Victoria Petrovsky: 0:00

Welcome to the Startup of Human Potential. We're your co-hosts.

Clifton Smith: 0:04

I'm Clifton.

Victoria Petrovsky: 0:05

And I'm Victoria, and together we're Faces of the Future.

Clifton Smith: 0:10

Faces of the Future is a startup studio with a personal development platform focused on consciousness, innovation, connection and well-being, and today we have the pleasure of hosting one of our very own quantum preneurs in residence, Jennifer Esteban.

Victoria Petrovsky: 0:29

Yeah, jen, we're so excited to have you on the show. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so a little bit of background about Jen. We met back in 2020 or 2021. Yeah, at a Chamber of Commerce event in Topanga where she was talking about her new app that she launched called FriendsMates, a platform for conscious co-living and finding the right roommate. Matches and Clifton and I had been using the app. We had a conscious co-working co-living space in Topanga and it was cool to meet Jen in person and since then we've become great friends.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:10

And a little bit of background about Jen. She worked at MySpace. She was in charge of the apps, creating a safe and private atmosphere of security, and then led her own team and started managing the groups and forums department of MySpace, as well as a background of 18 years of photography, very well versed and especially focused on interiors and architectures. And she's been featured on the cover of Architectural Digests it was a beautiful cover shot. Saw that one Love it. And she's been running a conscious community house called Panda House that houses seven entrepreneurs for the past six years and throughout this time period, about 100 or so people have flowed into and out of the house. So, jen, welcome, thank you, thank you.

Clifton Smith: 2:03

Nice. So catch us up. I know you're really at the precipice here with FriendsMates as a combination of your cumulative experience and passions for photography, decor community and creating a family environment. But catch us up to this point. What led you to create FriendsMates?

Jennifer Esteban: 2:26

So what happened was I had been pretty much an entrepreneur my whole life. It's the one thing that has always called to me, and my specific lifestyle, I would say, is whatever an entrepreneur needs. And I had been living with roommates through college and through my whole life, and I realized that until I created this house, I was never in the right environment. I was never around other entrepreneurs, I think, because I worked throughout the day. What I would do is have my social life, be at home and then work outside of the house during the day, and so I used to live more with party people.

Jennifer Esteban: 3:11

But what happened was I was kind of known as the serious one, or like the Debbie Downer when people are trying to party and I'm like hey guys, it's five in the morning, I have this thing due tomorrow, and people are like oh God, jen, why do you have to work so hard? And I realized that I really needed to bring a balance to the entire thing and I was like I love you guys. I definitely always want to hang out when it's fun times with you guys, but I needed to be in a space where I could be at home whenever I wanted to and have the space that I can always depend on, instead of looking for outside office areas or something like that, where I also wanted to be inspired by the people that I was around, instead of distracted by them or feeling like I just didn't really fit in with them.

Jennifer Esteban: 3:58

And so, a little over six years actually about seven years ago I started thinking about wanting to create a place like this, a house that I could say this is what it is, I'm sure there's going to be other people for it, and so I spent about a year looking around this area and talking to my friends about it, and then about a year later I actually happened to stumble upon somebody who had a house and when I told him what I wanted to do, he was like this is awesome, you should do it here. And I ended up taking over the house and just creating exactly what I wanted. So through building that house and going through the trials and errors and all that kind of stuff, I learned what it took to actually create and maintain a house like this, where people felt really good, where there was compatibility and, most importantly, where there was connection and family type dealings in it. Because if I was to live with the people before that I used to hang out with, I wanted to keep that part, the social part, at home, while also being inspired to continue working on the things that I wanted to work on. And then from there I was always trying to figure out how to get back to tech. I had done photography and that was this thing that had kind of accidentally made a career out of, without really meaning to. It was just the thing that just came very easily to me and that I just was inspired to keep working on. But I really wanted to get back to tech.

Jennifer Esteban: 5:28

That was, for me, the most fun place, and so I jotted down different ideas and then I was like what am I really inspired by? And I was like I'm really inspired by my lifestyle here. And I was like this has been so, so great for me. It changed everything. It took my, my old businesses and allowed me to really thrive and focus more and have peace of mind and feel like I was actually enjoying my life.

Jennifer Esteban: 5:53

And I was like, wow, what if everyone could have this? I know I didn't have it before coming here, before making this, and I know that there's so many people that don't have this. And I just imagined a like a world where if the for all the people who do live with roommates, if we could have something that was really compatible to us, that flowed and worked really well and had a lot of connection and was fulfilling, and where he had, like, social needs met and support and things like that, how much better would the world be? And then I just I was like this is amazing, like I pictured it, and I was like there's nobody doing this, there's nobody focusing on this, and I was like that's what I now. That's what I want to do.

Jennifer Esteban: 6:34

So I drew it out and I was like I want to create this resource for people I want to create, and then it just I kind of got carried away with the idea and then I was like we're making something huge now. So that's how I started it. I came up with the idea in 2019 and then it wasn't until about 2020, the beginning of 2020, that when everything happened, that I was like this is the time that it needs to happen too.

Victoria Petrovsky: 6:59

Yeah, wow, thank you for sharing. Yeah, at the time of 2020, what happened? We all got locked down and social distance and couldn't really go out and see our friends. So you cultivated an environment where you get to live with the people that you love and that you want to connect with, and, from what you're sharing, it sounded like prior to you intentionally creating your own space, those other places weren't cutting it for you. It was kind of like you ended up there through one circumstance or another, but it wasn't your ethos or the things you valued that were permeating through the culture of those co-living spaces.

Jennifer Esteban: 7:35

Yeah, it wasn't really, I would say, intentionally designed. Yeah. It was more like hey, I know you guys, I like this area, okay.

Clifton Smith: 7:45

But, yeah, it's been to that panda house that you've been cultivating and you can feel it. It's palpable that the family feel we've been to a few gatherings together yeah. And you can really feel that there's a community behind it rather than just convenience. Yeah, definitely.

Jennifer Esteban: 8:04

Yeah, I think we think of these ourselves as family. So even when we're talking to each other say in a group, read hey, panda, fam, we really think of each other as just like very close people. We talk about things, we run ideas past each other. If somebody is having a really bad day and needs somebody to talk to, we'll just figure out which person we want to do that with and we'll just go get advice or whatever. We make time for each other and then we never abused each other's time or anything like that. So it's never like a burden, it's more like yeah, happy to be here for you and I love the support system. Not just the support system, but also like the other, like a couple of weeks ago I went to a party that was themed in a theme that I would never own clothes in and it was bright neon colors.

Victoria Petrovsky: 8:54

Jen's wearing black. Yeah, I was like I'm wearing colors.

Jennifer Esteban: 8:58

And so I was like Ariel, I need pop clothes like think neon, think bright. And she was like, yeah, that's all I have coming to my closet. And she dressed in everybody said I was the best dressed, and so that's part of it. I get to borrow stuff and share resources and stuff like that which is so invaluable.

Victoria Petrovsky: 9:20

Yeah, and I love. Cliff and I were just over this week and I love how welcome and inclusive you make the housemates feel when friends are coming over. It's like, oh, these are my friends, we're using a common space and they can choose if they want to stay, if they want to hang out or if they want to opt out and go do their own thing. But everyone's welcome and invited.

