Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Joanie Musser, welcome to the Life Fulfilled podcast, A vulnerable Conversation.
Joanie Musser [00:00:06]:
Hey, Bernie, thanks for having me.
Bernie Borges [00:00:09]:
Thanks for being here. I’m looking forward to this vulnerable conversation. Joanie, let me just introduce you real briefly to my listener. Vocationally, you are instructional designer. You do this for clients, all kinds of client projects. You are also the host of the Mindset to Learn podcast. Love the name, love the podcast. I had the privilege of being featured on your podcast a couple of months ago, and that was a fun conversation that we had.
Bernie Borges [00:00:39]:
And when we were talking about having you on the Life Fulfilled podcast, there were a couple of stories that you shared with me that I thought would be really worth sharing with my listeners. Why don’t you open up with that first one? I think it begins with some kind of a library makeover.
Joni Musser [00:00:56]:
Yes. As many people who make it into the field of instructional design, we once were teachers. And so I’m going to go take you guys back to when I was a classroom teacher and I taught middle school. So, yeah, you had to be a little creative and fun. And I was a language arts teacher at one point and a reading teacher, so I had a pretty good classroom library going on. But there’s always these opportunities where you can get more books. And so I don’t remember if I wrote a grant or I just won a prize, but the Scholastic Book Fair came to our school, and next thing I knew, I had won or had gotten a grant for many years ago, a classroom library makeover. And I was so excited about this.
Bernie Borges [00:01:46]:
So for about how many years ago was this? Just a little. Is it like five years ago, 20 years ago?
Joni Musser [00:01:51]:
Well, let’s go with about 20 years ago. And this gentleman came to my class. He had a cart full of all these books and containers and all this wonderful stuff. And the idea was we did a book pass so students would get to read the front of the COVID They get to look at the back of the COVID They read the front page, they read the back page, they get a gist about what each book is about, and they make a note of it and they pass it on to the next student behind them. And they’re going through this process because eventually they’re going to be cataloging or categorizing these books into different types of genres. And they even got to work together to figure out what the names of the genres are. So my bookshelves are getting redone doing this. The students are doing this.
Joni Musser [00:02:32]:
So remember the middle schoolers? So sixth, seventh and eighth graders, they’re very capable. And it Was a fun activity for them. Even if I go back and redo it later, it’s still good for them right then, right? So teaching them some skills. And while they are doing it, I was also participating. So I had a book that I chose, and it was about different athletes that had been spotlighted throughout history, some more recent history, because that’s what we’re looking for in our classroom, Something that’s going to grab the interest of these young readers. And I’m going through it and I came to a story about a girl who was in the ice speed skating Olympics. And I don’t know if anybody in that realm will ever listen to this, but her name is Jennifer Rodriguez. When we were growing up, Jennifer and I used to skate on speed teams, roller speed skating in Florida.
Joni Musser [00:03:30]:
I was on a team that practiced near Tampa. She was down in the, like, Davie area of Florida. And we didn’t get to see each other that much unless we had a practice that was with all the smaller teams together because we were. The team eventually became called Team Florida. We had separate teams at one time. And then they all merged and it was just like a fun thing. We even had a group, a rink that was in Orlando that was part of our larger team. And so we didn’t get to see each other that often.
Joni Musser [00:04:03]:
And I was a year older than her. So in the skating world, every other year, because I was a year older than her, I would get to skate against her in our single races, but we would be able to skate relays together. So she was my two lady relay partner, two girl relay partner. For a while. We skater relays there. We did a four lady relay, where there was four of us together. We did a four mix, which was two girls and two boys, and we would do a relay race together. And we were good, pretty good.
Joni Musser [00:04:34]:
And to the point where pretty much every year that we skated with each other, our relays would always make it to nationals. And even if we weren’t skating against each other individually, we individually would still make it to nationals to compete against all the other national teams. I was really young. I started skating when I was 9. When I was 13, my mom had her cerebral hemorrhage. I was at a speed skating practice in the morning in Tampa. She was in another county. They didn’t even tell me at the time that she was in the hospital or actually what happened.
