 00:38:57.766
But been there, done that right.

00:38:58.530 --> 00:39:04.210
I've been doing this and I really feel like I'd like to do something new, which I think a lot of people feel.

00:39:04.210 --> 00:39:08.313
I think everyone felt this way.

00:39:08.313 --> 00:39:30.329
I really would like to do something new, but that's just not feasible because, as we all know, our society pretty much rewards us financially to stay the same right, so we're not financially incented to move around, because each time we do that we're taking a bit of a risk.

00:39:30.329 --> 00:39:49.329
So, for the most part, I think, if we're in a good circumstance which I was and it was by no means horrible, it was good but I just felt like I would like to have a different experience.

00:39:49.329 --> 00:40:02.786
I've been working at this since July 5th, after my college graduation, and I haven't taken any time off.

00:40:03.329 --> 00:40:24.920
I was one of these people who didn't have any time off between jobs and didn't have any circumstances where any companies closed down or downsized me, so I went straight from each position to the other and I just thought, hmm, am I going to?

00:40:24.920 --> 00:40:32.646
Maybe I should just keep at this, because, gee, am I ungrateful or what has happened to me?

00:40:32.646 --> 00:40:38.329
This life was my dream, and why am I not feeling like it's fulfilling me right now?

00:40:38.329 --> 00:40:50.166
You know, maybe I've become ungrateful, or maybe something's wrong with the way I'm thinking, or you know, how could I think of doing something so extreme?

00:40:50.166 --> 00:40:53.097
And then what would I do?

00:40:53.097 --> 00:40:55.813
What is it that I'd like to do?

00:40:55.813 --> 00:41:01.224
That would be different, because I surely want to be doing something because of too much energy.

00:41:03.954 --> 00:41:08.965
And so then what happened was I started meditating just on that.

00:41:08.965 --> 00:41:33.766
If I continue along this route when I'm in my last days, will I regret that I decided to live safely rather than take a leap, or will I feel like happy with the decisions that I've made, because one of my things in life is that I never want to have any regrets?

00:41:35.271 --> 00:41:45.931
Jasmine, I'm just so curious, like right at this moment, was there any fear or trepidation of saying goodbye to something that was so familiar to you that you were so successful at it?

00:41:45.931 --> 00:41:51.983
Sounds like yeah, it sounds like you were more just interested in the challenge of personal growth, etc.

00:41:51.983 --> 00:42:01.347
But ultimately, I think all of us have some sort of fear that comes up when we're about to leave something that we've known for 30 years, like you're talking about.

00:42:02.570 --> 00:42:03.271
Absolutely.

00:42:03.271 --> 00:42:32.541
I was scared to death, but the issue was that this thought kept creeping up and by now I had done enough studies in intuition and mindfulness that I knew that when things keep coming back to us they should be paid a little bit of attention to, and I was trying desperately to ignore it.

00:42:32.541 --> 00:43:01.407
So, as I was saying, I started doing these meditations and I would sit down, come home and sit down and try to meditate on how I would feel in my last days, as morbid as it sounds, and if I would have any regrets, and secretly I was wishing that the answer would come back as no stay there, that was the easy one.

00:43:01.728 --> 00:43:03.231
You won't have any regrets.

00:43:03.231 --> 00:43:07.918
But I kept getting that nagging feeling.

00:43:07.918 --> 00:43:10.702
So I felt that I had to listen to it.

00:43:10.702 --> 00:43:55.858
But even with that, I was ruminating over this and thinking about the fear and the fact that I wasn't really sure what I was, what it was, that I was seeking, that I would do, but trying to feel respectful of the fact that I was having this feeling and I was going back and forth in my mind and back and forth, and I would walk to work and back each day and often on my walk to work I'd be thinking about it and I'd say you should be feeling more excited right now, you really should.

00:43:56.318 --> 00:44:09.275
And then by the time I went in and I loved my clients, I just I loved my clients and I loved working where I was and the action and just everything.

00:44:09.275 --> 00:44:25.139
But on the way back I would walk back and I would say it would be the other side of my show, the other shoulder, would say well, you should be feeling more excited, right, you shouldn't have this feeling.

00:44:25.139 --> 00:44:31.494
And it was back and forth each day and back and forth each day.

00:44:31.494 --> 00:44:57.681
And then at night I'd go to bed and I think, well, I don't know what I would do, really, and and I had read some wisdom that said that many times we try to think ourselves out of something and that answer will not come, because what we need to do is actually just live it.

00:44:57.900 --> 00:44:58.141
Yeah.

00:44:59.023 --> 00:45:00.447
In order for the answer to come.