Jennifer Esteban: 9:41

Mm-hmm. Yep, definitely.

Clifton Smith: 9:43

Yeah, so talk us through sort of that experience of a hundred people that you've helped through the house. What are some of those lessons and how do you embody that and scale it in this platform you're building?

Jennifer Esteban: 9:55

Well, so yeah, because it's seven bedrooms. There's been a lot of different people. I think some of them were here two weeks where I needed to fill a gap between an actual, more permanent person coming in.

Jennifer Esteban: 10:09

So, that's how those little ones just kind of add up, and I guess some of the things that I've learned are there's all these different personality types and I think, one learning about myself, I think going like, oh wow, that personality type really just causes me so much anxiety, or that personality type, you know, doesn't believe in boundaries, and then that personality type is a little bit more anti-social. Okay, how do I deal with that? How am I in the space of that? What are other people like in the spaces with this?

Clifton Smith: 10:41

Because every time a new person comes in.

Jennifer Esteban: 10:43

You know, at one point we all kind of brainstorm about the experience together. Oh, what was that like? Oh, they didn't talk to me, but they talked to you. So I've learned a lot about different personality types and what meshes with you and like you know who I maybe thought would get along didn't get along, or you know who I didn't think would get along became super close and like that's awesome.

Jennifer Esteban: 11:06

So, I think it gave me a lot of insight, a lot of experience into a lot of different people, their lifestyles, how they live, what they want out of a space, how long they stay around for different careers and stuff that people have and like the nomad part moving around and things like that. All the experiences have pretty much been amazing and they really also catalyzed me to show up in different ways and be very flexible with so many different kinds of people. At the end of the day, I would always tell people I'm like everybody that came in here. I made sure I definitely get along with you know and so.

Jennifer Esteban: 11:45

but I feel like I'm kind of easy to get along with, like I'll have a relationship with every single person that's ever lived here and some of the others they might be like I don't know how to talk to them. So I think by me training myself to find a common ground, I've also just expanded myself as a person you know, take all that info and like how I've done it or what I've seen, and then I go.

Jennifer Esteban: 12:08

how can I make this part of friends, mates, part of the education, part of what I know? How can we bring this to help other people?

Victoria Petrovsky: 12:18

Wow. So when you say personality types, do you mean like actual, like they take a test, myers-briggs or is it an intuitive gen Esteban assessment through the years of your track record of experience? How do you gauge what someone's personality type is?

Jennifer Esteban: 12:34

Yeah, I think I just do it all in my brain, so I'll assess whether somebody is more assertive or like doesn't want to be as involved, or if you know what is really important to a person and what is really not. Whether they take responsibility for stuff or they try to be like I don't know who did it. There's so many different types. I can go so long just talking about all these different situations, like people who borrow things with that asking and how they justify it.

Victoria Petrovsky: 13:05

I mean just so many, so many things, yeah, and all these different personality types have tested the bounds of you and created opportunities and challenges for your own expansion. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's something Clifson and I have talked a lot about, because we also co-lived with our housemates and it's like why do we keep love attracting this type of personality? What is it showing us? Why does this keep coming up? Is there something we have unresolved? So I remember a little while back, you were recording some videos on Instagram about how living with roommates prepares you for marriage, or what was that Marriage? How so?

Jennifer Esteban: 13:49

So I see marriage as not just two people committing to each other, but also to that lifestyle of being together and living together. Yeah, if you go in and you're like I'm in love and we're going to have just, and then you go in and you're like, wow, they don't know how to clean their room, they leave their laundry all over the place, they're a mess in the kitchen, they're going to have all these different little fights and whatever. They're going to give up or sacrifice a clean house or things like that, and I think ultimately they end up having to train each other on how to live with others. Whereas if you do that training and live with other people I've noticed, definitely from being in this house so many years you shape each other.

Jennifer Esteban: 14:33

You know somebody doesn't communicate very well about something, somebody says something, and you get a little bit better at that, and then like, oh, you didn't realize that, you thought like that because this situation never came up until now, and now you reacted like that and somebody just shaped you a little bit like that and so it kind of like sculpts you a little bit of time to where you're able to communicate what you need. Not only that, but like what can understand what works for you. You can't live with just anybody. But you also don't know what you need unless you know what you need. So if you don't know your own needs and what works for you first, how do you know somebody's compatible? And if you don't know that before getting into a marriage or even any relationship, then you're going to try until you start figuring out your needs.

Jennifer Esteban: 15:21

So, it's a really great practice for that.

Victoria Petrovsky: 15:24

Versus like living alone in your own place, right.

Jennifer Esteban: 15:27

Yeah, who's going to tell you that you're very messy or dirty, or that you don't actually fully clean the dishes and there's always oil all over, unless somebody comes over and tells you like bro, I can't eat off to this plate.

Clifton Smith: 15:41

Yeah, it sounds like there's a bit of re-parenting in this kind of lifestyle, but there's also leadership development training, right, that can translate over into their entrepreneurial skills and building teams, you know could you talk a bit about how you've seen that overlap and how you've applied the interpersonal learnings of your lifestyle into your business.

Jennifer Esteban: 16:01

Yeah, definitely, I think for me as a house leader, I really took on the role of understanding leadership, and it wasn't just for this house. I was like, well, as an entrepreneur, I should really own this. And then this was an opportunity and I was like why I think I need to do it now? And so I think it's important for anybody who's going to be leading a house to be a good leader, so that you don't have somebody who doesn't know how to make decisions and stuff being in charge of the lease, the people decision making, all that kind of stuff. So I think that part of what I think people need more is actual training or help or resources to become good house leaders if they want to have a house where they lead how it works.

Clifton Smith: 16:49

Awesome. And then also some stats out there say that startups fail 40% of the time because of interpersonal or team issues, and we like to say 100% of starters fail because of the person that's some way along the chain. But what we've observed living with other people is this can actually help us become leaders in our own careers, in our own professions, because you're dealing with unique personalities, you're dealing with unique preferences and lifestyle.

Victoria Petrovsky: 17:18

And those are going to come up in the workspace too. It's whatever the issue is in someone's personal reality, they encounter wherever they encounter it. If they don't live with a significant other, they encounter with roommates. If they don't live with roommates, then they encounter it in business with their business partners. So it's a fast track to, as you said, finding out what your needs are, understanding how to communicate with different types of personality types, understanding what's negotiable, non-negotiable, and how to find that win-win solution that works for everybody involved, right?

Jennifer Esteban: 17:55

Yeah, definitely. I would say you learn a lot about communication, what to provide, making sure things are taken care of, not waiting for somebody else to take care of it. There is definitely a lot that you can learn and grow from by being a leader of a house, or at least even being in a house that has a good leader.

Clifton Smith: 18:17

Absolutely so. We talked a bit about the personality side of co-living. We talked about the lifestyle side, the personal development side. What have you seen translate in terms of economic prosperity diving into the financial perspective of co-living? Why and how is it such a great opportunity for people this day and age?

Jennifer Esteban: 18:44

I would say that we're in Los Angeles. Los Angeles saw a huge increase in rent. It saw a lot of instability between 2020 and 2020. Really, until still right now, there's a lot of instability around housing. A lot of people who rent, say, a studio, are paying quite a bit of money.

