elcome back to The COO Solution Podcast. In this episode, Derek Fredrickson sits down with master coach, speaker, and creator of The Art of Being Unmessable With, Josselyne Herman-Saccio, for a powerful conversation about leadership, burnout, and how to stop running your business from reaction and survival.
With over 35 years of experience coaching leaders, entrepreneurs, and change-makers around the world, Josselyne brings a deeply practical framework for staying grounded in vision, even when life and business feel chaotic. This episode is not about hustle, pushing harder, or managing more. It’s about learning to lead from creation rather than crisis.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, stuck in firefighting mode, or as if your business has become something you’re managing rather than intentionally creating, this conversation will shift how you think about leadership, vision, and freedom.
In This Episode:
[02:49] What It Really Means to Be “Unmessable With”
Being unmessable isn’t about toughness or emotional shutdown; it’s about staying anchored in your vision, no matter what’s happening around you.
[05:17] Vision vs. Goals
The critical distinction most leaders miss and why goals without vision often lead to dissatisfaction and burnout.
[06:58] Why Context Shapes Everything
How the same outcome can feel fulfilling or exhausting depending on the context you’re operating from.
[09:36] The Trap of Reaction-Based Leadership
Why high-performing founders often get stuck in survival mode and how it impacts their nervous system, decision-making, and creativity.
[12:30] When Success Becomes a Prison
How founders unintentionally become the bottleneck in their own businesses.
[15:03] Designing a Life Instead of Chasing Dreams
Why most people die with their dreams intact and how to live your vision now, not someday.
[20:48] The Real Causes of Burnout
Why burnout isn’t about workload alone, but about narrative, context, and disconnection from vision.
[23:35] Spotting the Red Flags of Reaction Mode
How to recognize when your nervous system has taken over and what to do in the moment.
[26:56] Why You Can’t Think Your Way Out of Stress
The importance of physical interruption and pre-designed practices.
[30:06] Vision as a Daily Practice
How to create a pre-designed way of returning to vision throughout your day.
[33:57] Using Your Calendar as a Leadership Tool
Why your calendar is one of the most powerful places to intentionally design your life and business.
Why This Conversation Matters
Most founders are incredibly skilled at reacting, solving problems, and pushing through. But reaction-based leadership comes at a cost: burnout, loss of creativity, and businesses that depend entirely on the founder to function.
This episode offers a different way. One where leadership comes from clarity, vision, and intentional design, not constant urgency. It’s a reminder that freedom, fulfillment, and sustainable growth are created, not earned through exhaustion.
Action Steps for Listeners:
- Identify where you’re operating from reaction instead of vision.
- Notice the physical and mental red flags that signal survival mode.
- Pre-design a vision you can return to during stressful moments.
- Use your calendar intentionally to support energy, clarity, and leadership.
🔗 Resources & Links:
Transcript:
00:27
Derek Fredrickson
I’m so excited to welcome today’s guest, Josselyne Herman-Saccio to the podcast. Josselyne is the founder of the Art of Being Unmessable With and a master coach who spent over 35 years helping people stop reacting to life and start powerfully creating it. She’s worked with more than 200,000 individuals around the world, from CEOs and artists to trauma survivors and nonprofit leaders, helping them live a life of their dreams now, not someday. She’s also a former billboard number one pop artist, a TEDx speaker, author, mother of three, and the founder of United Global Shift, where she’s raised nearly $90 million for causes in over 20 countries. So today’s episode is all about overwhelm, burnout, and what it really means to lead from vision instead of reaction.
01:22
Derek Fredrickson
Josselyne shares her framework for becoming “Unmessable With” and the mindset shift that helps founders, leaders and humans take back their power when things feel chaotic. It’s going to be a great episode. Let’s get into it.
01:18
Derek Fredrickson
Hello there, everybody. It’s Derek Fredrickson here from the COO Solution and the COO Solution podcast. I’m very excited to welcome our guest today and a very good friend of mine as well, a New Yorker and a Parisian. But today, Josselyne Herman Sacchio is joining us from New York City, and we have some amazing content and conversation topics to dive into. So welcome, Josselyne. It’s great to have you on the show.
01:45
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
It’s great to be here. It’s good to see you. It’s been too long to see you in visually, so I’m happy happy to be in here and share some time with you.
01:54
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah, it’s great. As I mentioned, I met Josselyne through my wife Fabienne a couple years ago, and you spend half your time in New York and half your time in Paris. So when you’re in Paris, we get together with your lovely husband Mike and some really great dinner parties. But that’s for another time. Today we’re going to talk about lots of things around vision and leadership and really supporting you as an entrepreneur in your business and in your life. And so we’re going to dive into a couple different topics. But I want to ask this question first, and I think I may have asked it once before in private, but we’re going to share it now to the world. You have this phrase of being unmessable with. It’s your brand, it’s your company. I think it was the name of your book.
