Jenna Griffith, Purpose and Prosperity Expert is a renowned certified compassion coach, founder of the Service and Soul Group, accomplished author. As a former military spouse and current first responder wife, Jenna empowers other military and first responder spouses to find their purpose and embrace their individual skills and passions while still serving alongside their spouse.
Throughout her life, Jenna has faced numerous challenges, including being a teenage mother, caring for a micro-preemie baby, and aiding in her ex-husband’s recovery due to a helicopter accident in 2011. These experiences have shaped her into a caring and empathetic caretaker, motivating her to share her knowledge and experiences with others. Jenna’s passions lie in helping other women discover their true calling and equipping them with the necessary tools to embark on their own transformative journeys. With a strong background in health and healing, Jenna possesses a strong foundation in guiding others towards personal growth and fulfillment.
As a current first responder’s wife, Jenna firmly believes that military spouses have their own purpose beyond their role as a spouse, and she strives to connect with and support others in realizing their potential. With the help of her husband, Jenna makes strides to not only fight, but to put an end to human trafficking. Her passion for doing so stems from her husband’s integral role with Aerial Recovery, a disaster relief organization that also helps to recover and rescue the most vulnerable.Together they are quite the power couple!
Through her courses, workshops, and upcoming book, “Service and Soul,” she empowers individuals to overcome obstacles and embrace their passions. Jenna addresses the common question, “What do I do now? What is my purpose?” and encourages individuals not to feel guilty for pursuing their own dreams while also caring for their spouse.
As a dedicated advocate, Jenna provides a wealth of resources to help military spouses navigate their unique challenges. She aspires to save marriages and strengthen families by fostering personal growth and self-discovery.
Please tell us a little bit about your business – what is Service and Soul all about?
Service and Soul is a community for former, current, and widowed military and first responder wives. It is a place for us to come together to support one another and learn and grow from each other. As a former military spouse and current first responder spouse, it was something that I myself was looking for. There are many of us who feel alone or unworthy of creating something that’s just for us and I’m passionate about supporting women to find their purpose and lean into the things that excite them.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
After spending ten years as a military wife, I found myself having to start over after a divorce. I didn’t have a resume since I primarily stayed home with my children and made sure things ran as smoothly as possible in the home. What I wasn’t prepared for was having to move through a large life transition at thirty years old with two children to take care of. I felt afraid, overwhelmed, and lost as to where to even begin with that. Unfortunately, I’ve seen this a lot in the military community. When a soldier is getting out of the military, the wife is really excited because she is hopeful that there will be some sort of normalcy to the day to day. What can often happen is that the soldier starts to feel depressed because he or she no longer feels comradery or purpose which can lead to issues in the marriage.
When I remarried in 2021, my husband was presented an amazing opportunity as a first responder for Aerial Recovery, a disaster response group who also combats human trafficking. Entering into the community of first responders had me feeling nervous about being back in a space where my husband would be gone a lot. My concern was that I would once again feel like I had to put my goals and dreams aside. It was then that I realized that I wasn’t the only one who had felt like they were the shadow in their husbands career, so I wanted to create a space to inspire and encourage other women who felt the same. There is more than enough room in this world for women to find their purpose and calling while still serving their service member.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- Patience! It takes time to grow. As I mentioned before, it wasn’t until I started surrounding myself with people who had accomplished the things that I wanted to accomplish where I learned just how impatient I was about the process. Back when I started my personal training business, I remember having about a full 30 day period where I was really struggling with closing down the doors because it had not made the money that I had wanted it to in those six months. Looking back I now think about all of the entrepreneurs that I have met who have success due to the fact that they stayed the course and didn’t get impatient when things didn’t work out as quickly as they would want.
- Resilience. Enjoy the wins, lick the wounds. I surely cannot be the only one who has had a hard time with licking my wounds. This is something that has been so extremely hard for me to grow through because I just take things so seriously and so personally. I remember the very first client that ever fired me. It was so uncomfortable for me and I think I cried about it for a solid week because I wasn’t able to put myself in a mental space of looking at it as business instead of taking it so personally. Now, I have really grown into more of a business mindset, where I know that I need to celebrate the wounds as much as I celebrate the wins.