Joni Musser [00:05:13]:
I found out later that day. But she ended up being in a coma for about two months, maybe two and a half. I remember I was young. I Don’t remember exactly. Things were so much different in your younger mind. But that event significantly changed the trajectory of what I thought my life was going to be like. I thought for sure that one day I was going to be this amazing speed skater. I was going to transition to ice.
Joni Musser [00:05:39]:
And like Jennifer Rodriguez, myself and a lot of other skaters that skated with us, we had this dream that we would be in the I speed Skating Olympics one day. And we strove for that. That was like a goal, right? And with my mom having a cerebral hemorrhage, it changed everything about my family dynamics. Finances were the biggest piece emotionally because we had to deal with my mom’s recovery and the after effects from the brain aneurysm having not just effects on her speech and the movement of her body so she can feel on her left side, she just has a lot of trouble moving it, but also that emotional piece. Because I would come home from school some days and my mom would just be in bed. And I didn’t know if she had recently had a seizure, she was on medication to stop her from having seizures, or she would be really depressed and she would tell me a lot of her thoughts from that day, which weren’t always positive. And I had to be the strong person and try to pump her up and I would just carry all of that. So when it came to the time for me to make some choices through my teens about can we afford for me to keep skating? The answer ended up being no.
Joni Musser [00:06:56]:
It was expensive. Between the cost of practices, the cost of equipment, the cost to go to meets, the cost of travel.
Bernie Borges [00:07:03]:
Travel, Yeah, I.
Joni Musser [00:07:04]:
We just couldn’t do it. And I had to step back. And it was really difficult for me as a teenager because I had these dreams and it’s what I wanted to do. But then I had to have a reality check about things that were not necessarily in my control back then. So come back to teaching. I’m opening up this book and I’m reading this little story about three or four pages about Jennifer Rodriguez being the Olympic ice speed skater. And while every single time I ever watched her skate in the Olympics, I cheered her on. I was probably one of her biggest supporters.
Joni Musser [00:07:42]:
She probably doesn’t know it, but from home watching, I was. And I was so excited seeing that. While I’m sitting in a classroom after, yes, I’ve gone to college. I’ve got a degree. I’m teaching now. I was probably into my seventh or eighth, ninth year teaching at that point. And I’m reading this whole section of a book about her and her successes. And I lost it.
Joni Musser [00:08:07]:
I just started crying because I just felt not regret, but it was almost like somebody was twisting me inside because I felt like she got to live the dream that I knew I had to give up, even though I didn’t have a choice.
Bernie Borges [00:08:25]:
So let me just jump in with a thought that I have just to share and have some conversation with you about this, Joanie, because I can even tell it’s an emotional story clearly. And we can see why whenever I think about it, talk to people about my five pillars in not not just the Life Fulfilled podcast, but even in the training, the leadership training that I do, it’s the same principle, the five life pillars, health, fitness, career, relationships, legacy. And one of the things that I always say, usually in the context of health, is that there are things within our control and there are things not within our control. And you’re sharing an example of that. Joanie, you didn’t have any control over what happened to your mom. And then you chose to be the loving daughter and the caring daughter that you were and are, and it changed your life in ways that you didn’t have control over. And I appreciate your comment that you said you don’t have regrets because it’s not something you chose, but it did alter your life in a significant way. And I also want to commend you for your comment about cheering Jennifer on.
Bernie Borges [00:09:41]:
I am curious about your comment saying she may not know it, but I do want to commend you for saying that you cheered her on because it must have been difficult for you to see her go on and you not be in that journey with her.
Joni Musser [00:09:56]:
Yeah. When I say she may not know it through our teens and our lives went separate ways and she had her trajectory and I had mine. And I think we connected one time on Facebook and then I think she just got. I don’t know, I think she got rid of social media. Either that or she stopped following me. Who knows? But I don’t know. I feel like if something was to come up about her in the news again, I’m still there. I still think about her all the time and I’m very happy.
