Hey {{First Name | Friend}},

What’s that? A light at the end of the long summer slowdown tunnel?

Maybe!

A lot of service providers I’ve talked to this season have been feeling what they’ve described as “a slog.”

It might be a slog to get leads.
Or maybe it’s a slog to close those sales once you have the leads.
It may simply be a slog to log on after figuring out child care (or after not figuring it out).

Summer comes with its own challenges—but if we’re being real, so does every season! In the fall, I know I’ll be busy and annoyed by how many items I have on my to-do list. And if you’re anything like me, it’s easy to get sucked into a spiral of your own negative thoughts and self-talk.

Luckily, I’ve got someone here today to snap us all out of it!

Today I’m talking to Jennifer O’Sullivan. Jennifer is a yoga and Buddhist mindfulness teacher, Certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) Practitioner, and very-soon-to-be Positive Psychology Coach.

She’s offered yoga and meditation workshops in the Washington, DC area for many years; but her business has evolved and expanded to focus more on helping helpers — therapists, non-profit leaders, activists, and all sorts of do-gooders — build unshakeable self-trust, grow their natural strengths, and metabolize setbacks. She likes to think of herself as part of the “pit crew,” keeping essential professionals connected to their mission so they can keep showing up as their most integrated and grounded selves.

I was so excited to talk to her about her recent research around hope, joy, and fulfillment—especially for business owners and people doing meaningful work. Because I think we could all use a little more hope in 2026.

Enjoy!

Oh man, one word??? I’m going to bust out of this constraint.

I hear that my business seems “very organized.” But my clients always mention my compassion.

The boring answer is that the whispers on the wind were suggesting that if I wanted to put my name in the running for a potentially lucrative professional opportunity, I needed to go get myself a formal coaching certificate. Up until that point, I learned “coaching” indirectly through my 20+ year apprenticeship as a yoga and Buddhism student and educator. I share this because a part of me still doesn’t think anyone needs a formal coaching training, but you do need some kind of practical and substantial equivalent, which I had. Let’s set imposter syndrome aside. Unfortunately, other people sometimes want papers that document and verify your awesomeness, and sometimes we choose to play that game. I think it’s important we know when we’re doing that.

The reason I chose an academic track through positive psychology (PP) (instead of one of the many weekend certificate programs) comes down to the non-pathological orientation of the field. Because of my life story, personal agency and authenticity are deeply important to me, for myself and for others. Going all the way back to my first yoga class, I was lucky that I stumbled into a class that was person-centered and non-dogmatic. Instead of telling us to do this or do that, the teacher invited us to try things out and notice what, if anything, had changed. Having been trained in classical ballet for a large part of my childhood and into college, this approach was revelatory. I ended up doing my first yoga training in that style.

This “try it out for yourself” approach is also how the Buddha approached his teaching. People would come along and challenge him, and he’d basically say that it made no difference to him if they believed him or not. Try or don’t. And I guess I hate people telling me what to do, or what to believe, because that was really appealing to me too. Internal Family Systems (IFS), which I’m certified in, is like this too. The practice is about self-understanding and self-compassion, not optimization.

The foundations of PP are rooted in the promise of human potential, that people not only have a right to develop themselves, but that we can in a variety of ideal and far less-than-ideal circumstances. Instead of starting from a vantage point of what needs improving or fixing, PP practitioners start by identifying people’s gifts and strengths, what is already working well, and then look at how to build on that. And maybe along the way, we find things that could be updated, but we don’t start with labels that paint a picture of deficiency.

I love this frame so much. It almost feels countercultural. Rebellious. I’m grateful I had a “reason” to do the program, because it’s been really fun and rewarding on lots of different levels. And it’s thrown my work into a bit of chaos, in a good way.

Maybe you saw this coming, but shortly after I started my course, it became obvious that the Very Lucrative Opportunity™ was shaping up to be something I didn’t want to be part of. In the end, I did it for myself and my own greedy interest in learning All The Things.

