Hi, I’m Jen Hanover; I’m a yoga and meditation teacher, an artist, and a serial entrepreneur. I wrote this for you separately because it’s too long for the about page. I also know that a lot of people who learn about Flowmentum want to know the story behind it.
Here’s the story.
I’ve always been a pragmatic yogi. If i can humble brag for a quick moment, that’s probably why my Bikram Yoga studio in Vancouver, B.C. was so successful. I maintained a priority on the quality of teaching, but also had a sharp eye on the business itself. We had systems for everything from how students were greeted, to sales goals and KPIs. I believe it’s important to be a dreamer AND a doer.
After running it for five successful years and being *this close* to signing a lease on my second location, I decided to plot-twist after my 30th birthday and sell the studio to pursue my writing career.
Life, however, had other plans.
As I was back and forth with a major publisher in NYC for my first book deal, I became super ill with a chronic health condition that nearly cost me my life. Year after year passed and despite trying everything I possibly could to heal, I wasn’t improving at all. One particularly painful day, I made a solemn promise to myself that if I ever got better, I would dedicate myself wholeheartedly to doing My Work and sharing it with the world.
👉🏼 Flowmentum is the planning and follow-through system I’ve created to help me deliver on that promise.
Let’s fast-forward a bit to when I finally figured out how to get better: I basically needed to tear down my whole life down and start over.
I’ll never forget the day I sat on the cold tile floor of my tiny apartment on the marina in Cabo San Lucas, alone, staring up at a huge blank sheet of paper on the wall with a felt marker in my hand.
After nearly eight years of serious illness, a resulting divorce, and then promptly moving from Canada to Mexico with a suitcase, I was sitting at the beginning of my second chance. That day, after everything I’d been through, and finally coming out of it alive, I was ready to figure my shit out and make my plan.
Getting up off the floor, I drew an “x” on the left of the paper, a heart on the right, and a line connecting the two.
The first question I asked myself: what do I really, really want for my life and my work? Like, what does my heart want?
It felt almost out-of-body as my vision, goals, and the sexy details of my “Dream Existence” poured out of me through the big fat fearless marker and onto the paper on the wall. I knew what I wanted, and all of a sudden it was all right there in front of me in black and white.
I sat back and exhaled.
Ok cool, that looks GREAT.
Now… where am I starting from? I outlined the different areas of my life and gave myself an intuitive number out of 10 for each. How did I currently feel about that area of my life in relation to the vision I’d just mapped out?
This was where the magic happened. The scores made me feel like shit; my vision felt miles away and totally impossible.
But in that moment, another really important question emerged: what if i could stop being so damn hard on myself, and start this new era with deep compassion for myself and what I’d been through? How might that change things?
Then the last question came – the real one that most people seem to skim over when they’re planning out their dreams – how the f* am I actually going to make all of this happen?
I was clear that no matter what the plan entailed, the way I showed up to it was more important than setting goals, keeping a morning routine and checking off boxes.
I had already experienced so much illness, and I had no intention of letting that happen again. Yes, goals and routine and getting things done is really important, but your way of being while you do those things is even more so.
After that day, I started to meet people in situations similar to mine. They’d left the life that they thought they should be living (for one reason or another) and they were piecing things back together to live in a way that was more aligned, more healthy, and more contributional.
I started using my skills as a teacher, facilitator, and coach to help other people at pivotal points of change to do their own Big Picture Brainstorm (or BPB). As I did this work, people began to call me “That Brainstorm Chick” who was really good at helping people figure things out and determine next steps.
I opened a little studio (called Studio B) downtown Cabo San Lucas and started to host sessions with other creatives and entrepreneurs.
Back then, I called them “Breath and Brainstorm” sessions. We’d do breathwork to quieten the mind and open the heart, and then go into a planning session from there.
The results were amazing! The space was a place for art and events and people gathering. We hosted workshops and group sessions. Teams came in to do their quarterly planning, and couples came in to get on the same page with their goals.
Everyone was breathing and meditating and people were tapping into things that they hadn’t before, because the emphasis was on connecting first to a deep sense of self, and then brainstorming from that place.
The sessions were popular and I became very busy.
The problem, however, was that the sessions evoked big insights, ideas and clarity, but then the clients would leave and feel super overwhelmed. They’d have a list… but would have too much going on (and too much emotional baggage associated with the list) to make any lasting change. So, they’d end up in a different version of the same place – they’d have more clarity around what they wanted to do, but still didn’t know how to actually make it happen.
They’d ghost me, and then dodge me at the grocery store because they felt bad that they hadn’t done any of the things on the list they’d left our session with. True story.
