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From Business to Bliss: Discovering True Fulfillment
Malitta Seamon discusses her multifaceted life as a wife, mother, entrepreneur, and former CEO, and her current focus on leading Inbound Leadership, an organization aimed at inspiring authentic living and leadership.
00:00 Introduction and Background
01:40 The Journey to Authenticity
02:39 Realizations and Turning Points
04:46 The 'Prove It' Methodology
07:15 The Importance of Presence
09:06 Making Small Changes
11:40 Working with Malitta
13:20 Daily Practices for Centering
14:53 Conclusion and Book Overview
She shares her journey detailed in her upcoming book 'Mindset Freedom,' co-authored with her husband Brad, which chronicles their pursuit of a more authentic and fulfilling life beyond a business they no longer loved. Alita emphasizes the importance of listening to one's inner voice, making small yet significant life changes, and practicing presence in relationships to achieve true happiness and contentment.
She also outlines her organization's offerings including retreats, workshops, and one-on-one coaching aimed at fostering authentic leadership. Alita concludes by sharing her personal daily practice of meditation and journaling to stay centered and committed to a fulfilling life.
Mindset Freedom: Embrace Authenticity and Inner Peace with Malitta Seamon
In this episode, Malitta Seamon, a wife, mother, entrepreneur, and former CEO, shares her journey of leading a more authentic and fulfilling life. From writing her book 'Mindset Freedom' with her husband to founding Inbound Leadership, Alita discusses the importance of living authentically and addressing the inner voice that guides us. She emphasizes the value of presence in our personal relationships and the significance of making small, intentional changes in life to avoid long-term crises. Alita introduces methodologies aimed at achieving inner peace and contentment, focusing on self-awareness, vulnerability, and authenticity. Listeners will learn about the upcoming retreats, workshops, and one-on-one coaching sessions designed to help individuals and teams grow more genuine and self-aware. With practical advice and personal anecdotes, Alita encourages us to turn inwards, listen to our true selves, and live a life aligned with our deepest values and desires.
Transcript
Well, thanks for having me. I'm Malita Seaman, and I am a lot of things, but mostly I am
Speaker:a wife, a mother, an entrepreneur, a former CEO. I have a lot of titles that come behind
Speaker:that. Mostly what I'm doing today is leading inbound leadership, which is an organization
Speaker:to inspire individuals to live more authentically, but mostly lead authentically. So my goal
Speaker:is to help individuals have a safe space to admit the things that we all live inside.
Speaker:Sometimes the fears, the insecurities, the uncertainties, life just moves pretty quickly.
Speaker:And so providing a space where these leaders can communicate what's going on inside so
Speaker:they can better express what they're doing externally. So that's inbound leadership.
Speaker:I also just recently wrote a book, Mindset Freedom with My Husband, and it's being released
Speaker:on May 17th. We're very excited about that. But Mindset Freedom tells about our journey
Speaker:of having to go inside to live better externally. We ran the business together for about two
Speaker:decades. And in that time, we have masked a lot. I mean, we had a lot of success in terms
Speaker:of developing wealth, but our health, the health of our relationship and our joy were
Speaker:not part of the factor of the equation. And so what we had to do was to take a step back
Speaker:and the catalyst for that really was when my husband decided to leave the business and
Speaker:leave me in it. And that was quite a surprise and a shock. And it threw our marriage into
Speaker:turbulence, it threw our business into turmoil. And we had to really fight to survive through
Speaker:that. And even today, we still continue to learn about each other. We did survive it,
Speaker:but we grow day to day, understanding that there's a lot that we both were living with inside that
Speaker:we didn't understand. When we got married, there was a lot we didn't understand about each other,
Speaker:because we didn't even understand ourselves. What we learned to do was to comply with what the
Speaker:world told us should be and how it should be. And we checked all the boxes. And to everyone else,
Speaker:we look like the perfect couple, when in fact, we were both pretty miserable. And so from the
Speaker:experience of having him walk out on me, what I say really, it was the best thing that ever
Speaker:happened to me personally. It didn't feel that way at the time, I could have killed him. We went
Speaker:through a lot to survive it. But in the end, I definitely landed in a better place for myself.
Speaker:And that was with myself, being myself, understanding myself better. So that's kind of the
Speaker:Malita in a nutshell, I'm trying to narrow that down to about two minutes. That's who I would say I
Speaker:am. That's a compelling story I know in the bio that I read when we were setting up the interview.
Speaker:The concept of being in the business with your husband and then him leaving really caught me. It
Speaker:was shocking to me. And then I was really rooting just in the next few paragraphs of your bio that
Speaker:you would be together still as a husband and wife, business aside. Now that business has nothing to
Speaker:do directly with what you're doing now business wise, right? I mean, obviously in your personal
Speaker:development. And that's, but that was not related to the inbound leadership. That's correct. The
Speaker:business we were in, we were in conference and event management services, something neither of us
Speaker:studied for knew anything about, but it was a pathway for us to create a lifestyle that we
Speaker:wanted. And so I would say we pretended to love it. But what we really loved was the money that
Speaker:generated the fact that it gave us security. But in terms of any other fulfillment, it just wasn't
Speaker:there. So after Brad left the business, I continued the business for about three or so years without
Speaker:him. And I'm kind of foreshadowing the book. But he eventually returned to the business. And
Speaker:together we decided to abandon it. It was not what we wanted. And that was a very difficult
Speaker:decision. Because our life, our home, everything was built around it for over two decades. What we
Speaker:were able to do after that was to pivot more into what was more authentic for us, what felt right
Speaker:for us. And that happened naturally. It's funny how life works that way. Once we released, things
Speaker:started to appear. We were asked to do coaching, we were, you know, being called upon to help other
Speaker:businesses. And so it was kind of a natural evolution. So we were, I would say we were blessed
Speaker:in that regard, but I would say that we were deliberate and being true to ourselves and that
Speaker:life came to us that way. Very astute for you to see that and adjust. As you say, pivot. I had an
Speaker:interview just yesterday with another businessman and he talked about the concept of pivoting.
