Ep #11: The Interview with Jennifer Hood, Owner/Director of Jump Gymnastics

Hey, everyone, I'm Chris Plackey, and this is how to Lead for Female entrepreneurs and Founders. Because the best way to grow a business is to grow the person who's running it. Let's go ahead and get started.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this interview episode where I will be interviewing Jen Hood, owner and founder of Jump Gymnastics in Vancouver, Canada. Jen and I met well over a year ago when she joined my coaching program, and we have been working together ever since to help her improve her leadership of her incredible business. And I think you're going to find this interview. You'll really realize that Jen's heart is huge in how she thinks about the work she does for kids and what she gets done through JUMP with her clients and the kids who come to her gyms, but also how.

Important it is to her to become and continue to grow into an exceptional leader. I've been equally inspired by working with Jen over these last 18 months or so, as I have just enjoyed her. She's lovely and has great insight and I'm really looking forward to sharing the.

Conversation that she and I had about.

Leading and look forward to having you hear her words of wisdom as well.

Okay, Jen, I'm super excited to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Yeah, super excited. So, Jen, you have Jump Gymnastics, which is based in Vancouver. So just for all of the listeners, why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your business and I'll ask more details if I want to know more. So tell us about you and Jump Gymnastics.

Sure. About how I started it or where it came?

Yeah, yeah, tell us all of it.

Yeah. So I started jump in 2008, so a long time ago now. It was born out of the idea that I really believed the Canadian sports system was lacking a fundamental piece and that was education for 0 to 6 year olds. Little, little, little guys, by the time they get older than that, it's almost too late to learn. Some of the critical motor skills came out of that. And the fact that my daughter was born and diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. That was the year that I realized that holding down a regular job, that calling in sick for work repeatedly was just not going to be part of my life. Wasn't gonna work. So I quit my job and I went and did a business development program and started JUMP for those two main purposes. One, to be there to provide for my family long term financially, but also short term, and to give me the flexibility of timing. But two, to pour my Heart into something that I was really passionate about. Build an organization around something that I could feel motivated and inspired to go to work with everybody.

That's so awesome. And so do you have a gymnastics background what kind of called to you?

Yeah, I was a very poor gymnast for many years in Ontario. Then I started coaching at 15, I was a better coach than I ever was an athlete. I think it's because it was so hard for me to learn. I'd already broken down everything to the lowest common skill. And then I moved out west to do a degree. I really wanted to do sports medicine but that wasn't in the cards for me. And I coached gymnastics to put myself through university. So that was my part time job. I never saw it as a career option. And years later when I was teaching in the school system, I really recognized that the kids were coming into the school system really lacking fundamental skills. They just didn't know how to use their body, didn't feel doing it. And so that was sort of the trigger for me. At the same time, Canada was launching what's now called long term athlete development and they were talking about that zero to six active start phase. And I just recognized that nobody else is interested in working. Like anybody in sport loves working with high performance kids. But those kids all start somewhere. They all have to learn walk first.

And that was just my niche. So yeah, I came to it. I don't know if some people have a waitressing job and then that's their like fallback. Gymnastics coaching was always my fallback. But turns out I love it.

Well, and it's. Yeah. I mean there's so much inspiration in your story. Right. And why you do what you do. I'm curious, when you first started, were you the primary, like was it you and kids, were you the coach?

Oh, I was the coach and the cleaner and the phone answer and the insurance form signer. I did it all, hired four. I had a vision at the very beginning that I would start with only full time employees and I had this big utopia and it was really expensive and didn't work out. But yeah, no, I did it all at the very beginning for sure.

Absolutely. And how many locations do you have now? How big is your two locations?

Two bricks and mortar locations. And then we do a lot of outreach programming too.

Oh, fun. Okay. Yeah, because it's, you know, it's interesting since you are a coach, right, you're a gymnastics coach, coach. And that's one of the transitions that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with. Right. Is moving from that Technical expertise, like, that's your. You were good at it. You probably still are very good at it. And then moving into the manager entrepreneur space. Right. And not being on the floor, literally, in your case, coaching, you know, five year olds on how to move their body. When did that start to happen for you in your business?

About just two years into our business, we had a flood that shut us down for 10 weeks.

Whoa.

It was crazy. So we were at the bottom of our line of credit. We had just bootstrapped this business and a tenant in the building above us was doing construction and tripped a sprinkler system and it flooded us out. And it turns out I did not have business interruption insurance. That was.

