The show’s guest in this episode is Josselyne Herman-Saccio. Josselyne is a transformative coach and course leader with over 30 years of experience, wearing multiple hats as an author, CEO, former pop star, community activist, founder of a non-profit, and coach. She’s worked with diverse individuals, empowering them to live the life of their dreams NOW.

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Living Your Dream Life with Josselyne Herman-Saccio

Hello, everybody. I’m Melanie Parish. I’m one of the hosts of The Experimental Leader Podcast.

Hi I’m Mel Rutherford. Nice to be here.

Yeah. And I have been thinking about boundaries. When I think about my own leadership. And I’ve been thinking about, I’ve been thinking about it with clients, I’ve been thinking about it for myself. I’ve been thinking about I had a teacher years ago who said boundaries were like training whales. And and so I’ve just been thinking about this whole thing. As leaders, sometimes we have to have boundaries, sort of where we stop and the work ends and where our personal lives are and what we say no to and what we say yes to and. And it’s just an interesting thing to be conscious of to be at choice about. But the reason that this teacher of mine, I’ve thought a lot about what he said for many years, like it’s been probably 25 years ago that he said it to me. And I thought about it for a long time. I think the reason he said that boundaries are like training wheels, is because I actually prefer a model. And I think he preferred a model where you could actually talk about things. So you didn’t have to set a rule that you were stuck with. For a boundary, like I’m never going to work on Saturdays, or I’m never going to do this, or this is my heart line. And I’m just gonna hold that no matter what. And I think he thought of them as training wheels. And I liked it. Because sometimes we do need a hard line when we’re trying to set a boundary for the first time. The other thing that I think about when I think about boundaries, is that sometimes we can have a boundary. Without conversation, we don’t have to tell someone why we have a boundary as a leader, we can just say, I’ve decided I’m not going to do that anymore. And leave it because as soon as we start to justify all the reasons for our boundary, we might sound really defensive, we might we might have someone argue with us about our boundary. And so I’ve just been thinking about all sorts of things about boundaries. And I’m I guess I’m curious about what your boundaries are and how you think about them. And so my inquiry to you is, do you do you have any boundaries? Or the idea of boundaries that you need to set in your leadership? And if so, what are they? And is it a hard line? Or is it just a conversation that you need to have? And I’m curious what you’ve been thinking about now?

Yeah, that’s really interesting. Melanie, one of the topics that that came up for me this week, was the idea of being rude at work. We had one employee, you know, accused another employee of being rude in in their communication style. And I, you know, the first time you hear that you think, well, that’s terrible, someone’s been rude, something must be done. But on further reflection, you know, I started thinking about different people’s communication styles. And it turns out that people who have a diagnosis on the autism spectrum are three times more likely to be reported to HR for being rude. I think that some of the differences in communication style can be accounted for by ethnicity, and by class, depending on socioeconomic class that people grew up in. And even the family size of origin impacts how people communicate with each other. People who are from bigger families, talk faster and louder. So I, you know, when I’m thinking about radically inclusive leadership, I wonder if I want If we can just have more, more room for more communication styles at work, rather than trying to monitor and report whose communication styles we perceive as rude.

I think that’s really interesting. And you’ve talked about this before this idea of what if we just are more accepting of different styles and I think it’s a really interesting place to stretch and grow. And, and there’s, there’s a couple of words in my coaching that route and respect are two that I think are really interesting. But the they they’re powerful words that people use to try to gain the right of way in in when there’s a disagreement. And so I think that’s really interesting.

I am super excited about our guest today. Today we have an extraordinary guest joining us. Josselyne Herman-Saccio. Josselyne is a transformative coach and a course leader with over 30 years of experience wearing multiple hats as an author, CEO, former Popstar community activist, founder of a nonprofit and coach, she’s worked with diverse individuals empowering them to live the life of their dreams now.

 

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Welcome to the show, Josselyne.

Thank you so much for having me.

It’s great to have you welcome. And I’m super curious, what have you been thinking about in your leadership?

Well, I was listening to your conversation about boundaries. And it’s interesting, because language is the tool that I work with, right? And language can be pretty powerful. And for me, boundaries, intimate separation. And I don’t think of myself as having boundaries. Now I have created arenas, I have parameters. I have deal breakers, you know, in terms of when I’m working with somebody or just in life, right, but boundaries. And it’s interesting, because I have a girlfriend who is like the queen of boundaries, she literally has a book called the boundary boss. And she’s masterful, and I love her. And she you know, I’ve known her more than 30 years. But I don’t live like from that space of boundaries. So it’s a interesting conversation you were having.