Joni Musser [00:10:23]:
I do know after she retired from the Olympics, she did go back to school herself. So she did was able to get that education, hopefully start a career and find that kind of fulfillment for herself. I had to do that initially. So it was reversed where I got to go and get the education right away out of high school, she continued doing the athlete route to the Olympics. So a little Bit of a switch. I look back sometimes and I think, gosh, I would have been in my 30s before I would have been able to go back, go to college and get that degree, right? So I’m glad that I did it when I did. And I say that because we talk about. You talk about the fulfillment piece.
Joni Musser [00:11:06]:
And as an educator, that was very fulfilling for me. Even when I left teaching, it wasn’t because I didn’t love the job. It wasn’t because I didn’t love the students. There were some other things happening behind the scene. Teachers talk about it all the time. Your plates are too full, they keep giving you more. You have all this responsibility, but they’re not giving you all the tools you need or the time to do what you need to be successful. So it was a lot of that gate.
Joni Musser [00:11:38]:
When I made the choice to leave classroom, it was because of those types of situations, not because I didn’t love what I did. And that’s why I’m still in Instructional design or I went to Instructional Design because I love teaching. I love sharing. I love putting learning together so that everybody or other people that experience the learning can be inspired, can feel fulfillment from learning from whatever the solution is.
Bernie Borges [00:12:06]:
So you’re touching on a few of the pillars here. You touched on the health pillar, although not related to you, but your mom’s circumstance and how, again, that is not within your control. You’ve touched on the relationship pillar, which is both your mom and also a relationship that I. What I’m hearing you say you once had with Jennifer Rodriguez. I’m going to come back to that, by the way. And then you’ve touched on the career pillar and the fulfillment that you’re experiencing by being an instructional designer, and. And the impact that has on other people because you love to teach and that gives you fulfillment. That’s fantastic.
Bernie Borges [00:12:40]:
I love that. So thank you for sharing that. And now I want to come back to the relationship pillar. So, quick story. Not long ago, I had a friend give me some advice. And I took her up on this advice, and now I’m going to give you the same advice she gave me. So I was telling her how I had lost touch with a friend of mine from my youth, just a guy that I used to be best buddies with. And we just lost contact with each other.
Bernie Borges [00:13:09]:
And it had been 15, 20 years since we had any contact with each other. And I said to her, I said, I miss him. And she said, so, Bernie, reach out to him. What are you waiting for? If you’re going to Wait for him to reach out to you. It just may never happen. You take the first step, and that’s what I suggest. He. By the way, I did.
Bernie Borges [00:13:25]:
I took her advice. I did reach out to him, and guess what? We reconnected. We jumped on a FaceTime call and, like, we talked for an hour, and now we’re in touch with each other again. It’s. And it’s awesome. And maybe you should do the same. Maybe you should reach out to Jennifer. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he just welcomes you with open arms on the reconnection.
Joni Musser [00:13:44]:
Possibly. I don’t know. It’s been so long. Sometimes I think, does she even remember who I am? But she had an impact on my life. I don’t know that I had that same impact on her life. And I have actually looked for her before, but I’ve never. Like I said, at one time, I think we were on some socials together before, but then she disappeared. So I took that as she’s got her own life, she’s doing what she needs to do, and I’m okay with that.
Joni Musser [00:14:13]:
There’s lots of people that I was really close to back in those skating days, and some of us are still in touch, and some people just moved on with their lives and are doing what they need to do. I can look into it. I’m not going to say I won’t, but I don’t know. I just feel apprehensive about it. What if she doesn’t even. This is another vulnerable part. What if she doesn’t even want me to?
Bernie Borges [00:14:38]:
If the answer is no, the answer is no. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And maybe simply just acknowledging that’s a possibility and being ready for that, being ready for the answer to be no. But you don’t know if you don’t try. And the answer might be yes, because for so many of us, we go through different phases in our life, and it just might be the right timing. But you don’t know if you don’t try. But anyway, I. I don’t mean to put any pressure on you.
