EP: 144 Be UnMessableWith: Cast Magic To Your Life And Career With Josselyne Herman-Saccio

As I am recording this in late August 2023, we just got through the first week of school in the Pestikas household. And I’m tired. What about you? How are you at the start of school or this new season? I think the end of summer and the beginning of fall is the beginning of a new season for everyone, not just kiddos and parents.

Speaking about new seasons, what about when life or work throws you a curveball? What happens when you get messed with and feel off your “A” game? My guest today, Josselyne Herman-Saccio, has a mission for helping her clients with being unmessablewith. Being unmessablewith sounds like being grounded in yourself, having a strong spine or core to who you are, and possessing the courage and bravery to stand true to who you are and your purpose. That’s my definition of it, but let’s dive in to learn about Josselyn’s perspective!

During my chat with Josselyne, we discussed:

1. What does it mean to be unmessablewith?
2. How do we reach the state of being unmessablewith?
3. What happens when our personal or professional lives derail us? How do we get back on track?
4. How can we make sure our word is our wand?
5. How do we find our dream source so we can create magic in our lives and world?

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Listen to the podcast here

Be UnMessableWith: Cast Magic To Your Life And Career With Josselyne Herman-Saccio

Josselyne, welcome to the show. How are you?

I’m great. How are you, Jen?

I am good. Thank you so much for being here. I loved getting to know you even before this interview and hearing that you are in one of my favorite cities in the whole wide world. I will tell a quick story before we jump into your backstory. When I was a freshman in high school, my parents were both educators. They were high school teachers. My dad was a high school principal. It was obvious that they were going to ask me, “How was the first day, honey?” Even more so than the average parent, they wanted to know what classes I liked. They’re academics by nature. I told them on my first day that I love French.

I love this whole thing and I’ve let it go. It’s on my bucket list to bring back those skills, but I told them right then and there, “I’m going to move to France.” I’m so excited to say that when I was a senior in college, I lived in Aix-en-Provence in the South. It was so beautiful. It was like living in heaven every day. I’ve been to Paris probably 3 to 5 times in my life. Every time I go back, it’s like something new. It’s like unwrapping a present of the sheer beauty of that city.

I feel the same exact way. It’s so funny. I actually have the experience of breathing better when I land here. That’s been for 40 years. My first trip here was 40 years ago. I remember getting off the plane. I was with my mom. It was my high school graduation present to come to Europe with her, which was a pretty incredible present when I think about it now. I remember getting off the plane and thinking, “Is there something physically different about the air here?” There may be, but it’s always been that way. Every time I come here, my nervous system shifts into being at home.

I have to ask you. Maybe you can share. Saccio is your married name. Do you have French roots or French in the ancestry so you feel like you’re coming home?

I was adopted, so I have limited knowledge of my history in terms of ethnicity and all that nationality stuff. I don’t know. I’m not a woo-woo person, but I did this thing in my twenties where I went to a past life therapist and got my past life read. She knew nothing about me. I was a singer, which we’ll talk about a little bit. At the time, I wasn’t singing. I was thinking, “You can’t do your art as your career.” I was working as a receptionist in a company. I went to this past life reader and she said, “You were a French torch-song singer in a past life. I was like, “I should be singing in France.”

I’m very woo-woo. As I get older, I’m embracing more and more of my woo-woo. Bring it. I love that story. Let’s keep going with your backstory. I know you run a successful business, but you have a very interesting backstory or history, so you can jump into anywhere you want to jump in. Tell us a little bit about you and who you are.

I’ve been coaching people for more than 30 years. I’m what you would call a transformative coach. I’ve worked with a couple of hundred thousand people. This is what I do. I started engaging with transformation as a consumer when I was eleven. My mom was the first person in our family to do any kind of transformative program. She did it at a time when my parents were separated and going to get divorced. She was like a victim of the situation. I viewed her as very weak and meek. He was the bad guy. He had had affairs, and she was the victim of the thing.