I’m curious about why you don’t live from that space.

Well, separation, for me occurs as putting things in silos, right. So a lot of the work that I do with people, eliminates the whole world of overwhelm, and overwhelm many times, is caused by having things in silos and multiple like this, or that, or this or that, versus creating an overarching context in which everything is held, which disappears, the whole world of overwhelm, overwhelm is optional. So many people that I work with, especially high performing individuals that are, you know, CEOs or founders, and they’ve got a lot in their life. And if they keep it separated, boundaries, right, it it occurs as too much, and how am I going to juggle and how am I going to have balance? So the work that I do with people has them shift the context in which they’re holding the content of their lives? So let me demonstrate this a little bit. So it’s not so conceptual. But if I say inside of the context number, what is this? What would you say? And it’s not a trick question. It’s just what is this? What is this? Yeah, exactly. What is it inside the context? Body Part?

Finger?

Yup and what in the context direction? Up? So the very same content occurs differently in different contexts. And the context lives in language. So boundary is something and it lives in language. It’s not a real thing. Like in reality, there’s no boundaries. It’s all in your speaking. So if you create separate ation, then you’ve got a recipe for overwhelm, or occurring like you’ve got too much to do or burnout like that. So if you create a context for your life that includes everything. So in some for myself, I’ll just share what I’ve created is that, you know, my whole life is about empowering people to make their dreams come true, and to develop themselves and being unmissable with no matter what life throws at them. That’s the context of everything. So the work that I do with my nonprofit or that I, you know, I have three children or with my parents or, you know, with my coaching or leading of courses or designing of content, it’s all inside of that game or that context. So I don’t need boundaries. You know, I don’t need them. I mean, I don’t disapprove of them if they empower you fabulous, more Have at it. But for me, I don’t need them. Because it’s all inside of one holder.

Josselyne, I need to know what does it mean to be unmessable with?

Funny you should ask guys. What it doesn’t mean is to be tough. Or, you know, because people hear that sometimes and they hear oh, well, I’m tough and things can’t permeate me and I don’t feel my fit. None of that is what I mean. So being unmissable with is being able to create, instead of react at any moment. So whatever’s coming at you whatever circumstance you’re dealing with whatever person right, that you’re dealing with or situation, you’re able to stay in that space of creation and fulfilling your vision, fulfilling your dream, no matter what. And that I think is an under exercised muscle. I think most people spend most of their life and this is not bad. It’s just you know, how life has shown it, you know, it just kind of turned out this way that we’ve become really good reactors. So or really bad reactors, depending on who you’re talking to. But you know, very effective people are very good at reacting to life, things are coming at them, they’re putting out fires, they’re dealing with this breakdown, or this emergency or this situation. But that’s a very different experience of life than the Space of Creation and fulfillment of vision. And that muscle gets atrophied, where we end up overcompensating in the world of reaction. And so the work that I do to develop people’s muscle of being unmatchable with is to develop their muscle of being able to shift from reaction to creation moment to moment to moment.

And is this something you’ve gotten better at over time? Or do you still find yourself in your in your life, having a reaction when you wished you were more unmessable with?

I have memorable with moments all the time, but the point is to be able to quickly pivot, right. So it’s one thing to see you’re being messed up with what happened to me last night, I got, I saw a missed call from somebody who I was like, not wanting to hear from and is usually from the past, you know, something that’s a problem. Right? So it was like, two in the morning, my time because I’m in Europe right now. So it was like somebody calling whatever. And right away, I got what I call being messed with. And I can tell because I have a physical reaction. And that’s one of the things I coach people in is determining what are the red flags to determine your messable with? What’s happening in your body? What happens physically? Do you get a tight chest? Do you get a red neck? You know, do you get warm in your face? You know, it’s a different physical reaction for different people. For me, it’s the tight chest, right? So right away, tight chest set in at two in the morning, and I started to breathe a little bit more shallow. And I was like, okay, here, this goes, I’m going down that road, I’m I’m not, I’m not going to go there that I have a choice in this matter, to either go down that road, which is all your brain, it’s not anything you’re creating, it’s all reaction, automatic default, or I can create something else and I created dealing with whatever is going to be happy. I don’t even know what the call is about. I have no idea all it was was a caller ID. But I’m going to deal with it from peace and power and honor. And now I have a place to come from that’s created versus from that space of reaction.