Speaker:So it becomes kind of a theme as weeks go by when you start seeing the same concepts come up over
Speaker:and over again. As I do an interview, I have phrases that stick in my mind that I like to come back
Speaker:to. And I hope that doesn't throw you. Because you, one of the phrases you mentioned earlier on was
Speaker:checking the boxes. And it goes to what we just said with pivoting. Can you expand a little bit more
Speaker:on what that meant for you before you realized what that really was as it came to mind that
Speaker:that's what you'd been doing in the past and how you made the change, how you not unchecked the
Speaker:boxes, but how that became less of who you were and you moved into more, maybe would self-fulfill
Speaker:and be the right word. Absolutely. Sure. Yeah. That's definitely the right word. So, you know,
Speaker:I came up and I was raised in a very traditional family. We were all expected to, you know,
Speaker:go through school, graduate from college, get a good job, get on our feet. And that's all I
Speaker:thought about, get married, have children, you know, and so I went through the motions without
Speaker:ever asking myself, is this really what I want? Am I happy? Do I feel comfortable with what I'm
Speaker:doing? And I continued that right through my marriage with Brad, right through building the
Speaker:business until our crises hit. And what I realized looking back was all of those micro-contortions
Speaker:were developing, they were creating unhappiness and resentments within me. But I couldn't put my
Speaker:finger on it and I watched so many people talk about, I want to be happy. And this, I was one
Speaker:that would always say, you know, you know, life just isn't happy. Life just isn't designed to be
Speaker:happy when in fact we portray ourselves so many times and even coming close to being able to
Speaker:achieve it because we're so busy marching down the path that we think we're supposed to go down.
Speaker:And really, when Brad left the business, there was a point when I said, why am I doing this?
Speaker:Why on earth am I continuing this business when I'm unhappy? It's creating havoc in my life.
Speaker:You know, and I, you know, then the box was, well, how do I get out of it? You know, I've
Speaker:created this reputation. I have this title. I have expectations. How do I just turn around
Speaker:and walk away from this? But again, it was the best decision I made. It was the hardest decision,
Speaker:but it was the best decision I made. And I laugh even with children and I watch parents and we start
Speaker:talking about, you know, what this child might be. And, you know, this child has the tendency,
Speaker:it looks like this child might be a doctor because he or she or they like to play with
Speaker:doctor sets and this and that. And we start ingraining these things and it's just amazing how
Speaker:it happens. And I can just look back and I know that my parents and my grandparents and all the
Speaker:people who helped raise me, they met well, but they marched me right down the same path onto the
Speaker:hamster wheel that so many of us are on or have been on. Thank you. It's very powerful. And for
Speaker:our younger listeners, it's difficult to see when you're inside, when you're in that box,
Speaker:when you're looking at it. And I guess everyone has that epiphany at some point in their life,
Speaker:except maybe for the ones lucky enough where they've been directed by their environment
Speaker:and all the other factors there actually dovetail into your purpose for life.
Speaker:But I suspect that's a lot more rare than we would expect it to be.
Speaker:Tell us about inbound leaders. I think we have an idea of what it does, but
Speaker:maybe a little more in detail. And one of the things I found interesting on your website
Speaker:was the assessment that you do for inbound leaders. So can you discuss those two things
Speaker:a little bit, how they relate to each other, how you use them business wise? Sure. I'm glad you
Speaker:picked up on the assessment piece. So what I've found is many of us say that we're ready for,
Speaker:I'll call it happiness and contentment and things of that nature. But I've discovered that
Speaker:we really aren't. There are so many who are much more comfortable living in discomfort.
Speaker:I was one. So I'm not knocking it. I understand it. I know it all too well. But our business model
Speaker:does not work unless individuals have really made the decision and the commitment that they
Speaker:want to make a shift. Because it's not the easiest thing to do. Once we start to
Speaker:come up from the iceberg sort of existence where we let the world see 10% of who we really are
Speaker:and submerge the rest because it doesn't fit or we're afraid or, you know, once we make that
Speaker:commitment to say, okay, I'm okay with opening the kimono, I'm okay with coming out of the water,
Speaker:we're vulnerable. There are a lot of things about ourselves that we keep to ourselves or
Speaker:only to the people who are very close to us that we're not willing to let the rest of the world see.
Speaker:But I tell you that you can't really live until you're willing to allow that to happen.
Speaker:Because it's too much to remember. There are too many boxes to continue to check. There are
Speaker:too many things to make sure that you're doing right or saying right or being right about when,
Speaker:in fact, I mean, I refer to it as there is intimate transparency and then there's transparency.
