Janet Bernstein, Keynote Speaker & 10x Best-Selling Author | The Jeff Crilley Show

Jeff Crilley welcomes Janet Bernstein—keynote speaker, bestselling author, and self-described recovering people pleaser—to talk about her path from a turbulent childhood to writing ten books and helping women reclaim their sense of purpose. Janet shares how attending 17 different schools as a kid turned her into a chronic people pleaser who slowly lost sight of herself, and how a post-2020 stint in corporate training led to full-blown burnout she didn't even want to name....

Show Notes

Janet Bernstein quit her corporate job on August 19 and had a bestselling book out by October 10. That kind of urgency doesn't come from ambition—it comes from someone who finally stopped ignoring what was wrong.

Janet is a keynote speaker, ten-time author, and Chief Glow Strategist who helps accomplished women stop shrinking and start leading out loud. On this episode, she sits down with Jeff Crilley to talk about the childhood experiences that turned her into a people pleaser (17 schools will do that), the corporate burnout she refused to call burnout until a single weekend of reading changed everything, and why she wrote Let Her Glow to document the messy, honest process of finding herself again.

Topics covered:
– Growing up with a mother who had severe mental illness and how constant moves shaped her identity
– The signs of burnout she kept ignoring—driving to work in silence, losing interest in things she loved
– How 46 women became first-time published authors through Janet's collaborative book projects
– Her practical burnout recovery steps: unplug, ask hard questions, and stop living someone else's version of your life
– A sneak peek at book number eleven, Rebellious Leadership, based on her LinkedIn newsletter

Learn more at letherglow.com

What is The Jeff Crilley Show?

Jeff Crilley is a former news reporter, who spent more than 25 years in newsrooms across the country. He’s an Emmy Award winning journalist, who decided to make the jump from news in 2008, when he founded his own PR Firm, Real News Public Relations.

Today, the firm has more than 100 clients, and Jeff continues to tell the stories of interesting people he meets along the way.

These are those stories.