02:36
Derek Fredrickson
It’s your program. So for our listeners who maybe understand on the surface what unmessable with means, what does it mean from your perspective, Josselyne, and why does that value and resonate for you so much?
02:49
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Well, I’ll tell you what it does mean because a lot of people do hear it and think all different things. I mean, most people hear it and they go, I don’t have that exactly what that means, but I like it. Whatever it is, I want that. Right? But it isn’t about being tough and it isn’t about like not feeling your feelings or anything like that. So it’s not about that. It’s about being able to stay in the zone of your vision and what really matters to you and fulfill that from a world of creation versus getting hooked in the world of reaction or survival or shoulds, goods, bads, rights, wrongs, which is really where most people spend 99 percent of their time.
03:29
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
So it’s about being able to stay grounded in the world of vision and creation and word, no matter what life throws at you cause it’s easy to be unmessy when life is great. But when life throws stuff at you like, as you know, my mother just passed, or like financial things that happen in the stock market, let’s say, or political things or just family issues or or or business situations where a client is unsatisfied with your work or whatever whatever life throws at you, being able to stay in that zone and not get thrown.
04:03
Derek Fredrickson
Okay, got it. So it’s almost like having a layer of maybe like protection, but like a filter of like, what can impact or influence you and staying really grounded into who you are, what you know, what you value. And I just, I love the unmessable with. I’m not even sure if it’s like, if it’s in the English language, but I think you’ve coined it and it works.
04:21
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
I trademarked it and I got it in the urban dictionary. And then like after 10 years, I found out it was in Webster slang disc dictionary.
04:30
Derek Fredrickson
Oh my gosh.
04:31
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Mission accomplished. You know, I always.
04:33
Derek Fredrickson
Oh my gosh. Oh, that’s great. Wow. Congratulations. That’s for another time. Okay, so.
04:38
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yes, but it is an example of being unmessable with. About branding. Unmessable with. In the world. Because I want as many people as possible to have those muscles.
04:47
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah, I love that. So you have this interesting distinction for for business leaders, for entrepreneurs, between vision and goals. So I want to just kind of tee this up for you because I think this is your zone, this is your one of many sweet spots. What’s the distinction for you and the work that you do and your message between vision and goals? Because I think some listeners may feel like maybe they are different, maybe they’re one of the same, or maybe I should be understanding if they are apart in some way. So, tell us about that.
05:17
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Well, most of the people I work with are entrepreneurs and people who really want to level up. And when I ask them, what’s your vision? 99% of the time they give me a goal. You know, like, well, I wanna double my revenue or I wanna open up branches in seven different countries or whatever. So goals live in reality. Let me say a little bit more about that. They’re measurable, they’re visible. You can see, you know, exactly what happened and what didn’t happen. So they’re what I would call content. Vision is more contextual, and the context is actually decisive on your experience of life because, I’m sure you and the people watching or listening have all had the experience of accomplishing a goal but not really being fulfilled or satisfied. So part of that is because the goal doesn’t live in your vision.
06:11
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
So vision is more like how I would get to it with somebody, say, okay, let’s say you accomplished that, you doubled your revenue. Now what? What’s your experience of life? What becomes available experientially if you accomplish all those goals? So people really get to what they really want. And it’s more in the realm of freedom or fulfillment or peace of mind or self expression. So it’s like a contextual phenomenon which then has view the context differently. And I can demonstrate this, you know, because when I say context, sometimes people are like, what are you talking about? But for those of you that have visual podcast relationships, for those of you that don’t, I’m holding up my pointer finger, right? Is that a pointer?
06:58
Derek Fredrickson
Okay, I’m gonna do it as well.
06:59
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Okay, good. So inside the context body part, this is a finger. I mean, it’s obvious. It’s not complex. It’s not like I’m trying to trick you. Right. But if I alter the context and say now, inside the context number, what is it? That’s a question for you, Derek. What is it in the context of number?
07:19
Derek Fredrickson
It’s one.
07:20
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Exactly. But it’s not like you have to figure that out. You just see a one because the context shapes your view of the content. And inside the context direction up. Right. So again, the content hasn’t altered. So the number of your revenue, the number of your team, the place where you live, the number of outlets you have, that doesn’t change. But the view of the content alters depending on which context you’re functioning from. So a lot of the work I do is about contextual shifts so that people can not only create their goals inside the what they really want, which is experience, it’s not about the stuff. And actually have their life be a fulfillment of that right now and right now. And right now, even before you double your revenue or expand to six countries, you can’t experience joy or fulfillment. Right now. Or in Starbucks.