Long story short, was not covered. So we. It was the day that I learned that my skills. I could replace my skills on the floor as a gymnastics coach. But if I was going to save the business, I had to learn some new skills really quickly.

And so I think in retrospect, the business would never have survived if that didn't happen because I would never have been forced to.

To learn, to get out of the way. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Right. I was just talking to a newer client this morning who's really struggling with stepping out of the functional expertise role and really leading and managing the business. And she just has so much anxiety because she's the high performer. Right. She's the one who delivers.

Yeah.

But it. And it's hard to convince people on the front end of it, Right. That actually you're in the way yourself.

I used to call them chair scraping moments because I would be sitting at my desk and listening to other coaches try and coach a class that I knew, I knew I could do 10 times better. And I would literally push away from my desk, like, and run into the gym to fix. I don't know. Anyway.

Yeah. To make it better.

Panic feeling.

Yeah. So I guess that leads me to a next natural question then, right? Like, how did you help yourself move through that so that you really aren't now? Because you don't do that right now. You're not. You're running this. Yeah. So how did you get yourself there?

Well, not to be silly, but you working with you for the last year, I'll say that. Yeah. But to go maybe one step before that, recognizing that it just wasn't working. Like, I was exhausted, I was burnt out, I was angry, I was resentful. I was all of those things and I just didn't. It was no fun. Like, it just was no fun to go to work and recognize that I needed some. I needed new skills if I was going to continue, I needed to learn something new. And so I went madly searching anywhere I could to find solutions and happened to bump into your podcast. And as I've always joked, it's sort of funny. I didn't even know it was a thing. Like, I didn't even know managing people and leadership had like, its own skill set around it. And that in itself, I think I worked with kids, so I just assumed I was great at leading and working with people. And so. Yeah, yeah, not so much. Not so much at all.

It's interesting because I've had. I've met people. Like, I remember my husband and I having a conversation about our veterinarian a long time ago. And this particular veterinarian was amazing with the dog. Right. But horrible with humans. Right. And it's to your point.

Right?

Like, it's. Yes, you're competent as a coach, you're competent. You know your industry, you know your field, you know how to set up a gym, you know how to do all of that. But then how do you get results through other people?

Yes, that's a skill.

That's a heavy lifting skill.

Totally different skill.

Totally different skill. Ok, so let's talk about that then. So when it comes to. Because you have now how many people who work in your business?

About 24.

About 24. And you've got managers now, too, who work.

I love managers. So what would you say for you if you go back to that moment where you were like, I'm exhausted, I'm frustrated, resentful. That's where so many women are that I meet. They just kind of are almost to the point. Well, I think the most common thing I hear is I either want to quit or I want to find someone to run it or I want to sell it.

Yeah, right. I was absolutely there right minute of any given day.

And how do I do that all very quickly. Yeah. Like now.

Yes.

And make $5 million so that I don't have to work.

I wanted that.

Yeah, that too. What would you say was the first thing you learned that helped yourself start to be engaging in your business more from a leadership and management perspective than you had before.

The thought model, the concept that in order for it all starts with my thinking. Like, really to boil it down to that point, that before I did anything else, I had to get a handle on my thinking. And in reaction to my thinking, my emotions and I had. It had never dawned on me before that I didn't need to walk through life feeling whatever feeling happened to breeze come over you, whatever circumstance caused it. I don't know, whatever. I just. That was a whole foreign idea. And I think half.

Panic inducing in the sense that I was like, what? I'm in charge. I can actually control my emotions. That. Ooh, that means that, wow, that's an ugly past. I'm looking back, I don't want to do that.

That means I can't blame myself on other people.

That. But also the most liberating thought anybody's ever floated in front of me. I was like, the amount of energy that. That in and of itself freed up for me to be able to turn and dedicate to my business, that was absolutely 100% the turning point.

Isn't that so awesome? I love that. And so I don't know if you'll get to be able to get to this level of detail, but, like, do you remember what it was, the thought, believing.

That was causing you the most distress? That you. Then you realize, like, oh, I could decide to believe something differently.

Do you.

Do you have a sense of that?

I don't know if I do. I think it was like a daily cascade. Like, I just remember having one thought about work. Somebody had said something to me, and I was on and on about how it made me feel or whatever. And then the thought to step back, and then I found, like, for the next number of weeks, everywhere I looked, like in my marriage and my relationship with my kids and the bank experience. And it was. It was hard. Like, it was hard work to look at myself.

Yeah.