Speaker:And I fully believe in transparency. Sure, there are some things that we need to, you know,
Speaker:keep within our closest circles. But then we can't really live if I have to remember who it is that
Speaker:you expect me to be, who you think I am, who I should be. It's too much. And again, I start
Speaker:contorting. And once I start contorting, I start betraying myself. And that is something that I
Speaker:just won't do any longer. And so when I with inbound leadership, what I'm really focused on
Speaker:doing is helping other leaders make that same commitment. Because what we do when we lead
Speaker:organizations is we force people to contort. We tell people you need to be this way. You have to
Speaker:be that way. It's not psychologically safe. It's, you know, you're not allowed to do this. You're
Speaker:not allowed to be yourself. That's why people talk about having your work face, your family phase,
Speaker:or your home life, and your work life. When in fact, we do so much of each, and we already know
Speaker:that they've converged that the best thing for all of us is to find a way to be who we are,
Speaker:as much as we are, wherever we are at any given time. And that's my mission. And I start with
Speaker:the leaders because I think leaders are the ones who have the greatest impact often to help
Speaker:individuals and encourage individuals to do that. If they're willing to do it, then the people in
Speaker:their organizations or in their communities or wherever they're leading will feel more comfortable
Speaker:doing the same. Your business is set up for coaching and developing leaders. Many of our
Speaker:listeners would just be individuals, college career, early career lifespan, who don't see
Speaker:themselves as leaders. Maybe they're just a worker bee in the hive somewhere. They don't
Speaker:identify themselves as being a leader of a group or a manager or something along those lines.
Speaker:But what you have providing for leaders is, as I look at your webpage, a perfect list of what
Speaker:individual needs to incorporate into their life to be their true selves. So we're not dealing
Speaker:just with a businessman here. The principles that you have apply to every man.
Speaker:Russell, that is absolutely correct and very important point to make. Because
Speaker:a leader, I believe everyone is a leader and it depends on where you are, what you're doing,
Speaker:however, but I'm hoping that our content resonates with everyone. So as I said, my mission is to
Speaker:target leaders, but that again is sort of a global mission to make sure that we're trying to touch
Speaker:as many people at once. But any individual, I'm hoping that visits our website or might read
Speaker:something that we post, an article or anything, is inspired to be their most authentic selves.
Speaker:There's only one Russell. There's only one Malita. And if we compromise, the world misses out.
Speaker:And that's the thing that's so exciting about every individual, trying to do their best to
Speaker:be who they are authentically, listening to the inner voice, the thing that tells you to go left
Speaker:when everyone else is saying go right, trusting that voice, knowing that you're going to be okay,
Speaker:knowing that you didn't come here to be like anyone else. You're not going to leave here
Speaker:being like anyone else. And finding joy in that, finding joy and being different.
Speaker:You know, when I was growing up, I never felt, I never felt like I fit into my own family,
Speaker:let alone the community that I was in. But I found myself constantly trying. I kept trying to
Speaker:be who I thought they expected to meet to be, do what I thought they expected me to do.
Speaker:And, you know, through the years, I just became so unhappy. And, you know, at the age of 50,
Speaker:I was asking, why am I so unhappy? Well, I had 50 years of creating it, you know,
Speaker:I didn't mean to, but that's what I did when I began to ignore the inner voice. And so for all
Speaker:the listeners who are not necessarily at the height of their careers, or, you know, think of
Speaker:themselves as being leaders, you are the leader of your life. You are absolutely the leader of
Speaker:your life. And so I encourage you to treat your life as though you are the leader, the one in
Speaker:command, the one that makes the decisions. And so I'm glad you brought that up, because that's an
Speaker:important point. Leader of your life, that's a great phrase. I remember in high school,
Speaker:pulling back from my own past, we were told at some point as upperclassmen that there's always
Speaker:someone looking up to you. If you're on the sport team, if you're in a school, if you're doing
Speaker:anything, there's someone looking up to you. So in some context, you are a leader. There is somebody
Speaker:looking after you, following after you in some manner or another. But even if not, even as just
Speaker:your own life, you still have to take the lead in your own life and take control and reach for that
Speaker:self and finding that self. Which brings me, I just want to make sure I'm following these in
Speaker:some kind of order. So let me look at my notes. I apologize for a brief, let me take a sip here
Speaker:and just relax for a second. I can't think as fast as I want to, I can't think and develop
Speaker:questions as quickly as I want to digest the information. But I'll edit all this fluff out
Speaker:when we get there. Let's talk about your book for a second, if you don't mind. I want to give
Speaker:you a chance to promote your book as much as you'd like. But I want to ask specifically if you can
Speaker:do this without too much of a spoiler on the book about the Proovit method, which I think might have
Speaker:some worth if we can just get a little picture onto the Proovit method.
Speaker:So it's really interesting how this came about. So I was at the height of pity and
Speaker:feeling very low and alone. And I was angry and I was, you know, crying out to God, the universe,
Speaker:you know, trying to make sense of everything that had happened to me or was happening to me. And I
Speaker:remember saying, you know, I really just want to be happy. I don't need a complicated life.
Speaker:I don't need all the things, the extra things that I have in life. I just want to be happy. That's
Speaker:what I've been broken down to. And you have to remember this was after 20 years of working seven
Speaker:days a week and accumulating things and trying to get to that, you know, the place on the ladder
Speaker:that, you know, I wanted to reach. And I was really just letting go, like I want to be happy.
