On this episode of The Hayley Osborne Show I am talking with Sammi Jaeger on creating and living a fuelled up life not only in business but in life. If one tank is down then the rest are at risk as well. Sammi takes us through some great ideas, tips, tricks, systems and processed on how you can seamlessly run your life and “life admin” like you run your business. This is a beautiful chat with new ideas we can implement as we start close out the year and head into 2024.
Hayley Osborne:
After Sammi’s life hit a crossroads, she hit the wall, picked herself up again and began leaning into creating and living her own fueled-up life. This time, though, it was by design. And don’t we all love to hear that and love that? And also we really want that in our own lives. And if you’re, I know you listen to this podcast, you have big dreams, you have big goals. You want to have a fueled-up life, both in your small business and in your personal life as well. And so, this is such a good episode. Sammi has some really good ideas that you can start to use inside your business. I was so surprised by what she said to me, and it gave me so many lightbulb moments of how I could integrate her ideas into my life and business. While I was chatting with her. Sammi is so deeply passionate about how our relationships impact the quality of our lives. She also advocates for the UN Global Goals and knows that we all have a role to play in creating a better world. She is awesome. And let’s just get into today’s episode, and she can tell you how awesome she is herself.
Hayley Osborne:
Hello, Sammi, and welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad that you are here.
Sammi Jaeger:
Thank you so much for having me.
Hayley Osborne:
No worries. All right, you’ve got lots happening and you are a very successful woman, I would love you to tell my audience for those that do not know who you are Sammi Jager who you are what you do.
Sammi Jaeger:
I do, I am. Thank you. So, Sammi Jaeger, I have stepped into the identity of entrepreneur, multi-passionate entrepreneur. I am a co-founder, and I’m an integrator. I’m a coach. I’m a speaker. I’m an author in the making, I’m hoping to get published in 2024 and co-host the date forever podcast. And I love talking to people about how they can make their life and their business even better.
Hayley Osborne:
On that note, tell us about the fueled-up life and the fueled-up life methodology. And how this helps because, obviously, small business owners are my number one audience. So how does what you’ve done? Help somebody like that?
Sammi Jaeger:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I think the reason that I came about the field of life methodology, which I’ll share a little bit more about, was it was born out of a place of me hitting burnout. In my late 20s, I was working for a training and education company, and their entire client base was small business owners. And we were teaching education to small business owners and I got to see front row just how hard it can be and how so many people can go all in on their business and one area of their life and that end up really costing them in a lot of other areas of their life whether or not that’s their relationship with themselves and their identity and you know, they become such and such lawyer and they can’t delineate from their professional business or career or age. Identity and who they really are, or their romantic relationship, their relationship with their kids, their friendships or their health and well-being.
Sammi Jaeger:
In early 2019, I quit my big girl job as General Manager at that company with no real plan, and I was exhausted and burnt out; I probably sounded a lot like a lot of our clients. But not with no skin in the game. I was an employee. And I’d really sort of run myself dry in a lot of the tanks of my life, and my beautiful husband and I spent a couple of months in Europe in 2019. And I just kind of didn’t know what life was going to look like, or what it was going to be like, you know, I foresaw myself being in that company for at least the next five years, if not longer. And I felt like there were a lot of runways for me to grow. And then suddenly, I hit a wall where I was like, I can’t keep doing this. So, I spent some time while overseas, really just kind of grieving about what I thought my life would look like, that I had sort of created this situation. And this was my life and like, how was I? How was I here, and we really gave me a chance to just stop blaming other people and stop excusing the reality that was denying, like, what had happened, or what I was going to have to do to sort of start to rebuild. Still, I knew that, not that I didn’t want it to look anything like that. And I started to think far more consciously and intentionally about what I wanted my entire life to look like, not just my career and my business.