Jennifer Esteban: 19:06

If you're in a popular area, they might have an area where the rooftop maybe it's a shared rooftop and they maybe have a couch but nobody wants to use it. There's not a lot of privacy. You feel like you're with a bunch of random people because you don't know them, but maybe you don't have a jacuzzi, you don't have speakers outside. There's a lot of things that you might not have. Those places with rooftops those are really expensive. Imagine having the same quality of life that you have for less money, or you could have a higher quality more than what you currently have for similar-ish, if not just maybe a little bit more money. When you're in a house especially not that everybody's in a house. A lot of the people in our community they're in apartments, condos and things like that but when you pull your resources together, you're just able to have more.

Jennifer Esteban: 20:00

You can pull them together and then buy that water filter that you want to get good water, or you can have a recurring subscription of something that everybody wants. You get to share in the utilities and save money. That way, something breaks. You have multiple people two plus people replacing it. You don't have to get a couch per person and a coffee table per person. It ends up, I think, saving a lot of money. Also, I think things just become a little bit more convenient. In case you need to move, you can leave your stuff Somebody will take it a sublet that you can come back to your space, maybe, if that's the deal. I think it's just a really good way of people to have this option, especially during these more uncertain and unstable times, but also for us to thrive in, because of the community.

Jennifer Esteban: 20:54

because of the social part, I think it's especially good if people have budgets of some kind and just want more out of their living experience.

Victoria Petrovsky: 21:05

Yeah, exactly, you actually read my mind of where I was going to go. Next, what you're describing sounds like thriving. A lot of people want to get roommates to survive, to split the cost of a couch, to split the cost of utilities, to split the cost of internet. This is like you're talking about jacuzzi and speakers and water filtration system. That's like next level.

Victoria Petrovsky: 21:28

Those are not your root base needs. That's kind of like. These are some of my needs for actualization and self-fulfillment. I really want to have a cold plunge or a jacuzzi or a I don't know sauna. What do some people's houses have right?

Jennifer Esteban: 21:43

Yeah, exactly. So when you live alone you kind of have just your basic needs, but when you're able to pull the resources together, you're able to have those extra things that make you really enjoy your life a lot more. That was one, I think, big difference, especially with our houses Having a view, for example. I can't afford to view by myself right now, you know.

Clifton Smith: 22:06

Yeah, it's a beautiful view. You're at the top of Studio City and like our key estate right Like just to give our listeners some perspective.

Victoria Petrovsky: 22:14

Aided community with views of the mountains and sunsets and the whole city.

Jennifer Esteban: 22:19

Yeah, it's really amazing.

Victoria Petrovsky: 22:21

So you know Elkinies on every floor.

Jennifer Esteban: 22:24

Yeah, three stories and yeah, I think that's a key. What's the word for not differentiator? But a key distinction is that, instead of choosing roommates to just survive, I think the idea is reframing what roommates can do for you, so that you actually feel like this is a deliberate choice in a lifestyle choice for something that you want more of.

Jennifer Esteban: 22:48

So maybe you want more beauty, or more luxury, or more amenities or more space. You can either have like a studio apartment, which is pretty expensive these days, or you can have a room in a large house where you can have three different options for where you want to sit down and work on your laptop for the day.

Victoria Petrovsky: 23:11

Yeah, clifton and I had that at our previous spot where I don't know, it was like a two-acre property or acre and a half. We had a platform overlooking Topanga. We had five different workspaces and outdoor spaces, balconies, terraces, permaculture, hillside garden. All of that Not just bedroom, living room, kitchen, dining room. They are essentials. It was a lot of space, a lot of space to go like, cultivate other skills and things we were interested in. Yeah.

Clifton Smith: 23:39

Cool. So we talked a bit about the community layer, we talked about the personal development layer, we've talked a bit more of the materialistic luxury layer. I wanted to switch for a second. How, jen, have you gotten to this point where? You're able to put all of these layers and really stack all of these benefits into a particular offering. Were you always in luxurious co-living spaces? Were you always in Studio City? What brought you to that point?

Jennifer Esteban: 24:13

To make what we have now.

Victoria Petrovsky: 24:15

Yeah, I guess what I'm also wondering to what Clifton is saying is who are you growing up, what kind of environment were you raised in, what kind of family culture for you to shape those kinds of values, of connection, of community, of supporting one another to your growth and expansion, of prioritizing self-development? Yeah, could you share a little bit more about that please?

Jennifer Esteban: 24:39

Yeah, I can break it up to maybe some kind of key events. When I was in Argentina, we lived in the middle of really far away from any actual city, I would say just in the middle of the country, and it was a very underdeveloped area, so concrete roads we just didn't have, it was only dirt I think we're just kind of like dirt, but on a different level and it was the only commerce that really was in that area was between the people who lived there, and so while we had our family in our house and we actually had my grandparents, they lived on a guest house on our property?

Jennifer Esteban: 25:26

What up ADUs? Yeah, pretty much. And then all the neighbors provided something different. So, like my family, my dad would fix bikes and we bred the chickens. Wow, and then everybody grew their own vegetables. And somebody else made ice cream, Somebody else was the baker, Somebody else everybody just contributed kind of something else that we all wanted. And then for the things that we couldn't provide, there was a grocery store like an hour away that you could walk to. Yeah, and then we could go there.

Clifton Smith: 26:00

And how old were you? This was you were born and raised there up until 6. I was 6, yeah, Wow.

Jennifer Esteban: 26:07

So that's kind of what it was like there and then. So, since we knew all of our neighbors, when we came to the US we noticed that the culture was very different, so we were all operating the same way we would, which is like, oh wow, you live there, I should know you, I should know you, I should know you. And then people like closing doors and I'm like what?

Victoria Petrovsky: 26:28

are you doing? Why is nobody bringing me eggs?

Jennifer Esteban: 26:31

I'm like I see a dog in there, why are?

Clifton Smith: 26:34

you hiding? Why are you? We're neighbors. What happened to?

Jennifer Esteban: 26:37

the neighbor league Right. Where did?

Clifton Smith: 26:38

that go.

Jennifer Esteban: 26:40

And I think because we had some kids like me and my two sisters we were young, I think, especially me and my little sister I think people were just kind of like, oh, we have these kids in the building now and they would open up their doors and we just like walk right in, like it's our house, we don't know any better, we just that's what it was before, we just like we belong to the whole neighborhood.

Jennifer Esteban: 27:00

And then after and that was awesome, but I think after moving a few times, I realized that that was very normal and that the neighbor is just you could live on a block and know like two people and I thought that was so weird and I at that point nobody really depended on each other, except for I guess that everybody depended on me because I was the dog sitter, I was the one who mowed your lawns, I would go to church with you, take care of your kids. I was just like in everybody's house, wow. And so I think that kind of shaped me a bit was not not being one of those people that didn't know their neighbors, yeah, and really having a relationship with the people that were around me. Knowing that I was like I'm not going to feel weird about knocking on your door. You live right here, yeah.

Victoria Petrovsky: 27:51

I see a lot of parallels between what you're sharing about your childhood and what you do now. So Jen fosters cats and has like four or five cats I lose track collects donations for cat and pet shelters right, and you grow some of your own food at that panda house.

