Janet Tanguay: Spitballs, Sweater Vests, & 4 Days in Banking

Join my Substack: https://bretttrainor.substack.com/

Episode Overview:

Janet Tanguay got spitballed by her own colleagues in a corporate training for going off script. She lasted four days in her next job. Now she helps people build the life they actually want, and she has the most practical approach to it I've come across.

Janet Tanguay is a serial entrepreneur who has run a record label and an art business, and now runs Hammock Way of Life, helping people and companies get clear on what they actually want through vision boarding. She's the author of Hammock Way of Life: Leaping Toward Joy, part memoir and part business book, available in print and audio.

GUEST LINKS

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jazzyjan/

https://hammockwayoflife.com/

In this episode:

• The spitball training, and the ten years she stayed anyway
• Four days in banking and the sweater vest that ended it
• The boss who told her at a book signing that she almost made him quit
• Why the questions stop after enough years inside
• Finding the work by accident at a chamber of commerce
• The five whys, and why the fifth one is the real answer
• Three values as the filter for everything you say no to
• How to actually build a board, and the words to keep off it
• What she does with people who have four ideas at once
• Vision boarding inside companies, and what it turns up

THE METHOD, ASSEMBLED

Janet laid this out across the whole conversation. Here it is in one place.

1. Run the five whys. Start with one question. "Why do I want to leave?" Answer it, then ask why again, five times. The fifth answer is usually the real one.

2. Pick three values. Start with a list of ten, cut to five, then three. These become your North Star. When something lands in front of you, you check it against the three, and that's how you say no to things that look good but aren't yours.

3. Build the board around one center. Put the single most important thing in the middle. Cluster everything else around it. If you scatter it, your dreams come out scattered.

4. Get specific. Numbers, timelines, how many people, how much money. "I want to be rich" isn't a goal, it's a mood.

5. Watch your words. Nothing with a double meaning. Janet's examples: "nailed it," "crushed it," "a family affair." These things manifest in ways you didn't intend. She put a Buddha in the center of a board because she wanted more yoga and more stillness, and ended up sent to China to the largest Buddha temple in the country.

6. If you have four ideas, make four boards. Then talk through each one out loud with somebody. The one where your eyes light up is the one. Janet says it happens every time.

7. Take the free step. Not the big step. The free one. Go to the open house. Test drive the car. Send one email. She almost didn't test drive a car because she assumed she couldn't afford it, then drove it off the lot.

8. For a business, use the business model canvas as the board. Revenue streams, resources, partners, value proposition. Same exercise, different frame.

Questions or guest ideas? bt@bretttrainor.com

TIMESTAMPS

Estimated from the transcript. Spot-check and shift for cold open and sting.

• 00:00 — Welcome, and where the company name came from
• 01:35 — The spitball training
• 02:33 — Ten years in anyway, then done
• 03:11 — Four days in banking
• 03:29 — Day two: all the ways you could be killed on the job
• 03:46 — The sweater vest, in the parking lot, at ninety nine degrees
• 04:33 — The old boss who showed up at her book signing
• 04:50 — The four column form nobody could explain
• 05:30 — What happens when you stop asking why
• 06:36 — No plan, and what came next
• 06:48 — The chamber of commerce, and finding the work by accident
• 07:47 — Why lenders squash dreams, and why she wanted a room where they couldn't
• 08:11 — Your life experience qualifies you for more than you think
• 08:46 — The ski instructor is only a few lessons ahead
• 09:26 — Getting past the fear of judgment
• 11:14 — Breaking the rut while you're still in it
• 12:05 — The book, and what's in it
• 15:47 — The five whys
• 16:00 — Three values, and how to get to them
• 16:30 — Using the three to say no
• 18:00 — Asking other people how they see you
• 19:25 — Clearing the old stuff out
• 19:54 — Cutting the negative people, and how easy it turned out to be
• 20:55 — The gossip in the office, and the woman who ended it with one sentence
• 22:34 — Asking for a sign, and the fish sign
• 23:50 — Why she asked for eagles
• 25:35 — How to actually build a board
• 26:43