Webinar: Don’t Let Fear Stand Between You and the Life You Want

The following transcript was auto-generated from the video version of the webinar. Please excuse any typos / inaccuracies.

Keith Wolf:

I’d like to welcome you to our webinar today. I’m Keith Wolf. I’m the managing director of Murray resources. We’re a Houston based recruiting firm and I’m also the CEO of resume spice. We are a career coaching and resume writing service.

Keith Wolf:

So I’m so excited about today’s webinar because we’re hosting a speaker who I personally had the pleasure of seeing speak several times. And we were so impressed by his message. We invited him to do work within our own organization, and I can say he is the real deal. And we’ve asked, he asked for a very brief intro. So I will do my best to oblige. Todd Musselman is a speaker executive coach and a facilitator. He spent over 20 years in the business world as part of his family’s business. And today he works with professionals all over the world and he does so from beautiful Steamboat, Colorado, where apparently it just snowed. So he and his wife have three adult children and know how much he loves fly fishing. So he’s super busy. Thank you, Todd, for being here and taking time out of your busy schedule, Todd is going to be speaking on the topic of don’t let fear stand between you and the life you want.

Keith Wolf:

Okay. So before we get started, we just have a few housekeeping items to go over. Okay. The webinar is going to be 60 minutes and we’re going to do our best to end at 3:00 PM central. But if we do go over, think of it as a bonus, I want to make sure Todd shares all the information he’s prepared without having to rush. And we’re also going to try to answer as many live questions as we can. So put those in the Q and a box and we’ll answer them at the end of the presentation. Now, the good news is if you need to drop off the call for whatever reason you can do. So we’re recording the webinar and you’ll be able to watch it later if you miss anything. And this is webinar format, so we can not hear you and we can not see you. And like I said, there are supposed to be over 400 people on this call and I can see most of them are on now. And maybe a few will hop on a little bit. So we’re going to keep everybody on mute so we can make sure we can hear Todd and we will be sharing the slides from the webinar with everyone who registered. Okay. So with that, Todd, are you ready to go?

Todd Musselman:

I’m very much so. Thanks Keith. Alright, thank you. Thanks Keith and Marsha and Kim, especially from Murray Resources that so appreciate the opportunity to be in front of everybody today and welcome. I’m sitting in my office in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where Keith said it did snow last night, which was pretty exciting and very rare. So today it is a, is a big topic. I’m going to cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. Some of the things we’re going to talk about is performance leadership personal growth and fulfillment. Those are some of the things we’re going to talk about how we access those things. And so right now the topic is about fear and don’t let fear get in the way. And I think that’s a really powerful and simple message to present out there.

Todd Musselman:

Ironically that the impetus of the call is how to be courageous. And the reason I say that as honestly, I haven’t met anybody that’s fearless for a very long time. I, I can search the globe and probably not find one person that’s fearless ever. Well, that’s not true. The three-year-olds in our houses and below that they’re fearless, but somewhere around four, four o’clock, four years old, something happens and, and fear shows up. And so, you know, one of the big movements right now in the work that I do is to have people be fearless. And I, I personally believe we’re asking the human brain do something it can’t do. And so I don’t my, my task isn’t about being fearless. My task is about being courageous and, and, and, and seeing the fear in doing it anyways, so to speak.

Todd Musselman:

I’m guessing everybody on this phone call has, has done that many times in their life. And so I want to start by kind of framing the effect that fear has on the human condition. I know a lot about fear good, bad, or otherwise. I’ve let fear get in the way a lot in my life. I’ve played small and, and, and, and every time I’ve played small and let fear get in the way you can sort of hear a sucking sound to my spirits, like a vacuum, pulling it out of me. It’s not very fun. And yet I’ve done it a lot in my life. And you know, the effect of playing small is that you, you, you don’t go for life, you know you don’t go for those dreams. You just, you just play small. So that’s the effect that fear has in my experience, fear is the killer of possibility in my case, my possibility, but our possibility is humans.

Todd Musselman:

Fear is the killer possibility. It just kills our possibility. I’m pretty sure there’s a dry, a giant trash heap somewhere out in the world filled with all kinds of dreams and what could have been, might have been what should have been if only I had the courage to push through the fear, and I got a lot of contribution in that trash heap. So again, I know a lot about fear and, and the effect it has on the human spirit and what it does to performance and leadership and, and fulfillment and hold us back a lot. And so today fears behind a certain mindset that I call the victim mindset underneath the victim mindset is, is it’s driven by fear. And we’re going to talk about two different mindsets that the victim mindset and the ownership mindset and the reason I think it’s so important to frame this talk inside of that distinction is because mindset to me is the number one determinant of our performance of our our, our kind of experience in life.

Todd Musselman:

And I think it’s that way because mindset is the number one thing we can control at all times. And it’s such a powerful thing, and we can shift our mindset by our awareness. And so one of the things I’m here to do today is create an awareness for everybody on this, on this call, and then you get to choose. I think that’s important because to me, awareness is the first point of choice. In other words, until I’m aware of something, I can’t choose out about a way of being, that’s not working for me that I can’t see, and I can’t choose into a more effective way of being. So I’m here to create an awareness. That’s what I’m really here to do. And, and then you choose about how are your being based on that awareness. And hopefully some of you guys can take what you learned today and employ it today in your lives, either personally or professionally, that would be my ultimate goal and intention for today.

Todd Musselman:

And so inside these two mindsets the victim mindset occurs. It’s driven by fear, but what happens in what throws us into that victim mindset is the moment we start reacting to life is the moment we start down that path. And right now I’ve been on this planet 58 years in my 58 years. There’s never been never in my lifetime, a world filled with more people immersed in the victim mindset, all wrapped into one thing called the COVID-19 virus. And I get it nothing wrong with reacting to life. But the moment we do give up a lot of control and a lot of things happen. And yet a lot of people in this world both in the United States and across the globe are reacting to this thing. And, and, and, and as a result, a lot of us are seeing a lot of things.