08:13
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Or in this conversation.
08:15
Derek Fredrickson
I see. Okay, so interesting. So it sounds like the vision is kind of the overarching theme. It’s the umbrella of like the why you’re doing what you’re doing. And the goal is more of the what you do to experience or to achieve that in some way. Like talk to us about that. And I know that in the work that you do, I think sometimes entrepreneurs or business leaders, they focus on like a goal chasing mindset as opposed to like a vision chasing mindset. And sounds like we need to switch the paradigm and put the vision, the context, at the forefront.
08:50
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yeah. And it’s not about do these things in order to have that vision be fulfilled. It’s more that these things being done are an expression of my vision. So they are presence in my vision as I’m doing that. See, cause how I work is I have three different worlds that I work from. One is the world of reaction. I call that the world of being messable with. Right, yeah. Which is really like survival, getting through stuff. And most entrepreneurs are very very good at reacting. And they have to, because there’s emergencies coming at them, they have to put out fires, deal with problems. So that mode, first of all, for your nervous system is very much like a a fight, flight, flee kind of mode. And you know, the adrenaline’s going, you’re getting dopamine hits from solving problems and accomplishing things.
09:36
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
But it’s a very different world from the world of creation and vision, which is where magic happens. And every single person that is an entrepreneur has had that experience because when they first started their company, it was like they didn’t know what they were doing. They were just doing and failing and succeeding, and it was joyful and fulfilling every single moment. But then at some point, what you create becomes a thing to manage. And you and I have talked about this, and that’s why I love what you do, because, you know, it’s something to manage. And you become not a visionary leader. You become somebody who’s managing a bunch of stuff that has to get done. And now you’re no longer in your zone of genius. You are in management mode.
10:20
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
And there is no magic in management unless that’s your zone of genius, which is what’s so great about what you do.
10:26
Derek Fredrickson
Exactly. I see.
10:26
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
You know, that marriage is so important. So the world of reaction is one world. Then there’s the world of performance, which is, you know, action, inaction, results, reality, and then there’s this world of word, vision, creation. So my work is really about having people give up their hundred year lease in the world of reaction and establish resonance in the world of vision and performance.
10:52
Derek Fredrickson
Okay. I love it. You know, this. Fabienne tells me this all the time because I think maybe it depends on how people are wired or their strengths or anything else. You know, she often tells me, and this is something that we share with our clients. So I kind of, you know, walk the talk, which is less doing, more being like, be in that kind of vision, creative space. Because we can do do do all day long and guess what? The next day there’s more stuff to do do do. And we see this with our clients as, you know, there are those that have reached a level of success or a level of business growth where it is just they’re the operator, they’re the manager, they’re the chief firefighter, they’re the doer of all these things.
11:31
Derek Fredrickson
And they may have team and they may have process, but they get to this point where it’s like, okay, is this how I’m going to get to the next level of success by just breaking through this ceiling and just doing more of the same? And it’s where we step in and provide that structure to free up the founder so they don’t have to be doing in the doing. And they can be more in that creative vision, context, space, which is really powerful.
11:52
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Because they become the bottleneck. I mean, they are the bottleneck. And this is happens with almost every one of my clients at some point. They become the clog in the pipe. And then the question is, okay, now what? You know, what do you want your life to look like as a CEO, as an entrepreneur? Because your company, you built your company, but now it’s almost like a prison of your own creation. That’s why when I work with entrepreneurs, it’s all about mastering that world of performance, creation, and freedom. Because freedom is like you’re working 24/7, as you know, or weekends or as Fabienne knows, cause I know she does this with women specifically.
12:30
Derek Fredrickson
Yup.
12:30
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
I don’t specifically work with women, but not that I have anything against women. It’s just that it’s not my focus, you know? But at the same time, you know, entrepreneurs sometimes just throw money at it. Okay, I’ll hire this person or that person. I’ll hire somebody to do the doing, but without contextual part, then that person’s gonna end up being burnt out. So it really. It’s like context thing. When I work with companies, it’s not just about the entrepreneur or the CEO. It’s about the entire company getting into a culture of performance and word, because word is your paintbrush to make your masterpiece. And if you have a weak relationship to word, then the whole thing is a house of hearts.
13:18
Derek Fredrickson
I see. So I love asking this question when we have guests, because the way that I choose people to come onto the show are for those that have their zone of genius outside the lane of what our zone of genius is. Right. So we provide CEO support. You know, this. And we bring in people that are, you know, marketing experts or AI or health and wellness. So I love to ask this question, like, why this topic for Josselyne and why. I know you’ve been doing this a long time, but I always like to say, why is this still your joy now? Why is this your zone now? Yeah, I wanna leave it at that.