Do you find people are attached to their reactivity? Like it’s hard to remove them from it?

I think people are attached to being right. Yeah. So as like an addict is attached to their heroin. I think human beings are attached to their addiction of being right. And many times what messes with us is something that we’ve got a lot invested in, like, I’ll just again give you an example from my own life. You know, when I was younger, my dream was to be a singer, right? Melania we were talking about that a little bit earlier. And what messed with me was a limiting belief, where I believed that you can’t do your art as your career. That was something that I heard When I was five from my dad, and it didn’t, it wasn’t that he said it because he said a lot of things I never listened to. But I said it. You know, when I was five, you can’t do your artistic career. And that became the truth. And I started gathering evidence for that. And you see starving artists and this and that. Now notice, I don’t see the people who are making money. I only see the starving artists because you see, what will add rightness to your view or your belief and make it more solid and real. So when I was in a transformative seminar in my early 20s, I had a breakthrough in that, and I saw that maybe that’s not the truth. Maybe it’s a decision I made in the infinite wisdom of five, and then stuck myself with it and was right about it, Melanie, right. So it was like, I was just being right, no, but you don’t understand. I remember I was at an event and I was singing because I would still sing but not as a profession. I would do it like as a you know, a favor for people at nonprofit events or whatever. And I was singing at this event. This is now dating myself was very long time ago. And Raul Julia was at the event who I really respected as an actor. And it was for an organization called the breakthrough Foundation, which worked with young people to give them transformative tools to create their life, right? So I’m singing at this thing. And he’s all like getting into my singing, and I’m thinking, wow, Joy is liking my singing. How great is that? And he says to me at like the break, he goes, Oh my God, you’re such a good singer. Where do you sing? And I go, Well, I don’t really, you know, I’m not really a singer. You know, I’m just here singing. And he goes, No, no, no, you have to sing. I go, No, no, you don’t understand. Here I am arguing for why you can’t do your artistic grip. I don’t have a manager, I have to have a real job. I have a mortgage to pay, did it. He’s like, those are all just reasons. And I said, Hmm, interesting. So that began to break up the whole world of the truthiness of that. So I do think people get stuck in their limiting beliefs or the things that they believe to be true, or they’re relating to as real, that aren’t. And that’s a lot of the work that I do with people is breaking that stuff up so that they can be free to really fulfill their vision. Because once I got free from that limiting belief, it was three months, and I had a record deal.

And then I think something happened after that. Didn’t you have a number one song?

Yes, that’s our record our debut single went number one. So we knocked Whitney Houston off the top spot, she was the number one for like 20 million weeks with I Will Always Love You. We were the next to number one record, which is pretty cool. And we were of a group of very small group of artists that their first release went number one, like including the Beatles. So that’s our one hit wonder story.

It’s a great story is a dream come true. It’s a really fun story. I’m curious, because I think part of your what you do for people is to help them make their dreams happen. Yes, I find sometimes people don’t dream so big at all. How do you help people dream?

Well, the first thing that I do is find out what’s in the way because you could think of dreams and visions is the same realm. And most people aren’t connected to their vision most people actually, you know, I mean, some people have have some clear vision but most people it’s it’s blocked by all these things that mess with them. So if I can’t get to at least a glimmer of a vision, it’s because people are looking down and in managing what they’re dealing with versus looking up and out creating. What’s important to them.

Does being unmessable with have any costs in terms of sympathizing or empathizing with other people?

It doesn’t exclude sympathizing and empathy at all, but empathizing at all because when you’re Stan, if I’m out to fulfill a vision, like what’s the vision that you have Mel, if you just look in your family or your career or the community…

And I’d say leadership.

Yeah, so what about leadership that people get connected to their leadership?

That I’m able to support the people’s dreams who are who are in my department.

Yeah. So if that’s what your vision is, and you’re creating an acting from that place, can you see that has nothing to do with not being empathetic and being inclusive at all, in fact, it would back in it right. Right. Yeah, so it’s, it’s not an either or, once again, no need for the boundaries in this conversation. It’s a pretty inclusive conversation because I haven’t met and I’ve worked with over 300,000 people As I have never met anybody who didn’t have a vision, they might not be connected to it. Or in touch with it, like it might not be alive and real. But that’s just about dusting off what’s in the way? It’s not that it’s not there. Interesting. Yeah.