Todd Musselman:

There’s a lot of things that we start giving up. When we go to the victim side, I want to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with the victim mindset. It isn’t very fun. And again, I’ve spent some time there. I know what that feels like. I’ve never met a person that doesn’t spend time there because I don’t know anybody that doesn’t react to life at some level. And if you’re wondering what I’m talking about, some of you on this phone call might have kids, or maybe some of you have been a kid. And my question is how many of you had your kids do exactly what you wanted them to all day yesterday or even today. And, and if they didn’t always do the moment you start reacting to them is the moment you probably present yourself as a parent, the way that you’re not necessarily proud because you start giving away things.

Todd Musselman:

And we’re going to talk about what we give away. When we go to the victim mindset, just a minute on the owner, on the ownership side, when we’re in the ownership mindset, we’re creating our life. And it’s super fun. It’s so awesome when we’re creating our life. And we do that because and it’s so fun because we’re born to create as human beings. We were born to create as human beings, and when we’re creating, that’s when we’re are high itself as a human as humans. And if you just look at what you do for fun, as an example, what you’d most likely find is why, why it’s fun is it involves some form of creativity. And there’s a group of people that are the most creative on the planet. They’re also the happiest people on the planet because of the most present people on the planet.

Todd Musselman:

And I’ve already mentioned them, those, those, those little people running around our households, some of them anyway three years old and under man, they’re, they’re just creative machines. And a lot of times they create messages, but they’re just creating all the time. And so they’re, they’re so present and they’re so happy. And so we’re born to create, and when we’re creating, that’s when we’re at our highest self that’s, what causes us to go into ownership mindset. And most of the day is really kind of drilling down into what are those ingredients that support us in creating an amazing life through the ownership mindset. And so I mentioned that when we’re in the victim mindset, it’s driven by fear and it’s usually the same fear. It’s almost always the same fear. Ultimately, the fear is that drives most of the victim mindset is I’m not good enough.

Todd Musselman:

I’m afraid that I’m not good enough to handle what’s coming down or to navigate this virus, or what do I do with my business? I’m a teacher for the first time, Oh my God, I don’t know what to do there. And so we’re, you know, we’re reacting to life and in fear, the fear of not being good enough is driving our, our mindset. And it’s not so fun. And some of the costs that you can see listed on the screen are, you know, we lose control. Our energy drops significantly drops. Our personal power drops and our performance drops. And all those are costs, maybe the biggest costs. And all of this is the moment we entered. The victim mindset is the moment we can no longer be present.

Todd Musselman:

And that’s a big deal. That’s a really big deal, at least to me. It’s my experience that there’s only one place that magic shows up in human experience. It’s this moment. Let me say that one more time. In my experience of working in my own life and with others, there’s only one place that magic shows up in the entire human condition. It’s this moment. And so when we go to the victim mindset driven by fear, we can’t be present and we lose all of these things, but most of the, the biggest losses were not present. So we’re not connecting to lots of things that are important to us. So that’s the cost. And the, again, the fear is I’m not enough. I’m not good enough. That’s, that’s what drives the victim mindset more than anything on the ownership side completely different. The ownership side is in the ownership mindset is driven by love.

Todd Musselman:

We’re born loving. We know how to love it’s as natural as it is to breathe is to love. And when we’re coming from love if you, I mean, I’m sure, you know, our energy is high. We feel great. Our power’s awesome. Our performance is usually top knots where bringing our a game and, and we’re at our highest self cause we’re in the zone. And you know, so love is many manifestations of love. It’s not just loving another person. I mean, way more than that by love, but love drives the ownership mindset. And so in many ways, today’s talk is about one simple choice. It’s what I call the vital choice. I spent a lot of time as giving a talk called the vital choice, and it’s all about one simple choice. We make, at least to me on a moment by moment basis and the choices in any moment in time.

Todd Musselman:

It’s my experience. I’m either coming from fear or coming from love at any moment, time. One of those two is probably running the show. And so the charge for today and the big task for today, the big takeaway is what if you chose love over fear of 10% more often your life, who would you be then both personally, professionally, what is the next time you picked up the phone? And it was an angry customer. And instead of reacting with fear, you overwhelmed that conversation with love and kindness. What if the next time you walked in your house and you were greeted by an angry spouse or, or an angry child, and instead of reacting with and matching their anger, we came from love. What would happen then? Who would you be then? And what would happen to your life and the quality of all the relationships in, and if you chose love over fear, 10% more often, it seems like a simple thing, but imagine the magnitude and the impact it would have on your life.

Todd Musselman:

If I came from love 10% more often over fear, it’s a simple mantra. It’s wonder kind of be in your consciousness as we start to walk through life and think, well, what would the most loving thing I could do be right now? I, once I got this, it just shifted a lot of things in my life. Most of the relationship with my wife and my kids, but a lot of things. And my style a lot of times is what’s the most loving thing I could do right now, what would happen then? And so to me the ownership mindset is driven by love and there’s five basic ingredients that I’ve kind of narrowed it down. They’re certainly not the only ingredients that I can completely create a different list. And it would be just as true or accurate as this list. But the five things that I see that really drive the ownership mindset are love purpose, intention, action, presence, those five things are really, what’s behind us creating an ownership mindset and coming from our highest self.

Todd Musselman:

And so I’m going to go through each of these and, and spend a little time on each. And, and so the first one is love. Those are the five things, right there, love purpose, intention, presence, and action, or action and presence actually. And so the first one we talked about choosing love over fear. You know, love is a, is such a big word, and it means a lot to everybody and, and, and in so many different ways. And so again, I don’t mean just about loving another person that it could be loving yourself enough to push through the fear. Again, I I’ve fallen victim to not doing that, and I know the consequences. And so it’s loving yourself enough to push through that fear of seeing, seeing the fear and pushing through it. And yeah, another manifestation of love, which I think is still incredibly impactful, is loving others, such you treat them with respect and kindness and generosity and empathy.

Todd Musselman:

You hold them accountable and you’re vulnerable. You know, I’m a big fan of Renee Brown. She’s a incredible Fieger author, human being. And she talks a lot about vulnerability in the world of leadership and also just world of being a human and how incredibly important it is and impactful it is to be vulnerable and the doors that it opens with other human beings. And so I’m a big fan of vulnerability. I’m a big fan of Bernay Brown. I think she’s done a lot for that full topic and, and the worlds stage. So, and then there’s loving what you’re up to, man. Is this the big one, especially right now, I’m loving what you’re up to having a passion for, for your business enough to walk through the door. If that’s, what if that’s what it’s called for right now, I’m loving what you’re up to enough to, to be a teacher for the first time and just embrace that.