- Work/Life boundaries. Not having boundaries around your business is the fast track to burn out! And you know it’s harder than keeping up a slow steady momentum in your business? It’s digging yourself out of the burn out hole! I now have created great boundaries around my work schedule and that really did take me a while because of the judgment I would receive from my peers on the subject. Just like anything in life, what works for you, may not work for everyone else. And that’s okay!
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
My big hairy audacious dream from this company is to be able to provide mentorship, coaching, and self care retreats to the military and first responder wife community free of charge to them. Many of the wives have a hard time processing or justifying putting any sort of finances towards helping them grow personally or in the entrepreneurial space. By partnering with other amazing veteran non-profits, we will be able to provide the support for the wives alongside of the service member so that they can not only grow individually, but as a strong unit together.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
In this space there are limited organizations that are helping spouses specifically. My hope is to be able to partner with them so that we can cast a wide net to make the biggest impact on as many spouses as possible.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
- First would be not allowing myself to enjoy the process. It’s easy to get so stressed out and worried about the end result. When you do, you miss all of the fun you can have while in the process of creating something amazing. I truly believe that whether it’s a win or a loss, it is something that is meant to be learned from. This led to a quick burnout and very deep frustration for me. I had to take a step back and remind myself what I was trying to do and the difference I was making in the world.
- Another mistake was not hiring a team. This was another strong contributing factor in the fast track to burnout and frustration. In order to save money, I was doing everything from designing the social media posts to creating a website with funnels and courses. Doing this really sucked the life out of me quickly and made me no longer feel joy in what I was trying to accomplish. Since then, I’ve learned to hire out those tasks and only focus on the ones that allow me to create joy and flow. This has helped my business grow tremendously!
- Lastly, and one I’m not super proud of, is focusing on the money and not the mission. This really led me down a road of desperation for the paycheck which in turn affected how I showed up for my clients and community. Remembering it’s the other way around has allowed me to better show up for those who I am supposed to help.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
Instagram has been my jam. As I said before, once I hired that out, it was skyrocketing. The next thing that has been the most successful is my free resources website. I have free videos and PDFs on there that I offer to anyone once they subscribe to my site. It’s been a great way to grow my email list for promotions and announcements.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
Learning how to plan out and organize my day. I’m one of the many who struggle with ADHD so it can be very easy for me to get off of the path and get distracted. Earlier this year, I was a part of an incredible mastermind group called G-Force Entrepreneurs. One of the tools that we received is called a time tracker. It’s a spreadsheet that allows me to plug in things that are priorities for the month and each week as well as standing appointments that I have for each week. The great thing about this tool is that I’m able to give my assistant access to it so that she can help keep me focused on priorities that need to be done each day.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
My first business idea was coaching women through body image and weight loss trauma. Being the daughter of a beauty queen led me down a road of constant body dysmorphia and I wanted to not only help myself, but help other women in my generation with the same thing. Up until then I had been helping women with weight loss and strength training in my personal training business. After deciding to move into an online course coaching platform, I created courses to help guide women through the phases of their subconscious belief around the way they looked. Due to the fact that I was building and creating everything myself, I hit burnout very quickly and stepped away from that.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
I’m learning that everything can be solved and figured out. Too often I will find myself spiraling down a rabbit whole of frustration because I’m trying to essentially force a square peg through a round hole. I’m learning to take a step back and come back to it at a later time so that I don’t let it snowball the rest of my day in the negativity.
I’ve talked to so many other women who, like me, will find themselves avoiding or procrastinating on things that they need to do to move forward in their business because they have burned themselves out on something that they were trying to force something that wasn’t ready. By taking a step back, focusing on something else for a little while, you can come back to that thing and find that it moves with more ease than before.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
There are definitely things that I would do differently now that I’ve learned through my experiences. I would prioritize creating a strong team of diverse individuals with a range of skills and perspectives. As I shared earlier, I once had a business that was not so successful because I was trying to do all of the things completely on my own. A strong team can complement each other’s strengths, drive innovation, and overcome challenges more effectively. They can also be super valuable planning for and being able to grow and scale the business.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- Google business tools have been an integral part of my business because it allows for my team and I to have real time access to view and edit things that we are working on including interviews, blogs, website information, and scheduling.
