SPEAKER_01: 0:00

This is the Empowering Healthy Business Podcast, and I'm your host, Cal Wilder. Each episode, we'll dive into topics important to folks who want to run businesses that are both nicely profitable, sustainable, and scalable, and who want to achieve balance in their lives and realize their potential inside and outside of work. The show is sponsored by SmartBooks, provider of bookkeeping and accounting for businesses. Let's get started. So here at Empowering Healthy Business, we're usually all about using financial data to make business decisions, right? I've written a whole book on the financial operating system and using financial information and metrics to help manage the business. But uh there's situations where sometimes you don't have data, or sometimes it's a 50-50 call based on the data, or sometimes your gut or your experience tells you to override the data. And sometimes good decisions are based on things other than hard cold data, right? And so uh today's guest is going to explain to us when and how to use intuition to make better business decisions. So uh Nick Musica, welcome to the show. Hey Cal, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you today? Good, good, good. Thanks for having me on. Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14

And where are you joining us from? I'm joining from Sunny San Diego. Oh, nice. Nice.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22

So if um listeners checked out your resume on LinkedIn, they'd see you've done a number of things so far in your career. And uh before we dig into intuition and business decisions, maybe you could help us set the stage on some of the experiences and uh you know beliefs that brought you where you are here and and what you're doing these days.

SPEAKER_02: 1:44

Yeah, you know, I was doing um, and I still am. I'm still running an SEO agency, a digital marketing agency. Uh, and I've been uh in the digital marketing space since 2003. Uh for the last six years, I've been uh in this digital agency. Before that, I was I was a W-2. I was uh working for other folks, and um I just found myself feeling uh not like I wanted to do that anymore. Something was missing. And uh I I found a coach and this individual walked me through a Harrison assessment, it's a behavioral assessment, and and out of that assessment came a bunch of things, um, including a score on intuition. And I I I I ended up working with this with this gentleman for quite a while. Um and and he also was uh he was a coach who worked with folks on their intuition. Uh and at some point he said, Well, do you want do you want to learn what I'm doing with you so you can work with other people like that? And I and I didn't know that was an option. And so I took him up on it. And and my world started to radically change after about 2018, uh, because of agreeing to step into that space and learn about energy and learn about intuition and how it can uh show up in conversations and and more importantly, how it can show up in very practical senses, because a lot of folks hear the words intuition or energy or you know, things like that, and they they sort of chalk it up to this woo-woo thing, and it and it's anything, it's anything but that. It's super practical.

SPEAKER_01: 3:27

So you started with the Harrison assessment. Uh, I'm not familiar with that. I'm aware of you know uh disc and Meyer Spriggs and Berkey and a number of others. But what's uh what's different about the Harrison uh assessment?

SPEAKER_02: 3:40

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm pretty sure it is, and this is my perspective. I'm pretty sure it's the best assessment out there. It's a it's a gold standard with the worst marketing behind it. Like not a lot of people know it compared to a lot of the other tools. But what it does is it measures 175 behavioral characteristics and it'll ask you to stack rank your preferred behaviors and your go-to's and your least behaviors, um, the the things you avoid, uh things things you prefer not to do. And and out of that, you get this operating system of characteristics that map to you. Uh so for example, mine was I I scored a 10 in Want Stable Career. Uh this was in 2020, 2018. And a 10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_01: 4:26

10 out of 100, or yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:28

Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. So from it's it's a score from two to ten. Ten being it's your go-to, six is in the middle, it's a coin toss, you don't have any strong feelings about it. And and two is I avoid it like the plague, right? So so I scored a 10 and want stable career, which was you know, I'm always hooked into someone else's um system as an employer, as as an employee, right? And and so uh David is running me through this assessment and he's like, let's let's take a look at you know where you're ranked that your top score is a 10 and want stable career. We should talk about that. And I said, I don't I don't know what we need to talk about. You know, I I like to pay my bills, I like to do these things, it's it's it's I'm I'm okay with that. I'm only a job. And he says, Well, let's take a look at your risk score. Thinking, what is this guy not getting? It's gonna be super low. And he says, It's a 2.4. I go, right, yeah, that makes sense. He says, Well, imagine imagine if your 2.4 and risk was a three or a four, what if it was a five or a six? What if it was a seven? What opportunities would be afforded to you with a risk score that's higher than what it currently is? Because right now, and he flips back to the page, you're a 10 in stable career, and that's your only option. Oh all right, David. What else do you have in this report? So, so right, so now I I see my full operating system right in front of me, and I and I I fell in like with this assessment so much that I went and I got certified on it and I worked with my folks internally and I and I use it now with with other folks.