13:52
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yeah. Well, why this topic is really. Because this has been what I’ve used. This methodology that I now train people in has been what I’ve used my whole life to make every dream I ever had come true. And I have had, like, every dream I ever had come true from having a number one record. I wanted to be a pop star since I was a child. I had number one record. I’ve raised over $90 million for charity. I am married to the man of my dreams. I live in Paris half the time. I have this amazing. I mean, you know, there’s nothing that I said. okay, this is what I want and then I haven’t been able to accomplish it. And it hasn’t been by luck or who I know.
14:28
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
It’s literally a methodology that I am committed that people have, because I really do think people deserve to live their dreams, not chase them. And there’s a statistic that 94% of people die with their dreams intact. And when I saw that, I was like, what are you talking about? That’s insane, because for me, it’s just been very accessible. So I got on a mission, you know, back in my 20s, to make sure that people had the tools to be able to live their dreams, not chase them, and be unmessible with no matter what life threw at them. Because I’ve had stuff thrown at me.
15:03
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
You know, I mean, my brother died when I was 22, and, you know, I’ve had lots of stuff thrown at me, but I’ve been able to continue to fulfill what’s important to me versus getting thrown or stuck in that world of survival or reaction.
15:18
Derek Fredrickson
Right.
15:19
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
So that’s why. But also, I used to work 80 to 90 hours a week, and I loved what I did, so I justified it. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs do that. They go, yeah, but I love what I do, so I don’t mind working, you know, 20 hours a day or whatever it is. That’s fine. But that’s all from the world of reaction. So there’s no design necessary to work a lot. So when I left my last, you know, was leading transformative programs for a company called Landmark, which I love, and I love that work. (Derek: We love Landmark) yeah, we love Landmark. And I have been participating in transformative work since I was 11 years old, which is 47 years. So I’ve had 47 years of practicing these muscles .
16:03
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
And I was leading for Landmark and designing curriculum for 30 years.
16:08
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah.
16:08
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
So when I left, really, to move to France. When I left, I went from working 80 hours a week to working 15 hours a week and 8,000 timing my revenue.
16:24
Derek Fredrickson
Wow. Wow.
16:25
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
I was like, okay, well, if I could do this, I’m not gonna teach people how to do this, because this was not complicated and it wasn’t difficult. It was designed. And if you can design and fulfill what you design, cause it’s your word that you’re designing it in and then you honor your word, then you can accomplish anything. There’s nothing you cannot accomplish.
16:48
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah. I love that. I mean, there’s so much that we could dive into from just that alone. Thank you for sharing a little bit of your story and your background around that. I think what I’m gathering from this, and I’m hoping that the listeners and viewers are as well, is that I say like deep, transformational work, but it doesn’t have to be hard work. It’s very much aligned in what your values are, what you want in life, what you want to design, what you want to experience. You know, I think there’s an element. And you know this because we’re both students of both professional development, right? Getting the business strategy and the tactics and everything else. But then there’s also this realm of personal development, of working on yourself.
17:30
Derek Fredrickson
And I just don’t mean self help, but I mean like, really doing the work of designing what you really want for your vision, for your life, for your experience. Because like as you say, there are some people that are going to continue to work and work and work, and then at the 11th hour, they’re like, I made it. Like, they slide into home and there’s no time left. There’s like, you didn’t experience any of the joy or fulfillment or pleasure along the way. And so I think just being more intentional about what that is for you, for me, for each one of our listeners. And it may be different. It may not be moving to Paris. It may just be whatever that passion might be
18:05
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Although moving to Paris is a pretty good you know.
18:07
Derek Fredrickson
It’s not too bad. It’s not too bad.
18:11
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
You know, when people are in that mode of getting stuff done, and let me tell you something, I can get stuff done.
18:18
Derek Fredrickson
You get stuff done. I know that. I know that about you.
18:20
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
No question. I mean, my husband and I talk about we should open a company called GSD Incorporated, you know. And it’s not stuff, but Get Stuff Done Incorporated. Because we accomplish more in a day than most people accomplish, like in a month, you know, so we’re good at that. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
18:40
Derek Fredrickson
Of course.
18:41
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
And it doesn’t take any kind of consciousness to get stuff done for people like you and me, let’s just say, because it’s an automatic. It’s like we are just by default get stuff doners. So if you’re by default anything, then you’re not creating. And anytime you’re not creating you’re reacting. And it’s not just, you know, linguistically that you’re reacting or action wise. It’s also from a nervous system perspective. Your body is in that mode of, you know, cortisol up and all that. And that’s why many people that are successful and effective, they end up burnt out. They end up, you know, just kind of like, just from a well being perspective. That’s the first thing that goes for most people, especially women. There I am focusing on women.