Really look at myself and realize, oh, oh, oh, there's. And I still do it. Like, I joke with my friends that I'll be going along feeling like a million bucks. And all of a sudden, one day I'm like, oh, there's this whole section. I've never seen that whole part of me before on that part.

I don't have a recollection of, like, a specific.

That moment in time. Yeah. Because I think I noticed that with most of my clients, it's like. And you've. I think you've seen this even in the group with some of the newer people who've joined. It's like. Like, within three, four weeks, they say, I love my business again.

Yeah.

Like, it just happens. And it doesn't just happen. We know that. Right. It's an awareness. And so I love that you are leading with that, only because I do coach a lot of different women, and I know a lot of women listen to this. And most People what they want when they're feeling really desperate and overwhelmed and frustrated with their level of work and how exhausted they are with their business. They want the easy. Just tell me what to do. What are the five steps I can take to make money and not build exhausted and get my employees to do their job? But the truth is we just need to start with you first. And then. And then when we do that, it's amazing how then things fall in a row. Yeah. Then I teach you the stuff to do. Yeah.

Yes. So it freed up so much space in my brain. Like I just didn't go exhausted every night. And so then after a few weeks of not going to bed burnt out and exhausted, I was able to start. Okay, you know, maybe I can. Maybe I can actually now start to take some of those steps towards reaching the goals or to building the systems or. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All in sequence.

Perfect. Well, let's. Let's go to that because you've done such a beautiful job. Jen is in my group, and so one of the things Jen shared with all of us several months ago was her systems. And. Right. You put together your. Well, I don't want to talk for you, but what. What is it that you have built now for your business that's allowing your business to do so well and for you to feel so much more.

So much more better. So much better as the woman who's running it?

So many systems, like, they just found that again. Once that creative space in my brain was freed up, I had some guidance. The systems just came tumbling out. So, I mean, the simplest and most obvious is creating really clear job descriptions for my team based on outcome, based on results.

And then really specific performance measures for them that are not only based on actual numbers and indicators, but also getting really clear on what the behavioral expectations are of my team and really having some fun writing what those look like. It sounds so complicated, but it was actually really fun to sit down and be like, this is what we don't want, but this is what we do want.

And sometimes you have to start with the don't. Right. For sure.

And I thought it would be really offensive to talk to my team about how to behave at work. And I thought it would be condescending. And I had all. I don't know, I had all these thinky ideas that were weird, turns out. And it was a great time and sitting down with my team and just saying, like, let's define leadership. Let's talk about gossip. Let's talk about. Let me explain to you what these Mean, and the impact they have on the organization. And I mean, I work with a lot of really young people and they were just like, this stuff is genius. Like, they loved it. There was nothing about it that was rude or obnoxious or condescending.

No, it's so good. You know, I love. One of the things I know we talk about a lot. Right. Is people just want to know how to win. They want to know how to be successful. And in our belief that we're being micromanaging or we're being patronizing or whatever, we don't provide that because we think it's too childlike. But the truth is, if you tell me what behaviors are expected of me, you tell me what's expected of me in my job, you give me a really clear job description. And then what I also know you do is you meet with people regularly and you have one on ones. You have this beautiful feedback loop. So. So as an employee who works for you, I know how to be successful instead of guessing. And if I'm guessing, then I'm using my brain to come up with how I should be successful in your business. And that's not.

No. And it also flipped it. I didn't. I'm decently charismatic in the sense that I was able to get people to work for me, which is. Okay, extremely limiting once you put in a layer of management. Because what was happening is the people below them hated working for the managers because they were there to work for me.

Yes.

So there was. We were stuck in this loop of awfulness. So flipping it and like you say, telling people how to win and really clear behavioral expectations means that I can still be there and still be part of this amazing, thriving organization. But they're not. They're not in their positions for me. They're in for the organization. And it's a subtle but really key difference.

Well, and what you've done by doing that and being really tuned into that is now your business is so much more scalable. Right. If people only want to work for you because they want to work for you, you only have so much capacity. You've got two locations. Now, I don't know if you have ambitions for more, but based on the structures you've built, you could build more and you don't have to be there. Right. And it's also sellable.

Yes, yes.

Because it's not reliant on you.

Right, Exactly.

And that is also the other piece that I know a lot of sort of people, once they hit that seven figure mark. Right. Like 1 million ish to 5 million ish. That's that where now we have to decide, like, are we building something we're just going to keep for ourselves and when we're done, the business is done? Or is this a scalable model that someone could come in and pay me what it's worth? Yeah, and then you're, you know, skiing at Whistler.