00:45:00.447 --> 00:45:09.434
And I was aware of that and I kept thinking, and then I kept knowing that I was probably not going to be able to think my way through it.

00:45:09.434 --> 00:45:12.403
And then, you know, I was.

00:45:12.403 --> 00:45:24.213
I was going back and forth on this and I shared this with my mother, who one day said to me you're going to make yourself sick just thinking about this.

00:45:24.213 --> 00:45:38.123
We came here traumatized, not speaking any English, knowing no one here, not having any money, you know, in completely horrible circumstances.

00:45:38.123 --> 00:45:41.492
And it all worked out.

00:45:41.492 --> 00:45:48.603
I don't think you're going to starve if you decide to make a change.

00:45:49.050 --> 00:46:12.141
You know, in many ways I felt that that was a catalyst for my turning point, probably on two levels One, just because it was it was true, and two, just because it was my parent, that that background and it somehow liberated me in some way.

00:46:12.141 --> 00:46:16.072
But I still couldn't imagine doing it.

00:46:16.072 --> 00:46:37.719
But what I did get to is that I decided that well, since I was feeling this way and I had to be respectful of how I was feeling, otherwise, you know what a hypocrite I was, taking all these classes and doing all these things, and you know, in the meantime I'd be giving close friends and family advice.

00:46:37.719 --> 00:46:45.815
They would call me for things, and I had a little bit of a reputation for giving good advice and kind of well unwell being and all of that.

00:46:45.815 --> 00:46:48.125
And then I thought what a hypocrite I am.

00:46:48.125 --> 00:46:53.420
You know, if I can't even walk my talk, you know how embarrassing.

00:46:54.623 --> 00:47:06.458
Then I thought, well, it's too big of a leap for me, just because of who I am and how I was raised, but I surely can, should be able to give myself a sabbatical.

00:47:06.458 --> 00:47:16.606
Now, the firm didn't give, didn't give sabbaticals, but I can certainly give myself a sabbatical year where I'm going to write.

00:47:16.606 --> 00:47:38.990
I had an idea of something I wanted to write and do a little bit of traveling and think about things, and at the end of the year I'm probably going to miss everything, and then I'll go to, I'll go to another firm, you know, maybe I'll have a loss of traction or whatever, but you know so what?

00:47:38.990 --> 00:47:41.916
I'll have gotten this thing out of my system.

00:47:41.916 --> 00:47:50.097
And that's where I was finally able to do it, because I had come.

00:47:50.097 --> 00:47:53.204
I had come to the decision that I was going to take a year off.

00:47:53.750 --> 00:47:55.934
So what does do it mean?

00:47:55.934 --> 00:47:56.876
How do?

00:47:56.876 --> 00:47:58.338
You start that practice.

00:47:58.338 --> 00:47:58.981
How do you?

00:47:58.981 --> 00:47:59.882
How do you start?

00:48:01.092 --> 00:48:01.793
Well, so what?

00:48:01.793 --> 00:48:02.996
What happened was?

00:48:02.996 --> 00:48:05.565
It evolved because I wasn't.

00:48:05.565 --> 00:48:16.195
I didn't know I was going to start the practice, but as soon as I resigned, a lot of people called me, because I met a lot of people over the years.

00:48:16.195 --> 00:48:17.418
And then people started.

00:48:17.418 --> 00:48:24.320
They called me personally, people started confiding in me about their situations and and all.

00:48:24.320 --> 00:48:54.253
And many days I find myself just after I resigned I'd be sitting on my couch and across from it is an armoire and on top of it are all these little certificates I've gathered along the way and of all different trainings and modalities that I've learned that I actually used on myself, and whatever it was that I used on myself and it worked was something that I'd consider recommending to other people.

00:48:54.574 --> 00:49:09.641
I remember these calls would get rather lengthy and one call was going on for close to two hours and I looked up and I looked at everything and it just hit me that I had a system that I could share with people.

00:49:09.641 --> 00:49:23.427
And then I thought, well, while I'm going to have this time off, it would be really fun to, instead of taking all of these random phone calls, hang a shingle and see what that feels like.

00:49:23.427 --> 00:49:34.652
So a little bit of play right, introducing some play into my life with all of this, and that was really the genesis of my practice.

00:49:34.652 --> 00:49:36.617
I created a business card.

00:49:36.617 --> 00:49:39.521
I then eventually put up a website.

00:49:39.521 --> 00:49:43.378
I was getting phone calls.

00:49:43.378 --> 00:49:45.947
You know it's interesting when you do something like that.