Jennifer Esteban: 28:11

Yeah.

Jennifer Esteban: 28:11

Yeah, we grow and food here. We do our own compost. We use our compost for our garden. I, yeah, I volunteer for a couple of catch rescues I hold they're just animals, but I mostly help with the cat stuff and then, yeah, we have five cats and then I'm also best friends with our neighbors next door, so that's awesome. So we're in each other's house all the time. Her kids, like they just walk into the house and we'll be like hey, we brought you guys stuff. No, just walk in the kitchen and just like leave it. Wow.

Jennifer Esteban: 28:42

This is very and she's also from. She's from Lebanon, so I think her family was also kind of like that, and so we were like oh God, we're so, we just became, we just did what we were used to.

Clifton Smith: 28:57

Yeah, and that's so powerful in today's modern world, where loneliness and mental health are at all time crises, right, and this kind of lifestyle that you were raised in and you're bringing through your platform of friends, mates, can actually be a an angle to support that, that challenge of loneliness and mental health. Because you feel community, you feel support.

Victoria Petrovsky: 29:21

Belonging yeah.

Jennifer Esteban: 29:24

Yeah, I think that there's roommates and there's people who live in your house, and that's one style. And then there's also the relationship between, say, somebody living in a main house and then a guest house. Right there's your neighbors, people who live, maybe don't share the same utilities or anything, but they live right next to you. It's very similar. And then there's eco villages and I just think that there's so much community in all of that. For me they're all the same. Whether you have extra walls and space between the building or not, this is your home community.

Clifton Smith: 29:58

Wow. So how do you find time for all this? Did you just wake up one day and be like, oh, I now have capacity to do all of this, or how did that happen?

Jennifer Esteban: 30:09

Uh, I think I've just always been effective with my time If I can do a lot of things in a short period of time.

Victoria Petrovsky: 30:17

Yeah, definitely.

Jennifer Esteban: 30:19

People that live with me or used to live with me. They would say like they would be like oh, what'd you do today? And I'm like I did this, this, this, this and this. And they're like I took one phone call and I'm like, yeah, it's noon and I just finished all my stuff today. I'm going to work on tomorrow now.

Victoria Petrovsky: 30:38

Were you always like that growing up in school? Yeah, and did you think that that was common, normal? Yeah, we call that a high performer, right?

Clifton Smith: 30:50

So did you always know that you were a high performer? Was that normalized for you?

Jennifer Esteban: 30:56

I don't think I thought about anything that much. I think it was more like. In fact, I think the the, the feedback that I was getting was that I was like a lot to handle, or like, oh, jen's bored again, okay, now we got to figure out what else to do to keep her busy, yeah. So I think I was more like kind of. I think, instead of being like, oh, this is a great thing, I think it was like, oh, you're such a pain in the butt, so I just don't think I thought of it as like a good thing.

Jennifer Esteban: 31:32

But I also couldn't slow down or anything. So I was like look, can I just be me, I'm going to get this done. If I'm done early and you're distracted because I have nothing to do, like I'm going to just find something else, is that okay? But, like to my teachers, I would always be like, okay, I'm done. And they're like you could have finished, and like then they check it and they're like well, you still have to stay here and I'm like that's okay, I have homework to do from the class before this and just sit here and do my homework. And they're like yeah, but sit in the back. I don't want you to disrupt anybody or distract them, because they're all still working on this.

Jennifer Esteban: 32:08

Yeah, I just feel like multi-tasking and just doing a bunch of stuff.

Victoria Petrovsky: 32:13

And those are the types of people that usually don't prefer to trade their time for money, because they will get the things done super quickly. And then, for those of you on the audio, jen's rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

Jennifer Esteban: 32:30

I know being an employee was so hard because it was so easy, and so for people that would hire me I would just someone fired me because I was going above them, like at one point one of the companies that I worked at, the vice president came to me and was like what are you doing in that position? And then my manager and all the people between me and that person were like she's going to take my job. And I was like I'm just so bored, I already finished everything. Then I sent out this email and wanted this thing read and wanted some you know thoughts on it, and so I just did that. I responded.

Victoria Petrovsky: 33:10

People are like nobody's especially to respond to that. Is that why they created a whole department for you. I created that department. Okay, I knew that tied in somehow. Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Esteban: 33:22

Because, yeah, in my space I had a job and I did the job and then half the day was I still had it, and at one point there was only so much on my desk before I send it back out, and then I wait for something else to come back to me. And so I would go on on on the systems that we had and be like oh, where else is like, where else is there trouble that I can fix?

Jennifer Esteban: 33:43

And that's when I stumbled upon the groups and forums section at MySpace where there was just so many tools posting all this crazy code that would like take over your computer, put it down, make it like super slow and still bugs on it. And I was like, wow, something to take my attention. What are they doing? Like, let me get rid of them. And so I had to make a whole thing and presentation around how many there were in the group section. And they're like well, what do you want to do about it? And I was like I want to do it. And they're like well, you can't do it by yourself.

Jennifer Esteban: 34:17

And I was like, well, can I get like a person or two or three? And then they're like well, what about your work? And I was like you guys, I finished early. So I basically had to talk them into letting me create a department and taking some of other people's times from different departments to come and work on this this one with me. So everybody else had something to do and this was like their second department. So I thought that was really funny and I was like that goes in line with everything, because I negotiate every single part of my life and just kind of like ask until I kind of get it Reach okay, or reach the bounds of what's possible.

Jennifer Esteban: 34:51

Yeah, I mean, if it's such a good idea and somebody's trying to do more work, how are you going to be like no?

Victoria Petrovsky: 34:59

you'd be surprised.

Clifton Smith: 35:01

Yeah, certain systems aren't set up that way, right, they're not incentivized for that.

Jennifer Esteban: 35:05

I had to ask, pretty pleased to let me do that, so that I was just had something else to do. Yeah.

Clifton Smith: 35:10

So clearly the more mature companies and the corporate life is not for you. Yeah. So you left the corporate life and started up your own. What was the next step? How did you step away from the corporate life and embrace fully being an entrepreneur?

Jennifer Esteban: 35:30

So I had some more jobs after that one and then I went back to school because people said that should and I was kind of anti school but I went to school I was studying.

Jennifer Esteban: 35:40

Well, originally I was going in, I was really into psychology and I had a whole long story with psychiatric drugs and I just was kind of a little bit rebellious towards the whole industry, yeah. But I wanted to go in and study them so that we could find better things. And then at one point I realized that this was a huge machine that I would be up against and I would not. And so I changed it and I was like all right, I just want to get out of school now. So it was biopsych, biopsychology. But then I moved it and I was like all right, just get me out of here. And I was like I'm good at art, let's do art. And then I was like, well, I actually have a natural thing for history for some reason, like histories, like what are my favorite things is memorizing stories and putting them on timelines of like what happened where and just creating this huge web of the past. And so I studied art history.

Clifton Smith: 36:30

At the end and then I talked more about that aspect because that might be a unique ability there. So you just naturally put timelines in your head, or what did you just say? You just kind of skipped over, but that's the exact kind of unique gifts and abilities that entrepreneurs realize are very unique and special and can be and they're just a natural byproduct of their beingness, or Jen's beingness.