She came and went into this program, and came out a different human being. I got my first glimpse of what I call being unmessable with my mom. She was transformed. She started creating things. She was like, “We’re moving back to New York. I’m taking you kids. I’m getting a job with this amount of money for rent in this school district.” Within a week, she created all of it. It was like watching a superhero.

At that time, my dad did the same program about a year later. They got back together and they celebrated 65 years together. They are totally the poster children of transformation. They had a kids’ program. They let my sister and I do it. That was when I was eleven. It wasn’t this big like, “Before, I did this.” I was eleven, but there was a sense that anything was possible.

One of the biggest things people get out of transformation is looking at life through what’s possible versus what’s not possible or why it is not possible. It’s that different lens. Flash forward, I had always wanted to be a singer and I had given up on it because when I was about five years old, I saw my dad had been a painter and he stopped painting. I asked him, “Why did you stop painting?” He said, “You can’t do your art as your career.” I imprinted that on my brain like, “I see you don’t do your art as your career, so I’m not going to do my art as my career,” which at that point when I was five was singing.

I was like, “I’ll be a business person or a lawyer or something.” It was not a problem. It wasn’t like, “I can’t be a singer.” It was this low-level lid on what was possible in this another transformative program in my very early twenties. All of a sudden, I saw this blind spot. That’s how transformation works. It illuminates blind spots that are limiting what’s possible. Once you see that it’s a blind spot, then you have access to what’s beyond it. All of a sudden, all sorts of things are possible that weren’t.

I see in this workshop like that. I made this decision at five that you don’t do your art as your career, but maybe that’s not the truth. Maybe it’s the infinite wisdom of a five-year-old deciding that something wasn’t possible. It loosened its grip. I started to take action on being a singer because, without actions, nothing happens. Within three months, I had a record deal. It was actually within three weeks of another transformative program that I did. Within three months of having that insight, I got a record deal.

That record went to number one in the country, like Casey Kasem’s countdown number one record. It was like a dream come true, for sure. At the same time, I was developing myself to coach people in transformation because it made such a difference in my life. I wanted other people to have it. I was developing myself to lead transformative programs and coach people.

When I got the record deal and it went number one, I said, “That’s it. This is now my mission.” It’s to empower people to fulfill their dreams because it’s possible, and develop this muscle of what I call being unmessable with like my mother had. It’s not about, “Don’t mess with me.” It’s about being able to create something like a vision or a dream and then fulfill it. That’s what I mean by being unmessable with. It’s staying in that mode of creation versus getting hooked and thrown, or down for the count and messable with.

That’s the difference. One more time for me, unmessable means?

Being able to create and take actions from your vision, your dream, and what you’re creating versus being in reaction mode where you are reacting to what life is throwing at you. You’re surviving and managing. You’re getting through stuff. That’s not magic. Magic is in creation and being able to keep that muscle going. Most people, especially successful people, are very good at reacting. Stuff happens and they can react. They can deal with it. They can put out the fire. All that stuff is still in the world of reaction. Even though you’re effective, it’s not that space of creation, magic, fulfillment, dreams, and vision. We’ll add a little woo in there for those of us who are dabbling with woos.

That space is an atrophied muscle for most people because they get so good at surviving in life and managing what they’ve built. It’s almost like they’re in a prison of their own creation. They’ve created this business or this relationship or whatever it is that they’ve built, and now it’s in management mode. It’s no longer in that space of creation.

I look at the children. I have a young child who lost her first tooth. Seeing her face like, “The tooth fairy was going to come,” was absolutely magical.

How much did you give her though? I’ve got three kids. They’re all pretty old and it was like inflation with those teeth. They started getting worth a lot of money towards the end there.

It’s her first tooth. We gave her $10, which I’m not giving her $10 per tooth, but I gave her $10 for the first tooth. She’s not going to tune in to this, so I don’t want to be a spoiler. We’re all safe. Don’t tell my little ones about it. It was pure magic. Do you think that the world feels that magic? How do we get to that point where we get locked in and we’re messable? It feels like we’re so worried we’re going to get screwed over or whatever that we get into that mode where we lose that factor of being unmessable with.