Todd Musselman:

And instead of repelling it with fear and just going forward you know, passion and tenacity and perseverance, there all come from love. But the biggest thing that comes from love at least to me, is courage. Courage is a manifestation. It’s a byproduct of love, and it’s usually about loving what I’m up to enough to push through the fear. And so, as we look at our landscape right now, and when you look at the businesses that you own, or that the kids that you’re parenting, or the spouse that you’re caretaking, or maybe an elder I guess the question is, are you loving it enough to push through that fear, that, that task, whatever that is for you? It’s a big deal to me, loving what you’re up to. It might drive so much of what we do and why we do it.

Todd Musselman:

And courage is the big thing there. And again, I know that everybody on this phone call is certainly been courageous many times and just connect what that feels like and how cool that is. And then there’s, you know, loving life and enough to ask for assistance or support from other people, loving other people enough to ask for assistance. This is also a big deal. And the reason I say that is asking for assistance is probably one of the best ways to connect to another human being. It is such a powerful manifestation in it and such a powerful statement of love and, and trust. And man, you gotta trust somebody. You gotta love somebody enough to ask them for support or assistance, but the powerful connection that it creates is pretty unique in the human experience. And so I guess, as I, as we’re going through this, my first question for Brian, this phone call, is that something you do habitually, are you willing to ask for assistance or support, I mean consistently, or do you, or do you hold back and retreat from that?

Todd Musselman:

If you do that, I would just welcome you to consider that the reason that we don’t ask for support or assistance is fear. And then in this particular case, it’s the fear of looking weak or an inadequate idle. I should be able to handle all this. So I won’t ask, I won’t ask, but it has giant consequences when we don’t ask. And ultimately again, the fear is underneath those two is I’m not good enough. Cause if I was asked for assistance, I guess I’m just not good enough to figure it out on my own, but for, I couldn’t see more different than that. In fact, I think asking for assistance is one of the most courageous, loving things you can do as a human being. I also think that not asking for assistance, there’s a certain reverse arrogance that goes with that. There’s a reverse arrogance by not asking.

Todd Musselman:

And by the way, you’re denying another human being, somebody who hold the highest theme, an opportunity to connect to you in a way that is very, very special. And so just as you examine your life, what would you say, are you good at asking persistence or not? Would you be willing to step into that a little more often and see what happens in the connections you create as a result of asking for assistance and being vulnerable to very, very vulnerable to ask for assistance, but yet it’s such a powerful expression of love and trust. So that kind of wraps it up with the, the whole component of love and how love is such an integral ingredient to creating the ownership mindset. The second one is, is equally as big as I say, it’s only everything. And I mean, it, purpose is huge in our life.

Todd Musselman:

It drives so much of what we do and why we do it is the driver of so much of our behavior. And we all have this thing called discretionary energy. Every human being on the planet has discretionary energy and discretionary energy is just as it might sound it’s energy that we have at our disposal that we’re either going to use or not on a certain thing at our discretion, that’s discretionary energy. And the thing is the higher, the purpose, the more willing we are to give something or discretionary energy, there’s only two things that I S that I’ve noticed that pull discretionary energy out of human beings. One is purpose, and the other is appreciation. Those are the two ingredients, the pull, the discretionary energy out of our direct reports or our spouse or friends, whatever ourselves. In other words, if I’m not sure what the purpose is behind something I’m not probably willing to give my discretionary energy.

Todd Musselman:

And also if I don’t feel appreciated by my boss or by my spouse or by my partner, I’m not likely to give my discretionary energy. In fact, what, what, what we tend to do when we don’t feel appreciated is we start checking the box doing just enough to get by. And so, as we talk about discretionary energy and purpose I want to define leadership as I see it. It’s probably a little bit different it’s on the screen there. Leadership is the ability to influence or inspire someone so powerfully that they were willing to give you their discretionary energy. That’s a big deal. In other words, if you’re a manager, you’re a boss on this, on this call, or you are in, or in a, in a relationship. If you look in your direct reports eyes, and you don’t see that they’re giving you the discretionary, there’s something to do, and most likely what’s going on is they don’t feel appreciated and they, and they don’t trust you enough to do that.

Todd Musselman:

So there’s something to work on there. And, and I would also say that one of the things that might be, especially at work if you’re, if you’re noticing that you’re not pulling the discretionary energy out of your direct reports, then I would look at, is, is my purpose articulated well, is the purpose of my team or my organization? Is that something that everybody gets behind where they get it? If I asked them, you know, what is, what’s the purpose of this organization? What is the purpose of the team? Would they be able to answer that if they can’t answer it in a coherent way or a powerful way, then there’s probably more for you to do in terms of articulating in a way that lands with them. And I want to be clear about one thing about purpose, especially at work. Money is not a purpose.

Todd Musselman:

Money is not a purpose profits, not a purpose. Those are results of a purpose. They’re definitely not a purpose. So as you look at, you know, your purpose and what have you, are you giving it and are you pulling it? Are you articulating it? And I want to talk about purpose and discretionary energy specifically inside your, your home. I would guess that the vast majority of people on this webinar are married and some of us are married and, and, and where our relationship may or may not be going so well. And one of the reasons that I notice as a coach, that I work with distress couples all the time. And one of the big reasons is that is we stopped giving her a discretionary energy to the, to the relationship. And we get, we have the story that we don’t have the energy to connect with our spouse tonight.

Todd Musselman:

So, you know what I do, I come home and instead of engaging with my spouse, I grab a beer and I turned the TV on and I check out night after night. And I convinced myself the reason I do that is I don’t have the energy. And I just call bullshit on that. What’s missing is purpose. If you, if the purpose is high in the field, create all the energy in the world. You can’t imagine how much energy is available to every human being at your discretion. If the purpose is high enough. And so if that’s you and you keep going home and you’re reaching for the beer or the TV remote, today’s the day, today’s the day, they really connect and be honest with yourself. Have I put my relationship as the highest purpose in my life, or is it in my subjugating it to something else convincing myself that I’ve just given it all at work.