Bernie Borges [00:15:05]:
That’s your decision. Where I want to go next in. In the conversation and in the story is maybe you can share with me, with my listener, as you reflect on this story that you just shared. There’s two aspects to it, right? There’s theory, athletic part to your life. And then discovering what you discovered through this library project, discovering Jennifer. And then, you know, what you experienced with your mom’s health and how that altered your life. I Don’t know if lessons learned is the way that I want to frame it up, Joanie. Maybe if that’s not the way to frame it up.
Bernie Borges [00:15:41]:
But what do you take away from that? You already hinted at one thing, and that is you were able to go college to during the college years versus not so any other. If maybe you just want to expand on that.
Joni Musser [00:15:56]:
Yeah, I think the lessons I learned when I look back would be more around I’m the oldest sibling, and for a lot of people who are the oldest sibling in a family dynamic like that, you take on a lot of responsibility anyway. You end up being the one that is. I don’t want to repeat myself, but I’m going to. You being sometimes being the more responsible one, the one that doesn’t have. You’re not the wild one. You’re not the one that takes advantage of things all the time. You run an even keel when it comes to what you’re supposed to do, what’s the right thing to do. And I found myself in that cycle where, one, I was afraid to do anything wrong because I.
Joni Musser [00:16:41]:
I didn’t want to put any more pressure on my family because they were already going through so much. So I was pretty much that rule follower student. I never was in trouble, and not because I didn’t want to get in trouble. It’s just that I wasn’t brave enough because I didn’t want the consequences and I didn’t want to put any kind of that pressure on my parents. So I look back and I think it taught me that. But at the same time, what I didn’t share is when my mom had the cerebral hemorrhage, my grandmother, who also lived with us at that time, my mother’s mom, she had cancer. And while my mom was in recovery, my grandmother passed away. So she lost my mom, lost her body, pretty much her whole life.
Joni Musser [00:17:23]:
The way she knew it prior to this ripple hemorrhage was going to be different. It was gone, and she lost her mom. So she’s coming home to this empty house, and her girls are in school. Her husband still has to work. She’s lonely. And so that I had to learn to do housekeeping, to do the help with the cooking, to help with all the chores, to be the mom. And it’s like I grew up really fast. And my husband always teases me now.
Joni Musser [00:17:56]:
He’s like, you’re like an old soul. And he says, I always get along with all the older people. And I feel like that’s because I really am an old Soul. I totally. I feel like I lived so much of my adult life as a teenager and a lot of people don’t realize that. So I look at that as lessons learned early, which I think helped me when I became a teacher. Those lessons helped me when I was able to make some choices, to move out of teaching into what I’m doing now, because I have a different perspective on those type of choices, making those type of choices. And I’m not sure if that’s exactly what you’re looking for, lessons learned.
Joni Musser [00:18:35]:
But when I think about it, I feel like I’ve learned how to handle challenges, how to make the right choices.
Bernie Borges [00:18:46]:
Okay. Yeah. There was nothing in particular that I was looking for because it’s your story, it’s your journey, it’s your life. So it’s going to be unique to you. But if I’m not mistaken, you use the word perspective and I think, Joanie, that that speaks to me. So it’s given you perspective, the fact that you experience what you experience. You also said you grew up very fast as a result of the responsibilities that fell on your shoulders at a young age. And as the oldest sibling, you had to really carry the load.
Bernie Borges [00:19:20]:
And, and that’s a pretty big burden. I would also imagine that in addition to growing up fast, or maybe a part of growing up fast was also maturing faster. You probably became an adult before your age, said you were an adult. And that has some advantages too. That has other aspects to it that are negative in terms of maybe missing out on some aspects of your youth, but also contributing to a level of maturity that has other benefits in life. Have you thought about that?