Speaker:And the words that I heard about were Proovit. And it was an interesting moment. And as I started
Speaker:to journal, because I was a big journaler, I started to write down what was going on with me.
Speaker:And the Proovit became from pain to presence, from resistance to release,
Speaker:to up from obstacles to observation, from victimhood to valor, from eagle in balance,
Speaker:to eagle consciousness, from inner peace, I'm sorry, from insecurity to inner peace,
Speaker:and from tip of the iceberg to top of the mountain. And it really created the chapters for
Speaker:the book. And that is the process I had to go through to get to the level of contentment
Speaker:that I'm happy that I reached. Because I had to get out of my pain and get present about
Speaker:who I am, you know, what I really wanted. And what I was doing, how those things were
Speaker:misaligned. And, you know, to understand what I was resisting, what I was resisting was letting
Speaker:go of the business that wasn't making me happy. You know, and so I had to learn to release.
Speaker:And so I won't take you through all of the steps and things in the book, but that's really what
Speaker:the Proovit methodology is about. And for all of your listeners, what I found is with the people
Speaker:that I work with and everyone I speak to, Proovit is a methodology that can help you no matter where
Speaker:you are in life. Because it's really about the basics of just living true to yourself,
Speaker:and being reminded about the things that we have to do, the basic things we have to do to create
Speaker:happiness and contentment and better relationships and experiences in life. So that is how the
Speaker:Proovit methodology came about. Wow. That's trying to get those in my head as you're going through
Speaker:them so quickly. I would definitely have to check out the material there. That's fantastic. I love the
Speaker:the iceberg to the mountaintop analogy as the final step there. It's great. Thank you for that.
Speaker:I have your website up here on my iPad. If we could, your first, maybe your mission statement,
Speaker:or your description of inbound leadership at the top of your page, if I'm very powerful, very
Speaker:purposefully written, very pointedly written, I'd like to try something almost like a free
Speaker:association, because I want to read this phrase by phrase. And for each phrase, I want to give
Speaker:you a second to, if you have something to expand on that, because like any great mission statement,
Speaker:there is a ton of information packed into every phrase. And every word here, as I read this,
Speaker:more so than many others, seems to me to be specifically chosen on a word-to-word basis to
Speaker:get the concept across that you want. So if you don't mind, can we do this little exercise
Speaker:using your, can we call this a mission statement? Okay, great. So this is from the inboundleadership.com
Speaker:website. And it's, great leadership starts from within inbound leadership, the act of traveling
Speaker:inward. So that's, that, that is the beginning. So when we make the choice to really look at ourselves
Speaker:and to love ourselves and to go inside of ourselves, to listen specifically to the voice
Speaker:that we typically push out, you know, the one that is telling us softly, not the, not the loud
Speaker:chatter, the one that's panicky and worried, but the one that's calm, the one that's loving,
Speaker:the one that nudges us, when we're willing to go in and really listen and pay attention to that voice,
Speaker:that's where a lot of the answers are. And so we first have to make the commitment to go inside
Speaker:and to block out the external and to give priority to what is being, what is going on,
Speaker:and what is felt inside. Small still voice is a phrase that comes to mind, which I think applies
Speaker:a little bit differently, but still it can be applied to that as well. So the act of traveling
Speaker:inward, returning to a place of origin to gain a better understanding and awareness of the self.
Speaker:I probably should have broken that down into at least two or three pieces.
Speaker:This is my favorite part, and that is Russell, who were you before the world really got a hold
Speaker:of you? Who were you as a child? What were your thoughts? What were your dreams? What made you
Speaker:feel good? What made you happy before, you know, your friends told you it shouldn't make you happy
Speaker:or, you know, it could be that, you know, I love to, I don't know, wear funny hats, whatever might
Speaker:have been the case, but returning to what was originally you. Who was I originally? As far
Speaker:it back as I can recall, you know, and what were the things that made my heart flutter? What were
Speaker:the things that maybe I was shamed out of loving about myself or thought that it was not good to
Speaker:go down a certain path? But rediscovering that person is really important because it's hard for
Speaker:us to reach a place of contentment and authenticity if we don't go back and recapture who we want to
Speaker:want. And reemerging with more authenticity. Almost self-explanatory, but go ahead. But it's
Speaker:once we tap into that, can we love that? Can we honor it? Can we come out and say it doesn't
Speaker:matter to me if this makes you comfortable or not? Whether you like it or not, this makes me happy,
Speaker:this makes me feel like myself. And when I reemerge, I have a commitment to honoring that self. So when
Speaker:I do encounter something in opposition to what I desire or what I believe, that I have a certain
Speaker:strength and a resolve within me and an understanding that I need to love this self, to express this
Speaker:self, doesn't mean that I won't compromise at times, but I won't contort the self that I am,
Speaker:because then I'll miss out on Melita and I don't want to do that.
