Permission to Pause: Reclaim Your Identity Outside of Work with Jen Davis

The ONE Thing

NOVA Media

Business, Careers, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For years, Jen Davis did what high performers are taught to do. Say yes. Move faster. Carry more responsibility. Lead at a high level and keep pushing. From the outside, her career looked like the definition of success. Then she was forced to pause. And that pause completely shifted her thinking. She had been running full speed ahead, without realizing the impact it was having on the things that matter most to her - her family. In this conversation, Jay Papasan sits down with Jen to talk about the moment she realized her calendar no longer reflected her priorities, her identity had become tied to her work, and margin had disappeared from her life. Stepping away from running one of the largest coaching organizations in the industry wasn’t about quitting. It was about creating space to think, to feel, and to reconnect with who she wanted to be as a mom, leader, and human being. Jen shares what surprised her most during the pause, why busyness can be a form of self-soothing, and how decision fatigue quietly erodes both joy and clarity. Together, she and Jay unpack the difference between reacting and responding, the power of reflection, and why 15 minutes of intentional thinking can become the first domino toward a healthier, more grounded life. Challenge of the Week: Set a timer for 15 minutes. Put your phone face down in another part of the room. No scrolling. No reading. No to-do lists. Just sit with your thoughts and decide what truly matters today. *** To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/pods. Links & Tools from This Episode: Visit Jen Davis’s Website The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham Follow our friend Jordan Freed on Instagram Dr. Robyne Hanley-Defoe Free Resources Want to be a guest or share feedback? Email podcast@the1thing.com or send us an audio note at Speakpipe.com/the1thing. Produced by NOVA

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week, I'm talking with my good friend, Jen Davis.
0:02.7	And this is a conversation I've been waiting close to a year to have.
0:07.0	I followed her career closely for maybe close to a decade.
0:11.2	And she has hit every single milestone that you can imagine as a business owner
0:17.3	and eventually was running one of the largest coaching companies in our industry when she
0:22.7	decided it was time to hit the pause button. It was time to step back and build some space
0:28.5	into her life, whereas she will tell us margin into her life so she could get clear about who it is
0:35.3	she was and wanted to be and how she wanted to show up for her family
0:39.2	and her loved ones. A lot of us running around, whether we realize it or not, have made our
0:44.3	identity about our work. We've made our identity around our achievements. And Jen is here to
0:50.2	show us a better way. She answered the question, you know, would I rather be special or happy?
0:55.5	And she surprised herself and door opening to a whole other version of herself than she'd ever
1:02.1	imagined. And she found it in this place where she paused, first uncomfortably, but then she grew into
1:07.8	this space. And she is clearly happy today
1:11.3	and has a lot to share with us.
1:13.8	Everybody out there,
1:15.2	the high achievers who are always running,
1:17.6	this is your permission to pause.
1:19.2	I hope you enjoy this episode with my friend, Jen Davis.
1:22.1	I'm Jay Papazan, and this is the One Thing,
1:24.4	your weekly guide to the simple steps
1:26.6	that lead to extraordinary results.
	...

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