We lose it because we have to survive. When you’re little, it’s not a concern for the most part. I’m not saying this as a rule because there are exceptions, but for the most part, you’re not worried about how to put a roof over your head when you’re little. You have this freedom to create, dabble, experiment, explore, and discover.

The first time somebody doesn’t invite you to their birthday party, you start realizing, “This is not the safest place, this thing called life. I got to protect myself. I don’t want to seem like things are getting to me.” You start reacting to life and you start being somebody. Even if you’re a good reactor and you can handle things effectively, there’s a limit on freedom, self-expression, and power. It’s not like power where you’re going to force something to happen, but the ability to create and fulfill very quickly gets doused. That’s the best way of saying it. It’s from the very nature of our society and our families, and the nature of being human.

I’ve worked with people from all over the world and all sorts of careers, ethnicities, and ages. It is a similar thing for all people. Surviving becomes incredibly important to your brain. You start to develop these neural pathways that are grooved into surviving, including surviving social situations. Your brain can’t tell the difference between making a phone call and a lion coming at you. To your brain, it’s the same level of threat. It kicks into the back of your brain which is survival-based. Whereas that creation part is a totally different part of your brain. It stops being activated because you have to use the other part of your brain to exist.

That makes a lot of sense to me. It feels like I am talking a lot about neuroscience, fight or flight, and all of those things. There’s this common thread with many of you that I’m talking with. I hope everyone understands that it’s not intentional. It’s very important as part of the rewiring of how we think so we can become unmessable with. I don’t want to steal the magic you do with people, but I want to explain and educate people that the great news is we can get to that point of creativity again.

It’s a conscious choice and it takes action. What are some of those steps? I know you listed them in one of your blog posts, but I would love to go through what those steps are. If you’re like, “I am messable with right now. I am living in a reactive mode. I want to be unmessable with.” How do we do that?

I know the blog you’re talking about but I’m going to get a little deeper in this conversation than the blog post. One of the things I do with the people I work with in groups or one-on-one is first identifying their vision. You’d be shocked at how many people don’t know what they want. Because they’re so busy dealing with what they have, they can’t look up and out.

The first step in that blog post was, what’s your stand? You could liken that to, what’s your vision? What are you creating in this area of your life? If it’s your marriage, your business, your children, or your family, what is your vision? Is it open communication? Is it peaceful listening? Whatever it is you’re creating, the vision is important. If you don’t have that right in front of you, like a guiding light or a heading if you are a sailor, you’re going to end up with wind and rain. You’re going to end up in Timbuktu. You won’t be able to navigate through whatever is happening in that situation that you’re dealing with where you might be having messable moments.

The first thing is, what’s your stand or what’s your vision? What are you creating? It’s pretty theme-based for most people. What messes with you? You start to look at, “What is it that throws me off course?” “I come home and I want to have this great evening with my family, and then this happens,” and that hooks you. You get reactivated because nobody made dinner, the garbage isn’t taken out, or whatever messes with you.

It could be in business. When somebody gives you feedback, some people hate it because it’s like criticism to them. They get on the defense and they get messable with moments. Whatever it is that messes with you, you identify the thing that messes with you, and then I have them go deeper and notice what the physical experience of being messable with. Everybody has something that manifests that.

For me, it’s a tightness in my chest. All of a sudden, everything will seize up in my chest when I’m having a messable with moment. For some people, they get hot or red. Their face gets red or they start to have racing thoughts or whatever it is. People find out what I call their red flags so that they can be on the hunt for those red flags before they happen.

If you know you’re going into a meeting where there’s a situation where you will tend to be messing with, you can be ready to catch yourself before you go too far down that road of reaction. You can throw yourself up to your vision. You know the red flag. You’ve got your vision and you’ve pre-created that, so you’re walking into whatever you’re walking into with that vision intact and available to you.

You start to get messable with, “What’s messing with me right now?” You take a breath and you look up and out at your vision or at what you stand for. “What action can I take right now? What action would peaceful listening take right now? What action would open communication and connection take right now?” You act from your vision, from your dream, from your creation, or from your stand, as a synonym for it, versus acting from the reaction.