Sammi Jaeger:
That was the beginning of knowing that I needed a better way to design my life, I’d always been a goal setter always been very ambitious and, and directed, I guess, but I sort of forgotten about lots of other areas of my life. So, I got home from that trip. And I sat down, and I went back through all of the notes that I have, from my previous years of goal setting and planning, and realise that, hey, there’s actually there’s, there’s probably about eight different areas here of my life where I’ve sort of thought about setting goals. And most years, I’ve not set goals in all areas, but just some. I just got a bit curious about what would happen if I got a bit more intentional about adding energy or fuel or direction to all of these areas of my life, not just one. I really went about starting by rebuilding my relationship with myself. And then it kind of flowed from there.
Sammi Jaeger:
I feel like not many people know how to build a relationship with themselves. I feel like when you get that mix, right, like the relationship with yourself, and you know, you’re married, and building a relationship with yourself, you know, like, you don’t hear that really come out of people’s mouths. And it’s like. I feel the relationship with yourself is so important before you can have a relationship with a business that you’re starting or your husband or, you know, your family, the way that you like exert energy, like sports, or walking or whatever that looks like for you. Like, it’s just like, Yeah, it’s important. And so from that, did your married life get like, you know, you obviously work on one thing, and then you know, when that looks nice, and you start to rebuild that it’s like, you know, you’ve got the date forever podcast, and let’s just say the co-host of your podcast is your husband.
Sammi Jaeger:
Where do I start? Yeah. I mean, I agree. Lots of people don’t ever get introspective about who they are and what they like, and they get curious about how they show up in the world. So that’s kind of what I did. I, you know, like I was saying, with, that I’d observed clients wrap up their identity in their business. I had done the same, and I really felt like when I left that job, and I left that business, I felt like cutting off a limb, like I really didn’t know who I was or where to go from there. And it was so hard to imagine a future that wasn’t what I’d been working so hard towards. But over those few years, I had been pouring so much time, money and energy into my personal and professional development so that I could succeed in that arena. The gap between myself and my husband had changed and shifted, you know, I’d gone hard on an incredible growth trajectory I think I did about like a decade’s worth of growing in those probably three or four years. And that was scary. Like to think, oh my gosh, this person that I want to do life with forever. What if we grow apart, but I also don’t want to stop growing? Because I really liked who I was becoming. So yeah, that was scary. But as I started to get far more intentional about re-pouring more fuel into my relationship with myself and my marriage. Yeah, it drastically did change. We have gone on to launch the Date Forever podcasts, which we’ve had for about three years now. And we chat with couples and experts about the tips and tricks they’ve found to keep a relationship fueled up. And it’s so beautiful. It’s like, you know, we get to go to therapy almost every week with all of these incredible people who have who are imparting their life lessons, their shortcuts with us. It has absolutely transformed our marriage and our relationship.
Hayley Osborne:
That’s beautiful. What about the rest of you? So let’s talk about Sammi Jaeger. Now the brand, tell everyone, what does that look like? What’s in this?
Sammi Jaeger:
I offer coaching. And I’m also about to launch a group coaching programme or a membership for women in business who want to get intentional about not just their business, but the rest of their life. it’s an opportunity to come and learn from a subject matter expert about one of the areas of these different tanks, which I’ll share with you. And then also to create some accountability and go okay, over the next month, which of these tanks need fuel? So maybe that’s the next place to start is to share a bit more about each of these eight different tanks.
Hayley Osborne:
Yeah, let’s do it. I would love to hear and I’m sure our listeners would love to hear as well.
Sammi Jaeger:
The first one is, as you probably can guess, your tank. So, I believe that my relationship with myself sets the tone for every other relationship I have. And when that fuel tank is really full, I can show up as a far better human in every other area of my life.
The second one is romantic relationships. So, for me, that’s my marriage for other people seeking a partner, building a relationship or looking for something new.
The third tank is relationship and network. And that’s about recognising that if I want to go far, I want to go with others. And those relationships don’t just happen by default. You really do need to nurture them.
The fourth tank is the humming household. So, for me, that’s about recognising that how my house feels is way more important than it looks and having great systems and ways of operating in place so that It doesn’t suck all my attention, basically.