One of the advantages of knowing my whole life that I have ADHD (hyper-type) is I’ve been aware that if I don’t love something, I will struggle to do it. I need those sweet, sweet dopamine hits revving me up like Pac-Man power pellets.

As an adult, obviously, I have to do a lot of things that suck the joy out of me, but I absolutely cannot run a business doing something that I’m not all in on. My brain won’t let me. So, the core work I do in my business, whether it’s teaching a yoga class or holding space for a client’s process, lights me up like Christmas. Every time. That’s non-negotiable. But here’s the thing: for me, the nuts and bolts don’t have to be joyful, but the mission does. My overarching “why” can get me through a lot of necessary drudgery.

I drop things all the time when I realize that they don’t fuel me the way other things do. My first clue is physical. If I start to feel like I’m moving through glue, I get curious and ask: what about this thing isn’t working? This is different from the feeling that you get when you’re on the cusp of something new that feels vulnerable. I find that people first assume something’s wrong with them. This is what you get when psychology has been so focused on fixing people’s deficits, and why PP is so important. Most of the time, when it comes to business things, I find it’s usually the project, not the person.

One example is that I stopped teaching prenatal yoga when I realized that to be really effective in that speciality, you need to also be really plugged into the birthing community in your area. I just wanted to teach yoga; I had negative 50 interest in being a pregnancy clearing house.

The reason I send out a monthly newsletter is that I have only just enough enthusiasm for one. I probably could churn out more, but the quality would degrade, and why waste everyone’s time (mine, my readers) like that? And I’d be so grumpy about having to write more newsletters that other parts of my business would suffer.

I first want to acknowledge how very difficult it is to develop discernment around this. There’s just so much garbage advice out there. And the BS artists are just getting more and more sophisticated around manipulating our psychological vulnerabilities. Then there’s AI, making it easier for snake oil purveyors to appear credible. So, I hope no one is shaming themselves for getting caught in someone’s snare.

I know that some people will come at me for this, but I have always looked at people’s work experience and educational background. The first place I go to on anyone’s site is their About Me page, and I get really frustrated when it’s not actually about them.

I entered the workforce in a field I didn’t study in college, so I’m not looking for a mountain of credentials. But I am looking for markers that people take their work seriously (they don’t have to take themselves seriously), and that they’ve been in their field long enough to have had a dark night of the soul. Or two. Let’s say three. At least three dark nights of the soul.

People like this are usually grounded, relaxed, and confident in a way that’s reassuring, not aggressive.

We can’t discount vibes either. I think most of us can afford to trust our guts more. When I listen to my instincts, I’m pretty repelled by symbols of luxury and wealth. I’m not moved by people who market based on their own achievements as if proximity alone confers success. I’ve never been with an in-crowd anyway, so I am not expecting other people’s aura to rub off on me now.

But really, I just don’t want to work with a persona. I want to work with a real, multifaceted person. And I genuinely care more about the details of the work they do with their clients. This makes me feel safe and reassured. What’s behind the rose gold and aspirational copy? What does the actual work look like? What’s the texture of it?

I should have never wasted a minute on Instagram, which is all about performing a persona. It could be one of your genuine personas, but only one. Some psychology researchers in recent years have been tracking a phenomenon they’re calling the “online authenticity paradox,” a situation where authenticity is expected and encouraged but then people get in trouble with their followers when they aren’t able to maintain a strict level of consistency within that online persona. We suffer when we aren’t able to be our whole selves in the spaces we’re spending most of our time in.

I instinctively knew that Instagram was never a good fit for me for a variety of reasons, not the least because I couldn’t figure out which persona to center. As an army brat, I’m more of a third culture chameleon who is pretty good at adapting to different settings… and also neurodivergent. Instagram was a room I could never quite read, and I felt very pressured into spending time there.