You take the place of action from creation rather than reaction. I wanted to underline that a little bit.

It’s important because there are a lot of actions you could take. You might come up with five actions that you could take. You can’t take all actions all at once. You can schedule those actions in your calendar if you’re not taking them right that minute. Maybe you got a voicemail and it messed with you. It might be the middle of the night when you’re listening to your voicemail.

Most likely, you’re not going to call the person back right then, but you can think of what’s the action that whatever you’ve created would take. You now put that in your calendar so that it exists outside of your head and in reality. A lot of what messes with us is what’s going on in this internal dialogue in your head. You don’t want to keep your creations in your head because it’s messy in there. You want to keep it out here in reality versus where all your thoughts, reasons, fears, and all that mess lives.

I’m asking this because I have a colleague and she’s asking for support. I know she wants to make changes, but she doesn’t do it. She doesn’t execute and doesn’t make the change. Sometimes people are facing, I don’t know if you call them demons or what you call them, whether it’s imposter syndrome, procrastination, or perfectionism. They can be crippling. How do you get from that point of messing with to actually taking action? I’m sure you see this all the time with your clients.

You have to dismantle what it is that’s in the way. Let’s take imposter syndrome as one of the examples that you gave. I work with people that have that going on that messes with them. I work with people to craft what I call a formulation statement. I have them list every accomplishment they’ve ever had, personal or professional. I have them put metrics to it like, “How many people have you worked with? How many countries have you gone to? How many companies have you engaged with?” Whatever it is that they’re dealing with.

I have them craft an introduction for themselves that somebody else would say, and then record it for themselves. They can start to listen to a view of themselves outside of, “Who am I to do this,” or whatever the imposter syndrome conversation is to them. They can have an alternate view of themselves. That’s like a muscle though, and it takes discipline. One piece is to create a new lens for viewing themselves because it’s the lens that’s messing with people, not the actual circumstances.

It’s like being a singer. It wasn’t the actual singing that was messing. It was the lens called you can’t see your art as your career. That was coloring everything there was to act on. Everything looked impossible through that lens. If you have a lens for yourself that is less than empowering, you’re not likely going to take action on certain things because it’s counter to your lens. You have to create a new lens. Identify the lens you have. Dismantle it and create a new lens.

A lot of the work that I do with people has to do with their words. Somebody says, “I want to do this,” and then they don’t take the action. That has to do with their relationship to their words. When they make a promise or they put something in their calendar, their relationship to their word is weak. If your relationship to your word is weak, you’re messable with it automatically. You cannot be unmessable with unless your relationship to your word is freaking unmessable with. Ultimately, that’s the access to being you.

You create in word. If you can’t go to the gym three times when you say you’re going to go to the gym three times, how are you going to create peaceful listening with your mother-in-law? It isn’t going to happen. It’s in the same muscle called word. I work with people to exercise and develop their muscles of words so they can use their words as their wand and create what they want.

Their word is their wand. When someone is not being true to what they are saying like, “I’m going to go to the gym three times a week or I’m going to execute on this project,” and then they don’t and they’re procrastinating or whatever, you’re saying they’re automatically messable with. They’re automatically thrown off kilter. They will not be taking powerful steps. They have to then go back, circle back, and ask the same question, “What is messing with me right now? How can I get stronger in my word?”

What are you creating with your word? If you don’t have a clear vision of what you’re creating, going to the gym is just a to-do on your calendar. I have an actual calendar workshop where I have people create a context for every action that they say they’re going to do. Why are they going to the gym? I’m creating vitality. Go to the gym. It’s not just a to-do. You’re actually creating an outcome. You’re creating your vision with every action. Having a meeting with a client isn’t just meeting with so-and-so. It’s like creating financial abundance, connection, or whatever it is you’re creating because most people aren’t creating. They’re mostly reacting.