Speaker:Wow. A journey of excavation, and specifically why the word excavation, to eliminate blind spots
Speaker:and barriers? Because we have to be willing to dig it up. I often see, and I would do it as well,
Speaker:want to get past something. You know what? I know that exists in me, but you know what? I'm going to
Speaker:just ignore it. I just won't do it anymore. Well, guess what? The only way for me not to be or to
Speaker:do something anymore is to get rid of it. So I have to understand it. I have to be willing to go in
Speaker:and ask myself, why did I compromise in the first place? What is it about me? You know, I discovered
Speaker:that I had lower self-esteem than I needed to have. And so often, I would overcompensate. I would
Speaker:compromise. I would, you know, not be sure of myself. And so I would go along with what maybe
Speaker:others are saying is better, or what was more popular, or what had been done before. But once I
Speaker:went in to really excavate what was inside of me, what's missing, or what was put in me, what was I
Speaker:told about myself, you know, what was I believing about myself that maybe isn't true, or at least I
Speaker:need to explore and get rid of. But that allows me, excavating allows us to come out more authentically
Speaker:and say, this is who I am. You know, I've gotten rid of all of this other stuff,
Speaker:where I've taken a look at all of this other stuff and uncovered what caused me to betray
Speaker:myself or what caused me to not fully live as myself. And now that I have gotten rid of that,
Speaker:I'm ready to live. I want to live now as myself, authentically as myself. And it's not a perfect
Speaker:science. But it certainly is better than trying to gloss over, go around, work around, and pretend
Speaker:that something is not there. I tell a story in the book that I won't totally get away, but it was
Speaker:from my childhood, where I realized that it was the first experience where I felt insignificant.
Speaker:My parents didn't mean to, it was something that took place between my siblings and I.
Speaker:But it was the first time I was told, without being told directly, you're not as significant.
Speaker:And that carried with me. And I could associate that with so many other experiences after that.
Speaker:And I never thought about it. I was in my subconscious.
Speaker:So that's why excavation, to me, is extremely important.
Speaker:But it's an indication that it's a lot more work than other self-help or coaching individuals,
Speaker:even mentors might tell you. They might say, you need to just eliminate bind spots. You'd find the
Speaker:barriers and overcome them. But there are times where excavation is more along the, it indicates
Speaker:the amount of work that needs to be done to do those things. Very fascinating. And then the final
Speaker:phrase, to reboot mindsets for better joy and success. That's what we all want, whether we can
Speaker:all find a way to get there or not. But a reboot of mindset you address, and I have that as a
Speaker:separate note later on on down the website, where it talks about awareness, engagement,
Speaker:and practice. I believe that ties into the reboot mindsets for better joy and success.
Speaker:Can you go a little deeper into that? So what happens if we don't reboot? We find ourselves
Speaker:falling back into old patterns, old thoughts, old behaviors. And so I love the word reboot because
Speaker:it is a restart. I get to start clean. And I tell people all the time, this is who you know,
Speaker:me to be today. Tomorrow I might wake up completely new person, because I might have a new insight.
Speaker:I might have a new inspiration. And we have to be willing to reboot time and again, because
Speaker:that's what life is meant to be. I mean, to me, that's where the well of joy is.
Speaker:When you're willing to start all over again, when you're willing to erase what has been, had been,
Speaker:you know, the past is full of things that we can regret, that we can be ashamed of, that we can
Speaker:be unsure about. But when we reboot, we wipe the slate clean. I don't want to think about that
Speaker:anymore. Thinking about that is only going to impact my tomorrow. And I don't want to do that.
Speaker:So I encourage people to reboot. Don't just fix it. Don't just excavate, but reboot,
Speaker:let it be gone. It's done. And it is a conscious decision. I don't want to think about that anymore.
Speaker:So I'm going to take the effective action to make that a reality. It's difficult to do though,
Speaker:is it? It is. It can be. I'll say that it can be. But once, you know, I decide that Melita,
Speaker:the old, doesn't exist anymore. You can look at her past all you want. But it has very little to
Speaker:do with who I am today. I mean, the most that it has to do with who I am today are the lessons that
Speaker:I learned. And I value those and I value the Melita that I was. But my hope, my contentment,
Speaker:my joy is in who I am today. And the people that I am around, I simply ask, don't hold me to who
Speaker:you thought I was or who you knew me to be. Hold me as I am as you're seeing me right now,
Speaker:as you see me today. Because if I'm living, I am living anew every day.
Speaker:I'm going to go back to excavate a little bit because you alluded to an incident in
Speaker:your childhood. I'm not asking you to expand on that. From that point of view, I want to take
Speaker:the opposite point of view. How do we, I mean, my kids are grown. So for the younger parents,
Speaker:my listening audience might have children or will soon have children. What advice can you give
Speaker:to avoid that misdirection for children? The story you shared was certainly not meant
Speaker:to make you feel insignificant. And I've done that myself with my own children, of course.
Speaker:A phrase that comes out, something off the top of your head that you find out years later,
Speaker:really devastated or really had an impact that was unintended.
Speaker:So from the other side of things, what should we be looking for as a family leader to avoid
Speaker:doing those things to or with our children, depending on how you want to say it?
Speaker:So it's very interesting that you ask that question. My children are grown as well,
Speaker:and I was on the phone with my oldest son who has a two-year-old, soon to be three,
Speaker:and she's a handful. And so we were talking about her, and he was expressing his concern,
Speaker:my parenting her right. And I told him that the best thing that he can do for her
Speaker:is to really be present. And it sounds, that doesn't sound very concrete,
Speaker:but what I'm saying to him and what I said to him is, when she's speaking to you,
Speaker:stop and really listen and be present. That seems like, I'm sorry to interrupt you,
Speaker:it seems like such a small thing, but that is so important. Just stop. Just stop. And today,
Speaker:it's really hard. We have our phones in our hands, and they're just little ones. They don't
Speaker:understand, but when you stop and you look into their eyes and you really listen and you connect,
Speaker:and it can only, it can take just 30 seconds, 60 seconds, but it means the world to them.
