Meet Jenedy Paige

We recently connected with Jenedy Paige and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jenedy , we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

People often ask me where my self confidence comes from, and honestly, I don’t have a lot of faith in myself. However, I have a lot of faith in my God, and if He’s going to work on a project with me, then I have all the faith in the world that it will work out. I started my art career journey with very little natural ability. As a senior in high school, sometimes I still just drew stick figures to get my point across. Well, you may be wondering, why did you decide to become an artist at all?

The art teacher at our small town in Johnstown, Colorado introduced art to me in the form of a journal. I had kept a journal since I was 10, so it was literally the perfect package for me to fall in love with it. Instead of writing my feelings I was to create images around them. Because my drawing skills were lacking, this meant I did a lot of collage with National Geographic Magazines. I found the process of taking my experiences or emotions and attempting to portray them in an image just lit my soul on fire! I loved it! That’s when I decided that making images was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Coming from a small town, sometimes you have a belief in your abilities because there wasn’t anyone to really compare yourself against. However, when I arrived at Brigham Young University – Idaho, and the talent pool expanded, that’s when I knew how little artistic prowess I actually had. I’ll never forget sitting in a lecture hall for incoming freshman and a professor showed a power point presentation of previous student work, and I was amazed and appalled at the same time. The gap between the kind of art that I was creating and the work being shown to me felt like the Grand Canyon. I left that meeting in tears realizing that my dreams of becoming an artist were hopeless. But then as I walked home to my apartment, a feeling came over me, words came to my mind, “Jenedy, you can be an artist.” “How?” I wondered. That’s when I felt God tell me that He would help me. I had spent the past eight years of my life learning how to communicate with God, and so when He told me I could do it, I believed Him.

So my pursuit of art has always been a collaboration between me and Him. My self confidence stems in my confidence in Him. We make a great team.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

God led me to art and He also led me to ninja. It was six years ago that I was in a climbing gym and I had the feeling come into my mind that I should apply for American Ninja Warrior. The idea was completely absurd. I was a 34 year old mom. I had had four children, and could barely do one pull up. Who was I to even think about competing on that show? However, the idea persisted, and I resisted, until one day I decided to talk to God about it. “Lord, I never thought we would have this conversation, but… do you want me to apply to American Ninja Warrior??” “Yes!” was the feeling that entered my mind. It seemed absolutely insane, but I trusted Him anyways, and applied. I then decided I better look into taking ninja classes at a gym somewhere and one week at a time I started to learn how to conquer ninja obstacles.

That one feeling six years ago has now led me to five season of competing on American Ninja Warrior, and three years coaching at a ninja gym. Recently these worlds of art and ninja have collided in a collection of paintings of Strong Women. In my eighteen years of painting, I have never really seen a body of work based on the concept and it was time. I created paintings featuring several American Ninja Warrior athletes, an olympic rock climber, an immigrant entrepreneur, a 93 year old widow, a cancer survivor, and a cold exposure specialist. I wanted to paint a broad picture of what it means to be a strong woman to inspire women of all ages to become stronger: mentally, spiritually, and physically. I wanted to shed a light on feminine strength.

The stories behind the paintings I was creating were so impactful, I decided we needed more than just an art show to adequately share the lives of these strong women, and the Strong Women Experience was born. The Strong Women Experience will be an unprecedented conference where the stories of the art will be shared by the voices of the models themselves, but we will do more than just sit and listen. A strong women conference could never be just something you sit at! So the afternoon will be an immersive strength building event where women will have the opportunity to try a variety of physical, spiritual, and mental strength building activities. We will have break out classes in aerial silks, jiu jitsu, Zumba, hip hop, proper lifting form, and obstacle training. As well as workshops on how to fuel your body, meditation, yoga, journaling, and how strengthening the body can help you overcome trauma. It will be a powerful even to help women tap into the strength within themselves, but also be empowered by the community of strong women around them. The Strong Women Experience will be held September 26, 20205 in Sandy, Utah. More information can be found at strongwomenexperience.com.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

There are three abilities that I would pass along to anyone hoping to find success in their life: wake up early, stay consistent, and keep a record.

I know waking up early is not something that most people enjoy, however, I have found that the early morning hours of the day are the most focused hours of the day. Before the sun rises, the world is quiet, and you are able to think more clearly. I have used these early hours to plan out my week, or day. I spend some time in meditation, and I paint. As a busy mother to young children, I basically built my art career between the hours of 4:00 – 8:00am in the morning. I look back and honestly amazed at what I was able to accomplish with just a few hours each morning.

I often say, “Consistency is the key to progress.” Whatever we consistently practice, we become good at. It’s that simple. You don’t have to be naturally gifted at something to develop a skill. Like the scales of the piano, or the accumulation of sketches in a sketch book, repetition leads to improvement. That is both condemning and comforting. If you’re not improving at something it probably means you’re not consistently working at it every day. It takes a lot of grit to keep showing up even when the progress is slow. However, if you keep going, keep trying, you will get better and that is extremely comforting.

Keep a record and occasionally take the time to look back. I believe that journal writing is becoming a lost art, but it is an enormous tool to overcome trauma, understand the present, and make plans for the future. If you don’t take the time to write, when you’re just living in the moment – just going from one activity to the next – when do you ever have time to ask important questions? Taking a moment to write in a journal each day allows you to take in the bigger picture and assess your progress towards your goals, understand better the challenges of the past, and make decisions about where you want to go next.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

I have felt inspired to create The Strong Women Experience, however, the only problem is, I have never hosted a conference before. I feel like I’m in uncharted waters. I’m not sure there has ever been a person who created a collection of paintings of strong women and then hosted a conference around themes from the artwork. However, researcher and author, Liz Wieman, has said that being in a space of not knowing can be an advantage:

“We found that when we are in this rookie mode … we operate unencumbered by knowledge, so we see more possibilities and we explore more. We lack know-how, so we have to go out and get it” (“The Power of Not Knowing”, BYU speeches, January 26, 2016).

Being in this space of not knowing has caused me to reach out and connect with individuals that know more than me. I’ve sought support from local businesses and fellow strong women. I’ve found that in an effort to create a conference, I’m also building a network, and that network will have lasting impact beyond the conference itself.

Contact Info:

• Website: jenedypaige.com, strongwomenexperience.com
• Instagram: @jenedypaige, @strongwomenexperience
• Facebook: Jenedy Paige
• Linkedin: Jenedy Paige
• Youtube: @jenedypaigeart
• Other: https://www.patreon.com/jenedypaige

Image Credits

Photos of me with paint palette, in navy jumpsuit with yellow background, and the athlete shot were all taken by Pepperfox Photo, but I have all rights to use them. All other photos are pictures of my paintings.