SPEAKER_01: 6:09

So you went from you know wanting a very stable, low-risk career to becoming a business owner and coaching people on intuition.

SPEAKER_02: 6:19

That's right. Yeah.

unknown: 6:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:21

So yeah, right. And so it really the first step for me was that awareness piece. If you're if you're not aware of your own blind spots, and how can you be because they're blind spots, um, you can't do anything about them. So the more you can have awareness, the more you can sit with something where you can sit with something, the more you can change that behavior or that preference, the more you change that behavior, that different options show up for you. Right? Because we we all look at things from our lens in the world, which is fair. And then we think, well, in order to do these things to get these results, I keep on doing these things to get these results, which is true. But what happens when the results you want to get are different than the results that you have been getting? There needs to be a shift, and and coaching, uh, a huge part of that, uh, was a huge part of it for me, right? To open my eyes to give me different perspective, which effectively opened up a new path for me.

SPEAKER_01: 7:21

So if you've been happy with the results you were getting, and you wouldn't have necessarily had a reason to change anything, but you had higher aspirations in life than you were gonna get with your current uh preferences, right?

SPEAKER_02: 7:34

That's right. You know, it was sort of a case of it was fine, and then all of a sudden it wasn't fine, right? It just at some point you go, what how I'm living, what I'm doing, just doesn't quite bring the same excitement. Something is missing, something feels absent. I don't understand what it is. And and a lot of folks, and and myself included, you know, there was some amount of spinning that was happening because you really don't you're trying to figure it out, but you simply don't have the tools to do it. Um, and and then and then you with intention, intuition, if you will, um, you you you make that wish for yourself. I really wish things were different. I want to change, I want something different out of this thing called life. And then certain things will start to show up, and then you get to you have choice points, and then you get to choose, and then you get something else that opens up, and then rinse and repeat, and rinse and repeat. And then the world looks very different than it did, you know, eight years ago.

SPEAKER_01: 9:07

So, what were some of those decisions that you had to make to um change your results? And um how hard was it to make those decisions? Because a lot of a lot of times you do these assessments and you're kind of told, yeah, you might be able to change them on the margin, but you kind of are who you are. But in your case, it sounds like you made a dramatic change.

SPEAKER_02: 9:28

Yeah, I don't I don't believe in the you are who you are. I just I don't subscribe to it. Uh I I think if you are doing something, a behavior, uh if you have a habit and it is not serving you, if there was enough pain, discomfort, um, dissatisfaction, if you're tired of being in the mud, uh, then you have enough motivation to go, all right, Cal, what do you got for me? Like I'm I'm and now I'm open to the conversation, right? And there could still be some resistance, like I I had. I was just like, 10's fine. Well, what are you talking about? 10 and stable career is perfectly fine. Well, let's unravel that a little bit. And suddenly it became not fine. So it's really, it's really about the awareness of self and understanding that where you are, you're tapped out. You just don't have the skills to move in the direction where you want to go. And that's fine. Um, that's that's a really good sense of awareness. And then the next step is well, what do you do about it? What's the outcome you're going for? And what support you need to get there? So I worked with that gentleman for a while to change my world. Uh and and and nothing happens overnight, right? It's it's a new habit that will show up, and now you're working on the muscles for that new habit. And at the same time, when you're working on the new muscles for the new habit, ideally, old habits are dying, and they will still show up, right? They'll still show up and go, This is a really comfortable thing. Do you want to step into this really comfortable thing? It's gonna make you feel good. It's not gonna be productive, but it'll make you feel good. And that and and now we get to choose again. Do we want to fall back or do we want to move forward?

SPEAKER_01: 11:08

Someone once said to me that process is like um, you know, trudging a new path through the woods instead of just following the old path, kind of creating a new path. And the old path is easier for a while, but it's not gonna not get you to any place different.

SPEAKER_02: 11:25

That's right. Yeah. And and and it could the the the first, at least for me, the first time, you know, that that tennis table career felt like a real kick in the pants. Uh because I thought I was happy, even though I I knew that I wasn't happy, right? It was it was hard to sort of have both of those things going on in my head at the same time. And then when you realize your current operating system is making you unhappy, oh shit. Well, now what? Now what? It's it's it felt a little rock bottom-y, right? And and now you have to pick yourself up and and and go on that that rougher path. Uh, and and the reality of it is the other path that you were on wasn't so smooth to begin with. We just thought it was.

SPEAKER_01: 12:11

So, what were some of the big uh changes that you had to make? And how did you go about making those?