Coming up next on The Jeff Crilley Show, you're gonna meet Janet Bernstein. She is a keynote speaker and best selling author. She wrote 10 books. I can't even believe that. We're gonna hear her incredible journey just ahead. Many are predicting that the worst is yet to come, which is unfortunate, said one person here. Until now, they've enjoyed the reputation of being the nation's icebox. Watched a burglar in his home this morning by webcam. As a journalist of over twenty five years, stories are what make my world turn. Reporting live from The Dallas Newsroom tonight, Jeff Crilley, Fox four news. But in 2008, I took the jump from my familiar life and started a PR firm from my home. We're talking about anyone with a camcorder like the one I'm using becomes a television network. We started slowly growing the company, and we now have over a 100 clients. And we've branched into the world of live digital broadcasting. Broadcasting. I now own eight different TV studios and have a huge team. And the stories that I now get to share are sometimes the most important of my life. Life has a funny way of coming around full circle. This is The Jeff Crilley Show. Well, I'm extremely excited about this next piece because I can identify with it. She my next guest calls herself a recovering people pleaser and I'm a current people pleaser. So I'm anxious to soak up all of her knowledge. Janet Bernstein is in the studio. She's a keynote speaker. She's written 10 books. One of them is the bestseller, at least one. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Okay. So tell me the journey. So you you described before the show, you described your your your childhood was challenging. Yeah. So anyone that's followed me for a while, I write about this in my first book, Pizza on the Floor, which by the way, yes I've written 10 books but the last one's the best one. But in Pizza on the Floor, I open up a little bit and share about having a mom with a severe mental illness. And unfortunately, resulted in us moving a lot. So I went to 17 different schools. Wow. And so what happened was I sort of became this people pleaser because I was constantly having to reinvent myself and walk in and be the new girl. Sure. And so I got really good at doing a little elevator pitch even as a teenager. But what happened was over time, I started to kind of lose that magic that was me because I was so busy trying to perform and make sure that people liked me and people welcomed me. So the last few years has been kind of stripping Well, away all of that know in your bio you talk about burnout. When did the burnout set in for you? So, I have kind of a history of doing this pretty often so I'm now more of a burnout prevention specialist. I love that. But I found myself back in a corporate role and I kind of exited my business after 2020. I don't know if you remember what happened out Of course. And it kind of ruined me as a speaker for a period of time and so I went and hid in a corporate job, corporate training job and I was really, really good at it except I got really burned out and I started to realize that every little thing was weighing on me. I wasn't happy in my day to day life. I wasn't happy with even the things that used to light me up all the time. I found myself driving to work in the silence and just, I just knew there was something off. I wasn't really calling it burnout because I really didn't like the word. But I found a book on burnout and when I read it cover to cover over a weekend, was like, oh, I'm completely in burnout and I started paying attention to those signs. Alright. We're gonna pull up your website and as we scroll on the website, this tees up your best selling book, Let Her Glow and I love that name. So tell us about Let Her Glow. So, Let Her Glow is the journey of stripping away all the things that were weighing me down and finding my glow again and my glow is what I refer to as you all you have a glow, you talking about what you do and how you help people and showing off your beautiful office spaces and the shows that you do, that's your glow. And so our glow is what we're called to do and a lot of times what happens is we get caught up in this whole thing like making money or having the title or the salary or the benefits package or whatever it is and then we look around and we realize our glow is gone. So, Let Her Glow is the journey of how I figured out what was my glow, what was going to light me up again. Yes. And it's kind of like opening up and sharing some really hard parts, like having a panic attack in my car sitting outside of an Really? Office And I don't want to be the poster child for panic attacks, but at the end of the day, we all have these moments where we realize something is off, something is is holding us back from glowing and that's really what Letter Glow is. Alright, we're gonna put the book cover so you can see this. I love the design on the book and I want you to talk a little bit more about like the book came out when? The book came out in October 2025. Okay. And to put things in perspective, a lot of the people that follow me on social media, they all laugh and say, oh my gosh, you did all this so fast. And I laugh and say, I'm ten year overnight success. But I quit my job on August 19 and on October 10 this book came out. So, I was on a mission. Not only was I going to find my glow Yes. But I was gonna make sure I inspired people everywhere to find their glow too and that's what that book came out of. Okay. We we mentioned she's written 10 books. We're gonna pull up the Amazon page so you can see all these books. We don't have time to go through all of them but I mean you have to be impressed with yourself. I mean that's a lot of content. Thank you. You know what it's humbling to see it because I can look back and remember exactly what season of my life I was in when I wrote one of those books. But also some of those books are collaborative projects where I brought together different women at different parts of their own journey. That's So, so 46 women have become first time authors Wow. Through some of those books That's so rewarding. So another part of finding your glow. And I and her eyes are glowing. I don't know if you can see this, but you have found your glow. You're also a very popular guest on different television shows. We've got some video of you on NBC five and I do feel like you have the heart of educator, I mean you love to help people don't you? I do, I do. I'm probably a teacher at heart and my oldest daughter is a teacher, so I think that she's sort of living that occupation for me so that I don't have to do it, But I've always known since I was a little girl that I was meant to be on a stage in some way. It started with music, I'm actually a singer, songwriter. Yeah. But now it's a transition into speaking but I really love when I look out into an audience and I love seeing those little light bulbs go off and a woman realizing, oh my gosh, I can do this, I can write a book, I can chase after this dream or whatever it is and that's what lights me up. Well, think the timing in your book is perfect because I when I was growing up the mantra was like life is not a bowl of cherries, suck it up kid, know go to work for GM or Ford, don't mess up and you'll get a go to gold watch after forty years. Now they there's something called a quarter life crisis where you know people in their mid twenties are waking up saying, I don't like my life. Absolutely. There's a lot of my followers on TikTok are actually Millennials or in Gen Z and they are having these wake up calls well earlier than we ever did and I think it's because we're finally having the conversations about toxic workplaces, about toxic bosses, about regulating your nervous system and there is more to life than just going to work, collecting a paycheck and going home. Yes. Okay, have about two or three minutes left and so this is your stage. Give people some news they can use if they find themselves burned out, they don't like their life, what are some steps that they need to take? Number one, you need to unplug. So you cannot heal in the same environment that got you sick. So you've got to unplug, for me it was a vacation and it was something as simple as booking a few days at a beach but I don't know about you Jeff but like when I get around water, just everything starts to get a little bit clearer. So disconnect and start asking yourself some questions. When was the last time I really felt like I was lit up? When's the last time I felt like I was doing something that I was called to do and not just something I should be doing? And also, ask yourself if this were your last year on earth, how would you want to spend it? Because if you're spending it any other way, you're wasting time because none of us know when the end is coming. I think that's your eleventh book. True story and you heard it here first, I am working on book number 11. Do you want to give a teaser? I sure will. So, something I started on LinkedIn of all places is a newsletter called Rebellious Leadership. Oh, cool. And I've been writing a little bit about what it means to be a rebellious leader and it has inspired me. I am officially working on book 11 which will be coming out later this year. I love that. You have to come back on my show. We're gonna end with her website which is letherglow.com. The great Janet Bernstein, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks, Jeff. You bet. Appreciate it. That's it for now. We'll see you next time. Alright. Stay right.