Todd Musselman:

And I just don’t have the energy. And I know a lot about this, cause that was me. That was me almost to the loss of my marriage, because I was that guy. So I know a lot about this one and I wouldn’t recommend it. And then somebody woke me up and showed me what I’m showing you. That really, it’s not about, it’s not about images about purpose. I, like I said on the screen, I don’t think there is such a thing as that lack of energy what’s missing is purpose. And so finally, if some of you are running businesses, some of you in businesses right now there couldn’t be a more important time to really articulate the purpose of your organization so that the people that are walking through getting tampered, your checks, wearing masks, they’re willing to do that because they get the purpose.

Todd Musselman:

They understand why they’re doing it. Why is such a big deal. And so would your employees be able to articulate the purpose of your purpose of our organization? Would they be able to do that? If not, then there’s probably something more to do in that room. So I think purposes is just huge, as I said, it’s only every single I’m sort of joking, but I’m of not, it just drives so much of what we’re doing and why we do it. And it also pulls that discretionary energy out of us just like appreciation does. Alright, so we’re going to go to the third one. It’s a fun one for me and it wasn’t so fun. About 11 years ago. I started working with my coach about 11 years ago. His amazing man named Steve Chandler. In our first conversation, Steve asked me a really great question.

Todd Musselman:

He said, Tom, what practice are you using every day to create your life? And I looked at Steven as I have no idea. What are you talking about? What do you mean practices? You know, what do you do every day habitually to create your life? When I said, well, Steve, that would be nothing. I don’t do anything everyday, other than brush my teeth and drink a glass of water. That’s it. Okay. All right. Well, let me ask you another question. He said, so what’s that Stevie said, Todd, if I was a boat without a rudder and I wanted to get from one side of the Lake to the other, but I’d never rudder, how would that go? I said, well, obviously, Steven, wouldn’t go for it. You might get there, but probably not. If you did, it would be like by pure luck. And he said, you got it.

Todd Musselman:

And then he looked at me and he said something that really just shifted my life. He said, Todd, living a life without intention is a lot like being a boat without a rudder. You know, you might, you might create something pretty cool, but if you did, it would be by happenstance. I mean, intention is such a powerful driver of what we do. And so from that moment on, we sat and talked about it for another half an hour about what that might look like for me. And I started a practice that I employ every single day for the last 20 years or 11 years. Sorry, it’s 20 minutes every day in the morning, usually in my steam shower. I’m a Pisces, so it’s just what works for me. And in my 20 minutes, I ruminate on three questions and they’re big questions. What am I grateful for?

Todd Musselman:

Who do we get to serve today? And what do I get to create today? And man, ever since I started that practice, a lot of things in my life have shifted. The first thing that’s shifted is my relationship with my kids. I, after that point, I was, I just had a relationship with him. I think I was pretty good dad, but I didn’t have any intention, not how I was showing up as a dad. I was just being a dad and just trusting me that I was going okay. And it was, but when I wasn’t completely present with them, not in a really intentional way. And so I started putting my focus on being more way more present with my kids. And it was almost instantaneous. What happened? I started noticing results right away. And then I took that same level of intention around serving and with my wife and creating, and our marriage got better, a lot, a lot better right away.

Todd Musselman:

Just by again, being more present, being more intentional being of service more, that’s a big deal to me being of service. It’s such a powerful way to create an amazing life as being of service. And then the third thing that happened was my career started to take off as I put more focus on that and attention around it. And I think that the reason that all three of those things shifted so dramatically rather quickly, honestly, is I think every human being is incredibly powerful at creating what you’re focused on. I have worked with people and have been a part of organizations that have a goal or a purpose and they articulated and man, they focus on it and I’ll be damned if they don’t create it. But if you don’t have anything you’re focused on, you’re just going to get what you get.

Todd Musselman:

And that’s okay. And not judging that it’s not wrong. That was my life for 47 years. So I get it. But what if you change that? What if you started with some habit, some practice in your life that had you creating your life more intentionally, what would happen then? There’s a lot of love behind that action, loving yourself enough to, to, to take a 20 minute section out of your day and make it all about you and how you can serve people and what you get to create today. And what are you grateful for? And by the way, those are my three questions. They’re not the best questions. Those are the ones I ruminate on, but they’re not the best, but just mine. And so some of you watching this might think 20 minutes, dude, I don’t have 20 seconds to greet my damn, like, what are you, what are you talking about?

Todd Musselman:

And I get that. I mean, lots of stuff going on in our lives right now, I get it. And I would say this about that start with five. It would be hard for me to imagine that you couldn’t create and carve out five minutes every day to intention intend your life. And if you just did five minutes, maybe you just take one of those questions. Maybe it’s just, what am I grateful for? Who do I get to serve today? Maybe just focus on one of those questions and it wouldn’t matter which one you do, but I’m pretty sure one thing, the more intention you put behind your life, the better it’ll go. And I know that integrally myself and this shift that it had my life from my coach woke me up. And so intention is a big deal. And you know, right now a lot of folks are having more time on their hands, never, ever had, because they’re not commuting.

Todd Musselman:

They’re doing a lot of meetings by zoom and everything. And so I’ve had a lot of people ask or just say, God, I don’t know what to do with all my time. And I said, why? I think I have my, I might have one idea. And so I have lots of emails that I could show you that people have started a simple practice, shifted a lot. And again, I’m not saying you should do this. I want to be clear. I’m not saying you should. I’m just saying, what if you did, who would you be then? What would happen in your life if you put a little more intention behind it? Alright, so the next one is a simple one. It’s it’s action. It’s it’s, you know, as I say, action is the way out of the victim mindset and back into the ownership mindset. I’m a big fan of, of of what Nike had to say about life.

Todd Musselman:

Just do it. It’s one of my favorite, if not my favorite simple slogans of all time. Cause it’s so powerful and it’s so true. Just do it if in doubt. So in terms of action my experience is the more uncomfortable action you can take the better the result, especially if you’re in this world of being stuck or in the victim side. And you know, it sounds weird to take an uncomfortable action, but to me that’s where the beauty is. I’m not a big fan of comfort by the way. I, I, I get it. I understand why so many human beings want to be comfortable, but in some ways I don’t understand it because I’ve never known anybody to grow when you’re comfortable.