SPEAKER_02: 12:18

Yeah, the the the game changer for me was um meditation, was having a consistent keyword, the consistent meditation. And and I was inconsistent, I would go in and out of it. You know, for weeks I was good, for weeks I was bad, uh, not consistent. Um, but the more you did it, uh the more you felt like you were in tune with what you wanted to have accomplished for yourself. So the more you can dedicate your time and energy to meditation. And I hear folks say all the time, uh, I I tried it, it doesn't work for me. Well, that's not how any of this works. That's not how that that's not that's not that's not a really great example of resilience, right? I tried it, it doesn't work. Great. How many other things did you try they don't work? A lot of things it sounds like. But if you want, if you want change, if you're motivated to do it, then give this a shot. So it may start out as one minute a day, maybe it's five minutes, maybe it's 20 minutes. Um but it was it's it's a game changer uh for me, for my operating system. You get to have some quiet time with yourself. There's there's no good decisions being made in a hurried state in front of a computer. They don't happen there, they happen in a quiet state when you're away from the computer. Uh for me, it's when I'm brushing my teeth, when I'm washing dishes, like when I'm doing something completely other than work, is when clarity shows up in meditation in quiet times, not in busy times. There's nothing, nothing, nothing good happens when we're just all spun around, right? Just doesn't work that way.

SPEAKER_01: 13:53

So you actually think about decisions while meditating, or when you're meditating, you're trying to clear the mind and focus on your breath or something.

SPEAKER_02: 14:01

Yeah, I mean, it's really like just being really open to whatever you're gonna receive, right? If you go into meditation uh and you're like, give me answer for thing, right? It may not work that way, right? But if you go in feeling open and available for whatever is the next thing, then there's a there's a good chance you're gonna get what is good for you. Instead of having this rigid amount of feeling, this rigid decision-making process where it has to look a very specific way, it has to look like this. Good luck. It doesn't work out that way for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01: 14:37

So, what was the next big milestone for you in in remodeling your life?

SPEAKER_02: 14:44

Yeah, there was I remember talking to a gentleman, this was at my last, this was at my last W-2, and um it wasn't gonna it wasn't gonna work out. So I was figuring out what I was going to do. This is before I launched Optics in. And I I was talking, he was a lovely human being, and he said, Well, what do you what do you want to do next? What are you looking to do? And I said, you know, I'm figuring that out right now. I'm not sure if I'm I'm looking for a job, I'm not sure if I'm gonna start my own business. I'm I I'm not quite sure. And he didn't mean anything by this, other than just a an honest question. He said, uh or honest comment. He said, well, when you know, give me a call. And and we hung up the phone. And I thought to myself, well, that's gonna be the last time I tell someone I don't know what I want. Because if you don't know what you want, no one's gonna give you anything. And it's not clear for yourself, no one has anything to work with. There's nothing to work with there for them or for you. It's it's it's a it's a it's a dead end. Now you can be in a place where you're you're figuring it out, that's all right. You there's other considerations, but um, at some point you gotta know what you're doing and just and just go for it. And so after that phone call, I thought, well, I have no idea how to start a business, I have no idea how to run a business, I have no idea how to grow a business, so I'm gonna go figure that out. And then uh I think it was probably four or five weeks later I was doing that.

SPEAKER_01: 16:23

So all along the way here, you were kind of making decisions based on your intuition of what you thought you wanted.

SPEAKER_02: 16:31

There were there were some things like it just didn't feel good, right? And people talk about there's a lot of throwaway phrases like I felt it in my gut, or or uh the vibe in the room, right? Those come from someplace, right? There's there's there's a feeling that's attached to something. When it's not an attachment to some when when maybe that's the wrong word in this context, there's a feeling associated with with a place, a event, a a path, right? Where it's neither an attachment to it, unhealthy good feelings, or an aversion for it, unhealthy bad feelings. It's just what it is. And so when you have two options in front of you as an example, and you're weighing them as to which is the right path to go down, there could be a certain feel that you go, you know what? I thought the other one was a little clearer, but this one just feels better to me. This one has a little something more to it. And so I I'm gonna go if if I need to make a choice today, I'm gonna go down this path and see what happens. So there's a feel to it. Residence is what some people call it.

SPEAKER_01: 17:38

Okay. And so you started the business. Is this um yeah, is this the current business or a previous business?

SPEAKER_02: 17:48

No, it's the current business. Well, yeah, it's the current business, Optics In, so digital marketing agency. Um, and so my entire business plan was, and Harvard, Harvard Business School is never going to cover this one. Was I'm gonna make it work. That was my entire business plan. And I had zero clients four weeks before I started the company. And magically, uh, when I started the company, I was walking into 60-hour work weeks, all billable time. And I really I couldn't tell you, I really don't understand how it all came together so well. Um, but for me, starting a business and having you know three or four months of 60-hour work weeks was a pretty good start. It worked out.