- Another tool that I use which has been helpful for me is Canva. If you’re not using Canva, you’re missing out on millions of templates to market your business from business cards to websites. It is super easy to use and you can customize anything you desire.
- The third tool that is really helpful to my business is Instagram. Social media is a powerful tool for brand awareness and customer engagement. I’m able to show up authentically during different parts of the day and relate to the women who are in my target audience.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Plan out your day each morning. What needs to be completed that day? What can be outsourced to someone else? What can be pushed to another day so that it doesn’t distract me? Those are the questions that I ask myself each day so that I can stay focused and end my work day feeling like I’ve accomplished something to move me closer to success.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
I recommend listening to a podcast called “Broke to Woke” by two of my mentors, Britnie Turner and Jerremy Newsome. In this podcast they share stories of overcoming trails and set backs to their success. It has really helped me by knowing that I’m not the only one who struggles on the inconsistent entrepreneur journey. The show also has a great message behind it as both of the hosts help others become financially wealthy so that they can give back to the world.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I would start by hiring someone to help you with a business plan and strategy (around $150). Then I would hire someone to help with branding and logo design ($100), basic website ($300), social media marketing ads ($150), attend networking events ($100), basic business necessities such as business cards or web hosting ($100), books/online courses to grow your knowledge ($100). These are the best foundational places to start while still making some real action happen.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
Reminding myself of who I’m helping. I am constantly reminding myself of what is true. What’s true is that I have overcome obstacles that would’ve normally taken people out of the game. What is true is that I was put through these experiences in my life so that I could turn around and help someone else. What’s true is that I am leading with passion and heart as the focus because I know that what I have to offer is needed. When you focus on that, you can’t go wrong.
So many of us allow our limiting beliefs to sabotage us. I think a lot of that is because we see others online or on television and compare ourselves to their success. What we don’t see is all of the behind the scenes that they went through to get there. We don’t see the late nights, the tears, frustration, joy, etc. I believe that’s what’s caused a generation of instant fame-hood that has in turn made a lot of people feel like failures for not getting it done right the first try.
What is your favorite quote?
“You can only control your controllables”
I spent most of my young adult life, trying to constantly control how people perceived me, how people treated me, and how things in life worked out for me. When I heard this quote, it changed everything for me. I say it all the time to myself now, because not only has it allowed me grace in those areas of my life, it also reminds me that everything that I experience is meant for me in some capacity.
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Don’t wait. Time is going to pass by whether you start now or a year from now. If you’re struggling with getting started, get out a piece of paper and answer these four questions. What will your life look like if you move forward with this business? What will your life look like if you wait? Whose life will you affect by waiting? Whose life will you affect by starting now? Don’t skimp through these, take your time and really be thoughtful in your response.
Who should we interview next and why?
I highly recommend interviewing my friend and colleague, Lucy Miller. She started a women’s networking group right at the beginning of the pandemic and has stuck with it and scaled it to thirteen cities in Tennessee and Alabama and it’s still growing! Watching her resilience and drive has been an inspiration to me and I know your readers will feel the same.
What is your definition of success?
Everyone has a different definition of success whether it’s how many people they affected, what type of tangible items they have collected, how much work they could get done, etc. It’s a journey of growth, fulfillment, and happiness. True success is when you feel content and satisfied with the life you are living, knowing that you are aligning with your values and pursuing your passions.
It’s about setting meaningful goals and working towards them with dedication and perseverance. Success is not always about grand achievements; it can be found in the small wins, the progress you make each day, and the lessons you learn from setbacks.
The meaning of the word success has changed for me throughout many different seasons of growth and experience. This year has already been wildly successful for me because, for the first time in my life, I know that I am doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. Being able to take my story and use it for good to help other women feel successful is an incredible accomplishment.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Fear is something that many entrepreneurs deal with regularly and can take some completely off their path and out of the game completely. For me, when fear rears its ugly head, I take some time to recenter myself by reminding myself of the women who are out there right now that need what I have to offer. I firmly believe that the life experiences I have had were meant to serve others. When I allow myself some time to focus on those types of things, it helps keep the fear at bay.
How can readers get in touch with you?
They can visit my website and grab their free gifts by going to www.jennasfreegifts.com and follow me on Instagram @msjennagriffith.