Todd Musselman:

I’ve never really known anybody to grow when you’re comfortable. I’ve never known anybody that started a business when they were comfortable. I’ve never known anybody to have a kid in a state of comfort. It’s the most terrifying thing ever. You’re never comfortable, but you do it and you grow. And I’m not a big fan of comfort. So, you know, when Cobin hit us I started down this road of a victim a little bit and I went through an entire weekend and I, and I, I didn’t do a damn thing. I don’t think I did. I don’t think I got off the couch for an entire 48 hours. And I just sat there and I had a mini pity party for myself. And then Monday came and I woke up and the alarm bells started going off of my hair and not recognize what was going on.

Todd Musselman:

Cause I’ve been there before. I’d been stuck before. And I said, no, not this time. I’m not letting this thing let this thing get the best of me. So I said, well, what action could I take? That would be super uncomfortable. And so an idea occurred to me, I’m a professional musician and and yet I’ve never put a song on the internet ever once. And so I thought, well, that’ll be an uncomfortable. So I sat down and I recorded a song about what related to what we were going through. And, and one of the intent intentions around that song was just to be able to thank the health workers and the essential workers for all they’ve done and the courage they’re showing. And by walking through the door every day, knowing that they might, might be their last day. I can’t imagine the courage it takes to be especially the health healthcare worker right now.

Todd Musselman:

So if anybody is on the phone in that realm I just want to say I’m so blown away and I thank you for your, your courage and your tenacity. So anyway, I threw this song out there. It was when I pushed sand, it was really frightening. And my only intention was to just do that. You felt uncomfortable, but here’s the interesting thing about it. I’ve now created three clients because that silly song and that video, I had no intention whatsoever of that happening, but that’s the, that’s the result of taking an action. Sometimes unintended consequences in a very positive way can happen, but they never happened when you’re sitting on the couch. They never happened. They only happen when you take an action. And one of my very favorite quotes of all time without a huge quote person, but one of my very favorite quotes of all time is this one, your spirit meets at the point of action.

Todd Musselman:

Let me say that one more time. Your spirit meets you at the point of action and then words, it will meet you when you take an action. It does not meet you when you’re laying on the couch with a remote that does not meet you there, no way your spirit won’t show up there. So what action could I take right now if some of you are finding your you’re stuck right now, and I have a lot of concerns, I get that. Maybe so he feel lost. And then my challenge to you in my charge to you is what action could you take that be uncomfortable that could propel you back into the ownership mindset, where we’re more naturally meant to live and start creating it again. And, and one of the biggest actions that I think could be considered is who can I serve right now?

Todd Musselman:

That’s a powerful action. You could take in a way to frame, whatever action you’re gonna take is who could I serve right now? Because once I put my mindset around serving, I take it off my own pain and suffering and I put it on someone else. And the moment I do that, everything shifts everything. I think. So my charges, what action could I take right now that to propel me out of the victim, back into the ownership mindset, where I belong as a human being, okay. Now we’re going to go to the last ingredient which looks sorry, going the wrong way, which is the big one. I think that first sentence says it all. Let me just say president, this is the portal to everything that’s meaning the human condition. I mean, everything said differently. I’ve never known of a single person that has ever been able to tell me about a meaningful, powerful, positive experience they’ve had when they weren’t present ever.

Todd Musselman:

Never once no one has ever called me to say, Hey, Todd, I just had the most incredible conversation with my best friend. We were both so preoccupied. It was awesome. No one has ever called me to tell me that never no one’s ever called me to tell me, you know what? I love the horseback ride, man. It’s just that place that I just love. And the other day I was out riding my horse and the entire time I was there, I was thinking about this mess at work. It was fantastic. It was so fun. No one’s ever called me to tell me that ever. I already said it. There’s, there’s only one place that magic shows up in this, in this world. It’s this moment, the challenge is most human beings. Don’t spend a lot of time in this moment. There’s a lot of stuff going on in our lives right now, a lot of, a lot of distractions, a lot of preoccupation going on.

Todd Musselman:

And so we miss out on a lot of magic, a hell of a lot of magic. And you know, so if we are present, I mean, we know in that feeling, what that feels like, and we noticed how great it is. And one of the things I’ve noticed working in lots of organizations and in teams and what have you is I noticed something that is starting to really become more and more prevalent. I think in our society. What I notice is that a lot of human beings, maybe nobody on this call may be a lot of people on this call. I noticed a lot of human beings give the best version of themselves at work and the second best version of themselves at home. I see that over and over again, in other words, we’re way more present at work than we are at home. And I get that. It’s hard to be present all the time, but here’s the thing. If you have children, if you have children, they get no say in what version or mom or dad walks through that front door. But if you’re not present, they pay the biggest price by far. Let me say that one more time. Your children, if you have them, they have no say in what version of mom or dad walks through that front door, but they pay the biggest price.

Todd Musselman:

And so if that’s you and you recognize yourself, you have an awareness that’s raised describing me right now. Well, here’s the great news. Today’s the day. Today’s the day to push through the fear because what has this being preoccupied is missing out on something, Oh God, I might, I might miss out at somewhere at work, right. Or whatever. I might not be good enough for the boss. So I got to keep working in a ride right through dinner. Right, right. Till I go to bed, just got to keep going. And I get that. But is it true or is it driven by fear? And the fear is I’m not going to be good enough for my boss. So man, I better keep going, keep going. Cause that’s where I get my enough from this from is from see, when you go to work every day, you ring the bell, you’re good enough, many times a day.

Todd Musselman:

And I get it. It feels awesome. And for a lot of us, when we walked in the front door, not for all of us, but for some of us on this call, we have the experience of not being good enough. Within the first five minutes of walking in the door. Maybe we left honey on the counter. When I left work, I didn’t greet the dog right away, whatever. And we have this experience that doesn’t feel very good. And so we check out and I get that too, because that was me. And again, almost to the loss of my marriage, that whole presence thing was in there. Unfortunately I had a wife that was willing to just stay with me and work that out. And I got better. I’m not perfect by any means, but I’m a lot better. And if I can do it, anybody can do it.