I think it’s really interesting. I’m gonna have to think about whether or not I agree with you. I’m not sure I agree with you. I, well, I think some people maybe they settle like I maybe what I’m seeing is that they’ve decided to give, like, let that go. That’s the thing I’m seeing. And I think actually, my work starts after they pick it up. And your pick your starting earlier, which is really interesting to me, that you’re like, No, let’s dust it off. Let’s find it. And, and I think that’s a really interesting distinction.

I think that in my work, I haven’t always discovered the dream, but I’ve always assumed that there was one.

Yeah, and I can hear what you’re saying about people giving it up, you know, like they’ve just given up. And that happens for a lot of people because people settle for what’s doable? Yeah. What’s possible? Absolutely. But what’s doable is only based on your view, it wasn’t doable to get a record deal for me until it was.

Correct. That’s what I’m seeing, I think, was really illuminating for people about what, you know, what you can do. And before I was a coach, I was a mortgage broker. And that seemed more doable at the time, right? I found out about coaching, you know, it’s, it’s, it is interesting, just sort of where, where we do the trade off for what’s marketable. What we think is marketable.

Yeah. Or, you know, if you’re in the world of reaction and survival, it is all about managing. So if you think about it, even when you start your business, for most people, when if they’re an entrepreneur, let’s say or even as a job, they have a job. In the beginning, it is a Space of Creation, it’s kind of like, you know, you’re trying things out, you’re not sure exactly what you’re doing, but you’re sort of throwing spaghetti against the wall, it’s exciting, even your failures or are somewhat enlivening. Because you’re learning and you’re creating, but at some point, whatever you’ve created, whether it’s a relationship, or job, or a company, or career kind of shifts over to the world of management. So now you’re managing what you’ve built, having it survive, versus in that mode of creation, and there’s no magic in management. And people just get into that head down, sort of dealing with and getting through life newness, that is automatic, for our brains to do, it’s like, you know, you’ve driven where you kind of like, wake up and go, Well, where was I for the last half hour, you’re just on automatic? Like, it’s amazing. I didn’t, you know, crash into a tree, but you’re just, you know, going through life, and that is what I intervene in, I intervene in that sort of automatic default mode, even if it’s effective to amp up for upping people’s game and what could be possible, and what’s their vision and, you know, yelling it.

If people are listening, and they’re like, oh, what would I do to start trying to figure this out? What might they do?

Well, one thing they could do is they could ask themselves, what really inspires them. So it could be you look at past moment in your life, that you were really moved or inspired, or just free? Maybe when you were little, you know, because we all kind of pile up all the decisions and then get all the dust gets on our dreams. But what did you dream about? When you were a kid? Like for me, it was I was always singing to my dolls. And, you know, my dog and anybody who would not leave the room, I would be singing too. And at some point that stopped. So I would look what is that space? That really moves you? Is it freedom? Is it self expression? Is it like, you know, having some sort of opportunity and make a difference? Like what’s the, the thing that really gives you juice and that could be a place to start now if you can’t like some people just I don’t remember anything from when I was, you know, young, you could go forward, you could go okay, what’s my immediate goal? And what would be available if that goal got met? So I do a lot of work with actors. I have an entertainment company where I manage the careers of actors. And I you know, ask them what’s your dream and a lot of them have things that are more like goals. You know, I want to win in Canada. The award or I want to book a series regular on a TV show or want to do abroad, whatever it is. But if you fulfill a goal, there’s always the next goal. So I’m I take people through far enough to say, okay, but what’s the real thing you want? Like what, at the end of accomplishing all those goals? What will be present what space will be available that isn’t available now. And oftentimes, it’s something like self expression or freedom or impact or something like that, right? So I’ll take that, let’s say it’s freedom, I’ll just use it as an example. I’ll say, Okay, now, when you get to that now, the question is, how do you bring freedom to every interaction versus get it out of accomplishing a goal someday? And if you look at an audition for an actor, right, they go into an audition, mostly they’re trying to get the job. They’re not looking at what they can leave people with? What are they bringing to that audition? And that’s what I have them? Do I have them look at, okay, so if you want to bring freedom to your life, or if you want freedom, that’s what you want, you can bring it right now you don’t have to wait till you win an Academy Award, to have freedom, you could do it at Starbucks, you know, you could bring freedom to your internet right now, in this conversation, you could bring freedom to this conversation. So that’s what I mean by living the life of your dreams now, not someday.

I was thinking, you know, it’s interesting to detach the dream, people often have monetary their goals have a monetary element. And it sounds like you’re actually detaching the monetary reward from the dream itself.