Joni Musser [00:19:54]:
Yeah. I don’t really feel, though, that I missed out on much except for the skating part that I had to stop because I. I still got involved in athletics at school, I still went out with my girlfriends. I still continue to do the social things that a normal teenager would do, but I had to make different choices based on my own mental well being as well, living at the house, because I do specifically remember trying to do homework and my mom coming and knocking at the door, what are you doing? What are you doing? And I’m like, I’m doing homework. But she always, can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? Because in her world, she was so used to doing everything on her own. And then when she couldn’t, she had to ask continually for help. And when you didn’t give her the help that she wanted right when she wanted it, she would get very upset. So you had to counteract that so she wouldn’t get upset.
Joni Musser [00:20:48]:
And I realized at that point, when I was finishing high school, starting a couple years of the state college they call it now, junior college back then, that if I was to pursue my degree, I was not going to be able to live at home and do it because I wouldn’t be able to put the time and energy into studying that I would need to. I made a decision in November of one year that I was going to apply to a school that was not near my parents, and I got accepted and I went to UCF in Orlando. So I lived on the other coast of Florida, and I moved to central Florida, and I needed that for myself, for mental care. I worked full time. I went to school full time. I made it through. My parents couldn’t really help me because they didn’t have the finances, but it gave me that little bit of separation that I needed. So I wasn’t having to hold all of that responsibility all of the time that I had when I was living at home.
Joni Musser [00:21:47]:
And therefore I had those adult skills. I knew how to survive on my own. I knew what it took to work and to keep up a place, and I knew my responsibilities for school. I feel like I was successful. I have no regrets about that either. I did what I needed to do when I needed to do it. A lot of times, that’s what some of us do to survive. We just get up every day.
Joni Musser [00:22:09]:
We know what we need to do that day. We make it through that day, and we can check it off and say, you know what? I did it. And just as micro steps get us to our larger goal.
Bernie Borges [00:22:20]:
So here’s what I’m hearing. Here’s what I just heard you say, Joanie. You didn’t use the F word. But what I heard you say was that experience of working and going to school and doing it, getting it done, was fulfilling. That’s what I mean by you didn’t use the F word, in case you’re wondering. So even though you didn’t say fulfilled or fulfillment, that’s what I took away from that part of your story. That’s great. I have a similar story that I’ve told on the podcast before.
Bernie Borges [00:22:48]:
The very short version of it is, I also put myself through college. It was a private university that I aspired to go to. I applied, I got accepted, and my parents couldn’t afford to send me there, so I worked full time and I went at night, and it took me seven years, but I got it done.
Joni Musser [00:23:02]:
You did it?
Bernie Borges [00:23:04]:
Yeah, yeah. That’s great. That’s great. Have you ever shared this or any part of your story with a young person for the sake of just sharing it and adding some perspective to their life?
Joni Musser [00:23:19]:
Not necessarily. Not anybody I can specifically pinpoint. I mean, I have shared it before in small conversations, one on one with some close friends, because that’s what women do. We sit around sometimes and just chit chat about our past. And especially with my cousins because they know me the best. And my sister, she knows me the best. In fact, a lot of times when I sit and talk about these things, it’s with my sister because her experience was totally different than mine. And I think when you and I originally talked, I told you a story about my sister.
Joni Musser [00:23:53]:
She’s four years younger than me and she was only eight, I believe, when my mom, eight or nine, when my mom had her cerebral hemorrhage. And she honestly cannot remember my mom before that hemorrhage. And because of my mom’s emotional state, mental state, when my sister was going through her teen years, it was very difficult for her and she was the youngest and she did what she wanted to do. You weren’t going to tell her no. If you told her no, she was doing it. And she always. There were some other things I won’t bring up on the podcast, but the dynamic was it wasn’t always a healthy situation for her at the house. And we didn’t have cell phones back then.