SPEAKER_01: 18:32

Yep. Great. That was like what six or six plus years ago.

SPEAKER_02: 18:37

That was that was six years ago this month, yeah. Great, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:41

Congratulations, you made it work.

SPEAKER_02: 18:43

Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:45

So, how do you how do you go about making uh decisions now that you've got a business and you know financial statements and revenue and expenses and profit and balance sheet and all that to consider as well?

SPEAKER_02: 18:56

Yeah, so I mean all those things are still at play, right? You you don't you don't baby in bathwater the things that work, however, there is there is a piece to well, what about this feeling of intuition? How's how does it show up? What does it look like? Right, and and this may sound a little crazy for folks, but also some folks out there go, oh my goodness, I've had that experience, right? And and here here's the really easy one, Cal. Have you ever had the experience where you thought someone was gonna give you a call or that you thought they're gonna text you, and then all of a sudden they call you or they text you? Like we've all had it a something like that. And we go, oh my god, that's so weird. It's not weird, it's not what it is. If you think it's weird, there's nothing to work with there. But if you think of it as, oh, there's something showing up, there's something that there's more to this ordinary life, and this is the signal of it. That's that's sort of the most simplest uh example of intuition I can give you, right? So then how does that type of connection show up in business? For me, one of the easy examples is I was walking someone through an SOW on Zoom, conversation like this, but the cameras are off. So I can't see body language, can't see facial expressions, and I'm going through the aspects of the SOW. We're gonna take a look at A, we're gonna take a look at B, we're gonna take a look at C. And that's how we're gonna approach this work. And as I'm talking about a technical aspect of their website, A, in this case, I can I can feel the person on the other end of the line recede from the conversation. And so I just made a note to self. I'm gonna come back, make sure that we covered everything because there's something going on there. I don't I don't know what it is, but they they took themselves out of the conversation a little bit. They detached. So I cover um the other aspects of the SOW, and then I I came back to the first one and said, I just I just want to make sure that we covered all the questions and any concerns around the technical aspect of this work. And then I dropped it. And what came back was, well, we don't have any full-time developers, so the recommendations that you give us, we may not be able to implement them. Oh, that was a roadblock, right? That's a roadblock for these guys. And I felt that disengagement when it showed up. So I had the chance to come back, clarify what that work would look like, offer support in these cases, and minimally hash out the conversation to make sure that we were aligned so that we can sign this SOW, so we can get the work implemented so that they get can get a good result. So that that's that's one way that it showed up for me in my day-to-day.

SPEAKER_01: 21:37

Some might say that's active listening skill, not like a telepathic connection, right? I'm not sure, and I'm not saying you're saying it's telepathic connection, but something like you're saying you just kind of felt it, um, maybe a little bit more than just active listening.

SPEAKER_02: 21:53

That's right. Yeah. And so I would say is one, that's not necessarily telepathic connection. Also, that is a thing. If if folks haven't heard of the telepathy tape telepathy tapes, please go listen to it. Listen to episode one, you'll be blown away. Uh, number two, active listening um doesn't have a feel to it unless you are aware of that feel, right? So there's uh as I've gone through this work and have worked with people on the Harrison, I've worked with folks um in a coaching capacity, my interest in coaching has grown. And I started a program uh a month or two ago, and it's called presence-based coaching. And there's a big aspect of somatics in it, which is essentially listening to the body. Where do you where do you where do you where does this show up in the body? We're such a head-oriented culture that we really don't have a feel for the body. Right? I mean, if someone was having a panic attack, um, you'd say, what's going on? And they would probably try to verbalize it, but they're probably not feeling their skin crawling, their hands shaking, they're they're they're hands getting sweaty, right? Like, where do you feel that in the body? Or how are you feeling? Those are two very separate questions. Two very different answers, they're all about the same thing, but it exists in both places. So, in this in the container of this presence-based coaching, there's a big aspect around the body and this feeling that we have. And what it does is it helps you embody the feelings you're having, get in tune with the feelings you're having, and make decisions from a whole place versus a fragmented place, which in my perspective is a whole lot of that intuition, it's a whole lot of that feel that we're just talking about. So there's a complete value to active listening, but this is not the same as that.

SPEAKER_01: 23:44

Okay. And so I I'd use an analogy, I guess. Um a lot of database decisions are based on the average outcome when you make a decision with this kind of data in front of you. But it may not be the best decision in an individual case, right? And I think you're saying if you can make a more fully informed decision by combining multiple elements beyond just data, the decision will be better.