Yeah, exactly.

In your private jet. Yeah, that would be fun too. So I think that's all really good. I love that. You know the thing for the listeners who are listening to this conversation with Jen, Jen has been one of those clients that I've worked with who has done the work. Right. So if she hadn't found me to work with me one on one. Jen is also one of those people who would listen to the podcast and do the podcast. Right. It's not like just listening in your car. Like, every time Jen would come to a call, she would say, okay, so I sat with the expectations module and these are the things I did. And I have some questions about this or I'm having a conversation with someone next week about their performance. I'm really uncomfortable with what to say. I practiced it this way. Can I run it by you? Right, so she's really done the work and I'm curious to know why because not everybody does. Right. A lot of people want the answers without investing in the effort. Yeah.

I just don't think they've hit rock bottom enough yet. Honestly, I think they're tired enough of themselves. I was just in such a dark and desperate place that.

Yeah, there was no option. I also think I just, I'm an entrepreneur. I like to do the work. I've never met an entrepreneur that doesn't like to do work. They just sometimes hard to figure out where the best effort, where to play yourself, what your effort is. Gosh, that's so true. Yeah.

But, yeah, no, this was. I definitely did the work and it's paid off in, you know, exponentially over the last.

Yeah, well, I mean, just the fact that you've grown and you've. Your scaling is super fun to think about. So what advice would you give, you know, a woman like yourself whose business is doing well, like on paper. Right. If we had looked at your financials, we would have been like, okay, yeah, she's making money. But you, you know, were at the expense of everything else. That was great for you. Right. In your lifestyle and your health and your psyche. So what. What would you tell someone like you that they should. They absolutely need to know that they probably don't know.

Oh, that's a good one.

Probably that they do not have to have all of the answers.

They.

Yeah, I really believed for a long time that I couldn't ask anybody to do anything unless I was really good at it first myself. That I couldn't manage somebody or.

And so anything that went wrong in the organization, I shouldered the burden for. Basically, I just walked around all day feeling like I was letting the universe down. I was never good enough. I was never. I could have, you know, saw that coming. I should have prepared that person more. I should have.

So I think, yeah, learning. Learning the thought that in order to manage somebody really, really well, I don't. I don't need to be able to do their job. I need to know what the expectations of their job are, and I need to know what the results that I'm aiming for with that role is. But I certainly don't need to know the nuances of how to do their job, nor do I want to. I don't want to hold that in my head.

Yeah. I hope everybody just heard what you said. I need to know what the expectations of their job is, and I need to know what the results are that. That role, that person is responsible for. And, like, I love that you just said that because that's your job. Right. And then you hold them accountable to it. Exactly.

I sat through five years of meetings with people where they would come in with issues and I would solve their problems. So basically, I was just running. I was doing every job in the organization through meetings.

Yeah.

And it's just not.

It's not sustainable. There's no way.

But they were depending on you to come up with all the answers. So it was just basically really, you just, oh, here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do. And I'm glad you brought that up, too, because. So when you started not being like that, how did your team respond to it?

Initially, they were completely lost. Like, just. They would still come to me and we would have these. Well, I remember talking to you about. So I just sit through the awkward silence.

Like. So I just sit there because they would come to me and they'd say, I don't know what to do. And it was all I could do to not fill in the. Do this.

I just sit through, like, awkward meeting after awkward meeting. But, I mean, I have a great team, and they have an amazing sense of humor, and, you know, we were able to laugh about it through the whole way. And I prepared them in the sense that there's going to be changes, that was my favorite part of this whole process. Actually. I'm going to go off topic for a second, but I told everybody beforehand, we're going to go through some major changes in the next six months. I mapped it all out, Drew, like, I work with kids. Those color coded rainbow diagrams, it's fabulous. Everyone's like, yeah, totally. I love change. Change is great. I can't wait for change. And then as things went on and actually the change had to be them in some ways, they needed to change in the way that they were behaving. And I'd bring them into my office and I'd say, so remember we talked about change and you were like, yeah, I love change. That this behavior is what I'm talking about. And they were all like, oh, yeah, no, I don't like change so much.

I didn't like that kind. I didn't mean that kind of change.

I meant her, the other lady in the organization.

She.

That's awesome. But I love that you gave them some forewarning. And I think what I also think is great about what Jen is saying is, you know, you needing to go through the process of being different as their manager and as their boss is awkward. It's uncomfortable. But then the flip side is now Jen has people on her team who are able to be more resilient on their own and come up with their own solutions, which affords you more time to do the big things that is required of somebody who's running a lovely big business. Right.