Joni Musser [00:24:30]:
We didn’t have email back then. We didn’t have FaceTime back then. So she would write me these letters and mail them to me at college and I would get them and just feel helpless because I could understand what she was going through, but there was nothing I could do to help her. Then I look back and I can’t say regret because again, this was out of my control and it probably wouldn’t have worked out well anyway. But I always still, at this point in my life, think what would have happened if I was already 21 when I moved away? What if I would have gotten custody of her and had her move with me and gave her a different environment to go to finish her high school years in. But then of course, that would have changed my life because I wouldn’t have been able to do all the things I was doing to keep my life normal. I would have been a mom again to my sister. So I get that there’s always those what ifs.
Joni Musser [00:25:29]:
But I still tell her that because I want her to know that I saw her, I heard her, but I was Too young to actually know that I had any decisions that could have been made or choices that I could have made differently back then. And I was focused on me at the time. Being away was like an escape. It’s the same reason why I did so much in high school, why I got involved in clubs and sports, because if I was at school, I wasn’t at home in the situation that was happening at home. That was my escape. So I felt like going away to college was also my escape.
Bernie Borges [00:26:09]:
Sure. You mentioned before we press record, that you’re reading the book the Power of Regret.
Joni Musser [00:26:14]:
Yes.
Bernie Borges [00:26:14]:
On my suggestion, I might add. And part of the reason I suggested it is because it’s a fabulous book that not only did I read, but I also had the privilege of having Daniel Pink, the author, who’s a New York Times bestselling author, I think, five times over, on the podcast. And it’s episode 33 for the listener. You want to go listen to that episode. And in his book the Power of Regret, which has a ton of research, ton of research, the biggest takeaway, the most common regret people have in his research, and this is international research, thousands and thousands of input data inputs that he got, the number one regret across the globe is not regret of something we did, it’s regret of something we did not do. Yeah, that’s the number one regret. And he breaks that down even further. He puts them into categories, but the biggest category at a high level is regretting something we didn’t do.
Bernie Borges [00:27:11]:
And in some cases, it might have been like, maybe in your case, something we couldn’t do. And the big takeaway from all that is the Power of Regret, which is what he titled the book, is simply being aware. Like, thinking about it and taking the weight off your shoulders and just saying, okay, that’s my biggest regret. It is what it is. I have to move on with my life. Instead of letting it just eat at you and eat at you and eat at you, just get it out there. Like, just get it out of your head and acknowledge it and then just say, I’m moving on.
Joni Musser [00:27:47]:
Yeah. I think he calls that relive and relief. It’s where you relive it. It’s okay to think about it, what happened, but then it’s okay to let it go because you understand that there is nothing to do about it, and you don’t want to keep rethinking about it over and over, because that’s not healthy.
Bernie Borges [00:28:07]:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Joanie, I want to thank you for being willing to join me for this Vulnerable conversation. It’s a very personal story. And anytime I record one of these vulnerable conversations, not only do do I get something out of it, but my hope is that my listener also just connects something in their own life, whether or not the circumstance is similar, but some aspect of it connects. And so I just want to thank you for being willing, being vulnerable to have this conversation. And I want to invite you if the listener wants to connect with you in any way, how can they get into your world?
Joni Musser [00:28:47]:
Yeah, you can always connect with me personally at my email address, Joanie mindset to learn.com but I also am on LinkedIn and it’s LinkedIn jmusser113 and you’ll find me there on LinkedIn. Message me, connect with me. You’re going to see a lot about instructional design, the Mindset to Learn podcast. And I’m also in the local association for Child Development chapter and in Orlando, Florida. So there’s a little bit of information there about what we do in that chapter. So feel free to connect. And if you want to continue this conversation, I’m happy to listen to other vulnerable conversations other people have because that’s making connections is one of the best ways that we can build each other up because we can offer that support just by lending an ear.
Bernie Borges [00:29:37]:
Exactly, Joanie. My listener knows that all that will be linked up in the show notes. So once again, Joanie, thank you so much for joining me for a vulnerable conversation on this episode of the Life Fulfilled podcast.
Joni Musser [00:29:50]:
Thanks, Bernie.