Victoria Petrovsky: 37:02

She doesn't think she has to explain more than that, but everyone else might be like say more. What can you do?

Jennifer Esteban: 37:07

Oh, I guess. Yeah, probably historians would really understand this, because we're all memorizing the same ideas and things. But when I look at education, I think of it as like a very complicated spider web. You learn one little bit of information somewhere and you have nothing to relate to it. You just know a simple fact.

Jennifer Esteban: 37:30

But as soon as you start finding things that connect to it, you start building those little parts of the web that I think's together, and I think it's only after you've gotten several of those that you create a web where now, everything that you put into one area you can immediately tie to five different areas and you have enough knowledge and your web gets so filled out that it's just so easy to be like, oh, that happened at this time.

Jennifer Esteban: 37:57

Oh, that's probably how it affected this situation and, wow, was that right? Was it the same time as that war? Yes, it was Okay, and the president was trying to do this, oh, I see. And so you're sure, kind of webbing in all these different things, and then you just get this very big cloud of like a whole story of what happened in the past. And what's cool about that is that it's not just memorizing facts, but it's understanding how people work and how we develop the psychology yeah, trajectories that we've gone on and psychologies that were with us or for us or trained us or human behavior.

Jennifer Esteban: 38:33

Yeah, yeah. And so now when I hear things that are completely out in random places, I'm like I'm making up my own stuff. And then I go, oh wow, now that there must be some kind of line that wasn't drawn here and then I know what line to research more about. And then it just becomes this like I need to know more about all this stuff, Like I need to draw this web.

Clifton Smith: 38:54

Wow, it sounds a bit like neural pathways that you're just that's exactly what it is. But then my point is like how are you so fascinated about that? Like if I was given some dates of things in the history I'd push this news button or it wouldn't. I wouldn't care to know it, especially and I'm a little personifying other people but I have a phone. I could look it up if I really wanted to. I got Google. What is it about you that, like you, just love putting that information in your web?

Jennifer Esteban: 39:26

I don't really know. I don't know. I just really like knowing all these different things and what's like. It's just, it's almost like the ultimate thing, it's almost like the ultimate movie.

Victoria Petrovsky: 39:41

Yeah, and something like from knowing you, Jen you stand for truth.

Jennifer Esteban: 39:46

Right, yeah, for sure, for sure. And it's funny because any, anybody who criticizes history will be like, well, they just studied this stuff out of a book and like that's not really true. And it's not about reading just the stories that were told. It's actually about thoughts, referencing every single thing that you learn. Yeah, and with each other and against each other, to see where the truth really stands. And sometimes you might think you knew something and then all of a sudden on your little web it becomes a question mark, like an area where that can now change. Yeah, and so this is a constantly like shifting idea that we have about history. Like I'm totally down to throw it all away and be like it was all I, okay.

Victoria Petrovsky: 40:33

So being your own detective and researcher and seeing what resonates and feels true for you right, because if things don't add up, there's that moment of cognitive dissonance is like do I throw this out? This doesn't fit in the theory of what we're talking about or do I hold on to this? How do I reconcile this internally?

Jennifer Esteban: 40:52

Yeah, definitely. And I would say, while everybody maybe has their own cognitive dissonance and their abilities in it, I like to think that I've got an idea, I've got a well enough awareness that I'm maybe a little bit farther than a lot of people. So I don't go like, oh no, I'm done for thinking that I'm like, wow, people don't know this. Most people still believe that. Oh my God, did I just stumble onto something? That's even more ahead. So, again, we're excited if something tests me and some part of what I learned was wrong. I'm like you guys, look what I just learned.

Victoria Petrovsky: 41:25

Yeah, and the thing is, I've been in that place and I'd go to that place sometimes too, and a lot of times people don't have that conscious awareness because they're not in that state to be able to perceive other outcomes or other perspectives, if they're living in that fear mindset, that anger mindset of what's in the media and Clifton and I use the metaphor a lot of being in a kind of like the penthouse view, of like from a high story building.

Victoria Petrovsky: 41:56

So you have like the birds eye 360 view, you have the web, you have all the dots connected and things like that. Things are syncing, linking and integrating in your perspective, but somebody who's living on the second floor of conscious awareness and what we can call that, their vibration or their frequency, right, they don't have the same perspective that we may have or that someone may have who is up there from that penthouse birds eye view. And that's why mental health is so key, because it's about helping people elevate their frequency to see those other perspectives, to see other possibilities and to get out of that like survival, reactive mind state.

Clifton Smith: 42:36

And also those echo chambers of the same information. Yeah. Right. So the web that you talked about, jen, we liken it to high performers, kind of outperform the systems they're in, and then they are ready for what we call an awakening moment, which is sort of that transcendent realization that there's more out, there's more than what meets the eye or there's more than what's been told, and you kind of talked about how that in your upbringing in school you were always kind of like wanting more.

Clifton Smith: 43:03

In business, you're always wanting more. Can you talk to us about maybe some of the ones you feel comfortable with, these awakening moments where all of a sudden you receive new information outside of the echo chamber. That kind of opened you up, because I think, especially with the advent of AI and social media, one of the challenges is how do we get beyond the echo chamber of the same information confirming the same things that we think and believe?

Jennifer Esteban: 43:36

I think one thing that woke me up was when I don't want to go super public with it yet, but it's not that, it's not public info.

Jennifer Esteban: 43:47

But there was a point where I was working at MySpace and I thought of it as a social media app.

Jennifer Esteban: 43:55

I thought it was for the people, a place where we could hang out and talk to each other and self-express digitally, where other people could tap in and see our personality because our profiles were admisable and stuff like that, and I was like this is so cool and I thought they were like almost doing it to improve our ability to do that.

Jennifer Esteban: 44:17

What I then found out was that that was just their way to get us hooked on an app so they can keep showing us apps. And when I realized that they were planning and figuring out how to train us and get us hooked and changing our hormones to react to certain things, making it addictive to us, I realized that there was a whole different layer of companies and corporations that I didn't know about, and I think that really woke me up to starting to view some of these big companies and being like what else do they get out of this? What else are they using this for how are they using things that I already know to create this? Even like a lot of AI uses a lot of data, that data was taken from somewhere. How are they using that data? Are they selling that data? Who's buying that data and how can it be used against us to either get us hooked, mind control, all these kind of things. I think that woke me up a lot.

Clifton Smith: 45:23

And how do you? It definitely sounds like you have a very firm stance on perhaps a different way of being or a different way of using information, whereas some people might just conclude that that's the consequence we're all headed to as a society. How do you create, maybe, a counter narrative? Where you get that knowledge and implement sort of a solution into friends, mates and what you're doing.

Victoria Petrovsky: 45:49

Yeah, and that's the boring belief side of things, yeah.

Jennifer Esteban: 45:54

Yeah. So I think that all these tools, just like everything else, it's not about the tool itself, it's about the intention and how people are using it. So, like they say, it's not the gun who kills people, it's the person who shot it. That's the real problem. The gun didn't actually do anything, it just is an object.

Jennifer Esteban: 46:10

I think AI and technology and all these things are tools and they can go both ways and it really depends on who's using it, for what reason. And I think, friends, mates, obviously I have a very moral compass when it comes to what we create for people because, again, I actually kind of wish we had that social media platform that I thought we had. That wasn't really and I thought that was really cool. And I think that a lot of people, when they're building these companies, they're seeing the opportunity in something that's already worked. That's been like that.