Speaker:And so I would encourage everyone, even for us as adults, adult to adult,
Speaker:partner to partner, if we can just stop and really listen and be present,
Speaker:and just let the other person know you matter to me. I hear you. I see you. I understand.
Speaker:Okay, you really want this doll right now. Let me stop and understand why. You want me to
Speaker:play pretend right now. Let me pause for a minute. And it's making the decision that I am going to
Speaker:try and be as present as I can, as often as I can. It's not a perfect science again,
Speaker:but trying as much as we can to be present in this fast-paced, crazy world we're in right now
Speaker:that's grabbing our attention every minute it can get when the priority really is with the people
Speaker:that we share our most intimate moments with. Wow. Thank you for that. That's very good.
Speaker:We've covered so much. I found it interesting you were talking earlier about living in uncomfortable
Speaker:existence, but we also know from books we've read and personal development that change doesn't come
Speaker:while you're in your comfort zone. So there's almost a dichotomy here of people see their
Speaker:comfort zone as living in uncomfortable life. They'll want to make a change because they don't
Speaker:want to be uncomfortable, but they're uncomfortable day to day in who they are. You address that
Speaker:within your work. I can see that just on the initial webpage with things like the awareness,
Speaker:engagement, practice, approach to mindfulness. I'd be interested in hearing just a further
Speaker:expansion on that. How do you overcome the inertia of living an uncomfortable life by
Speaker:becoming more uncomfortable and in the balance, which I know the answer to this I think I do,
Speaker:which one is worse? Which one presents more discomfort? I have become an expert at that.
Speaker:I convinced myself that the discomfort I was living in was not only something that I needed
Speaker:to do, but I had to do long after I did not have to do it. Unfortunately for me, I stayed there
Speaker:until my situation became a crisis. I would encourage everyone listening to begin to make
Speaker:changes, small changes as you're listening to the inner voice, as you're listening to your
Speaker:intuition, your gut about things that feel right and the things that don't until the things that
Speaker:don't feel right create a problem because eventually you run into a collision. There's the collision
Speaker:of what's inside and the collision of what's happening outside. If it's no more than being
Speaker:angry with your partner or being angry with your boss, discontent in your job, it just continues
Speaker:to grow. What I encourage individuals to do is not to ignore it. You don't have to make a change
Speaker:overnight, but ignoring it can create a crisis that can create pain, that can create suffering.
Speaker:What you want to do is to avoid the suffering or avoid the turbulence or avoid the tsunami
Speaker:that can come because you did not follow what was really inside. The thing that maybe even sometimes
Speaker:it's saying something that you're uncomfortable saying. It could be to your boss, to your partner,
Speaker:coworker, anyone, but you avoid saying it. The situation grows into a problem and the problem
Speaker:grows into a crisis. The crisis grows into turbulence when in fact if we sometimes address
Speaker:the smaller things as they're happening, we can avoid the bigger things that we don't want to happen.
Speaker:That's kind of living in the staying in your comfort zone when you're uncomfortable.
Speaker:It's an internal butterfly effect, almost, for the way you say it. I never really heard it
Speaker:implemented that way, but you have a small thing, a recurring instance of, as you say,
Speaker:just being frustrated at work or with a partner and by just ignoring that, repressing it,
Speaker:suppressing it, whatever the case might be, it becomes a return on investment that's very,
Speaker:very bad and momentous. The magnitude of it is so much greater than the initial cause.
Speaker:So I have a small, really small example. It's funny that everyone has a way of doing dishes,
Speaker:right? We have our own system or whatever. So my husband will stack dishes up and he likes to do
Speaker:them in the morning. I'm a person, I like dishes done right away, but even if they're not done,
Speaker:I like to soak them because I want to make sure there's nothing that's going to stick to the
Speaker:dishes that maybe won't come off in the dishwasher. So we have this discussion yesterday because he
Speaker:continues to stack the dishes up and I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm like, why do you
Speaker:continue to do this? Can you just at least soak the dishes and then get to them in the morning?
Speaker:But once upon a time, and that's a small example, once upon a time, I think I would not have said
Speaker:anything and it would just have continued to annoy me. And so not only would the dishes annoy me,
Speaker:but the other little thing that he does would annoy me on top of the dishes, which would
Speaker:annoy on top of the other thing. And guess what would happen? We'd have an unnecessary argument
Speaker:about something that was not even important because I allowed some things to build up inside
Speaker:that didn't need to build up. And would you say the ability to recognize that?
Speaker:To me, it all seems to come around to just being present. Again, that small still voice,
Speaker:even if it's about a negative thing, it's still taking the time. You want to give those 30 seconds
Speaker:to your child when they need it, but you also need to give those 30 seconds to yourself to
Speaker:identify those things as they happen. That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. And
Speaker:we talk in the book about observation, how important it is to look at yourself and observe
Speaker:yourself, not just the people around you, but it's taking a look and the analogy that Brad uses
Speaker:is watching yourself on a roller coaster. If you hate roller coasters and you watch yourself
Speaker:going up the hill and you're anxious and you're afraid and then you just start screaming and
Speaker:you're on the ground watching yourself saying, why are you screaming and anxious? The ride's
Speaker:going to be over in about 60 seconds. This is unnecessary, but being present and observing,
Speaker:absolutely. Wow. I like that. I like that.