Talk about doing something that wasn’t joyful, but because I’m resilient and can learn new things, I thought I could figure it out through content calendars and posting tactics. And when I’d talk to “experts” about how I felt like I couldn’t be myself and I was just performing a trend, they’d basically tell me that I just needed to find my thing.

Well, ok, how do I even do that? Because all I want to do right now is hug the wall and inch my way out the door. I was so glad when Instagram went full TikTok clone, and I could just bow out.

I haven’t ever gotten to the point where I look around and go “what the heck am I even doing here?” Even though I have a business plan and I put some structures around my decisions, I’ve mostly followed my intuition and interests. I annoy mentors because I don’t have a long-term vision or ultimate goal. I just want to help. If this way of helping stops working for people, I’ll find another way to help that also lights me up.

Right now I’m sitting at an intersection in my business. I’ve been slowly heading to this point since the pandemic, when a lot of things changed about what’s possible to grow inside this Sati Yoga container. I suppose one way to look at it is that I was very invested in building something that can’t be built now, at least not in a way that would bring me joy and fulfillment. I’ve had to do some emotional work to grieve the loss of that.

It seems that wrapping up this graduate program has taken me to the point where I’m now sitting at an intersection needing to make some choices. But I also need to sit with how to graft all of this new learning into what I’m already doing. I can see that there are common threads running through all of it, but there’s still some fuzziness that I trust will make sense at some point.

We were talking about when to call in support, and for me that time is coming up again soon. I absolutely need someone else’s big-picture vantage point to help me see how I might weave all these threads together.

Well, joy and happiness have two main facets. Pleasure is one, and so is fulfillment. The central question of positive psychology is how to live a good life. And work (whether it’s going to a job where you’re an employee or building your own business) is something we spend most of our time doing. It behooves us to find ways to make running a business both pleasurable and meaningful. If you don’t, you’re probably going to burn out. Or procrastinate to the point where your inner critics go nuts.

Some leading researchers on positive emotions came out with a ratio some years back, something like you need to have three positive emotions for every one negative emotion to not only overcome negativity bias, but also to take full advantage of the benefits that positive emotions confer. Namely, positive emotions create a spaciousness of mind that invites creativity and perspective-taking. We’re more likely to see solutions to problems and take steps to solve them when we’re in an upbeat mood. In other words, your business will be demonstrably better if you find ways to have a good time while doing it.

It turns out that the specific ratio was based on some kind of statistical error, and they haven’t tried to recreate it. But they still say that we need to deliberately go out and have a good time so that our days are more joyful than not. The actual work tasks don’t have to feel pleasurable, only that there is pleasure sprinkled throughout your day. One of the ways I gin up joy when I’m working is to virtually cowork with fun people. I used to really enjoy cracking jokes with my officemates and going out after work. Coworking has recreated some of that energy.

It also really helps when your core work is demonstrably meaningful to you. This means that you’re doing things that align with your values and are measured against metrics that matter to you. You should be striking a balance between doing things you’re good at but also a little challenging, so you can bank a bit of personal satisfaction along the way.

When it starts to feel like I’m dragging myself through the Dead Marshes with Frodo and Sam, I will go through this exercise of connecting dots between my tasks and my purpose. Even really boring stuff can take on a new life when I create that through-line to my broader mission.

Since it’s summer and we’re not confined to the prison of the school calendar, I’ve been trying really hard to embody hammock vibes in work and life. So, I’m feeling some Three Little Birds right now.

Well, definitely don’t look for me on Insta. ;)

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If you want to work with me, I’ve got some space opening up in the fall for some Spark Sessions. These are focused, one-time coaching sessions that can get folks clarity, insight, and momentum around a discreet challenge or situation.

And thank YOU for reading,

Calibration Sessions are designed to help service-based founders navigate inflection points while identifying their best opportunities. You’ll walk away with a 30-day Navigate Plan to help you chart your path to predictable growth.

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You made it to the end of the email! Speaking of joy, this is something that makes me laugh uncontrollably every single time I watch it. And if you loved it, here’s the companion piece.