19:28
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
But no, but it is especially for women because for some reason men take their well being a little bit more priority. You know, where women are like, oh, my workout can go. I have to do stuff for this, you know, for this client or for whatever. So you know, I’m really committed that people have the tools to design their life from their vision. So it’s a vision given life rather than a reason or circumstances driven life.
19:54
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah, got it. Yeah. I mean this is something we talk about with our clients all the time. You know, the same expression. There’s all these things that you could do and in the beginning you could do everything because you had to. You were bootstrapped, you figured all of those things out. But it gets to a certain point very soon after that when you have some level of success, you need to make the distinction between what you could do and really what you should do. And if you stay in that could mode, you’re like you’re describing, you’re firefighting, I call it the whack a mole where you’re reacting all day long. And at a certain point I want to just like dive into this. I think this is what is the.
20:28
Derek Fredrickson
You tell me like the root cause of like the overwhelm and the burnout is they’re just in reactive mode all day long. They’re in this fight or flight mentality and there’s just more stuff to get done. There’s always going to be more stuff to get done. But if it’s not a whole aligned with your vision, then you’ve got no maybe drive. But speak to that like overwhelming burnout. Like what do you see as the root cause for that?
20:48
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Well, there’s two things. One thing is not being related to reality, which is most people aren’t. They’re in a narrative about reality versus reality itself. So burnout happens when you collapse reality and your shoulds and shouldn’ts and coulds and goods and bads and wrongs about reality. So that’s one place where it’s like, oh, I have so much to do, so much is not a real thing. That’s not an amount of things. You have seven things to do, you have 70 things to do, but you don’t have so much or too much to do. So the minute you get into a narrative called too much, you’re going to be burnt out. So that’s one source. The other source is being disconnected from your vision. So if you have no, the context is decisive in your experience of life.
21:34
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
So there are times where you’re in action and doing things and you’re not burnt out at all, you’re energized. What’s the difference is the context inside of which you’re performing those tasks. So keeping your vision alive and real in whichever way you do it, you know, there’s lots of different ways to do that. Keeps you from hitting that burnout world because it’s all fulfilling something rather than getting stuff done. Getting stuff done is exhausting.
21:59
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah,, I can see that. So can you give us an example of like, let’s say somebody’s listening? Like, you know, I say these things to myself all the time, right? So this is just as much as it is me for everybody else. I have so much to do. I have a lot to get done. It’s feeling overwhelming like that.. I understand that. But then there’s like this point of like, okay, I how do I shift that? So let’s say I’m like having a really busy, you know, back to back, like 10 meeting. I’m on Zoom all day long, from you know this time to this time. So it’s a stressful day.
22:32
Derek Fredrickson
How does someone like shift that context in a day or just like in a moment to kind of provide some relief or some perspective or just some sort of buffer or cushion from what feels like fighting all day?
22:45
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Well, a couple things. One thing is I do have this instant hack reset tool which is available on my website on the freebies, but part of my website on beunmessiblewith.com you can instantly do it in like a five step process., I’ll give you that hack in a moment. But if I listen to what you’re saying, you’re collapsing to work, you’re collapsing the narrative about reality and reality. So you have 10 meetings. That’s reality. It’s a stressful day is an opinion about 10 Zoom meeting. So the minute you relate to those two things like they’re the same, you will be overwhelmed and burnt out. That’s just the way it is. (Derek: Okay) So you have to be able to discern when you’re in that collapse. So the red flag, this is the instant hack part.
23:35
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
You have to be able to see the red flags that are happening, whether they’re linguistic red flags, like, oh, I have so much to do, some stuff you say inside your head or out loud or physical red flags. So a lot of times people have a physical reaction to being in the world of reaction, like tight chest or their neck gets red or they start to have shallow breath or what’s yours if you can kind of recall in a moment of being in the world of reaction or thinking things are so stressful.
24:05
Derek Fredrickson
I don’t openly share this, but there are some times where I literally feel like, I can feel my nervous system raising at a higher level where I feel nervous energy. I feel a bit worried. I feel like it ups and flows during the day when I’m having that type of day. Not every day is like that, but when it does, I’m like, I’m very present to it because I listen, I’ve taken the coach and so I’m like, okay, why am I experiencing this level of discomfort, this level of stress?, And sometimes for me, I’ll do like a breathing thing.
24:36
Derek Fredrickson
You know, if I had before, like an important client meeting or a sales call, I’ll do a little thing, four minute, like box breathing, just to kind of calm the energy. But for me, I feel it’s nervousness for sure.
24:46
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Right. So nervousness is a narrative. It’s not actually something that’s physically happening in your body. So I’m going to keep pulling where you’re collapsing narrative with reality. So if you look in your actual physical body, what actually happens that you’re calling nervousness?