That’s a way to exercise that muscle of creation by creating a context for every to-do. You have the context and the content as a matter of your word as your creation, and then you start to develop more discipline with actually doing what you said. Ultimately, if you don’t do what you said, you’re not going to be able to create anything. You have to build that muscle.

Most people make the mistake of associating the validity of their word with what they gave their word to like, “I said I’d never cheat on my spouse. I’m not going to do that but the garbage at 7:00, I can wiggle with.” Guess what? It’s the same muscle. If you are taking the garbage out at 7:05 every day when you told your spouse 7:00, that whittles away at the power of your word. When you’re in situations like on a business trip and you see someone cute and then your word is less rigorous, you might end up in the world of reaction there too. God forbid, but that happens for people.

You were already coming into the situation with a weaker word. It makes a lot of sense. I’ve never heard it that way. Your word is important and it’s unique to you. You’re the one that’s responsible for strengthening it or weakening it.

I can’t say it better than you did. That’s it. It’s all you. It’s like you’re either going to do the sit-ups or you’re not going to do the sit-ups. Don’t complain about flabby abs if you’re not doing the sit-ups. You do the sit-ups or don’t do the sit-ups. If you don’t have what you want in your life, it isn’t for lack of access. It’s for lack of discipline.

With this whole idea of being unmessable with, can people live for extended periods of time in that state where you’re like, “I’m unmessable with. Now I’ve got good word. I’ve got strong word. I’ve dealt with what’s messing with me.” Let’s take you, Josselyne. Can you live for extended periods of time in that state before being knocked off?

I do. This is my life. I’ve been doing this for 45 years. I’ve been building this muscle of word for 45 years and it is so rare that I get hooked. It happened a week ago. I’m in Paris with the time difference. Some people don’t know that I’m here. There was a phone call on my American phone and I looked in the caller ID and it was 1:00 in the morning so I’m not going to pick it up. It was somebody I did not want to hear from. Let’s put it that way. Anytime in the past that I’ve heard from this person, it’s a problem where I could be in trouble.

I saw this name and right away, my chest ceased. I haven’t had that feeling in probably over a year. That’s a long time. It seized up. My heart started racing. My husband woke up because he heard the phone and he went to the bathroom. He came back and I was like, “I missed a call from so-and-so.” He’s like, “Why are you all crazy?” I said, “What if this? What if that?” He goes, “What are you even talking about?” I had to go, “That’s right. I’m now in a whole loop of reactions.” I stopped. I took a breath and I was like, “What am I creating here? I’m creating peace, power, and honor. Whatever this person is calling about, where I’m going to deal with it is from peace, power, and honor.”

I emailed him right away. I said, “I saw and I missed your call. It’s 1:00 in the morning here. I’ll be available from this time to this time tomorrow if you want to talk or put it in an email, whatever you need.” By the way, it was nothing. I laughed about it. When I finally talked to him, I was like, “When I saw your name, I was like, “Oh no.” He goes, “Why?” I go, “Please. Think about the history.” He goes, “I never want you to have that feeling.” He is so sweet about it. Your brain can’t control your reactions, but you have a say over how quickly you move into creation if you’ve exercised that muscle.

It feels like there’s a relationship to fear here. I’ll out myself. I have a very strong fear reaction. I’m listening as you’re saying this and I’m like, “Am I messable with? I’m messable on the daily.”

Everybody is.

Triggers for me are the doctor calls. My dad passed away from cancer when I was eighteen. If the doctor calls with a report, I know this is weird but I have a loop in my brain that’s like, “The doctor. What’s wrong?” There are things. Is that totally normal? Not all people have that trigger, but everybody has their own particular triggers.

Everybody has triggering events, people, or situations. In fact, one of the things I do with people in the courses is to have them identify those triggering events, people, or situations so that they can be armed with a new road to go down in those situations. I don’t care how successful you are, how old you are, or how experienced you are, everyone has areas where they’re messed with. For you, when you get that doctor call, it’s called an amygdala hijack from a brain science perspective. Your brain fills in and its job is to fill in and predict the future from the past. Your brain is filling in the information from what happened to your dad.