SPEAKER_02: 24:14

100%. Yeah. So if if your if your goal is, what was the phrase you used? It was it was lovely. Um average, average was it average output?

SPEAKER_01: 24:24

If if um yeah, what I can't remember what I said, but but um database decisions tend to be kind of based on with this set of data in front of you or the structure of data in front of you, if you make this kind of decision, this will be your average outcome, but it may not be the best outcome or the best decision individual case.

SPEAKER_02: 24:44

That's right. Yeah, and so I would, I mean, I I feel I feel a little pukey when I hear average outcome. Like, oh holy shit, how many average outcomes do we need out there? We have so many, so many, and they're redundant and they're boring, and they're vanilla, and we take them because those are our only options, and then someone comes along and breaks that mold, and they go, I have a great idea, I have a feeling that this is going to be great, and they don't use all the data, they use something else. Now, data may may be part of it. Again, not not encouraging baby and bathwater, but if you're afraid to use your intuition and you're only using data, worst case scenario, and this is this is one of the pieces in the in the in the Harrison, worst case scenario, your analyzes risk is off the charts, super high. I'm gonna look at that data all day long, right? So we're in an accounting services business, and that's how accountants tend to think. Right. Yeah, and so numbers are one thing, but if your analyzes pitfalls is super high and your risk score is super low, you're always gonna be in very, very, very cautious. Right? But let's take a look at look at the data one more time. Let's take a look at it one more time. But just one more time. Are you ever gonna move forward? No, every moving forward is scary. Take a look at the risk score, right? I was I was in the same boat, I get it. But nothing happens there. Nothing happens. So in the case of this, it's called a paradox. You know, it's chocolate and peanut butter, two things that seemingly don't go together, but when you put them together, it's wonderful, right? So when you have high analysis pitfalls and a high risk, a seven and seven, let's say, you can operate in both those places. You can operate with taking being risky, but not foolishly, because your analysis pitfalls is high. Now, if you're gonna average high in risk and low in analysis pitfalls, you're just gonna be burning through bad ideas all day long. There's no analysis, right? So for C levels, when I'm working with C levels, I'm looking for a high risk and I'm looking for a high analysis pitfalls. Because without those, nothing's getting done.

SPEAKER_01: 27:10

I'm trying to think of a good example here in kind of the business world where you're kind of facing a typical decision. And if 100 people made this decision, this would be the outcome, you know, the majority of the time. Um, so let's say it's like maybe you got a salesperson who's struggling, um and they're not hitting their metrics, not closing enough business, not making enough calls, not presenting enough uh proposals. And if you were to assess this decision 100 times, you're and the decision was to fire this individual, that may be the best outcome, you know, the majority of the time. But with this individual sales rep that you have, uh it might not be the best decision because with a different approach, a little bit of coaching, a different focus, slightly tweaked to his job description, he could be wildly successful.

SPEAKER_02: 28:05

Yeah, that's right. So either this person got into the organization because we don't have a good onboarding process, hiring process, right? We don't have good onboarding to train them, or they came from another department, in which case bad onboarding again, or they were in the role and they were producing to some reasonable level and and now they're not, right? These could be some of the situations that got us to this point. And so if we determine that there's energy worth putting into this individual in this role, then I'd argue more times we should think about it that way. Because all the other things should be true. We should have good hiring practices, we should have good onboarding practices, but not that if not, then it's not the individual's fault. It's it's all the things that led up to that. And this individual, there's 10 of them, and they are still not the problems. So the process is the problem, right? But let's go back to the individual. If we're looking at this harrison would be super helpful, so the Harrison for a salesperson, you take a look at their influence score. So they're if if they're a if they're a two, they're not necessarily looking to influence the outcome of this conversation, right? Uh and there's other factors in there where you can see where they need to be coached to get the results we're going for. Maybe they would score and you can map someone in the Harrison to specific jobs. Maybe they don't score well compared to a salesperson. Maybe that's just not what they do. Maybe they are in the wrong role. Or is there a different option for them in the company? I don't know. But mentally understanding where they are, where you can where you can support them would be a good place to go. Because if you're just gonna burn through talent, you're burning your company down. That's not a good way to operate. There's different things at play if that's what's happening.