Jennifer Esteban: 46:40

And I think if we were to compare it with like Star Wars, which say, oh, they went to the dark sun, but could you also be really effective by using the light and using it for the purpose of good and then still having the same amount of like financial windfall or whatever is important to you, fulfilling whatever it is that whoever's leading wants to get. So I think that, with friends, mates, what's important to me is not rejecting the technology itself, but really saying you know, we maybe we don't sell the data, or maybe we only use the data in these ways, this is the kind of data that we access, etc. Etc. And then just making sure that, wherever the steps are, that it's something that I would feel proud and moving forward with, that I can say I can hold up next to my face and be like this is how I solve this using this. And here's an example of how other people can also make decisions like this.

Victoria Petrovsky: 47:33

Yeah, and this is one of the reasons why Jen is such a key player in the ecosystem Clifton and I are co-creating with Faces of the Future is because it's not just about the technology or the platform but the level of consciousness of the founder, what they value and how they want to use those tools and how they want to steward humanity with that level of power and access. And we only work with companies that want to create that narrative of a joyful, peaceful reality, absolutely.

Clifton Smith: 48:06

I mean, we go into AI, we start talking about consciousness. We talk about consciousness transfer and things of that nature that gets very sci-fi, very real. Talking to these quantum preneurs, and my question then for you, jen, is how do you stay in the light, or how do you tune your vehicle, or your consciousness, what?

Jennifer Esteban: 48:28

are some of the tools. What's?

Clifton Smith: 48:29

been your journey of personal development. I know that friends, mates and community co-living has been a huge accelerant for that and you're sharing that to the world. But what are some other sort of defining moments or routines that you use to stay really sharp?

Jennifer Esteban: 48:48

To stay sharp or to stay making certain kind of decisions.

Clifton Smith: 48:52

Oh yeah, I just want to explore Jen as the individual making choices, as the leader, as stepping into a space that you've already observed can tend to lean towards one way, and you're now making a conscious effort to lean towards the other.

Jennifer Esteban: 49:09

I think that since I was young, I kind of had this idea. Well, my dad told me the world isn't fair. I was so mad, I was like what do you mean? And I think I was like five or six years old and that one thing really sat with me and I started seeing all the ways that the world wasn't fair and I started seeing how it was happening, where the hiccup came in and the spoke in the wheel. How did that happen? Somebody gets into a scarce mentality and then starts getting I need to hold on to something which locks somebody else out of having their fair opportunity for something, or somebody makes a specific back deal because they're trying to have something and that affects somebody else. And so I was looking at all the different breakdowns, everything from financial systems, opportunities, our own personal attitudes and how that shoots us in the foot. This is such a complex thing that actually, I think, creates why the world isn't fair, but not just why the world isn't fair. It's why the people are not creating the fair world. That we all had?

Jennifer Esteban: 50:11

Yeah, absolutely yeah.

Jennifer Esteban: 50:15

And I think like going throughout and just growing up and just watching all these things and watching how my parents kept getting the short end of every stick handed to them, watch them struggle, watching people take advantage of them in, watching them stay like just calm and they had to accept a lot of losses. I just watched them accept this unfair world and I think it made me go. I'm stopping that. I'm not going to create this unfair world. I have anything that I can do. I'm not going to get into that fear mentality where all of a sudden I start taking advantage of people or something like that. Like I just won't do that. And if there's a way that I can almost like block, like almost like a wave trying to come behind me of other people and situations I'm involved in, if there's a way that I can block that and like transform it into something different that is more fair and that keeps people in mind, that's more where I want to be and I think that, staying to the idea of being in service, and how can?

Jennifer Esteban: 51:15

I help people? Yeah, and how can I be more helpful to animals or to creating systems? I think my mind goes straight into because I've been watching all these different systems. It goes how can I create a system? How can I affect that system? How can one little domino here change that one part of the system and have this domino effect that actually makes that part of the world more fair for people? And so I'm just constantly playing this really complicated like puzzle piece that I'm just looking for like the one little thing that will just start shifting things back into place.

Victoria Petrovsky: 51:50

Yeah, clifton, and I call what you're describing alchemyzing certain systems or, in many cases, like building the new arc right, which is what you're doing with friends, mates.

Jennifer Esteban: 52:04

And I felt like that.

Victoria Petrovsky: 52:07

Yeah, yeah, exactly your projector and human design, so you see kind of the blueprint of a lot of different spaces and different systems. We tend to have that bird's eye perspective. That's very keen. Clifton and I are also projectors, which maybe we've mentioned on the show before or not. So totally makes sense, yeah so go for it.

Clifton Smith: 52:29

Victoria.

Victoria Petrovsky: 52:29

Well, I was going to say and like how some of the tools that you have encounter on your personal development journey, whether that's through our work with you or through, you know, dr Joe Dispenza I know you're following his work for a while for like alchemyzing, because we alchemyze internally first before we can alchemyze anything we see out there. The outer is the reflection of what we're already thinking, feeling and believing internally.

Jennifer Esteban: 52:55

Yeah, absolutely, and I think that you got to do your own work first, and it doesn't mean you have to finish doing all of your work before you can go be nervous, I think it's that you just keep bettering yourself, you're able to show up with more, and I just keep doing work.

Jennifer Esteban: 53:12

I just keep looking, finding little things, or maybe new things pop up, and I got to do some reflection on different ways of my being, my attitude towards things, looking at you know places I didn't know I had judgment in, or new things happened in the world and all of a sudden I really have a judgment against like something that didn't even exist before, and stuff like that. I think that you can't. If they say you can't give from an empty cup, it doesn't have to be full, but you just you got to have something. If you don't take care of your health, your mental state, you know your own vehicle first, then you don't really have all that much. And it doesn't mean having money or having things.

Jennifer Esteban: 53:54

Even Mother Teresa, she didn't have anything because she was still equal to give a lot of value to people, just walking around and and hugging people and being there for them. And I just think of you know, I'm not really attached to this specific body and what it needs or anything like that. I'll just kind of give myself if somebody needs something from me. I think just kind of keeping that that going a bit.

Clifton Smith: 54:21

Nice, and what are some thought leaders or books that you're currently really diving into or that has really shaped where you are in this current moment?

Jennifer Esteban: 54:30

Yeah, definitely so. The Joe Dispenza work I really liked, because I think as an entrepreneur it's so hard sometimes to you know, you go through a lot of up and downs. Somebody said recently that being an entrepreneur is actually one of the hardest things you will ever attempt and if you can actually succeed, you have accomplished a huge, a huge thing. And so with that, for people that don't know what it's like, it's very for me at least, it's very emotional. There's a lot of self doubt, there's a lot of criticism on myself, there's a lot of fears around like, oh my God, am I too late? Am I not enough? Are you know? Oh gosh, I don't know enough about this topic. They're going to see right there. There's just so many different things that come up and if you don't really know how to get yourself back up when you've gone into those low ones, you can get stuck. And those stuckness areas they're kind of like writer's blocks or artist's blocks, where you just don't even know why. You can't create anymore. And an entrepreneur that's what it is. An entrepreneur creates. They're creators of something. It's not maybe visual, but they're creating something. And so that's what needs to be open.