Speaker:I like that. Expand for me a little bit. You may have covered it and I missed it,
Speaker:but you use the phrase intimate transparency as opposed to maybe, is that a further extension
Speaker:of day-to-day transparent? Is it something that would apply maybe between me and my wife and
Speaker:not between me and a business partner? Is there more to it than that? Yes. So when we talk about
Speaker:authenticity and transparency, often individuals feel like, well, I don't want to share that much.
Speaker:Well, there are some things that are honored as partner-to-partner husband and wife
Speaker:inside your household. That's what makes you a unit because you share things on a level that
Speaker:really should not be shared with others. You help each other, you're growing together,
Speaker:you're nurturing each other on a much more intimate level, but that does not mean that
Speaker:there isn't still a need for you to be transparent and authentic in the world. And I think what
Speaker:happens is people often shut it off. You're either transparent at home, but I can't afford to do that
Speaker:in the outside world. And what we encourage individuals to do is to find that zone of transparency
Speaker:that allows your authenticity to carry from your home into the external. It doesn't mean
Speaker:that everything gets transferred. I don't need to go to my colleagues and tell them everything
Speaker:that happens between Brad and me, but I do need to be authentically Melita whenever I am in their
Speaker:presence. And I think the way that the world has gotten us is almost as a shut-off. I have a right
Speaker:not to really fully be myself here because that's the external world. Well, no, absolutely you
Speaker:should be Russell in the external world. If you're not, we're going to miss you. We won't get to know
Speaker:you. We won't understand you. We won't get to see your beauty. We won't know everything that's
Speaker:authentically you. And so our goal through inbound leadership is to help leaders understand
Speaker:that the more authentic you are, the more of an individual that you are, the more you'll connect
Speaker:with people, the more you can do for your community, the more you can do for the world. So it's
Speaker:extremely important, in my opinion, that we find that middle piece that's missing. It just seems
Speaker:to be missing to me in society and it's become almost a norm, so to speak. It's a norm for me
Speaker:not to really know who you are because this is our work interaction that's different.
Speaker:And I don't believe in that.
Speaker:It's almost like the difference what we present on social media versus what we really are.
Speaker:That I have my work personality. I have my social media personality. I have my at home
Speaker:personality. And those all need to be more authentic. Yes, very good, very good.
Speaker:If a leader looking to work with you or have you work with them to develop them,
Speaker:you have the assessment and you closely evaluate possible clients before you work with them,
Speaker:it seems from what you have on your website. If someone wants to work with you, what would
Speaker:they expect? Are these individual workshops? Do you do group meetings? Do you have on-site
Speaker:things? Is it all remote, just business-wise? How does your coaching and mentorship go?
Speaker:Thank you for asking that. So there are three primary areas that we focus on. One, we're launching a
Speaker:series of retreats, off-site retreats in 2026. Those will be announced, but we're taking a
Speaker:handful of CEOs in an immersive kind of environment and taking them through some experiences
Speaker:that we are hoping will impact their ability to be more vulnerable, more authentic,
Speaker:and more self-aware because that's what's critical. So that's one area. The other is that we do offer
Speaker:workshops for teams. So we go into organizations and we help teams learn how to communicate and be
Speaker:more authentic and collaborative and self-aware. Because what happens is we spend a lot of time
Speaker:with the people we work with. But again, just as we were just discussing, we don't always know
Speaker:each other. We don't really understand that Sue is really an introvert, but she's this fun-loving
Speaker:person who really loves to cook. She's a foodie, whatever. But it's not just knowing other people's
Speaker:interests. It's really understanding who they are inside, what makes them happy, what makes them
Speaker:joyful, what annoys them, and then helping these teams come together to work better together,
Speaker:understanding what the goals are. So we do those workshops and we do some one-on-one coaching.
Speaker:That again really comes down to working with individuals who want to go deep within to
Speaker:excavate, is what I'll say, excavate what's inside, and really willing almost to
Speaker:face whether or not they are in the right seat. I mean, that's where you really start.
Speaker:Is this a good seat for me? Sure, I want these things. This is what I want. This is what I aspire
Speaker:to. But is this seat really making me happy? Because there are three things that we define this
Speaker:success. It is wealth, health, and joy. And what we do, though, is we break it down and ask people
Speaker:to please reverse that. It's really joy, health, and wealth. If you don't have joy, you don't have
Speaker:success. If you don't have joy and health, your success is compromised, and wealth is icing on
Speaker:the cake. Because if you have joy and you have health, you've already hit the mark. So that's
Speaker:really what we focus on. The teen approach sounds fantastic. Where have you found all this? You'd
Speaker:talk like a professional counselor that's been through the work and has done all the academia
Speaker:and the research. But if you worked as a business person for 20 years, and now you've developed
Speaker:this, are these all lessons that you've developed on your own? Have you had schooling?
Speaker:It's a great question. Brad and I laugh about this because we call it the school of life.
Speaker:Literally, I'm sure I've taken Harvard executive courses. I've done all of that,
Speaker:but nothing compares to living through it. Brad and I have dedicated the last seven years of our
Speaker:lives to really honing in on what has been really important, what are the lessons we've really learned.