unknown: 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 30:00

So I'm uh I'm kind of classically educated, and you know, chemists, my degrees in biology and chemistry, I was taught, you know, there's uh, you know, there's chemicals that have results, and you can diagnose something with blood tests, and then you give them a pharmaceutical drug and it's a heal them or something, or you give them a vaccine and they don't get sick. And, you know, that's kind of the approach I was educated in when I was in school. Um but as I've gotten older, I think there's a lot more to the world than that. And so I'm open to different uh I don't even know how to describe them. I I hesitate to use the word, you know, alternative because you know they could be mainstream and we just aren't aware of it. I think like thousands of years ago, humans were so in touch with their environment and their bodies and the food they ate. Um and they, you know, and they couldn't tell you why they felt that way, but like you couldn't talk to your dog and ask them why they know how to why they should eat certain plants and avoid other plants. They just kind of know some way. Um and it's more than just their DNA, there's other things in play there. Um, and so uh I'm very curious to um understand some of these techniques that you've used to try to tap into kind of the more fully informed decision-making process.

SPEAKER_02: 31:21

Yeah, I mean it's it's it's a fascinating thing. So I'm working with a CFO now, and and this individual showed up, and uh the conversation was I don't even know why I'm here. I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, and they said, You just got to go talk to Nick. And so here I am. Okay, what's going on? Um, and and this individual has been in their role for a very long time, very high functioning uh superstar. People go to this person for the answers, and their feeling right now is I'm not quite sure if this is for me. I'm not quite sure if this is what I want to be working on. And very similar to what you were saying, Cal, I have this feeling that there's just more. And I feel like I'm in the right place talking to you, Nick. And so, what do you have to offer? Well, here's what I work with people on. Here's how it could show up, here's what they can do with it. That sounds cool. All right, would you want you wanna do you want to work with me for for three months? Let's give it a shot, see how it works. And so we're now working. Um, we'll we're gonna work together for another uh another 12 weeks. Uh we're ending our second 12 weeks. Uh but here's here's the fun part of it all is in the beginning there wasn't a whole lot of daily experiences around intuition. We went and and so we start with concepts and we start with ideas and we start with models. It's it's very mechanical. And it's very mechanical. And then all of a sudden the academics of it all start to they're they're important, but they start to become less important because now it's about the experiences that we have and how that shows up. I mean, it sounds impossible. It sounds impossible to say, Cal, you're gonna stand over this little this little white plate, someone's gonna throw a sphere at you at almost a hundred miles an hour, and you're gonna hit it over that wall. That sounds insane. People do it all the time, right? And then if I were to say, here's how you do it, Cal. You step into the batter box, uh, you're right-handed, we'll make the assumption, you step in with your left foot for first, and then your right foot, and then your elbow comes up, and you hold the bat like this, and you look at the picture, and you keep your eye on that picture, you keep your eye on that ball. You mean the ball that's going 100 miles an hour? That's the ball. That sounds impossible. It may be, right? And then when you when it comes in this zone, I want you to swing and hit it. That sounds crazy, but it happens, and that's how people get coached, more or less, into hitting a baseball. Now, when we talk about intuition, it also sounds sort of crazy. You can feel when someone else enters the room, you can. You can. I've seen it, I've seen groups of people do it. So you can pick up on when someone comes into the room, you can pick up on their emotions, you can pick up on what they're trying to do, you can pick up when the presentation doesn't match what they're all about. That sounds like a really nifty skill to have, right? Because when someone's trying to sell you some garbage, but they but they're doing the best they can, and you just don't have a feel for that, but you don't know what your other options are, and saying no doesn't feel good, you're likely to say yes to something that's not a good good idea. And now you're in it. So imagine that's someone you hired. Bad situation, right? So, how do we use this intuition piece to help guide our feelings, help guide our decision making? Because that person could have could have come to you with the best resume in the whole Y world. But if it's not a match for you, it's not a match. And why does it really matter? You can find out why, you can hire them and work with them for the next six months. You'll know very clearly why they're not a match. But maybe you can just avoid it. Right? So there's techniques, like I said, very mechanical, but then you start to have experiences in the world. You start to show up in meetings, you start to feel people's intentions. There's different information that shows up. And now we're playing with what do we do with it, how do we fine-tune it, how do we develop those senses.

SPEAKER_01: 35:57

So there are particular if somebody somebody could hire you and you could work with them for a while and try to train them, right? Or if they wanted to do it themselves, you know, they're do-it-themself options too.

SPEAKER_02: 36:09

Uh, I mean you could. There's there's buttons.

SPEAKER_01: 36:11

Are they gonna be effective?

