Start With A Win - The Art of Badassery with Jennifer Cassetta

Starting point is 00:00:00 In that first year, I was living and working in New York City. That first major thing happened in the first year of my martial arts training, which was beautiful sunny Tuesday morning, wake up, go to work, three blocks south of the World Trade Center. And next thing you know, there's black smoke coming out of the towers. You know, I made the three blocks over to my workspace, went into the lobby to make a phone call and the first tower fell. So the first time that I felt like this intense fear, that paralyzation of fear happened on that morning. And to make a long story

Starting point is 00:00:32 short, I made it out of there obviously and made it to my martial arts school. That was like the first place I made it to that morning where I just felt a sense of safety and refuge and peace for the first time that day, which became the metaphor for my life. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. Coming to you from brand Viva Media headquarters. Hey.

Starting point is 00:01:17 Starting with a win. Starting with a win. Here we go. Producer Mark, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing fantastic. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Well, I'm excited for today's guest, Jennifer Cassetta. She is a nationally recognized speaker, empowerment coach, and self-defense expert.

Starting point is 00:01:33 Equipped with her third degree black belt in Hapkido, a master's degree in nutrition and health coaching certification, she develops programming that helps people feel strong, safe, and powerful from the streets to the boardroom. She also speaks to thousands of real estate professionals each year on the importance of personal safety and self-defense. Her new book, The Art of Badassery, comes out this August. All right. Well, Jen, you and I have a lot in common. This is going to be a fun conversation. I mean, I started my time in the real estate space, teaching personal safety, real estate agent safety, program called SAFER, Safety Awareness for Every Realtor. And I was in the early 2000s after

Starting point is 00:02:10 running a SWAT team for a while. And I know you have law enforcement blood in your family, as well as real estate blood, I mean, for crying out loud. So this will be a lot of fun. But really, what I want to talk about more than anything is your empowerment piece. And you're a nationally known speaker. You've been all over the place on shows and podcasts. And you have an awesome book called The Art of Badassery that's coming out later this year. This is going to be a good conversation. So first of all, tell me your story and how you got to where you are today. 22 years ago, I stepped onto a mat in a dojong for the first time and I fell madly in love. It was never a planned path or, you know, I want to become a public speaker one day. That never was the plan. But martial arts just captivated me. And that first year I was living in working in New York City just a couple of things happened to a lot of people and I was involved and it changed the

Starting point is 00:03:14 course of my life forever that that first major thing happened in the first year of my martial arts training which was beautiful sunny Tuesday morning up, go to work three blocks south of the World Trade Center. And next thing you know, you know, there's I get out of the subway at Wall Street. There's black smoke coming out of the towers. I made myself, you know, I made the three blocks over to my workspace, went in to make a phone call, went into the lobby to make a phone call, and the first tower fell. So the first time that I felt like this intense fear, that paralyzation of fear, which now I get to teach, happened on that morning. And to make a long story short, I made it out of there, obviously, and made it to my martial arts school. That was like

Starting point is 00:04:05 the first place I made it to that morning where I just felt a sense of safety and refuge and peace for the first time that day, which became the metaphor for my life. That's a kind of a special feeling, the feeling of fear or unknown or overwhelm, of doubt, things like that that we have when something either small or massive changes. Or it could just be an intangible change that occurs in our heads, but not necessarily physically in our society. Obviously, this case was massive. the World Trade Center had been attacked and a horrible, horrible situation, probably the, you know, the most memorable, horrible situation in our generation, you know, to this point, hopefully, you know, ever. But that's an interesting recognition that

Starting point is 00:04:58 you went through there. And how do you, when you look at that piece, so we got to the point of 9-11 and that happening and you get into your dojo. What was going through your mind and your heart next? I mean, how did you start to cope with that and realize what you needed to realize to take the next step? Yeah. Well, in the days, weeks, months following, obviously I had like serious PTSD, the sound of garbage trucks or planes flying overhead had me in like full mode panic attack. But all I wanted to do was go back to the dojo and train. And that's where I started to feel, you know, my body actually physically getting stronger from all the conditioning. Mentally, I started to feel more confident learning these life saving skills. Spiritually, with all the meditation and breathing techniques, I started to feel more grounded.