It’s completely logical that you would have that physical reaction or emotional reaction. The question is, is it hackable? It is. You can hack those reactions and build new neural patterns for brain waves firing and wiring. What fires together wires together, as my neuroscientist friend Dr. Connor says. If you can have something fire and wire enough times, it gets hardwired.

Why that other response is so automatic for you and for everybody is because it’s been firing and wiring together for so many years that it’s a hard wire now. You just have to rewire it. It is not for the weak of the heart. It takes an incredible amount of discipline and coaching. I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have a coach. You can’t see your eyeballs with your eyes. It does take being in a structure where other people are in that conversation with you, and having a coach that can see what you can’t see so they can guide you and interrupt when you start going down that other road. It takes your word. It takes discipline to stay true to that vision of what you are creating.

I agree with that because when I work with my coaching clients, I always tell them, “It’s a muscle you have to keep noticing.” You use the same words. It’s like you have to keep noticing and noticing. Half of the battle is noticing where you are. It’s like, “I’m doing it again. I’m looping again. How do I dismantle this loop?” Is that similar to what you’re referring to?

Definitely. What are those messable with moments? Here’s that reaction. Now how do I redirect? How am I going to redirect into a creation versus getting caught up? When you say looping, I say caught up in the world of reaction.

What about people who allow themselves to get messed with on a consistent basis? We all probably have family members, colleagues, or whatever that live in an “I’m messed with” state. Is that when they get stuck? I’ve been stuck. I have a section in a sector of my life where I know I’m stuck right now and it can be very painful. Is it allowing yourself to be messed with for such a long period? Is that what drives us to be stuck in an area or in all areas of our life?

People can get stuck even if it isn’t such a long time. Any place where you have a blind spot or something obstructing your view of something, you experience being stuck. Whether it’s with your well-being, money, relationship, or a person in your family, that experience of not being able to impact it is a function of a blind spot.

That is why coaching is so powerful. It’s because if I’m ever stuck, I’m not going to see what that is by myself. That’s why I am stuck. It’s because I can’t see something. It’s so important to have somebody that you trust that can see what you can’t see so they can pop through that blind spot. The minute you see whatever it is that’s keeping you stuck, whatever that limiting belief is, or whatever that conversation that you’re engaging with or that lens that’s keeping you stuck as what it is as a lens or as a limiting belief, not as the truth or reality, it pops open.

All of a sudden, you have freedom in an area that seems like there is nothing possible. Now you’re free. It’s like those forces in Central Park that have blinders on. The minute you take off a blinder, then you have access to a whole world that wasn’t available when you had the blinders on. It can be horrible when you’re stuck for a long time. Obviously, that experience is terrible, but the people that I work with are paying me to unstuck them.

They’re not going to get their heels dug in for the most part in areas of their life. They are coachable with me. There are certain areas that take a little bit longer than other areas because they’ve hit bottom in that area. Let’s put it that way. They’re no longer willing to have it be that way with their husband, wife, well-being, or whatever. There are certain areas where they’re still holding on to being a little bit right about something. If you’re more committed to being right than being happy, it’s hard to pry that banana loose, so to speak.

What about your TEDx Talk? I believe it was called ABRACADABRA. It was realizing your dreams now. I watched it a couple of times. Why don’t you share a little bit about that talk and what prompted you? It had been a long time. I’ve not seen if you’ve had prior TEDx Talks. What prompted you to go back up and give this particular talk?

I was asked, actually. It’s an interesting story because I was very messable with over something so stupid, but that’s what those things are. It was a blind spot for me. I was invited to do this TEDx Talk for five years and I said no. People were like, “Why don’t you do it? It’s such a great opportunity.” To me, it was like, “No, I am definitely not doing it.” You’re going to laugh and I laugh about it now, but it seemed very real at the time. It was a total blind spot for me. I was like, “I don’t know how to do a PowerPoint presentation. I don’t know how to do that so I am not going to do a TED Talk because I’d have to create a PowerPoint.” It was the stupidest thing in the world, but it seemed super real at the time.