Todd Musselman:

Presence is not a skill thing. It’s not a talent thing. It’s a willingness thing. Am I willing to slow down and be with the people that I love in my life? The ones that I chose to have in my life, in this moment. Cause there’s nowhere else I can be. Anyway. Am I willing to do that? You know, to me, most of the life comes down to that one word, ironically, one of my willing to do, it’s not, what can I do? What should I do? What could I do? But what am I willing to do to have an amazing life or amazing connection with my kids and my spouse or my friends or myself. We missed a lot. We miss out a lot of magic with ourselves. If we’re not present. I mean, again, I’ve never met anybody that has a great experience when you aren’t presence.

Todd Musselman:

So, so there’s that. And, and you know, and then there’s this, this presence inside of this one thing in particular, I want to talk a little bit about it’s called a conversation. Our whole life has created through conversations. In fact, somebody a lot smarter than me, her name is Susan Rice said it best in a book called fierce conversations. Susan Rice said every relationship in our life is based on one thing, a conversation. How could it be any other way? And so it’s really good to kind of take note of that and ask yourself, well, how am I being in my conversations? The ones that create my life, what would my friends say? What my, what my direct reports say when they say I’m present or am I preoccupied? There’s only two ways of being you’re either in this moment. You’re not, there’s no in between. And we always know the difference. In fact, most of you on this call have already been in a conversation today when you knew somebody who wasn’t listening. And just let me ask you where your site. Yes, thanks so much for not hearing me. That was so awesome. I kind of doubt it. In fact, what you most likely do is you checked out. In fact, if somebody shows up consistently in that way, you’ll check, not check out. Not only that conversation, you’ll check out of that relationship.

Todd Musselman:

And I know this because again, I work with distress couples a lot in the marriage side. And one of the reasons, main reasons they’re sitting in front of me is the lack of lack of trust. But it isn’t a fidelity trust. It’s a presence trust specifically inside the conversations. And what I mean by that is they consistently experienced their spouse or their partners not being present. And over time they just come to the natural conclusion. Well, I’m just not important enough for them to be with me. And so they start that process. And pretty soon you look up and you’re your roommates. You’re no longer partners.

Todd Musselman:

And again, if this is you, as it was me, then here’s the great news. Today’s the day, today’s the day. That to be a different place to push through those first five minutes at home and trust that’s what’s on the other side of those first five minutes instead of a couch and a glass of wine or a beer is a relationship. Today’s the day to push through that. And, and, and, and with purpose and sit down with the people you love and, and be present because you can be anytime you want, there’s nothing in the way, except fear. Fear is what pulls us back out. It just pulling us back out of our possibility and our relationships. And so, you know, as I like to say, every, every conversation in our lives is an opportunity to change a life. Every single one. And we never know when it’s going to happen.

Todd Musselman:

It could be on the plane. It could be on the in the Starbucks, hell it could be anywhere, but I’ve never known one ever life-changing conversation having when one or both of you weren’t present ever, it’s never happened. And right now it’s even bigger than changing life through conversation. It’s likely that some of you on this call are in, that are in the position of quote, unquote, saving a life. This virus has done a lot of things to the mental health of our citizens. And some people are having a really tough time navigating all the loss in their life. And so they come to a place of making maybe a permit decision.

Todd Musselman:

And there’s an opportunity for you. If you show up with an open heart and open mind or kind, sometimes those people choose out of that choice because of that event. And so it’s not even about even changing a lively, you can actually save a life through every conversation. How cool is that? But it’s never, it’s never happened when you weren’t present. You know, my first my first year of speaking, I spoke to a large natural gas company. And and I worked with our leadership team for two days and we had a blast. It was awesome. And so they brought me back into work with their field workers which in their case was a really nice name for roughnecks. And so I walked into this room and training room and miss the whole time of Colorado. And I walked in and there was 45 men, all men and everyone was sitting like this, basically like this.

Todd Musselman:

I was the very last person on the planet. They want to see that day. I was not what they wanted to see. They did not want to be there. And so it was pretty new in my speaking career, but I had a great mentor and he shared something with me once he said, you know, Todd, if you ever get in a hostile environment or do you want to do is just go right after him. And so I looked at these 45 men with her arms crossed, and I thought to myself, I think this is what Greg is talking about. And so this is how I started my speech that day. I said, by show of hands, how many you thought had the thought you have to be here today. And as you might imagine, every single hand shot up. I’m like, Oh my God, confirmation, this is going to be a nightmare.

Todd Musselman:

So I said, well, thanks for being honest, that wasn’t easy to see. I said, but here’s the thing. Here’s the great news. I talked to your supervisor before we did this talk and we had probably a perspective that there might be some resistance in the room today. So here’s the great news for you. This training is for you as a human being. It is not for you as an employee. So the great news is, if you don’t want to be here, you can leave right now. And these guys are like, what in the hell is going on? And then they, and then I just sat back and I waited for a minute and I said, you can leave right now. No repercussions, no consequences, nothing you can leave right now. And then I just stopped. And then I sat there for a minute and I want to be honest, I had never experienced the longer minute in my life because there’s nothing like having 45 angry men staring back at you.

Todd Musselman:

But the thing is no one got up and left, which I thought was interesting. And so, based on my friend’s advice, I leaned in even more over my skis. Cause this is the next thing I said to this group of men. I said, wow. I find it interesting that no one left, because I said, as you can remember that you could all leave and no repercussions. So I can only conclude one thing that the reason you didn’t leave is because you don’t have the courage to do so. And now I’m way over my skis. And I’m just praying that he’s right, because I don’t know how it’s going to go. And these guys are like, what the hell is going on? But, so what happened was I spent two days with those men and that was nine years ago. And to this day it was the most amazing training I’ve ever had.

Todd Musselman:

I had never seen so many tears, so many breakdowns from all men, these giant Teddy bears that were just wrapped up waiting for somebody to come and just kind of unpeel a few of their layers. And so we had this incredible time and, and one of the reasons that it was so incredible is I just instinctively got that. A lot of these guys had never been exposed to this thing called being present. I know everybody on this phone call has been exposed to this. And in fact, I know that everyone on phone call has knows all the things that I’ve talked about before, but believe it or not, there’s a lot of things. There’s a lot of people on this planet that have never been exposed to this thing about being in the moment. And most of the men in that room were in that category.