SPEAKER_02: 36:12

They're gonna be effective or like you know, I I I can't, I can I couldn't tell you, I just don't know. Um, you know, I've I've worked with people. I I think we're we're in a place culturally where where people are sort of underrated these days, and and we over-index for quick, easy, and garbage. And people don't want to put in the work to make the changes. They they want to go, uh, they want to they want to buy a get rich scheme um program off of Facebook or their email or or go to Chat GPT and and get easy answers. And I'm not saying those things are all bad at all, they're all helpful. But when it's over-indexed, when it's too much, you're relying on things that just it's it can't deliver what we're talking about here. It can't. So, how how do you work with someone? How do you understand how people show up if you're not working with people? You need to work with people. It's part of it. Or are you intentionally avoiding people? That's a different conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 37:15

And if you're not working with somebody, you're not gonna be aware of your blind spots, I guess. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 37:22

And you're making your own decisions, right? I mean, I I in my in my career, I've been very, very lucky to work with some of the best people in the industry. Uh, whatever that industry was, right? It was SEO, it was information architecture, um, it was writing for the web. It was I I worked with a lot of great people, and now I'm I'm working with folks on intuition, uh, I'm working with folks on coaching. Um, and and it makes a world of difference versus I'll go figure it out, I'll go watch some videos on YouTube. Good luck. You you may be better than what you are today, but if if you want going back to your word of average decision making, if you want to have an average outcome, use average inputs. Go get that average outcome. And who cares? Who cares? The the the road is paved with average out there, or you can decide to do something different.

SPEAKER_01: 38:23

So I have a few more questions for you, but um, you know, if folks are intrigued and want to get in touch with you to explore coaching, how do they do that?

SPEAKER_02: 38:32

You can go to nickmusica.com, uh fill out a form there, um, get a discovery call going, we'll talk about what you're looking to do, what's interesting for you. Intuition is one piece, but there's leadership coaching, and also you know, intuition is always part of it because for reasons. But if we're talking about uh specifically leadership or executive coaching that has a different framework, um, more somatics um angle to it than class, then we'll say intuition. It's very similar, but different, different outcomes. Um and for folks who are looking to step forward and um look looking front to get in front of people and tell their stories, that's another service that I offer is uh story coaching.

SPEAKER_01: 39:17

Cool. And those are very different kinds of coaching than anything I've been exposed to because I've had some coaches um and their approach has been much more like, what are your it's mostly business coaching, but what are your what are your business goals? What could get in the way of achieving those goals? And what do you need to do to prevent those things from getting in the way and like accountability and metrics and go execute, but nothing about you know feeling your way through good decisions.

SPEAKER_02: 39:49

Yeah, and everything you talked about there, Cal is part of it for sure. Yeah, and the goal of coaching is to change perspective, it's to get someone on the other side to change the perspective, develop capacities so that they're not dependent on you, so that they are more functional in six months from now. Right. So as we bubble up all those things in the situation, what can go wrong, what's at play, what are we looking to accomplish, and then what do we need to do about it? Right? That's all happening. But the bigger goal of coaching is so that you can self-generate this frame of reference as an observer, as a self-observer, you can see your behaviors, you can see your habits, you have a chance to change them, and now you're off on a different path, right? Just like just like what happened to me was but ten and stable career, I didn't have any awareness of it at first. And now I do. And so now I'm looking at the things that drove ten and stable career, and I have a different perspective. I can make different decisions, there's different choice points that are available for me. But if you're blind to it, you're um you're running on the hamster wheel.

SPEAKER_01: 41:13

So, what do you like to do for fun when you're not working or coaching?

SPEAKER_02: 41:19

Uh I I so being in San Diego, I live about um, I don't know, 20 minutes away from the beach, something like that, 10 minutes away. And I like to eat in the water, I like to do some surfing, spend some time with the Pacific, the dolphins.

unknown: 41:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:35

That's nice. I was in San Diego once. I'm in the Boston area, so it's other side of the country, literally for me.

SPEAKER_02: 41:41

Yeah, I've been. It's it's nice.

SPEAKER_01: 41:43

But uh I enjoyed it. I took a nice I was that was back in the days I was doing triathlon. I took a nice long run from the hotel. Out, I don't know, back. It was like 12 miles. It was it was nice all along the water. It's really nice.

SPEAKER_02: 41:56

Yeah, this this place, there's there's so many triathletes here. I mean, this is the people who are older are still kicking butt running around biking. I mean, you should Saturday, Sunday mornings, there's like there's like a gang of bicycle bicyclists, and they all have white hair. It's crazy. Like they are just cooking down the down the highway. Not the highway, but the you know, the the busy streets here.

SPEAKER_01: 42:21

Yeah, yeah. Cool. Um, is there anything else you want to share around um kind of the approach you take when you're coaching clients or the particular tools you use? I know you're big on the Harrison um assessment. Um, and I'm sure you've kind of developed a lot of your own material over the years, but um, are there any any other particular tools you wanted to highlight?