Jennifer Esteban: 55:46

And when I got into Joe Dispenza, I realized that I had been stuck at a certain frequency. I was like, wow, I totally relate to this. I could see where I would spike up and come back down. And I was also looking at I had looked at visualization meditations and I noticed that I just really would feel so much better after doing those, just so much more hopeful, and also there was a lot of clarity because of the way that it like has you ask yourself and go over different questions. It would actually help me clear my own mind and my own confusion about things and it would help me get on stock. And then, when I realized that Joe Dispenza was doing those kind of meditations, but also with a different awareness about your frequencies, I was like this is a game changer Cause now, anytime I can go.

Jennifer Esteban: 56:39

okay, if I'm at this level, if I'm in the like fear state, then immediately, like you guys helped me point out, if you get to anger, it's below. You're still below, but it's the catalyst to get into action. The courage.

Victoria Petrovsky: 56:55

yeah, the low action or below anger.

Jennifer Esteban: 56:57

You're in, you're, you're frozen, you don't even know what to do. Yeah, and so I was like, okay, I re-frame my connection and my relationship with anger. I actually now see it as a stepping stone to get out of something for me to feel like had enough and I'm in action now, and then you get into it and then you can use the different meditations to be like, okay, I'm in action, but I'm happy about it.

Jennifer Esteban: 57:21

I'm longer in that state. So I'm going to use this anger and I'm excited you can just almost get out of anger by looking forward to the next thing that you're going to create. And so now I use it, I think, all the time, to just at least know where I'm at. And if I say I don't want to be in that that one frequency, that one state, I now have some tools to get myself out of it faster, and I think that's so invaluable. Whether you're an entrepreneur or you're a mother, or you've got anxiety or trauma or whatever. I just think that those tools are just so good for everyone.

Jennifer Esteban: 57:55

Yeah.

Clifton Smith: 57:57

Wonderful, it's awesome. Yeah, we call that joy affecting and you're joy affecting your relationship to the emotion of anger. Right, because some people are apprehensive towards embracing their anger, but you've understood that and recognized that that is actually a really powerful emotion to get you to the place where you want to go.

Victoria Petrovsky: 58:20

Yeah, and you also said that one of the hardest things to do is to be an entrepreneur, because of all the trials, tribulations, uncertainty, fear, doubt, self-criticism, et cetera. And what you described after that with using those toolkits, is what makes people a quantum preneur because you understand that having access to tools to tune your mindset, your energetics, your vehicle can help you get to the next level of expansion and of your human potential. And we know that when we're in fear and in anger, solutions don't come to us. They come to us when we're not good, solutions right. We have access to those possibilities when we're in those higher states of consciousness. So that's why we use that word quantum withpreneur, because it's not about creating a company from anger or fear or an unmet need. It's about creating a company from a place of wholeness, from a place of centered presence, and because that's your highest joy to give to the world, which is what you talked about bringing value to people, however you can. Yeah yeah.

Jennifer Esteban: 59:29

I'm trying to think of other people that I really liked. Tony Robbins I super believe in all the work that he's done and he really helped. He jumped started not jump started, but really like push me forward much faster with UPW that he does and then awaken the giant within. And actually it was his book that started getting me to think about the purpose of emotions. Yeah, because he has a list of halfway through very thick, like 500 page books like in the middle, I think and it lists all the different emotions and what they're here for you to understand. If you feel this way, it's because you've been making decisions that aren't for you and you're feeling resentment because this and that. Here's now what it's trying to teach you and here's what you can do out of it. Here's what anger does, sadness, you know, disappointment what do these all say about you? And then, what is the action to take from this place to really use it as a tool, understanding your emotions as a tool to help guide you? Yeah.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:00:29

I was really big from Tony Robbins thing and then also he showed me a lot of like the breath work techniques, the priming technique that he has, which I love because it's only like five minutes and it's not like 20 minutes and it's so effective. Now I use that if I need to take a call or if I'm like concerned about a call, I just go outside and joke for a minute and just, and then I'm like all right, like I got energy.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:00:53

Yeah, I do breath of fire in the morning to get that going like the. Yeah, that's what he does.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:01:01

That's what he does, but also with a visualization, meditation, and it's only five minutes, but he does it like with the arms. Yep, yeah.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:01:10

You got to get your whole body involved to get your state up, yep.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:01:14

That was the first time I had learned about different ways to do that, so I think Tony Robbins was my also one of my favorite people with all this kind of learning.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:01:25

Nice, so tying together this like personal development topic that we're on now with the FriendsMates platform. I know if there's something in your vision for FriendsMates that you'd like to share about that piece.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:01:42

Yeah, so our goal, we say, is to revolutionize the roommate culture. Yeah, so the culture currently is that people have a certain way of thinking about roommates and then when they get into those situations, they have another way of thinking about that situation and it's not really from choice and it's not really deliberate and it's not intentional, and they see it as a step down, like, oh, I'm failing and that's why I need to live with roommates, and they're like, once I'm not failing anymore and once I get this promotion and I make a little more money, oh, I don't have to do that anymore. And these, I think, are what are they called Limiting beliefs that we have that shake the experience that we end up having as roommates because we start expecting that. And that's what we accept. We accept the things that we think that we're going to get and I think a lot of assumption when you manifest the results of what you're thinking.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:02:39

Yeah, yeah, definitely. But if you don't know any different or you don't have any expectation of something else at what it could be, you wouldn't think to say no to this opportunity because you don't know that that other opportunity is out there for you. And if that other opportunity was there for you, you wouldn't even recognize it.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:02:53

And you probably would just walk right past it and so to change an entire culture. There's so many parts that you need to change. There's your mindset, there is the way that people behave. There's actions. There's the belief systems. There's one of the big ones that I see with people is there's a lot of people who feel like they're completely alone, like they have nobody who's going to get their back. They don't think that anybody will show up for them if they need something, and so they don't show up for people.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:03:27

It becomes kind of one, each man for themselves in their world, and they go, oh that thing that they start projecting what they think things are going to be like onto other peoples and they start questioning their intentions. And what happens is, once those people with these kind of traumas and belief systems comes in with somebody who's trying to do good, a lot of times it's it's like a, like a feral cat trying to be home what? Into a safe home. They're just kind of like I don't feel safe. There's something I don't trust this.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:03:58

Like, like projection, you mean it is a projection.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:04:01

But also they go I hand by myself, everything I do is by myself what do you want out of this?