00:49:45.947 --> 00:49:47.494
That's very unexpected.

00:49:47.494 --> 00:50:04.798
People don't know how to react, and I was getting phone calls from people that more than you know, a couple that said oh my God, I heard you're no longer there, and then I would come back with no, I resigned.

00:50:05.059 --> 00:50:08.271
And they said oh, oh my God, you resigned.

00:50:08.271 --> 00:50:11.920
The next thing would be oh my God, what's wrong?

00:50:11.920 --> 00:50:12.862
Do you need help?

00:50:13.512 --> 00:50:14.295
Let me stop you right there.

00:50:14.295 --> 00:50:17.327
Why do you think it is totally out of tangent right?

00:50:17.327 --> 00:50:19.815
Why do you think it is everyone wonders?

00:50:19.815 --> 00:50:27.480
And because, not to dissimilar, I got the same question when I left my previous job, which was were you let go?

00:50:27.480 --> 00:50:29.211
And then, when I said no, no, I resigned.

00:50:29.211 --> 00:50:30.494
Why did you leave?

00:50:30.875 --> 00:50:37.143
Yes, why did you think everyone wonders why you would like consciously leave a job that you've had for a long time?

00:50:37.143 --> 00:50:47.021
I was at my previous job for nearly 15 years and when I left, most people, when I when I left of my own volition, most people were like why would you ever do such a thing?

00:50:47.021 --> 00:51:05.585
I've never understood that mentality of, I've never understood the thinking behind you know, sometimes it's just you just get out of that mindset of you have to go because we are socially conditioned with a lot of fear, and it's actually a big part of the work I do with my clients.

00:51:06.407 --> 00:51:35.324
We're socially conditioned with a lot of fear and when we've got a good, decent, satisfactory, even excellent situation, we are conditioned not to leave it because of this fear based conditioning that we have, and people assume because of this that there has to be something wrong.

00:51:35.324 --> 00:51:59.898
That wasn't necessarily the case I I was so taken aback by those responses that I wound up writing an article about my decision to resign, which ultimately hit me when I was down in Tulum, mexico, before it was so popular.

00:51:59.898 --> 00:52:16.181
I would go down there every winter and do a retreat and I happened to get friendly with a few Mayan healers down there, which taught me a lot about the indigenous philosophy, about life and healing and all of that.

00:52:16.181 --> 00:52:35.092
And I was in a yoga class in Tulum when it really hit me that I needed to walk my talk, and so I wrote an article about it, thinking that I could help other people who were possibly feeling the same way.

00:52:35.092 --> 00:52:40.887
And then the thing was how to get it published.

00:52:40.887 --> 00:52:48.052
And a few people I knew said you know, you'll, you'll never get this thing published because you're an unknown.

00:52:48.052 --> 00:52:55.721
You don't have any, you don't have a journalism degree, you don't have any experience and you know all the different fear based reasons, right?

00:52:56.382 --> 00:53:19.172
So I had this article sitting on my table for months and then I started pitching it to a few different places and I didn't hear back and my ego was wounded a little bit, but it's sat and then finally one day I decided, heck, there's got to be, you know, a magazine that would want to publish this piece.

00:53:20.213 --> 00:53:31.728
The title of it was a mountain pose that claimed my career and I made a short list of places that I would pitch for it and I put it to the side.

00:53:31.728 --> 00:53:40.012
And because my ego was bruised and at the time I was working on how to really get some traction, growing my practice.

00:53:40.012 --> 00:53:51.545
So I had started out first doing some library talks and then I had gotten some referrals and then I moved on to I did, corporate wellness talks.

00:53:51.545 --> 00:54:01.056
What happened was the pandemic came not too far after my resignation, so corporations were looking for people to speak to wellness on zoom.

00:54:01.056 --> 00:54:23.980
So I took advantage of that opportunity and I pitched them and had opportunities doing wellness talks and all of that, and I thought, well, this article is going to be helpful, but I'll play around with it when I have time and eventually that article was picked up by spirituality and health magazine.

00:54:24.842 --> 00:54:28.891
Oh wow, yeah, and I was super excited.

00:54:28.891 --> 00:54:39.842
And several months later the editor came back to me and said that it did well for them and he asked me if I would like to contribute more regularly.

00:54:39.842 --> 00:54:58.123
So that was a real coup for me and you know, by now I was getting a little bit of traction with the practice, and so I his name was Ben and I told him I'd be happy to contribute, and maybe not monthly, but I would do my by monthly.

00:54:58.123 --> 00:55:01.327

From Wall Street to Wellness: Jasmine Bilali's Journey to Holistic Life Coaching

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