SPEAKER_02: 42:44

You know, I'd say this because we're talking about intuition, right? A lot of folks think it's not for me, or just because I haven't had any experiences that it's it's it's not gonna happen for them. And that is the furthest thing from the truth. It's the furthest thing. Typically, what happens is we have a strange experience, and then we talk about it, and then other people validate that it was strange because they didn't have the same experience, and then we start to discount them, right? And then we simply don't experience them anymore. We shut them off, and at some point they may or may not come back. At some point, you may go, I know there's something more, right? And it's something to your point, it's something that we've had, right? How how come the animals know how to do things and we don't? Why is that? I thought we were the smartest thing on the planet, apparently no, apparently not. Something's missing.

SPEAKER_01: 43:39

Yeah, why are we so sick and stressed out if if we're so good?

SPEAKER_02: 43:43

Right, right. So there is a big piece of you know, really like this coming home piece to accepting the the full self into all this. How many people have you met that make a lot, a lot of money, have thriving businesses, and are just unhappy? That's busted up. That's busted up.

SPEAKER_00: 44:09

I have a great idea.

SPEAKER_02: 44:11

Right? So I have a great idea. Um, there's a market, every other player in the market is subpar. I have funding, I have capital, I have resources, I'm gonna kill this. Data. Right? How do you feel when you do that? Miserable. Maybe we should talk about that. Right? But there's different ways to operate, there's different ways to be, and to just base all decisions on data and zero on feelings, that's we we know what that outcome looks like. But to have a balance, right? To to go into work that jazzes you up, to go into work that's exciting for you, go into work that you look forward to the next day, and you're not burnt out on Monday because you worked all weekend on something that was mundane and didn't light you up. There's two paths. And and here's the fun part of all this you get to choose. It is a choice. It's a choice. So for folks out there going, uh, I wish things were a little bit different, or this intuition thing is interesting, but I'm not quite sure. Take take a chance. I had no idea when I stepped into it. I had no clue. It's been very, very helpful, it's been very, very satisfying.

SPEAKER_01: 45:42

How do you bring this, or to what extent do you bring this into your work running optics in the marketing agency?

SPEAKER_02: 45:51

Um from a services perspective, not so much. From how I work with people perspective, a lot, right? Like, what are we looking for? What are we looking to do? Make sure we're in alignment, like make sure we have that feel going on. I mean, I'm I'm doing some monitoring there. I'm tracking, but um the services are not explicit there. The coaching services are not optics in. That's that's something I put under my own umbrella. Uh because it's it's less of the services really SEO. It's the links, it's the copy, it's the recommendations, right? And I'm not saying I'm not part of that. I certainly am part of all that. However, when I'm one in when I'm sitting in front of someone one-on-one, I I'm sort of the product in terms of that service offer, right? So it made sense for me to break it out.

SPEAKER_01: 46:40

Yeah. And so folks feel like they might benefit from working with you on the marketing firm and side of things because you know, they feel like they might get a better connection with you and understanding of what they're trying to accomplish and what kind of story they should want to be telling and all that. What's the best way for them to reach to you on the on the marketing services side?

SPEAKER_02: 46:59

Yeah, you can go to opticsin.com. There's there's phone numbers over there, there's phone numbers at Nick Musica. Um, and and and to your point, your your implicit point, yeah. Like I don't turn it off, right? I don't go, I'm gonna shut off the intuition when I get into opticsin. It doesn't happen that way. So if something were to show up in a conversation with us, I would certainly uh look to understand and make sure that we're gonna get the best result we can based on what we're looking to accomplish.

SPEAKER_01: 47:22

Awesome. Well, Nick, thanks so much for spending time, you know, being willing to share this. Um certainly maybe hopefully ear opening, if not eye-opening, for some listeners. I would, you know, haven't explored some of this stuff myself. I can say I think there's more to life than just DNA and cells and uh chemicals. Uh, but it's just a question of uh discovering it and figuring out how to use it, right? So I really thank you for your time and and everything you've shared. Thank you, Cal. Thanks. Take care. Stay on the line here for a minute. Another episode in the books. Thank you so much for tuning in. For show notes and more, visit empoweringhealthy business.com. If you would like to have a one on one discussion with me, or possibly engage smart books to help with your business, you can reach me at cal C A L at Empowering Healthy Business dot com. Or message me on LinkedIn where I am easy to find. Until next time, this is Empowering Healthy Business, the podcast for business owners, signing off.