Yeah, and it’s even it’s, it gets a little it’s, I’m not a woowoo person, right. But it’s this is a little woowoo, where it’s like, it takes it out of the dual world and puts it in the non dual worlds. So your goals live in the dual world or the physical world. And that could be a goal with regard to money, it could be a goal with regard to where you live, or you know, being married, or whatever your thing is, right? That you want a promotion, those kinds of things live in reality. But the space that I’m talking about is more a non dual space, like a space of freedom, there’s no physical freedom we’re talking about, you’re not in shacked unless you are in shackles, but for this purposes of this conversation, you’re not in shackles, right? So the space of freedom, the possibility of self expression, the essence, as it were, the experience of life is a little bit not as tangible as a goal, which is measurable, and in time like that.

Well, and it’s also so much more transactional, like it takes it away from the transactional the idea that you could be it as opposed to achieve it is super interesting.

It transformed my life. And that is the essence of transformation. At least the work that I’ve done in transformation is housed in what’s called ontology, which is the study of being, it’s not the study of doing or having, it’s the study of being and who are you being. And when I shifted from being a producer to being a singer, not where was I didn’t need evidence, it’s, I was being a singer, because I said, so. And then all of a sudden, I started doing the things a singer would do. And I had the results that a singer would have, but it’s not mysterious, I took the actions, and the actions produce the results. But if you don’t have the being part created, and have it all fall out of that you end up going like upstream.

That seems to relate to where you started, where where you’re talking about language is, is the IS is the medium that you work with, because that’s, you know, what you’re describing is using the language to frame the being right.

Yep, perfect. Yeah, I can’t say better than you just did.

I actually am faculty for us, an Ontological Coaching school. And, and so it’s interesting that you bring ontology and yeah, not a trained ontological coach. I’m like the weirdo in their group.

That’s so funny. That’s the water I swim in ontology phenomenology.

It’s all very interesting. And linguistics is a big part of oncology as well. As well as body language and and other things. I’m curious, I’m still curious about where else people can take this on their own. Not everyone can just hire you. You’re absolutely versus how else can people learn about what you’re talking about?

So, I’ve created a free five day program to get people started in developing this muscle of creation. It’s called the promise game. So it’s about using promising to create life. Because promising is very, very powerful. When you promise something, it literally creates something that wasn’t there. If I promised to have lunch with you on Tuesday, now there’s something that’s happening in the future, that was not going to happen. Right. So promising is a powerful tool and, and I can offer it to anybody listening, it’s available at gift from Joss jrss.com gift from jaws.com get started. And I have a ton of free resources on my website, in addition to things where you can, you know, engage in courses and all that, but I have lots of stuff because my mission is to empower as many people as possible to develop themselves to be unmissable with and live the life of their dreams now.

Fantastic.

That’s fantastic. And it’s been a real pleasure to have you on our show today. Do you have any last questions smell? No. I always ask him he always says no.

Well, it’s been a delight to be with you guys. What a great conversation.

It’s really fun to talk about. I love talking about people’s dreams. I think it’s so powerful. to tap into dream, it’s the thing AI can’t give us.

Ya know, it’s it’s funny when I when I put an AI give me statistical things about drink nothing, they got nothing.

Thing that makes us human. So yeah. Thank you for being here today.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

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Well, that was an interesting conversation about linguistics and what’s what’s stuck with you?

Well, one of the most powerful things that I heard was Josselyne said she never met somebody who didn’t have a dream because I, I it made me want to dig in and get curious about everybody’s dream. So I’m, you know, and I’m the chair of my department. And I’ve I think I’ve been operating with the assumption that there were dreams out there. But now I kind of want to get out there and find out what the dreams are.

It’s my favorite networking question is something about Dream like, what’s what’s your big dream? Or where do you want to be a year from now? Or what are you hoping for out of your life for? I often tap into dream as a way to have real conversation with people I don’t know. And it always pays off. Sometimes it’s scary for people I think, but but once they’ve settled down for a minute they they can lean in. But um, yeah, I like this idea of dream and we’re going on vacation soon. So maybe we’ll talk about dream or on vacation. Talk to everybody about dream can be a dreamy place. Well, it has been so fun to be here with everybody today on the experimental leader podcast. Go experiment.

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Josselyne Herman-Saccio

 

A transformative coach and course leader with more than 30 years experience.

As an Author, CEO, Former pop star, Community Activist, Founder of a non -profit and Coach, she has worked with all kinds of people to empower them to live the life of their dreams NOW and ultimately be unmessablewith.

 

 

 

 

 

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