25:03
Derek Fredrickson
My heart starts beating.
25:05
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Perfect. So that would be a red flag. A physical red flag. But like most people, you go, oh, I have nervous energy. Oh, I’m feeling my stress rising. None of that is happening. What’s happening is your heart is beating fast. Let’s just say. Okay, so why I’m saying that is because if you can catch the physical signal or red flag that you’re going into that world, it precedes the narrative of, oh, my energy is now, nervous. So your explanation about what’s happening physically is from the world of reaction. What’s happening physically is from the world of performance and reality. It’s like physically my heart is beating, right? So there’s no explanation about that in reality. There’s only an explanation about it when you start to say, why? And I love that you said, why am I feeling this way?
26:07
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
The minute you ask why, you’re gonna send yourself to the world of reasons, justifications, explanations, (Derek: Calendar meetings, whatever.) You just sent yourself into the world of reaction. So being able to catch the red flag quicker and quicker is a ticket out of it. Because, you need awareness. Otherwise you’re already down that road, you’re already explaining why. Well, it’s because I have so many meetings, and it’s because I didn’t, you know, reschedule that. And now you’re in a world, right? So being able to catch when you’re going to that world as fast as possible. Because what’s happening is like, from a brain science perspective is your amygdala is firing, right? So the amygdala is the part of the brain that’s the survival part of the brain, and it’s designed to survive. So you’re in that nervous system place where you are reacting automatically.
26:56
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
And even though it could be a good reaction because you’re handling problems or whatever, it’s still reaction. It’s automatic. There’s no design necessary, no consciousness necessary. You’re just down that road, off to the races. So if you can catch what’s happening physically. Your heart’s beating, you can then interrupt it. Now you can use breathing. It’s not my favorite hack because we’re already breathing.
27:18
Derek Fredrickson
Open to suggestions.That’s my own.
27:22
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yes, but you don’t always have four minutes, you know, that’s the point. You could be on a meeting on Zoom, and you’ve got to reset instantly. And 4minutes is a luxury. That’s a long time.
27:33
Derek Fredrickson
I’ll finish each meeting two minutes early and finish or start the other two minutes late when they join.
27:38
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Exactly. But you could use breathing, and it’s a simple hack, so. But you have to do intentional breathing because you’re already breathing. So that’s an automatic thing. So you have to do something where it’s like, breathe in for four, breathe out for eight. So it’s a unintentionally designed breathing, which will then reset your brain. I tell people to do anything physical like snap a rubber band or shake your hands or squeeze your thighs, something that’s going to kind of moonstruck you know, snap out of it. So you’re interrupting physically.
28:05
Derek Fredrickson
Change the state.
28:08
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yeah, exactly. And that is why I say to do something physically because you can’t think your way out of the amygdala because the thinking is happening from the amygdala. So you have to interrupt with a physical interruption, an intervention into where your brain is functioning from. And the minute you do that, you’ve gotten to neutral, right? Now the problem, like with your breathing thing, I mean I’ll just kind of assert this is that most people.
28:34
Derek Fredrickson
I love that we’re using me as an example with this, but I’m fine with it. I’m just.
28:37
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Why not? You know, of course we can all relate, right? We can all relate.
28:40
Derek Fredrickson
I’m sure everybody is like, okay, now I can really understand this.
28:43
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yeah, there’s no one who’s listening, who doesn’t get sent into that world, right? Every single human being. And I’ve worked with, you know, a couple hundred thousand people coaching them over the last 39 years. There’s no one who doesn’t get hooked like this, right. So. And maybe it’s not in business, maybe it’s with your cousin or your brother or your mother, you know, whatever, but it’s still, you’re hookable. That’s what it is to be human. So anyway, you get to neutral, which is like a relief in between meetings, right? With the breathing thing. The problem is most people haven’t designed an alternate place to go so they end up back in the world of reaction. So you have like a moment out of the dirty water, but then you end up back in the pool.
29:23
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
So, what the unmessable with methodology does is it has, you have a pre-created space, a vision to go to so that when you get to neutral, it’s like being a fork in the road., You have the left side, you can go down the messable with road, you know, and it’s a smoother road because you’ve been down it 8,000 times in your life. And there’s McDonald’s and there’s, you know, cappuccino places and gas stations. So it’s much easier to go down that road. But the unmessable with road, the world of vision, you have to pre-create because in the moments like, in the heat of the moment, you’re not going to be able to create anything. (Derek: You’re not gonna.) Exactly. So that vision of fulfillment or freedom, then you take an action to put yourself in that world. So what action?
30:06
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
This goes back to the beginning of our conversation about it’s an expression of your vision, the action. So what action could I take right now that would express freedom or that would presence freedom.