Starting point is 00:05:55 So looking back, I didn't realize it at the time, obviously. And I think that's the key with all of our life stories, everyone out there listening, you look back and you can connect the dots. And I can look back and see how that training truly changed my life. It changed my career path. It changed me on a cellular level. It made me feel safe again. So how did you come to this awareness? I mean, was it just over time and training and then at some point you're looking back going, I'm evolving here? Because nobody walked in and handed you a note card and it said, you've changed. But how can we start to recognize that? I mean, you're an expert in training awareness now as well as both physical and emotional and spiritual, things like that.

Starting point is 00:06:46 What can we look for to help ourselves recognize a trauma and a move forward point, things like that? Well, it's funny. There's a quick story of how I figured out what those dots were for me. And then there's a part in my book that I actually help people walk through that in the first chapter, because I think it's so important in any self-development course or bookie reader or journey that you're on. We really do have to look back before we go forward. So for, so how I figured that out was I was at a speaker training and, you know, the speaker was telling his long story about how he almost died and got to this realization. And then he said, OK, now you, you all have to connect with each other and tell your stories.

Starting point is 00:07:35 And I'm like, I don't know. Nothing really has happened that, you know, I can't figure it out. And then all of a sudden it hit me. I was like, wait a second. That was a huge turning point in my life. 2001 is when everything changed for me. It's when I decided to give up on the, I mean, I was out of the job, which was event planning, but I had no interest in it anymore. All I wanted to do was help other people feel stronger, safer, more powerful in their minds,

Starting point is 00:08:05 spirits, and bodies. So that, that I figured out, um, was my story for everyone else. Um, I have a little, a little exercise in the book and in some of my workshops. Can you give us a sneak peek on the exercise? Yeah. The sneak peek is this it's called your greatest shits list. Okay. So like, just, just take a moment right now, if you're listening and you can close your eyes, you can get grounded, do anything you need to do to feel comfortable, but it's essentially going, looking back into your past and just finding all those times where you feel like you were drowning underwater. You couldn't get out of bed in the morning,

Starting point is 00:08:49 whatever it was, and you start to just write them down as a list where you're just the observer, you're not getting like pulled down into the emotion. We're not trying to relive the past at all. Just look, just look, look, look, and write them all down. And then again, the exercise is a little more robust than this, but going back and seeing if you can connect the dots and pull through the storyline of how you got to where you are today. Wow, because we learn something from every single one of those moments. If we forgive that learning, we don't, you know, forsake that learning, we don't take that learning and move forward, then, I mean, really, we're missing a great opportunity for personal growth, right? Oh, I believe it's 100%. And I think out there right now, there's all this like, oh, it's toxic positivity to see challenges and troubles and failures and disappointments as a good thing. But I just say like, look, you can grieve them, you can mourn them, you can mourn them. You can mourn

Starting point is 00:09:46 the losses and do all those things and feel all those terrible feelings. And you can then look for the strengths that you've pulled from them. Well, we're not trying to beat ourselves up with them. We're just trying to account for them by noticing, witnessing those without judgment. Right. Which I mean, toxic positivity is we're trying to judge the situations and everybody's like, you know, it's horrible. You're like, well, you're never going to learn anything if all you do is you come down on yourself every time you have a thought. You know, that's the, you know, the easy street to depression right there. So why not get past those things? I mean, I've been in a lot of horrible situations also in my law enforcement career and even business.

Starting point is 00:10:27 Some of the hardest things that you go through can be just as a business executive or a business leader when you're dealing with, you know, like the housing crash in 2008, 7, 8, 9, 10, into that when everybody, you know, a lot of people lost their homes. They lost their jobs. It was just horrible for all sorts of people. But imagine running a real estate company at the time. I mean, for crying out loud, that wasn't easy for anybody who was running a real estate company or in that space. Right. But the reality is you look back now and you go, whoa, I learned a lot from that. I'm not going to sit here and cry over it, but I'm going to learn from it and move on. And people are like, oh, it was horrible. Yeah, you're right. It was. Right. But let's figure it out and move on. And that's what makes us stronger people. It's like lifting more weight when you're exercising. It has a little pain, but it has greater results, right? Exactly. Yeah. And then like the next exercise is essentially to, to name

Starting point is 00:11:27 those strengths that you've gained, right? I call them your secret weapons. People say superpowers, whatever, but I like them like weapons because you can lean on them going forward now because times that suck are going to happen again. It wasn't just in your past. Like no one gets out of this life alive without going through hard things. So now you just have more weapons or tools in your tool belt. Well, this is interesting because, you know, your book is called The Art of Badassery. And I'm assuming all of these things are really truly what make you a badass. Is that correct? I believe so, yes. I agree with you. It's fascinating when you think about that, because we all have an opportunity to be a badass then.