Todd Musselman:

So I just leaned in hard about being in the moment, how incredibly important it isn’t it in our experience as humans. And so we had this amazing day and the next morning I started out with a simple question. I said, does anybody have anything they want to share any experience, any aha moments, anything. And there was dead silence again for about a minute. And then find this giant guy in the back, stood up and his name was Paul. I’ll never forget him. He said, I got something to share. I’m like, Oh God, I don’t know where I was going to go. So I said, what’s that Bobby said, well, Todd, I’m not sure how to say this, but I think I speak for almost everybody in this room. When you walked in here yesterday, I didn’t like it very much. And I said, you know, Bob, I kind of got that.

Todd Musselman:

And then he got a grin on his face. He said, but you wore me down. He said, you wore me down. And he said, you know, a lot of that stuff we talked about yesterday, I’ve never thought about my whole life, especially about being present. I’ve never really considered that. And I got my car last night and I live in grand junction. It’s about 45 minutes from here. And I got my car last night. My head was just spinning. And about 10 minutes in my drive, I started thinking about my three year old daughter Aleisha and then he got really quiet. And he said, this is really hard for me to admit. But he said, I realized that I’ve never once been with Alicia, never once in the moment, but not like you were talking about not in your entire life, not for three years. I’ve never been once with her once in the moment, like you talked about. And so I started to cry.

Todd Musselman:

He said, ah, cried the whole way. He said, you know, if you’d ask me yesterday morning, if I was a great dad, I would’ve said, hell yes. Hell yes, I would’ve said, but I really got on my way home. That wasn’t really true. And so you know, at first I felt pretty sorry for myself, but then I moved into, well, what could I do differently? And, and how, how can I use this awareness today that to shift? And you said, you know, normally when I walk in the front door, I’m talking on the phone, I don’t somebody. I usually talking to the phone. I think Alicia thinks it’s part of my head. And he says, normally what I do is I go over to the refrigerator, open the refrigerator and grab three or four beers. And I go sit on the couch and I turn the TV on.

Todd Musselman:

I said, you know, I just want to just kinda want to check out. And I don’t want to find, you know, nothing. And he said, but and some, and this is really hard to admit in front of everybody in this room. He said, but sometimes Alicia will come and she’ll sit in my lap. And it’s more, almost annoying than anything because I just won’t be left alone. You said the last night, you know, I walked in that front door and on my way home, I said, this is tonight. This is the day I’m going to do it. So we said, the very first thing I did was I took my phone. I put it on the top of the refrigerator and I looked around and Alicia was playing it on the kitchen floor with our dog. He said, we have a giant Malamute. And, and our, and our daughter has a nickname for our dog, but not for me.

Todd Musselman:

I mean, he said, that’s always bothered me. He said, you know, so you kept saying all day that all your kids want as a present to you. They don’t want, you don’t have to go anywhere with him. You have to do anything with you just want you to be with him. And so I thought to myself, it can’t be that simple, but he said, all right, I’ll try it. So he sat down, he said, I sat down on the kitchen floor for the first time in my daughter’s life. I was with her. He said, I can’t even tell you what happened. I get it. It’s hard to explain everybody in this room what happened, but I can say this, that I’ve never seen her so happy within the first three minutes I’ve ever, I’ve never seen her like that before she was so, so animated so lit up and we were just laughing and it was incredible.

Todd Musselman:

And we spent 45 minutes on that, on that kitchen. Former never moved and we just wrestle and we play with a dog and we laughed. And you guys, if I’m being honest, it was probably some of the best 45 minutes I’ve had in the last 10 years of my life is incredible. How simple this really is. You said, and we were just having this great time and finding my wife from the other room called me to come and do something. And when I got up, Alicia looked at me with these great big blue eyes. She said, I love you, daddy. And then she patted me on the back and called me the nickname of our dog.

Todd Musselman:

And a lot of people laugh except for me and Bob and I gave him a few minutes. And then I said, Bob, why, why do you think she did that? And now I couldn’t even choke it out. It took him, took him a while, maybe two minutes to choke it up. And finally, and Russ really hushed voice. He said, I think the reason she did that is because I think our dog is the only thing she’s ever experienced being in the moment. It doesn’t take much to change the life. It does not. It’s just a willingness to slow down and be with the people you love, whether that’s at work or at home and come from love and connect to that purpose and take an action and be intentional about who and how you’re being both at work and at home and watch what happens. It does not take a lot to change a life. It just takes a willingness to be with him, nowhere to go, nothing to get. I’m just going to be with the people that are in front of me, especially now, most of us on this phone call have never been home more on that in our whole lives.

Todd Musselman:

And so today’s the day, today’s the day to slow down and be with those people in your homes and honor those people that are coming to work for you and with you and appreciate them and appreciate those essential workers that have been risking their damn lives almost every day. So we could have groceries or we could feel safe about going to the hospital if need be and be appreciative of those that we’ve lost. It’s been way too many way too many. And so this is an incredible opportunity. We can either react to this thing or we can create from this thing. One of the things I would say about the victim mindset is when we’re in the victim mindset, life is using us. However, when we come from the ownership mindset, we’re using life, we’re sucking the marrow from life. And this thing has the opportunity for either side and there’s nothing wrong with the victim side.

Todd Musselman:

It’s just not fun. It’s so much more fun to create our lives. It really is by employing love, coming from love, choosing love over fear of 10%, 15% more often. That’s the charge for today and, and, and, and slow down and take the next action. That’s uncomfortable, whatever that action is, and, and really, really be intentional and purposeful about what you’re up to. And, and so I appreciate you taking the time an hour out of your day to spend with me. I’m happy to answer a few questions and if nobody has any questions, I’m I’m complete. So thank you again for coming. And Keith, if there’s any questions I’m happy to feel them.

