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Recording your first podcast feels as awkward as writing your first blog post. The ideas always flow until you hit the record button.
Welcome to Transform Your Story.
I’m Janel Guevara.
My clients call me their fairy godmother
But actually…
I’m a life coach with a love of words and the women who use them.
Join me and my daughters as we have honest conversations about writing, life, and redeeming Happily Ever After in the shadow of the stories we never expected to tell.
We recount our experiences as a way to help you see yours in a new light.
From content creation to defining your audience and niche, we break the process down into simple steps with practical application.
That allows us to nurture hope from ashes, so you can too.
Let’s transform your story.
Hello! Welcome to the inaugural episode of Transform Your Story. I'm Janel Guevara.
Launching your first podcast or creating the first episode of your podcast is a lot like the same experience that I've had in 2003 when I started blogging.
Um… What do you say? What do people want to know? It’s like hmmm.
Well, let’s see… I’m a coach who teaches women how to use the details of their story to create an audience for support, for encouragement.
I started out writing in 1998. Not with the desire to make a lot of money online because that was still really fringe back then. There were just a handful of people that were actually creating content for sales. When I did it, my friend and I, we want it to create a place online that women could go to be encouraged. That was our theme. Encouragement and hope, encouragement, hope encouragement and hope. Everything that came across my desk, all the submission that I got, everything had to have encouragement and hope.
Through the years, I have seen some really amazing storytellers, and some really bad storytellers. The years that we published the magazine, it helped me refine what was something, articles and pieces that were great to publish, and others that was like thanks but no thanks. This is what is missing.
I still remember one of the most poignant experiences I as an editor. I was working at the writers’ conference I was on faculty and I was doing editorial critiques. Basically our authors would sign up to talk to me, to either, one see if their articles, stuff would work with our magazine and then I would take it as a submission. Or if it didn't different feedback.
I remember this moment. Oh my gosh this woman, she was so frustrated I could just feel it flying off of her. It was just everywhere and she just looked like she was ready to fight. She threw her article (because we were still doing print stuff back then), threw it down in front of me. Didn’t set, she like flopped in the chair and I was just like hi and I said how can I help you?
She looked at me, I don’t even think she said her name. She said “I've already talked to three editors,” and she said “all of them don't want it. I don't know what's wrong with it. Do I stink as a writer or what? Be honest with me. I want you to be honest with me.”
I’m sitting there and part of me panicked because I have always been more on the side of people pleaser. Let’s be nice, let’s be encouraging. I just remember thinking like ohh my gosh what am I gonna say to this woman? So I sat down and I started reading. I was like wow, hmm. It’s not the grammar, it's not the composition. I mean it was polished to perfection. I mean there was not grammatical error in it.
I’m reading and I'm reading. I am secretly being like ohh God tell me what this is because this is really good. And then it ended. And I was like oh! I know I know why nobody wants it, immediately. I mean it was like whoops! I know why.
She had written this beautiful narrative around a family problem that they kind-of resolved, but there was no there was no point. There was no conclusion. There was no wrap up, tie up, no practical application. And I remember looking at her and said it's written very well, but there's no point to it.
Oh my God! She popped up. It was like whack-a-mole. She was just like yes there is! And I'm like, listen you asked me to be honest with you. I am an editor, there is no point to this article. Honestly? I could have reached out and slapped her and she would have been less surprised.
So, we talked and I shared what I saw. I gave her advice, and she was like thank you, so much. I never would have…
When she left, I'm not sure she understood, but I did. One of the things that I stress with all my clients that I work with is you have to know what it is that you are writing about and writing for. This last year has brought that point home to me so much.
October year ago, October of 2023, my father-in-law died very unexpectedly. I live Oregon with my youngest daughter, Ariana, who you will meet next episode, we -my husband and her- spent October of 2023 in Oklahoma. It was a life changing event for me.
I, ohh, the lessons that I learned, the things that I figured out it, just life changing. We had stuff before that and then adding to that stuff that we still haven't resolved. My father-in-law’s death just stirred the whole pot of emotions.