Starting point is 00:12:14 Oh, everyone. Absolutely. It's all inside us. So you think about this. I spoke at Children's Miracle Network Hospitals not long ago for their annual celebration. It was so cool. And they call these kids that go through these extraordinary medical procedures to save their lives heroes. I'm sorry, they're champions. They call them champions. They're heroes to me. I'm like, wow, these kids are heroes. But they call them champions, and these kids come out, and you're like, that kid's a badass that kid's a badass that kid's you know this kid this a little kid on double crutches or somebody in a wheelchair or something like that and you look at these people and they're like giants

Starting point is 00:12:54 because they're such badasses for the experiences that they've gone through and what they've become out of that it's fascinating that you can just, you gave me an entirely new perspective on viewing people that have overcome challenges. So thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, everyone has badassery, badass. It's just a, it's a very subjective term, right? So this just happens to be my definition of it. So let me ask you this then, because really you're, you're talking about turning this tragedy into empowerment. And there are a lot of people that have faced a lot of tragedy in different aspects of life. Just take the last couple of years. Some people have had a horrible time with COVID.

Starting point is 00:13:37 Obviously, some people lost their lives. Some people have had this ongoing illness or whatever it might be, but there's been a lot of emotional overwhelm, depression, weight gain, health issues, call it whatever it is, and it's all a domino effect. One problem leads into another problem, leads into another problem, and then those problems spiral out of control. Disasters generally don't happen because of one problem somebody has. They happen because of a series of misfortunate incidents and bad events and things like that. So there are a lot of people that have an opportunity to be a badass now out of this. What is your read on, what are you seeing from your expertise in the challenges that people have gone through compared to what they're turning those into now. Yeah. Well, so interesting because the second chapter, your questions are literally going right in order and this was not intentional. I have not read the book. It's not out yet.

Starting point is 00:14:36 I know. Well, so each chapter is a belt level, like a metaphor for martial arts. So white belt was embrace the suck. Yellow belt is about bouncing back. And the strategies that I learned on the mat in a dojo, when you get knocked down, right? One of the first things you learn in martial arts is how to fall and get back up with velocity. So you don't wind up staying down there for too long. So obviously, that metaphor is for life. So three ways that we can either get back up quickly or avoid the takedown altogether are the pivot, which we all have heard ad nauseum the last two years, and so many people have mastered the pivot. The next is when life kind of gives you that series, like you were kind of referring to

Starting point is 00:15:25 of getting knocked down over and over and over again, we learn to roll and trust the momentum of that role when you go backwards to get right back up on your feet again each time. So using the momentum of each knockdown to get back up. And then the third is if like life completely knocks you out, then sometimes there's only the chance for an ultimate comeback like Rocky Balboa or Madonna, like completely recreating yourself and thinking outside of the box and coming up with a plan and taking steps to do that. A rebrand. Yes.

Starting point is 00:16:01 That's funny. I mean, but you look at it, it's true. You know, celebrities, businesses, things like that, what happens when you get knocked out? You figure out a way to come back. And I mean, it's human, human nature. This is fascinating because it's kind of, it's a toolbox, it seems like, for life,

Starting point is 00:16:22 for so many things that people have gone through. I mean, why did you write this? What brought you to wanting to write a book about badassery and these techniques? After 22 years of teaching all kinds of things from health coaching, but really, really the thing that I feel like I'm most passionate about is the self-defense and the safety. And realizing that the self-defense and everything that I learned from learning self-defense was so much less about the kicks and the punches and the elbows and the knees. And it's really about that empowerment piece. So after hearing, like I said, after two decades, women coming to me and sharing their stories of being harassed, assaulted, abused, taken advantage of, manipulated. I finally just said enough already. I want to create

Starting point is 00:17:13 something that I can get into the hands of many, many people that will just give them the tools to do that, to stand up for themselves. and then we stand up for others as well. Wow. Okay. I want to jump ahead to becoming a black belt. Okay. You have a chapter about becoming a black belt in leadership, right? Yeah. Tell us more about that. What have you learned throughout your career about becoming a better leader, and how does that tie into the black belt analogy? Absolutely. So the last chapter is black belt because that's the goal, right? Mastery. And as you get there, you're always kind of training for that.