Hayley Osborne:
I love this as a pillar. Because I feel the same way. And I love listening to how other people make it work without giving their blood.
Sammi Jaeger:
Managing a household, there is a lot of moving parts. And if you’re not careful, those small little moving parts can take all of your attention, all of your focus, all of your energy, and then you don’t have the chance to share your gifts with the world because you’re busy managing laundry and ingredients. And you know, whether it’s kids logistics, or partner logistics, or your social calendar, or whatever it might be, but having some good systems in place to keep that tank full most of the time, mostly for most of the time is what I try and shoot for. Yep.
Sammi Jaeger:
And then tip number five, so a career in business, and that’s about recognising that opportunities don’t just happen; you do need to create them.
Number six is wealth and lifestyle. This is life doesn’t happen by just, you know, we want to have life happening by design and not by default. And it can swing either way where you’ve got maybe lots of the wealth sort of part happening but it’s at the expense of your lifestyle. Or maybe the other way around, you have heaps of lifestyle, heaps of freedom, and heaps of flexibility. And if the wealth is not aligned with that, I believe you can have both. So that’s a wealth and lifestyle tank.
Number seven is the world. So that’s about having you be able to give and give in your unique gifts or your unique point of view or your unique experiences, but also how do you help the world be a better place outside of yourself? What are you contributing to outside of yourself than others in your community, country, or world?
Tank number eight is the future. So that’s about recognising that the future isn’t waiting for us. It’s created by us like future Sammi is current Sammi, and what am I doing to take care of her?
Hayley Osborne:
I love that. I love those eight I was like, want to ask you so many questions. So, just out of pure selfishness, what are some ideas that you would suggest like the home tank? I am really, like, in my mind, I say, you know, no one’s going to care who does the washing, no one’s going to care. Like who cleans the toilet or makes sure the floors are tidy. My kids aren’t like sitting there saying, Oh mum, you did such a good job of vacuuming the floor. So it’s nice and clean for me, give me a break.
Sammi Jaeger:
The list of things that need to happen and the mental load. And I’m going to say something stupid generalised, but super, just not from a diverse mindset. But often, it’s the woman who’s holding all of that mental load, right? And that can be really hard. So something that Nathan I have done in our household that’s helped a huge amount is we got familiar with Eve Rodsky, she wrote a book called Fair Play, which is about dividing household tasks. She’s got a background in project management. So she kind of went well. I’m a project manager, I can make all these incredible things happen out in the world. Why is managing my household so hard? And she sort of collaborated with many of her friends to figure out, well, why do I feel so exhausted? And you know that I’ve got this long list of things to do, but I can’t quite define what it is. She went about defining what are all the things that were holding. So, off the back of the book, she created a set of a deck of cards. And that deck of cards, I think it’s about 100 cards in the deck and each card. I’ve actually got them here on my desk because I use them all the time. I know what a vision we’re on an audio-only medium, but I’m showing Hayley what they look like.
Hayley Osborne:
Yeah, no, I will put this on YouTube. And I’ll take some snippets as well. Toilet paper.
Sammi Jaeger:
Range from everything from you know, having home goods and supplies and who’s cooking and who’s managing dry cleaning? Who’s looking after the groceries, the dishes, and cleaning weekday dinners? Who’s hosting? What about our lawn and plants? Who’s taking out the trash? Then, you’ve each got a card for your self-care. Group, you know your grooming who’s nurturing the adult friendships, who’s organising Gifts, gifts for friends, gifts, gifts?