I've been on a journey for the last five years to really work on dealing with my generational trauma. Dealing with my patterns of behavior. It’s not that I’m a terrible person, it's just that I was still having anxiety. I came out of a 22-year marriage that, you know, two years after the divorce, a licensed therapist said, uh, yeah your ex is a covert narcissistic abuser. So I was working with that.
Then in summer of 2023, before my father-in-law passed, Amazon dropped Shiny Happy People. So between the covert narcissistic abuse and realizing that I had been in this Shiny Happy cult as a homeschooler and a conservative Christian… It was just like wow. Having that fresh on my mind, realizing these two big pieces, was just stirring. So I was working through the trauma all of that, and then my father-in-law.
My husband and I… My husband is awesome. I love this man so much. He and I talk every morning. We talked about things that are really important. We sit and it's not just our coffee, but it's like no this is life, this is this stuff, this is important.
One of the things that we talked about were some of the impact and the fallout and, the grief around his father, and how it impacted and affected the other stuff we were dealing with. He asked questions that I didn’t know how to answer. I had been trying to answer them this whole time. But I just didn't have the answers and I didn’t figure it out.
I'm a person, one of the things that helped me teach so much, is twenty year ago, when I was you know still actively part of writers conference faculty is one of the things that they taught at writers conferences: you cannot be a writer if you are not a reader. You must continue building your knowledge base, feeding your interests, and moving forward. So when I have questions that I can't answer, which has been my pattern all my life, before I heard them offer that advice, I start reading. I start researching. I start diving deeper and everything that I started reading was centered around the Carl Jung quote.
It came up, I swear, it came up, the damn thing was stalking me. I swear everything I looked at had Carl Jung’s quote, “until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it faith.” Ohh.. That thing stalked me everywhere. I have spent the last year having Carl stalk me and thinking about the unconscious conscious.
I realized that most writers pulled the traditional niche formula and you plug that in to create your audience, and you go. For people who do that boom boom boom because their story is super simple, or they already have they don't really have story and they want to sell widgets and they're using you know these three stories from their life to make somebody want to buy a widget. And it frustrated me.
For those in the know, I bought Amy Porterfield's course creating program at the inaugural launch. I went through that again and again and again and I did that exercise until I was sick. I'm like I'm not getting anything. None of this makes any sense. This does not fit with my people.
The business coach I hired in 2020 had me do the same thing. It's like the same freaking niche formula that… this is your ideal customer, this is what they have, and this is what you do… It’s like no. It feels more complicated than that. I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand. I don’t know how many times I have said I do not understand because this formula does not work for me. What the heck? I have wrestled with this thing, I mean, most of my life.
When I came back to coaching, back in 2018… I had a brain injury in 2008. I had finally learned to write! I had finally learned to edit! I had finally identified as a writer and had plans. Had plans to write and speak, and you know just all of these dreams. Then in 2008, after I finally figured out who I was. Or, well in 2008 when I thought I knew who I was and what my mission is, I had a traumatic brain injury that left me with 15% permanent brain damage. Which mostly just means I have short term memory issues and I can't hold more like more than like three things in my head. Oh, and I can’t do math in my head. I'm like 10-Second Tom from Fifty First Dates. It's not quite that bad but, yeah, depending on the day and how much sleep I've had…
Going forward, you know I thought I knew and then I lost it. When I thought my shingle back out in 2018, I was like I'm gonna do it right this time! So I worked on my niche, ad nauseam, for I don't know how long. Each time I did it I got another component, another component, another component that didn't make sense. {cry noise} But I kept going because I'm like I just have to figure this out.
Because the women that come to me and have always found me, have the same problem. They know they want to write. They really want to create, they have these things that they do and they want to do, but they just can't figure them out. So they hodge podge it like I do and it's like they're just so disjointed. I wanted to figure it out because, one, I didn't want to be disjointed anymore because if you don't have a clear message, you can't launch a business and be successful. But getting to find that clear message, that's where the rub lies. That's where the problem is. You can have these ideas, you can have the stuff that you know, but if you do not have the language, you won't reach your audience.