Starting point is 00:17:53 And then when you're there, you're realizing that you're actually stepping into a leadership role, right? In the microcosm of the dojo, but really we're talking about life here. So my realization was, oh, I can be a leader, right? At the time I was a personal trainer with my own business in Manhattan and just like going into really wealthy and successful people's homes. I thought of leadership. The vision I had of it was like men in suits sitting in a boardroom, right? And I started to realize, oh, hang on a second. Actually, I'm at the dojo every night teaching leading classes and people start to look up to you.

Starting point is 00:18:34 People start to take your words with a little more weight. And I realized that that comes with responsibility and accountability. And I wasn't just helping people perfect their punch or kick. It was more about, hey, maybe this class or maybe my words are going to help them have a better day, leave a bad relationship, ask for the raise that they deserve at work. And that's when I realized that we as black belts have a responsibility to give back, to mentor, to teach. And that's really what, at least in my school where I was trained, was all about. And I feel like that's kind of like life too is, you know, it's not this, what we see a lot is like this scramble to the top and just climbing and clamoring over people. It's really about lifting people up as you go as well.

Starting point is 00:19:30 Well, that's one of the things I've always loved about martial arts. And I've been involved in a lot of martial arts throughout my life. And you get to see this progression of people over the years earn their leadership in the dojo on their way to higher level belts. So it's a great analogy. It's fascinating when you think about that, because it's not something that's given to them. It's something that they earn every single day. I mean, the sweat, the toil, the dedication, the consistency, the discipline, the values and the ethics involved in the fundamentals of the martial arts culture. It's so cool to see how you develop leaders, even from, you know, I remember when we first enrolled our children in martial arts, they were like two and four.

Starting point is 00:20:12 I mean, just little bitty. Wow. Yeah, it was so cool to watch them out there. And it was not as much about the physical movements as it was about the, you know, the mind movements and the discipline and things that come from that. So it's really fascinating when you think about this. And I love what you've put this book around. If somebody wants to, you know, is there a website up yet for The Art of Badassery or someplace that people can start checking you out?

Starting point is 00:20:39 Yeah, there's a page on my website dedicated to the book, but it's already on Amazon and all the other different... Oh, wait. Yeah, you can pre-order it now. It'll be out in August. Okay. Everybody go to Amazon and look up the art of badassery, Jen Cassetta. Jen, I have one more question for you before we get to the closing of the show. I used to teach personal safety to real estate agents, and I know you do. Tell us a little bit about the programs you have for that and where can people find information on that? Yeah, absolutely. Which I think is so cool that we, you know, I mean, you started way before me, but it's another program that I absolutely love doing. I speak to thousands of realtors every year. The Art of Realtor Safety is my program.

Starting point is 00:21:20 Or if they're just real estate professionals, not realtors, the art of personal safety for real estate professionals. But essentially, it walks people through the mental aspects of safety and self-defense, awareness, setting boundaries, powerfully communicating. D is the de-escalation or the defense. And that's where the physical self-defense comes in. So it's a real fun balance of both, both the mental and physical. And I get people out of their seats and they're kind of learning how to use their body as weapons, possibly for the first time in their lives. So it's really fun. Awesome. Cool. And I have one more question I ask everybody that's on the show. And I know

Starting point is 00:22:01 you have an awesome answer to this because you are a badass. So Jen Cassetta, how do you start your day with a win? Yeah. First thing I do is meditation. I sit and my meditation has different phases, but essentially it starts with deep breathing to calm the nervous system, set myself up for a powerful state for the day, non-reactive if possible. And then I go into gratitude for all the things that I have. And then I go into visualization of the things that I'm creating. I love this. And then coffee. Oh, there you go. Awesome. Of course, coffee. Jen Cassetta, thank you so much for being on Start With A Win,

Starting point is 00:22:42 The Art of Badass. Make sure you check it out on Amazon. Get it pre-ordered. It comes out in August. And for all my friends in the real estate space, think about your personal safety. Look up Jen. She is truly a badass, has an amazing program. Jen, thank you for being on Start With A Win. Thank you, Adam.

Starting point is 00:23:01 Hey, and thank you for listening to Start With A Win. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and help us get the word out and reach more people. And if you are ready to take your leadership to the next level, head over to AdamContos.com and sign up for the Leadership Factory. We've got a lot of exciting things coming and you won't want to miss it. So until next time, start with a win.

Start With A Win - The Art of Badassery with Jennifer Cassetta

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.