Sammi Jaeger:
Yeah, I know; apparently, when you have children, I don’t have children. Yeah, it’s going to birthday parties like Harry’s birthday. Like social plans and outings travel, keeping your calendar up to date, and having an emergency and first aid kit and medicine in the cabinet. This is an overwhelming amount of stuff to try and hold on to. And that’s just my, those are my cards. Those are not Nathan’s cards, just my cards, right? What we’ve implemented that has helped us a lot was getting clear on who’s accountable and for what tasks in this house. And are we happy? Who that is sitting we’re that we’re happy with the number of tasks that we’re holding, and I’m not looking for transactional, I’m not looking for 50/50 I’ll do this, and you do that, as I believe in, you know, but lying and yang and harmony and flow. But that’s definitely been one thing that has made our house hum a lot smoother. Because there’s this clarity and we don’t, this is not set and forget this is not playing the play out the cards once we revisit them almost every week on a Sunday and flick through and what are they to-do sort of come out of those cards. And we might swap them over. So Nathan and I both hate doing laundry. And we’re both not good at it. So, like, that’s the one that we like, oh, oh, so we try and swap that one back and forth quite a bit. But it’s also recognising that in a household, there are things that need to happen every day, like cooking and doing the dishes. And then there are things that happen only occasionally, like reviewing your health insurance or managing bills and money that maybe is every couple of days or every week or whatever. And recognising who’s holding all of the daily grind tasks versus the ones you can do at your own leisure or when it fits into everything else you’re managing. And again, it’s often women who are holding those daily grind tasks and there’s probably another 30 or 40 cards that relate purely just to children. That’s usually one thing. And then the other for our humming household. Something that’s really helped me a lot is putting almost anything I can find on set and forgetting subscriptions.
Hayley Osborne:
Yes, I do.
Sammi Jaeger:
Raises washing powder, coffee beans, whatever one I like, all the things I have most consumable replenishable items on set and forget.
Hayley Osborne:
We are Amazon buyers all over. So things like nappies and baby wipes are on set and forgotten, and they get delivered. And I don’t even think about it. I’m not even the one that organises it; Mark is the organiser of the Amazon situation, and we do lots of gifting. He is the guy, paper towel, tissues, everything set and forgets; they just turn up. This is the best.
Sammi Jaeger:
How lucky are we that we have this?
Hayley Osborne:
So lucky. Yeah. And I feel like for people that are listening like you’re running a business, but you kind of run into you’re running your household, and I feel like it doesn’t get enough air time of the amount of time it takes up. Why aren’t more people doing this subscription model have set and forget with household items? And you know, like I have a cleaner, it doesn’t mean I don’t clean. Like I still do stuff, we have someone who takes care of the lawns, but it doesn’t mean we don’t water the plants sometimes. You know, so it’s like, it just all helps. And then you can spend time, like either working on your business to generate more revenue or filling up your cup by going for a walk or getting a massage or something like that. And there are only seven days in a week.
Sammi Jaeger:
If you’re, if you’re hustling in that business, which lots of us are. And then you get to the weekend. And then it’s like the second shift of Alright. Now, we’ll just spend the next two days trying to reset our house and our lives to get prepared for the next five days. Like, that’s exhausting. That’s not necessarily a sustainable habit. And, I mean, sometimes deploying resources into your business to outsource marketing or automation tasks or, you know, inbox checking whether it’s a virtual assistant or remote assistant. But sometimes, it’d be equally as beneficial to deploy some of those resources into your home. So that when you clock out for the day, you’re done. You don’t need to go grocery shopping or whatever the thing might be. That’s probably another really handy one that helps us a lot: I’ve got a Woolworths list set up in my app. And I literally just add the entire list to the cart once a month. And check out for that and that’s got like toothpaste and like, that sort of stuff in a tin. tinned goods rice. Yeah, like the things that are non-perishable is Yeah, yeah, rinse and repeat.
Hayley Osborne:
Done. We do that, too. I have like a woollies order with quick lists, and go through open the computer, bang, bang, bang, set a time gets delivered. Really, it really is a game changer to get your time back to actually live your life. And we have everything on, like audio. So it’s all Google Home, stuff with shopping lists, and I just have to sing out and add it to the list. I don’t even have to do anything I can keep reading or playing with the kids or like, you know, doing whatever. It’s just a game-changer. And the more people that know about this, like, just anyone, even if you don’t have a business, the better it is because, you know, life is quite busy. And I know, like back in the day, like when we were younger, for example, there weren’t like all of these things really like tapping into our lives tech, you know, the internet’s only been around for 25 years, there was no obviously social media, like mobile phones weren’t even around. And so there’s none of those life pressures like there are now. So even if you’ve got a corporate job, or you’re employed, or you run a business, I think it works for everyone. So what you’re offering with your membership course, whatever that looks like for you, is you go across the board, which is a really nice place to play, not just business owners.