Keith Wolf:

Yeah. Thank you so much. I, every time I every time I hear you speak, I text my wife. I think at this point, she’s like, she’s getting a text during the day. She knows. I’ve, I’ve heard Todd talk. So thank you. Thank you. Get something new and really appreciate your spending some time with us. We do have a few questions that one is that, you know, when asking others for help, you know, if we’re doing that, how do we appear, not appear needy or desperate? You know, that’s our concern.

Todd Musselman:

If, if we’re, when we’re asking people for help. Right? Well I think it’s, it’s a great place. If you’re coming from fear, you’ll know it, it’s in your stomach. And I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re coming from love and you’re authentically want that person in your life, and you want to express how much you trust them in love. It’s a pretty easy thing to come from that place and not feel needy and creepy. I know we didn’t talk about the creepy today. Keith knows. I have a lot to say about that through it’s called pleasing, but you know, asking for assistance, it can be a very serving thing. It serves the relationship. It is so vulnerable to do so. And you know, I think it’s, there’s there’s I would just check the authenticity and check your stomach. That’s what I would say. Your stomach never lies. You always know when you’re coming from the victim side of ownership side, how based on how you feel in your integrity. So if it’s an integral request, go for it. If it’s, if it’s, if you need something from that person that’s not genuine. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Keith Wolf:

Okay. Good advice. This person just says, hi, Todd, this is awesome. And all capital letters. Thank you. Have you written a book or can you suggest a book on intentional living?

Todd Musselman:

Well Dwayne Dyer certainly wrote a lot of books. I have not written a book. I’m in the process of writing a book. It’s been in process for 20 years. I imagine it’ll take me 20 more years. So if you’re alive in 20 years, look me up. My, my intention for the year is to finish the book it’s called. Where is there? I’m pretty excited about it, but I don’t have one to speak of yet. I’ve got some stuff for blogs. You can look on my website if you want that articulate some of these points, but that would Wayne Dyer is probably the best one that I know Deepak. Chopra’s great. And then I think maybe the best book about all this, that’s not necessarily about intention, but more by presences. I new work by Eckhart. Totally. It’s such an incredible book. It’s so awesome. Perfect. Yeah.

Keith Wolf:

Thank you. What if somebody wants to change career, they can’t take that decision for fear of financial security or other family pressures. I know.

Todd Musselman:

Right, right. Should I tell the story of me? So one quick thing is as I said, I’ve, I’ve let fear get in the way a lot of I’ve played small lot. And I worked inside my family’s business. I love working with my family. I come from very close family. I didn’t necessarily love the job I was doing, but more importantly, I wanted to do what I’m doing right now for at least the last 10 years inside that experience. But I didn’t have the courage imagine playing small for 10 years. That was me. And so in 2008, we lost the business to bankruptcy and now I had to reinvent myself. I didn’t have a choice. And so I stepped into this thing and it’s amazing what happened as a result of that. In fact, I would say this about that as an indirect thing.

Todd Musselman:

There’s an old saying that when one door closes another one opens and I love that saying the problem is they leave out the most important part. You got to walk through the damn door. That’s the most important part that they never tell you. And so right now, it sounds like there’s a door open for you. And there’s only one thing in the way of you walking through that door or out one door and that’s fear. That’s what gotten them away from me. And so if that’s you and you want to start that process, today’s the day to walk or walking through that door. I get it. Money is not oxygen. Money is an exchange of services is not oxygen. And I certainly understand I have three kids. I’ve had to support him, but I’ll tell what I, I took a giant risk by doing what I’m doing.

Todd Musselman:

Now. I wrote a man of very large check that I didn’t have, but because I was willing to go for it and, and, and give it a go, everything shifted in my life because for the first time, in a long time, maybe in a very long time, I was, I was coming from love and courage. So I guess, again for you, that’s on that precipice, I would ask, what’s the most loving thing you can do for yourself. This is a short run. Life is short. There’s only one prize you get for points small. That’s the booby prize. And I got, I got a whole wall full of them, right over here. If you want to look at them, I wouldn’t recommend it. And so today’s the day, take the step and go for it. It’s it’s not worth point small, at least that’s how I see it anyway. Having done it many times. Yeah.

Keith Wolf:

Got a w let’s take another one if you’re okay. One person says you rock talk. Thank you so much for insight and time, any tips on how to keep the momentum, consistency going when living in love and not reverting back to fear from time to time?

Todd Musselman:

Well, I guess for me I would say that it, it’s natural to revert back to fear. What, what the key is, is recognizing that that’s, what’s running the show, then I can choose back into love. I do that whole, I hope I do a whole training about the victim owner mindset. And the whole training is about how do I choose back into the ownership mindset quicker through awareness? I, again, I don’t know anybody that doesn’t spend time in theory, this is about being aware that I’m there and now choosing like I did, what’s the most uncomfortable thing I can do right now. If I feel myself getting that, if you feeling of being fearful, then I would say, what’s the most uncomfortable step I could take or action. I could take today to, to push me out of it. What’s the most loving thing I could do for my spouse or whatever that I would just choose level of fear. I know it’s a simple remedy, but really is. And, and and again, your stomach doesn’t lie. Just check there and you know, which side is running the show. If you’re coming from fear what’s the most courageous, loving thing I can do right now. That’s what I would say.

Keith Wolf:

Got it. On the slides folks are asking can we put up the purpose slide again and some of the other slides we’re going to go ahead and send the slides out. So don’t, don’t worry about that. We’re gonna send the webinar recording and the slides out. So folks will get those and we are having a request for your book to come out sooner. So,

Todd Musselman:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this, I mean, the thing about the slides is up to this point, it was free, but if you want my slides, now you’ve got to send me a donation. I only take donations in beer and I can give you the list and you can send me beard donations. I’m kidding. Of course. I’ll share that. Hold on. Let me see, is this the, is this the right one? Yeah. Is that right?

Keith Wolf:

I think the purpose one was the main one. Okay. There we go. Yup. All right. Well, I want to thank you Todd so much again, we’re going to send everything out to everybody, but I’m really appreciate your time. I know you’re super busy and I know you’ve got a lot of clients that you’re working with and thank you for being here and thanks to everybody who attended thanks for being with us today. And we’ll continue doing these as long as you’re finding them valuable. So thanks so much. And until next time, thank you, Todd. Thanks everybody. Thanks Keith. Take care of about, yeah.