30:21
Derek Fredrickson
I see.
30:22
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Or that would manifest it right now, not someday when I hit my revenue goal, but like right now, this moment. What would express connection, you know, or whatever your vision is. So you have to kind of pre-design that. So you have a recipe, like a little bit of a repertoire, as it were, of pre-created actions until you get good at it. But in the beginning, that’s how you spark the muscles. You pre-create the vision, you pre-create the actions and then you kind of have some go tos. Like I had a woman who, her husband had a traumatic brain injury and he would say things to her and her default was to take it as insulting or mean or you know, whatever. He wasn’t regulating his action, his speech and everything. So she would take it personally basically.
31:12
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
So she pre-created a vision of love and care and she created a few actions. Like when he would do that, she’d catch herself, she’d get herself to neutral. I don’t remember her hack, I don’t remember what she did. But then she would go to love and care and she had to make him a cup of tea, give him a hug, hold his hand. Those were some simple actions she could do to express that vision in those moments.
31:37
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah, I see. Okay, I love this. I mean I’m getting a lot from this for me, (Josselyn: Great) on a practical level. But I think also the way that I’m looking at it and what I’m reflecting back is that it starts with the intention because I think people just go into their day and you know, the Derek before today in most cases would just be like, okay, I’ve got a busy day, it’s going to be busy, I’ve got a lot of meetings, it’s going to be stressful. It is what it is. And what I’m realizing is that if I can set a different kind of thought pattern or a different intention about what the day is.
32:09
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
A context. It’s not so much an intention because that turns into a goal, it’s more of a context. Because if you wake up into that context of I got a busy day, this is just what it is. It’s, you’re in survival already. You’re going to survive the day.
32:24
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah.
32:24
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Until you can get to 10 o’ clock and have a glass of wine or something. You know, it’s just, you’re in survival mode. So to be able to stop and create a vision for the day, and this is one of my freebies, is also daily practices to be unmessable with so people can grab that too. One of what pieces is that.
32:43
Derek Fredrickson
Okay. And then I love the idea of the hack because for me, I’m always looking for, what is the hack? What is the thing that’s the tactical thing that we can do in the moment. And I think, you know, I’ll share one of the things that I’ve done. It was by design in a way, but I haven’t been using the space for anything to get back into the context of the vision. But I’m very strategic. Unless it’s impossible. I’m no longer like back to back to back. Because that for me would just create so much stress and anxiety. So now there’s at least, you know, 10, 15 minutes between everything. I know it sounds basic and I know it sounds simple, like, oh, I should do that.
33:21
Derek Fredrickson
And I’m like, well, until you do and your calendar actually lives by it, it’s still going to feel in the same whack a mole kind of way. But I’m not using that space with anything that can kind of bring me back, as you said, like, bring me back to neutral. Like, I’ve done the breathing thing, but I think if I go back to a little bit more of like the vision and the context and bring in that could help for sure.
33:41
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
And you can just keep the vision on a post it on your computer. So in between meeting and I do want to go back to. First of all, designing the calendar is one of my biggest tools. I have a calendar workshop that I do with people. It’s all about creating a context with every to do. Because your calendar is mostly a to do list.
33:57
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah.
33:58
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
But if you have work out on your calendar And it’s another thing to do. There’s a recipe for burnout. But if you create, creating vitality work out, now, all of a sudden you have context and content in every calendar occasion. So creating connection, Derek’s podcast, you know, so it becomes like you have a heading that you’ve designed into your calendar. People start talking about their calendar and it’s like porn for me. I love anything about the calendar because for me, my calendar is my campus. It is my mode to design my whole life. So yes, you can do the thing with the breaks in between, but what if you didn’t have to? See being unmessible with is even if you have back to back, you get to stay in that space your vision.
34:50
Derek Fredrickson
Okay. That’s true.
34:50
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
That’s the difference.
34:51
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah, that’s very true. I love that last point. I’m going to change. So right now, don’t laugh, but I have a block in my calendar every weekday from 12 to 1 and it says lunch. And I look at it as a to do. And you know what’s interesting? And again, you know, Fabienne. And sometimes we go through phases where it’s like a very quick and simple lunch. Like today we had a delicious. Gosh, what was it? I think it was like a butternut squash soup. I mean, it was like 10 minutes. You know, usually we have like three, four hour lunches and dinners. And we haven’t been doing more of that.
35:21
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Of course.
35:22
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah, of course. And so I think just changing it and being like something that could feel like, you know, something other than lunch, because that just feels like, to do.
35:31
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Like you create connection, create vitality, create nourishment, create well being. I mean, but always I tell people to start with what you’re creating and then what you’re doing, because what you’re doing is you’re not a human doing.