Sammi Jaeger:
I think that most of us who are in business or ambitious in our careers and working want a really great life, not just a really great business or a really great career. Often, we deploy a lot of time, money, and energy to make that business better. But very seldom do we deploy that same energy to having a really great romantic relationship or having our household working perfectly, you know, what would it cost to have a professional organiser come in for a day and reorganise your pantry or whatever it might be, that would make your life a lot better, easier, smoother, simpler. We don’t tend to do those things. So that’s really what the fueled-up life is about. It’s about recognising when you look at your life holistically. And think about all of these different types. Think, which one really needs fuel? Is it your business? Or do you actually need to clock out and spend some time with your romantic partner, or by yourself or with some friends or whatever it might be? Or maybe what tank really needs fuel is for you to sit down with your spreadsheet and take a look at your personal budget because you spend all the time and money on zero for your business, but you haven’t worked that out for your personal life. And really, that’s probably why you’re in business. So you can have a beautiful life.
Hayley Osborne:
I love how all of this comes together in such a beautiful way. And that’s what you’re doing from experience and going through it. And, you know, valuing the things that matter most to you. And now, it’s lovely for you to take that and teach it to the world. So excited for you.
Sammi Jaeger:
Yeah, it really is. And it’s just a framework. It’s just an idea and a way to look at life. And remember that not everything is always, if everything is important, then nothing is sometimes important so when you can run a little diagnostic over the eight different areas of your life and go which one actually needs fuel. Which ones am I actually doing really well? Which ones am I actually nailing that’s like that’s sitting, you know, close to full, if not overflowing, how great? Sometimes, we can get a bit wrapped up that one tank is not where we want it to be and let it railroad everything else, when in reality, what could you do to add more fuel back in? I love that.
Hayley Osborne:
You mentioned one book, but I’m an avid reader. And I also I listen, I’m like, I’ve got the tangible book, I’ve listened to podcasts I listen to like audiobooks. I’m just like, get it where I can because, like, in the car is a nice place for me to do that. If I’m alone, it’s just lovely. In terms of other things for personal and professional growth, can you suggest some other books that you think have had the biggest impact on your life and perhaps might help other people, too?
Sammi Jaeger:
The biggest business book that has had the most impact on me was Traction by Gino Wickman. You probably see a couple of copies on my shelf here, the black one with the orange text. Yeah. And that book is a series of tools and principles for doing business that keep things incredibly simple. It’s designed for businesses with teams, but you can still get a lot of benefits out of it, even if you’re a solopreneur or yourself and maybe some contractors or whatever. But it just talks about structuring your business in a way that makes it easy to set and achieve what you want to what you want to do in business. That’s probably the first business book that’s had the most impact. The second one that sits adjacent to that is Rocket Fuel, also by Gina Whitman and Mark C winters. Rocket Fuel is about unpacking the idea that for every really phenomenal business in the world, you’re more than likely to need two different types of leaders: the visionary, the person with the big ideas who can see the future. And then an integrator, the person who can see the 100 steps and makes that happen. And when those forces combine, you create rocket fuel. Yeah, so and then about recognising that when you’re in business, they’ll probably come to a threshold where you’ve been one person trying to sit in both seats and you you’ll probably be one or the other. Hmm,
Hayley Osborne:
How cool. Yeah, I don’t know what to do. Next thing after that, because that’s like you do become like that is essentially the perfect ingredient for like a wildly successful business.