I had one client share with me that she sat in her car after our session and burst into tears… she wanted so badly to make it all happen, but even though she had a list and a plan, she felt even more overwhelmed than before the session.
Not wanting to contribute to this ‘peak experience mentality’, I tucked in and started to create another phase to the program. I knew what I’d tapped into with the brainstorming from the heart was special. But it wasn’t complete yet.
What I was doing in my studio with entrepreneurs was the ‘figure it out’ phase, which was really important, but not enough on its own.
After ‘figure it out’ needed to be the ‘follow through phase’.
So I got to work, using all the intel I’d gathered from hundreds of hours of brainstorming with entrepreneurs and creatives from all different walks of life, art, and business. Combining that with my background as a yoga and meditation teacher, as well as a studio owner who’d had a successful exit because of all the systems we’d created in the business, I started to see a new vision.
One that helped creative, adhd-ish types (because most of the people who sought my help had either diagnosed or undiagnosed adhd) to get clear, and then follow through.
This was my “Impact Statement” on June 16 2023 from a program I was taking with my coach of 20 years, Chela Davison.
Through organizing and compassionately following through on my Big Picture Vision with gentle structure and my practice tracker…
I am creating and optimizing a system for do-good entrepreneurs & creatives that’s a culmination of all the best goal-setting, organization, & productivity tools out there.
As a result, our clients will be able to rest at the end of the day, feeling like they’re DONE. This will help them feel more peace, be more healthy, take steps towards their Dream Existence every week, and make more of a meaningful difference in the world.
The heart that I drew on the paper at the beginning of this story was really beginning to take shape. I knew what I had to do. Roll up my sleeves, take some first steps, get my ass kicked around a bit, make some mistakes, take some punches, correct, continue, repeat.
The more I stayed true to my line things, my weekly planning sessions, and my mindfulness and self compassion practices, and most importantly the vision of my heart (as cheesy as that may sound to some of you – i get it) the more efficiently things moved along.
The system I was creating started out being called ‘Tiny Bubbles’, because that’s what I called the blocks of uninterrupted time I taught people to set aside to do their important work. In other words, those time blocks are your dream broken down into its most essential parts.
I had really awesome people helping me, some of who are still with the team, and some who have moved on.
We launched a beta program for Tiny Bubbles with 18 people on the onboarding call, and ran a 12 week program going through all of the content week by week.
After that, the name changed to Flowmentum, because we learned in the beta that the Tiny Bubbles, or the time management piece, was really just a small part of what the program was all about. All of the students were super keen to learn how mindfulness and self compassion could help them achieve their goals.
In all the interviews, all the conversations, and all the students talking about their hopes and dreams, the two things that kept emerging over and over again:
I want to find my flow. I want to create momentum.
So, flowmentum was born. Between initially working full time on the project (starting around January 2023) and the site you see now, I figure there have been four or five different versions. I cannot begin to count the number of hours that have been spent on these kinds of things and never saw the light of day.
But that’s kinda the point. Iteration is the name of the game, and you hope that each time you create something that never gets seen or published, it just sets you up to do better quicker on the version that actually ships.
I created the Flowmentum planner and the big picture calendar, which was originally drawn out by hand for all of my friends and clients who wanted them.
The planner, which is now being professionally printed and bound, was originally mapped out by hand on lined paper, and put together with a glue stick.
Logos. Videos. Images. Sales pages. Ideas. Blog posts. The list goes on and on and this is where i get to tell you that the journey of building something real is never a straight line.
If you’re an entrepreneur reading this, you already know very well that plans change and so do goals. But I am so happy to tell you that more than two years, tons of iterations, and dozens of students later, the Flowmentum Method of Mindful Productivity is officially changing lives.
The program and all the worksheets are done and ready for students. The planner is being called “an anchor in my day” by numerous students. The tools are being used by more people than just me and my immediate clients, and it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done… even more so than my studio back in Canada.
A lot of people have dreams but very few have a plan, and even fewer actually stick to the plan.
The more quick fixes and ai slop that enter into the digital landscape, the easier people are expecting things to be.
This is great news for people like you, who read all the way to the end.
Hardworking, passionate, driven, do-good entrepreneurs… we have an advantage that you cannot automate, cannot pay for, and certainly cannot fake.
We care. And we keep coming back to the line.
I’m so glad you’re here. If you think Flowmentum might be a fit for you, you can click this link and book a call with me. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do these calls myself 1:1, but for now, I hope to meet you soon so we can brainstorm your next big move.