I was talking to somebody and I said that. They said, “I’ll do the PowerPoint for you.” All of a sudden, I had no reason not to say yes. I said yes and I’m so happy I did it. It’s one of my favorite things that I was able to do. A lot of my methodology with being unmessable with comes from the tenets of that talk about being able to identify what I call your dream source in that talk. It is like your vision, calling, or what you’re out to impact the planet with. What’s your real end game? Not the goal, but the space that you want to leave people with.

Just so I’m clear, was ABRACADABRA your first TEDx or were there others before that?

That was the first one, but I’ve been speaking in front of people and leading courses since I was nineteen.

Is the dream source the vision then? Is it another term for building your vision?

Yes, it is. You don’t need to get your dream source to be able to see what’s your vision for your relationship. I have a couple of different methodologies to get people to their dream source. Either you go to the past like before when you were a kid and there was all that space of whatever it was that inspired you, or you go to the future like, “If you won that Academy Award, then what would be possible?” or “I could give money to charity.” “Okay, if you gave money to charity, then what would be present? What would be available?”

I bring people to the end of what they really want. It’s never a tangible thing. It’s not like $1 million, having five kids, or winning this award. There’s always something in this space of happiness, joy, peace, impact, making a difference, or whatever their real heart is. I get people connected to their real vision, which can serve as the place you stand to be unmessable with. It has a double job. It can be your dream source, but it can also be what you’re bringing to life, not what keeps you out of the world of being messable with.

Just to clarify that, someone says, “I’ll be happy when,” or “I’ll be satisfied when I have this.” You are telling me that often, it is not that thing. It’s the feeling or it’s something underneath that thing. It’s not material, typically. It’s the feeling or something underneath whatever somebody is desiring. It’s something underneath that.

I would call it beyond that versus underneath it. Look at your own life. Anytime you had a goal that was to make this much money or to do that, you’re happy for a minute, but then the next carrot comes up. That’s what I call the satisfaction paradox because as human beings, we’re very rarely satisfied for long periods of time because it’s always like, “Now what’s next?”

When I coach actors, because I have an entertainment company and have managed actors for over twenty years, they always have a goal like, “I want to get a co-star on a TV show.” They get the co-star and it’s like, “Now I want a guest star.” There’s no space for satisfaction. It’s always, “What’s next?” That’s a very human phenomenon that I found with all kinds of people, from entrepreneurs to stay-at-home moms to teenagers. It’s like there is no satisfaction.

When I work with people to create their dream source, I have them practice bringing that space to life versus getting it out of a situation in life. To use the actor as an example again, what they end up with as their dream source is self-expression. If that’s what they want, now bring self-expression to your audition, not if you book it. Leave the casting director in the space of or in the presence of self-expression. You can do that at Starbucks. You don’t have to be auditioning or being on a TV show to be able to bring forth whatever it is you’re creating.

That’s a good way to think about it. I’ve never heard of the term. That’s why I listened to the talk. Not only to prepare for the show but also because I was curious about the dream source. That’s proprietary to you, I’m assuming.

I have another word for it when I’m with an audience that doesn’t like the soft dream stuff. It’s a creation source. I use that in a lot of my corporate work because it is the source of your creation. Why do you create the things you create? Why do you dream the dreams you dream? It is underneath it. It’s the space from which it comes. I sound so woo-woo right now. It’s so funny. It is the space from which your dreams emerge and is the core of who you are, not as an identity but as a space, like a being.

I was wondering if there are any characteristics when we know we’re living in magic.

It’s like an athlete being in the zone. You can only see it after you’re out of it. You could point to it. The experience is very much like flow or zone, or you disappear and there’s just space and ease. Even if you’re failing, it’s invigorating because you’re creating. We’ve all had that experience. Maybe you didn’t know what you were doing when you started this show, but it was flowing. Even if you were making mistakes, it didn’t even matter because you were creating something. Now you got to book guests and you got to study. It’s a different animal.