Jennifer Esteban: 1:04:07

And so they start creating that that thing for themselves.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:04:10

And so I think that for us to truly have a difference in the culture, there's so many parts of us that are going to need to be elevated and changed and healed so that we can live in community with each other, so that we can actually feel like somebody in our community will have our back, like we're lovable, where people who deserve to be handed a mercy card when something happens you know, or somebody you can say I'm in complete need of help right now, and the idea that you're not alone and you can ask for it. And then also, if you create that culture in that community, somebody else knows to offer something back to you, and I think it's going to. It's a long, it's a big, I would say, aspiration for us to want to actually make a measurable impact on the culture, but I think that if we're able to separate it into ways of healing, self development, work, retraining, learning how to communicate better, asking our needs, knowing ourselves and what we need, and we start pulling these together, I think ultimately it will have that impact.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:05:14

And if it needs to be forced. It will just be, I think, very graceful, graceful thing for a lot of people's lives, and then those people will be able to have that effect. How do you say too many people around them at once like a ripple effect? As a ripple effect, yeah.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:05:31

And so you're saying it's easier to live with other people when you're doing your own personal development work or creating pathways for one another to stick to the personal development that they're already doing.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:05:43

I mean, even if they don't call it personal development, I think that there's I have people that live here that I don't think would consider themselves working on personal development. So I think that it's not about so long as you're able to get to a certain base level where you're secure and that you feel like you have, you're going to be okay and that you feel like other people will help you and that you can call on help and things like that, and then you don't always feel alone. I think, so long for able to heal those people, those people will be able to work well together. But I think if you take two very for lack of better word toxic people who don't have these things worked out, who are constantly like fight or flight against each other, and you put them together, they're either probably going to create new traumas together, they're probably going to trauma bond about something, probably create new little traumas together and then eventually be exactly the way they would be against each other if something happens.

Speaker 4: 1:06:37

Yeah, and though you have a cool thing. So what I'm hearing?

Clifton Smith: 1:06:41

is with friends, mates and with co-living. You're creating an environment that's safe for people to feel that they can heal these aspects of themselves and have that ripple into society and make that shift and be that sort of domino that you're talking about in terms of shifting the systems that, on the macro scale, create these imbalances Is that. Am I hearing that correctly?

Jennifer Esteban: 1:07:12

Yes, yeah pretty correct?

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:07:14

And how can other house managers cultivate a similar environment in their spaces, people who are already on your platform or people who are house managers and not on your platform? You have, like, your house, ethos and values and things you stand for, and that kind of sets the tone for how things operate right. So how about in other spaces?

Jennifer Esteban: 1:07:35

So I think that one people learn through just sheer influence, by seeing what other people are doing, and if they care to improve it at all, then they'll go oh wow, that's a cool system that they put in, or oh, that's an interesting thing way that they've responded to that situation. So I think just them seeing other people do it or seeing how we have it done on our platform is one way, and then the other way is I do plan on creating some kind of training for house managers, if that's what.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:08:01

I want to do and then they can come and they work with me. I haven't figured exactly out how it would go and also how intensive it is, but it is pretty intensive and it's probably an ongoing thing. So I want to create one, a long term resource, so that all these people can just come in and, as new things come up, we can all help each other, answer these questions and then see how everybody else is doing it and then learn from the, decide which version or which recommendation is the best and then kind of just keep elevating.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:08:30

And then the other one is actually doing some kind of basic training, not just basic, actually like pretty thorough with me because I have all this essential training. Yeah, like essential training, yeah, and then be like okay, cool, and like let's put you into the group and then, as questions come up, let's go over that. And then for them it's everything from mindsets around what does it mean to lead a house? Like even that simple one, I just think is so overlooked.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:08:56

Like a lot of people who lead a house, they don't think about it that they're leading the creation of an environment for other people. Yeah, they might think of it as themselves or as a transaction and like this room for this much and stuff like that, but they'll let people in that maybe don't fit into the overall group or they'll take a risk because of some. You know they got a timeline for when they got to get it booked or something. But they have to be really aware that if you're thinking not just for yourself but of other people's experience, you're responsible as a leader to cultivate an experience that is safe, because they have trusted you to make that decision Right and so like that's one of the mind things around leading a house that people need to really take on first.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:09:38

Yeah, and that's something that you've been so instrumental helping Clifton and I with in our previous place, with setting the tone and sticking to like what the values are of the space and also the things that come up through like out of the blue. It's easier to connect with someone who's been there before or with others that have been there before. It's like, oh, it was a room that was rented out to a solo and now there are significant others moving in. How do you handle that? How do you handle, like, the utility costs for that, any rent increase, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah.

Clifton Smith: 1:10:10

Yeah, and so, speaking to our listeners, how can they get a hold of you, or what would you say to them if they're considering co-living?

Jennifer Esteban: 1:10:20

They can join our website right now. It's friendsmatescom, so it's friends mates and they can join the community. They can list their space, they can look who else is around and if somebody is looking for some help and they don't need to find somebody right now I would still join and then reach out to us. You can reach out to Mia Jennifer at friendsmatescom with different questions. At this point I somehow still have time to get back to emails and respond to people and give people some help. At the same time, it also helps me train what kind of questions and stuff. So I keep making the long list so that I can use it for future training. Come and ask me questions, everything from I'm having a roommate issue or I got to figure out what to say to them, or how do you do this. Just feel free to reach out.

Clifton Smith: 1:11:06

Awesome. And then what about those listeners who are like wow, friendsmate sounds amazing. I want this to be a thing. I want this to grow.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:11:13

I want this in my city yeah.

Clifton Smith: 1:11:15

How can they support the growth of friendsmates?

Jennifer Esteban: 1:11:18

Yeah, so that's amazing.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:11:20

So right now we are in Los Angeles, we're doing a big event, a whole launch in Austin and we're doing one in Miami, and so if you're a part of these groups, I'd love to get in touch with you ASAP, because we're, you know, the more hands on those cities, the better.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:11:36

If you're looking to create a different city in those, the best way is to create an organized effort around it. And if you tell me that, if you join and you tell me which city you're in because there's a place where you say where you're at I'll be able to see how many people are signing up in an area or you can also tell me yeah, I'd like it for it to be more here. I can look at it and see what kind of efforts I can make to make that my next city and to really activate those areas. So I would reach out and if you want to be part of the force that's helping create these cities, I'm offering a lot of incentives, both in different benefits of the app, different kinds of abilities on the app itself, and that make it worth your effort. So I would reach out and let me know just if you're interested in growing one of these cities. Awesome.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:12:26

And what about with friends, mates? What does the next stage look like with where the company growth is yeah, so right?

Jennifer Esteban: 1:12:35

now we've got a solid site that's up and working and we're ready to kind of take it to the next level, hire a few new people and really build out new features. So we're about to launch a seed equity crowd funding campaign. So we're going to be raising our seed and seeing if anybody in the community wants to be able to get involved in little or large amounts and then that way people can be part of the success and also really make it such a community effort, because this is a project that's for the community and I think it is built by the community, and so if anybody's interested in that, we'll share links. If you're on the site and you have an account, we'll send you an email, follow us on Instagram and we'll be posting about it everywhere For friends mates it's friends matesig. And then, if you want to follow me, I'm Jennifer Vision.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:13:26

Awesome. I got a chill when you shared the piece about the building by the community. Because it's for the community, it feels really aligned. Well, awesome, jen. Thank you so much for joining us today. It was such a pleasure having this conversation with you. We didn't know exactly where it was going to go and we enjoyed just following the flow and being present with you.

Jennifer Esteban: 1:13:47

Thank you, Awesome. Well, thanks so much for having me giving me this opportunity to share this and also for sparking up some questions I hadn't thought about before.

Clifton Smith: 1:13:58

That's what we love doing, so thank you so much for joining. I'm Clifton.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:14:05

And I'm Victoria.

Clifton Smith: 1:14:06

And together we're Faces of the Future.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:14:09

And thank you for listening. Yes,