So funny thing happened on the way to the mourning my father-in-law, enter Karl and his damn quote on fate. I went rounds with that thing. And pulled layers, and pulled layers.
I've always noticed patterns in people but I didn't have the same clarity with myself. It frustrated me because I can look at other people, we can talk, we engaged and I’m like ohh that's what it is. I didn’t have that same clarity in myself. It really frustrated me.
Well, one of the reasons why is I was looking in the wrong place in my life to find the answers I needed. I was looking at my situation like a new novelist, who has no idea what they're doing, and they're just sitting down at the keyboard.
For the last nine years, I have had an idea for a novel in the back of my head. So I started reading you know, the books. I've looked at Story Grid. I've looked at the snowflake… What it is? The snowflake theory? I don't remember. It's been a while. And then I found Save the Cat.
Save the Cat Writes a Novel, I think it is. It’s an orange book with a big cat on the front of it. I was like ohh. Save the Cat is really cool. I never did, I never did finish reading it, but shhh. I read enough to appreciate the principles.
One of the big principles that Save the Cat talks about is you have to know your hero’s, your protagonist’s, hidden motivation. Because it is the protagonist’s hidden motivation that drives the whole story.
Somewhere along the way, while I'm secretly swearing under my breath about Karl and his unconscious conscious, it hit me… that my life story also has a hidden motivation, and that's the unconscious conscious that Karl was talking about.
It hit me like that lady at the writer’s conference who was spitting mad. And it was just like, wow. It has been under my nose this whole time and I missed it.
When I recognized that all of my programs, all of what I offer, all I've ever tried to do with my authors is help them find the unconscious conscious, which is their hidden motivation.
To do that, I started playing around in my own life. Looking at my own life. Looking at the depths and looking at the places where it had unraveled. And I didn't understand who I was and what I was and how it went together and how it fit together, and on and on and on. And then the conversations with my husband. He would say something that would just trigger ah! light bulb and I would run with it and think into it and see where it connected.
It's just been this this past year has just been this ohh my gosh! Thinking about it to the filter of ideas I had written down in 2022, to create a program, just clicked. That unconscious conscious I have been chasing all of my life, finally became clear. I realized, with that clarity, changed my whole presentation of what I create, what I teach, and what my message is.
Now, I've always loved to play with words, I mean I love words. I love you so much. Words fascinate me. I’m a word nerd.
I was home schooled in high school. I spent six weeks diagramming sentences for fun. I am that kind of word nerd.
Unfortunately, I'm no longer a grammar nazi. Or actually, fortunately I'm no longer a grammar nazi. Because once I had my brain injury, that fine editing, copy writing, proofreading stuff, that’s another I lost.
I can live with being able to patch sentences together and have somebody else proofread my work. On one hand, I miss that, but on the other hand I don't because focusing on those teeny tiny little grammatical details… make us miss the big picture.
As a reformed grammar nazi, I realized that I was too focused on what was exactly there, that I missed the big picture. It was a nice shift, like oh… So I just chalk it up to my superpower and move on. Because the accident did help me focus on a different place in my story.
But again, all of these little details. These are all details. They're parts of my story but they aren't my story.
You know my story is that secret motivation to finally understand all those things that never made sense in my life. That is what I have been doing my whole life. Is trying to figure out why my life didn't make sense.
At four-years-old, I thought Mr. Rogers was just the best. You know that man promised me I could go to school and I could learn anything I wanted to do. I believed him and then it went to school and it was this hellish freak show that I didn't understand. I do today. I absolutely do today. That is part of my story and what transformed me.
Knowing who I am and why I experienced what I did, gave me clarity to help others figure out their story. Their unspoken motivation, that they never really noticed before.
Transforming your story, and everything I do, is about figuring out and revealing the unconscious conscious that we don't know is freaking haunting and influencing and poking us in the butt. Where we make choices that we don't realize we're making. So all of a sudden we wake up and there's like chaos in 15 areas of our life. And we're like oh my God how did I get here? It's like is God out to get me or something?