This is an exception to the rule. Maybe you would say no, but this would still count. People have asked me many times, “How do you know all these people?” I’m like, “Here’s the beauty about resilience. Eventually, people will find you.” I didn’t know that. I’m still having so much joy. I always tell people that podcasting is not for the faint of heart because it does take a lot of blood equity.

Neither is being unmessable with. It is not for the faint of heart. You better be able to walk your talk. It’s funny. I did an hour webinar about resilience and the difference between resilience and unmessable with a neuroscientist.

I’d love to hear it. Maybe even in the future, we can talk about that, but I’d like to hear the difference. What would you say you believe are 1 to 2 ways that women can be braver at work now?

If you can put into your practice making five bold requests a day, it would transform your entire experience and results at work. Most people are horrible at making requests but I find most women are even worse than horrible at making requests. We feel like we have to do everything for everybody. It’s a natural breeding ground for overwhelm and multitasking. Five bold requests a day, whether at work or home, will start to free up a lot of space and energy in your life.

What would be an example of a bold request?

At work, it could be, “I request a 10% raise by the first of the month.” That could be a bold request. It could be you make a list of all the things that you’re doing that maybe don’t give you energy, aren’t producing the results, and you make a request to your team. It depends on your position at work because the context is key. You make a request for somebody on your team to take over X, Y, and Z accountabilities.

At home, I was coaching a woman who had five children and she was overwhelmed with coming home from work and cleaning. I was like, “What do you mean cleaning? You got five kids. Get them to clean. Make a request,” and she did. Four of them are in their teens and they all started cleaning. She has not had to even lift a finger to clean.

It’s great if you do it, but most people have a lot of baggage around requests like, “What if they say no?” People are weird about making requests. They get weird if somebody says yes to them. They’re like, “Are you sure?” or they get weird if somebody says no to them like, “They don’t like me.” If they say, “I’d like to, but I have this thing.” They don’t know what to do with that. I do a lot of work with people on training them on how to deal with all of those three things coming back at them with a request. It’s an art and it’s a muscle.

One other thing I want to leave people with on this, I like the idea of the five bold requests a day. They can be small things. It could be asking a coworker for help. It can be scheduling a meeting that you’re putting off. It could be anything big or small. When I hear the word bold, some people are thinking it has to be big, but it doesn’t have to be big. It just has to keep the snowball rolling in a positive direction.

If you’re not making any requests now, start with five regular requests. The five bold requests will up your game. If you start making a request for a discovery meeting with someone, it does elevate your performance. If you’re just getting into the game of requests, make five requests a day. If you’re not making any requests, you’re doing too much. Having it all is not doing it all. It is not possible to do it all. Having it all is possible, but it does involve getting good at making requests.

Where can women find you and all of your great work online?

The best way to start to work with me is a free gift that I give people. It’s a 5-Day Promise Game. You start to use the muscle of creation. You can get it at GiftFromJoss.com. You’ll get an email each day for five days and start to have the experience of creating life versus reacting to life.

What is your website?

It’s TheArtOfBeingUnmessableWith.com.

Josselyne, thank you so much for being on. It was a pleasure to get to know you and to learn how we can all be more unmessable with

You’ll have to meet me in Paris. That’ll be our next encounter.

That’s a bold move. I think a bold move that I have to take is to go to Paris.

Game on. Thank you.

Thank you.

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Thank you for tuning in to my discussion with Josselyne. As always, I hope you found our conversation both valuable and inspiring. As a reminder, please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The show is also available on Google Podcasts or any other podcast platform you enjoy. Until next time, show up. Be unmessable with and be brave.

Important Links 

• Josselyne Herman-Saccio
• 5-Day Promise Game
• Apple Podcasts – Brave Women at Work
• Spotify – Brave Women at Work
• Google Podcasts – Brave Women at Work
• ABRACADABRA – TEDx Talk

About Josselyne Herman-Saccio

Josselyne Herman-Saccio has been leading transformative programs and coaching people for more than 30 years. She has worked with and impacted over 200,000 people directly in the areas of business and career, relationships and family, communication and self-expression, fulfilling vision, resolving conflict and overall “well” being.