35:46
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah.
35:46
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
You know, and we’ve turned ourselves into a human doing instead of a human being. So it’s like what is the space we’re creating, not the thing we’re accomplishing.
35:55
Derek Fredrickson
Okay, got it.
35:56
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Including doing nothing. Because, you know, again, high performers are just do, do, do, do, do. So I tell everybody, schedule, recharge time, you know, like creating. Recharging or creating energy and do nothing.
36:10
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah.
36:11
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
For even if it’s 15 minutes. And you could do that in between your meetings. It’s like
36:17
Derek Fredrickson
I’ve been doing that as well. I mean, my chair is right there. Sometimes I’ll just sit like I, you know, I’m always looking at my phone with the kids and the slack and the email and the calendar, everything else. And I feel like sometimes my brain goes into that mode so I just sit there. But I’m not designing. I’m just kind of sitting here to kind of like take a pause. But I can do something better to really maximize that throughout the day.
36:36
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yeah, and that’s the muscle. You get to build the muscle. Cause otherwise you’re just getting relief from the chaos.
36:42
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah.
36:42
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
And relief is better than no relief. But it just isn’t sustainable. You know, it’s like a moment of relief and then you got to go back to the grind.
36:51
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah.
36:51
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
So if you had a moment of relief and then you went to your vision, there’s a difference between, you know, the grind and fulfillment. So one is looking down and in and one is looking up and out.
37:04
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah. And the glass of wine at the end of the day also.
37:07
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
It doesn’t hurt.
37:08
Derek Fredrickson
You know, it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt. Josselyne, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for everything that you’ve shared. I know you mentioned a couple different resources and a couple different things that people can check out to find out more about you, the work that you do your methodology. Where can people find you? What would you recommend in terms of a couple different places where they can start?
37:30
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Well, go to the website because it has everything beunmessablewith.com. And there’s a freebies page so you can get all the things I talked about, the instant reset, the daily practices. You could also, you know, subscribe to my podcast, which is. Be Unmessible With. Or Instagram. And then you’ll get everything because post all the time and I have two episodes a week. A solo. and a guest episode.
37:51
Derek Fredrickson
Oh my gosh, two episodes a week. I forgot. Jeez
37:52
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yeah.
37:54
Derek Fredrickson
Once every other week I gotta raise the bar a bit.
37:56
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Hey, step it up, baby. Step it up.
37:58
Derek Fredrickson
Let me work on this first and then I’ll ramp up though.
38:01
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Exactly. But that has to do with design. I mean, when I designed doing the podcast, I was like, I’m not gonna be scrambling for episodes. So I pre-recorded 30 episodes before I ever aired. So. And now I have, you know, maybe once a week I record an episode, but I have episodes through seven months from now. (Derek: inaudible) I don’t have to record and yeah, exactly. So I have just. It’s. It’s from designing a plan backwards, planning it and then fulfilling on what I said ultimately. So (Derek: Yes), you know, that’s part of the the method.
38:37
Derek Fredrickson
I got it. Okay, and I love this, that last point you made. You mentioned it a few times throughout, like the word. Like when, Like the spoken word. It really. It like anchors it like you you speak it. It’s out there, it’s real. It’s not just something that’s living in here or living in here. So I think the word matters because it kind of makes it more real and and is like an accountability measurement in a way.
38:57
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Yeah. And another place it lives is in your calendar. I mean, if you say. If I say I’ll do your podcast, but I don’t put it in my calendar. Good luck. May the force be with you. I mean, you know, your memory is not a reliable test for reality. In fact, Derek, it’s funny, you know, I I I have a new workshop that’s. I don’t know when we’re airing this, but it’s a 2026. We’re doing a whole new program. It’s going to be my core program called Word BootCamp. And it’s a five week, basically intensive to have what you say become real no matter what it is. Like I say X. And whether it’s intimacy in my marriage or double my revenue or whatever it is to actually. It’s like a gym for your word. I’m really excited about it.
39:37
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
It’s kind of like my work culminated into a five week thing.
39:42
Derek Fredrickson
Yeah. So unmessablewith.com.
39:45
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
beunmessable with. Be unmessive.
39:47
Derek Fredrickson
Be unmessable with.
39:48
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Sorry. Yeah.
39:49
Derek Fredrickson
Be unmessable with Dot com. I know that, but. Excellent. Well, thank you, Josselyne. This is wonderful. I’m sure our audience really got a lot. I know I did. From this episode, this conversation. So I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom, your zone of genius, your brilliance. Thank you so much. And we’ll see you next time on the show. Thanks, Josselyne, for being here.
40:06
Josselyne Herman-Saccio
Thank you for having me. (long pause)
40:11
Derek Fredrickson
Great, great.