Speaker:And what we have to offer the world is to open ourselves up and to be very transparent. We're
Speaker:very transparent in the book about our failures, our successes, the things that are still open
Speaker:that we have not resolved. And I believe that if more of us do that in life, no offense to academia,
Speaker:but a lot of it becomes unnecessary. Once we begin to share our life stories without trying to box
Speaker:them or put a ribbon on them and make them pretty or make them palatable to other people,
Speaker:then we can then learn from one another. It's how life started. It's how we got here. There were no
Speaker:universities and institutions once upon a time. There was the lesson of life and passing on those
Speaker:lessons. So we have done the traditional route, but we learned a lot more on our non-traditional path.
Speaker:I'm very impressed. I'm really looking forward to learning more about the organization and the
Speaker:approach. We have just a few minutes left, and I have two questions left, and I'm going to present
Speaker:them in reverse order. So I'm going to have you maybe just an earwig to think about the final
Speaker:question, which is, what have I not asked that I should have asked? Maybe a last piece of information,
Speaker:a last piece of motivation that you can give our listeners as a closing word. But before that,
Speaker:and these can dovetail into each other if they need to, you mentioned you journaled quite a bit
Speaker:and you have journaled for some time. What other habits that we might read in Stephen Covey's book
Speaker:or other places about, you know, these are common for successful people or for self-actualized people?
Speaker:Do you have other habits? Do you meditate? Do you read? Do you avoid television? Do you pay
Speaker:attention to the news? Do you avoid the news? Just generally, what are some personal things
Speaker:that we can try to incorporate into our own lives to try and reach a level of awareness that we
Speaker:should have? Sure. So we talked earlier about excavating and rebooting. So a practice that I
Speaker:don't compromise on is every morning when I get up, I created a quiet room for myself. It's a room
Speaker:that used to be full of junk that I cleared, and it's my space to start my day because I have to
Speaker:center myself through meditation and calm to remind myself who I am, who I choose to be,
Speaker:what I choose to achieve in that one day. I can't think about the next 10 days. I can't think about
Speaker:too much yesterday, but I can center myself for the present day because I know once I leave my
Speaker:quiet room, the world is waiting for me. And I have to be rooted in myself and committed to myself
Speaker:and journal with myself about what that day means to me because every day is precious.
Speaker:And you mentioned that you have younger listeners, and that I am so happy for them
Speaker:because they might have 300 summers left. I start counting my summers, and it's like, you know what?
Speaker:I have a limited number of summers left, so every day matters to me. And so I want to spend every
Speaker:day wisely, and I just encourage every listener to do the same. And at the end of the day,
Speaker:you know, I find that I am much happier and much more content with how I spent my day.
Speaker:I know the days, I've missed a couple of days, and I tell you it's a catastrophe because I'm
Speaker:all over the place. Everyone has a piece of my mind. Everyone has a piece of my soul. But when I
Speaker:start my day centered with the knowing of who I choose to be, I am destined for a good day or
Speaker:a better day. Great. That comes up more commonly than I would expect in my interviews, that moment
Speaker:of, not more than a moment, but that time of introspection and calm and recognition.
Speaker:Let me interject before we get to our very last question. If you have a final thought,
Speaker:I wanted to mention if your son was asking about whether he was being a good parent,
Speaker:I found in my history that that's almost always an indication that that person is being a good
Speaker:parent or whatever the situation is. If someone is concerned enough to ask, am I doing this correctly,
Speaker:what can I do better? They're not perfect, but they're working on it, and they're probably doing
Speaker:a good job at that. I will definitely share that with him. Fantastic. Well, we look forward to
Speaker:the book coming out. I hope you have good success with that. If you're interested in audio book,
Speaker:we can hook you up with a great audio book narrator that I know. But we'll see. That's a
Speaker:different topic altogether. So share with us a final thought if you would, and we'll close it out
Speaker:and contemplate these things for the rest of the day. Sounds good. So thank you. This has been
Speaker:great. I've enjoyed this. The one thing that I would leave with you is mindset freedom was written
Speaker:to encourage and support individuals in finding that place of peace. Life can be very challenging,
Speaker:very demanding, especially in these times, have us kind of split and divided in so many ways.
Speaker:What we really want, most of us, is really just a sense of peace and belonging. We think often
Speaker:that that's going to come via wealth, it's going to come via certain levels of success,
Speaker:but it comes from the inside. The external can create happy moments, but happiness comes from
Speaker:the inside. That's where it's created. That's where it's interpreted. And so mindset freedom is
Speaker:really designed to help us tap into that well of happiness, that place that we can create from.
Speaker:And that's why it's called mindset freedom. When we release ourselves from these imaginary
Speaker:jails, they're imaginary mind jails that we put ourselves in, that create boxes that have us
Speaker:living lives that we're not necessarily happy with. So we're hoping that through the journey,
Speaker:taking our journey with us through the book, that others will be encouraged and supported in finding
Speaker:their own happiness and peace. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Melita Siemens, inboundleadership.com
Speaker:and the upcoming book, Mindset Freedom. Did I say all that correctly? Yes, you did. Thank you so
Speaker:much. Fantastic. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a
Speaker:pleasure. Thank you. It's been my privilege. Thank you.