Sammi Jaeger:
Then I’ll senior leadership team who can hold all of the individual departments and lead with grace to
Hayley Osborne:
Wow,
Sammi Jaeger:
Nice. Yeah, that you can see from my bookshelf, too. Yeah. So, I’m an avid reader. I try and do two a month, anything more than that, and I feel like I’m just knowledge bathing and not really implementing. Yeah, but two a month feels like a good sustainable thing for me. I’ve got so many of my audible library at the moment that I’ve started but not finished. So I went on a book buying spree, so, um, bit the same as you, Hayley. Love learning, love growing, love evolving.
Hayley Osborne:
Also in the background. You have a Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Potatohead.
Sammi Jaeger:
I do. Yeah, I’ve got a Toy Story family here. So there’s Jesse, Potatohead, and Blinky.
Hayley Osborne:
We had missed a potato head while If he doesn’t look like that, and he wrote things, and he’s missing some parts,
Sammi Jaeger:
These are my friends that have been collected from all of the Disneyland’s around the world. So they’ve each come from different places. But yeah, that I mean, that’s absolutely something that fuels me up. And both myself, Nathan, and I do that together. So our romantic relationship, and then also our wealth and lifestyle, like our lifestyle, we design it around making sure that we get to take those trips regularly.
Hayley Osborne:
I love that. And I think Disneyland or Universal Studios, whatever that looks like, it definitely like lights, Kid fire inside of you. And just unleashes so much fun. I’ve been to Disneyland in Tokyo, and I just want to scream and smile and jump up and down and clap my hands like a five-year-old. It’s the best.
Sammi Jaeger:
I love all of that. I love the imagination and the immersion and the like, totally out of body type of experience that Disney is able to create. But then I also nerd out so hard on the business element about, like, how do they create an environment where people they’re not, they don’t feel like they’re being sold to at all. They’re in a buying experience. And they just hand over wads of cash for the craziest things and think nothing of it. So I really love Disney as an entity as well, not just the magic and the stories. I’m a big kid. So yeah, Disneyland is one of my Happy Places for sure.
Hayley Osborne:
Nice. So, what’s next for Sammi Jager and the field of life? Or just semi in general?
Sammi Jaeger:
Well, as I kind of mentioned right at the beginning, I’m writing my book. So I’m writing the field up life and unpacking a little bit more about each of those fuel tanks. Why? Why they need to be part of your life, how you can add fuel what adding fuel looks like for me. And then I’m also launching a membership community really soon. And I can’t wait. It’s it feels so overdue. To be curating a group of people who want to have, Yeah, really great business, but also a really great life and some accountability around. Making sure that the rest of life is awesome. And you’re surrounded by other people who want that, too.
Hayley Osborne:
Yeah, I have a membership in Superhero Marketing. And I started that because I found there was a gap in the market. For business owners with their marketing, they didn’t want to invest in a large agency, and they didn’t know how to do it themselves. And I just had so much goodness sitting in my files of knowledge that it was a disservice for me not to share it. And then the byproduct of that is the community that you build. And it’s so lovely. And it didn’t even cross my radar that I could do that. I felt like it was out of reach for me. But you know, you put one foot in front of the other, and you get to do it. So I’m so excited for you. I can’t wait to watch it all play out. Thank you. So, if people want to connect and follow you and stalk you and get on a waitlist to join our membership, how can they do that?
Sammi Jaeger:
I’ve got a little download that you can grab if you want to take a closer look at those tanks. So Sammijaeger.com/tankcheck. You can find me on all the social platforms. Instagram is probably where I hang out the most as @Sammisomewhere. And if you’ve? If this episode has sparked something, you’ve probably been walking or driving or doing what Hayley’s doing when she’s consuming audio content. Reach out. Just send me a little DM. I’d love to chat. Just tell me what resonated with you, what vibes resonated with you, what tank is overflowing, and which one you need help with. Reach out. I love chatting with people about creating a better world.
Hayley Osborne:
Thanks, Sammi. You’re a beautiful, genuine and really lovely human. And I really thank you for taking the time to have a chat with me and whoever is listening. So, thanks for having the time, and you know the space.
Links:
Sammi Jaeger Website
Sammi Jaeger Instagram
Hayley Osborne Website
Hayley Osborne Instagram