The answer is well no. There are some things that happen that are outside of our control. But recognizing what we have control of and what others have informed us, pushed us towards, made us think about control, that's where things change. That's where things transform. And it is in that moment, those moments, we gain clarity when we finally figured it out. That clarity not only transforms our day-to-day living, but it transforms our content.
Because all of a sudden, those little things that we didn’t understand that we knew we wanted to write about, but had no idea how to share or market or what impact they had or how to sell it or how to think about it… those details are the things, the glue, that holds our message and gives us clarity.
The thing that I've learned that blew me away the most is that it's the little details. The obscure details, that impact us the most. The things that we may not even think about.
When I tell my story about the brain injury people like wow that must have rocked your life. Yeah the brain injury was awful, but what actually made the brain injury so bad was one person around me who was telling me you were such a terrible person. God had to nearly kill you and take away your brain and your function and the things that you love because you are too stupid to listen to me.
And that is the distinction. Because I lived in that fear and the shame and the guilt that I had done something that God had punished me for. So He took everything that I loved away from me. But in reality, the worst thing about the brain injury was the person who was shaming me for a complete accident.
And those are the things, those unconscious conscious moments, experiences, circumstances, situations, that we don't realize until we get from far enough away from them, to have clarity and step back and be able to take a breath and look at them differently. It's stories like that that make up the lessons, the wisdom, and the encouragement our audience needs from us. Because like it or not, our audience, unless we’re some researcher you know we have a very specific niche that we write about and we talk about, the things that impact our audience most profoundly are the same things that affect us.
Back in 1995, I was so overwhelmed. I was a new mom. I had been married about a year and a half, in my first marriage with ex-husband. I had a 6-month-old baby, and I was overwhelmed.
I was so underwater and I didn't know why. I finally gained courage to ask the Titus 2 Bible-study leader, the older woman in the church. I finally worked up the courage. It took me a couple of months. I was like need help, I'm so overwhelmed
There was a little bit of dialogue, but she reached over she patted my hand, and she said, you just keep praying God will get you there. I was so crushed because I had been praying. I had been fervently praying, so hard, for so long. Oh, my gosh, I can't even tell you how much I was praying
That day as I sat there sobbing with her, I made a vow and I said if I ever figure this out, I am going to reach out and work with and teach other women what they need to know to get out of it. My process, what I teach, what I encourage, what I use-the tools-fulfill that promise.
Because I know why I was struggling that day and it wasn't just because I was overwhelmed with motherhood. And I know, all these years later, thirty years later, literally it's 2025 this year and it was 1995. That you can transform your story. It’s about making the unconscious conscious, so this nebulous concept of fate no longer rules your life.
Now, I'm a very spiritual person and I do believe that there are coincidences and Divine appointments, and things that happen that are Divine and out of our control, but that's not what I'm talking about with the unconscious conscious. This unconscious conscious stuff feels like fate but in reality, it is just a secret pattern of hidden details that we have not identified yet.
That’s what I do. I teach you how to harness and leverage those principles, the ideas, the layers. What we're going to talk about is pulling apart those layers until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
Transforming your story is all about finding your hidden motivation, uncovering your hidden patterns, figuring out where you’ve been making choices you didn't notice or understand, that created the content that you want to write about. Once you put those steps together you will have clarity you never expected to find. For me, that has been amazing. Because after 50 years on this earth I finally have my life back. I cannot recommend that enough. So in the coming months, this is what the girls and I are going to talk about. Welcome to changing your life and transforming your story.
Thanks so much for joining us today!
I’m Janel Guevara.
I hope you caught a glimmer of hope, a glimpse of possibility, and a sprinkle of fairy dust.
Join us next time when we take another step towards Transforming Your Story.
Content for educational purposes only.
Our stories are not your stories
Please be cautious and contact your local domestic violence hotline if you need support.