Yeah. You get to move on to all the fun, creative projects that were on the back burner forever. I could never get to them because I had all these urgent things in front of me.

Yeah, in the business, not on the business, as they say. Yeah.

Yes.

Okay, so we're coming to the end here. So I guess I would just ask you.

I know you along with Laura, because you guys are up in Vancouver together and you are part of another female entrepreneurs group. And what would be your best advice to women.

Who want to get better at not just running a business, but really understanding how to maximize results through people? Right. Through the people that are on the team. What do you want? Like, when you bump into someone, what is it that you tell them? What do you say?

Listen to your podcast.

Fair enough.

But yes, that, number one, start there. Get out of your industry. Move away from all of the same networking events in your own industry. Chances are you already know what's going on in your industry. You're not Going to learn from it and look much larger than you. So hang out with women in business, the size of the business you want to become, not the business you are today.

Such great advice, I have to say. You know, I have certainly just even experienced that in my own world, given now the women that I'm talking to and working with. And I watch you all do the same thing, right? Like, there's certain people at certain levels of their business, then we add somebody who's making $50 million a year, and it just, like, our brains explode.

And.

And I love that you said that. I just think if you are listening to this and you are not getting outside of the walls of your business every day and exposing yourself to other ways of thinking. You know, one of the women I talked to today, same scenario, her industry, There's a belief that it's very hard to find good people. And when they're all together, they all agree. And I'm like, I think good people are everywhere. You just aren't asking, and you're not looking in the right way, and you're not clear about what you need. And her brain, like, sat there for a minute. I could watch her, like, wanting to argue with me. And I'm like, no, that's just a belief system you guys all buy into. You get that, right? And now what you've done is you've given all this power to the employees because they know that you know that they're hard to find. So now you're willing to do whatever they want so you don't lose them. It's so interesting, right? So, gosh, that's such great advice. I'm so glad that you said that.

Challenges, like, exactly like you say, challenges my thinking. I think I, without even knowing it, without even being conscious of it, gave myself a whole bunch of excuses. Like, you say, oh, good people are hard to find. Or, I'm a mom of three kids. There's no way I could grow this business. Or it's the Canadian market, the economy. You just have these stories in your head and to justify sitting in the situation you're sitting in. And then I sat on calls with women all around the world. I'm like, what? She has three kids? This is crazy. Like, it just opens your door of possibility. And. Yeah, not as a comparison, not as a. You know, nobody told me how to run my business, but just sitting in a room of possibility. Different than what's going on in your head.

Yeah. And I think what's cool about that is you find there's all These new ways to think. And then it doesn't matter if you're running a $50 million business, an $82 million business, or a $1.3 million business, you still have an employee on the team who's not getting their work done, and you have to figure out how to address that. Yeah.

That was the best part, is women that I, you know, you know, their businesses, I marveled at, and they're just the same neurotic mess as the rest of us. And loving way. It was so liberating. I'm like, oh, they're dealing with all the same problems, just in a different, larger business. And that was. Yeah, that was. I think that was the piece that I'd used as the excuse for so long, like, oh, I can't grow it because I have all these weird, neurotic female entrepreneur thoughts in my head.

Yeah.

No, it's just. You just can acknowledge them and then.

Move on, move along, grow past them. Outgrow your brain. That's a good thing. Good. Well, it's been awesome to spend a few minutes talking with you. I'd love to. I have loved knowing you all this time. And, you know, I know it sounds a little.

Maternal, but I'm very proud of you. You've done such great work and done such. And because your work is so important. You know, when I listen to women like you who, when we met, you were, you know, sort of like, I don't know where to start. I'm overwhelmed. If you think about the importance of the work that you do in the world and if you'd quit. Right. Like, there's a void in all these kids who now wouldn't have had help and service the way that you provide it. And I just.

That's what inspires me is knowing that if we can get some really amazing tools in your hands, then you're going to exponentially change the planet through the work that you do. So if you happen to be one of those female entrepreneurs today and you're feeling like, I can't do this, I'm overwhelmed. Listen to Jen, because I think she would tell you she was you, and she really was able within, I don't think, a very long amount of time. Right. To completely shift your business, your perspective, how you feel in your business, and the impact. Yeah.

That was the gift you gave me is my time and energy is not spent on HR grievances. It's spent on the impact that our organization can have in our community.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So good. Okay, thanks for tuning in. Bye.

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