Overcoming Fear with Action: The Art of Badassery with Jenn Cassetta

“My mission is to help you feel strong, safe, and powerful from the streets to the boardroom”

On September 11, 2001 Jenn went into the Subway and everything was fine. When she came out on Wall Street, three blocks south of the World Trade Center, she could see the black smoke rising up. She wasn’t allowed upstairs to her office, but she was allowed to use the phone in the lobby – within seconds the first tower fell.

She was pushed into a closet with a lot of other people. For the first time, Jenn felt real, uncontrollable panic. A woman came to her and asked her name – forcing Jenn to finally take a breath. The woman then said to her, “Jennifer. My name is Nancy and we are both going to get out of here today.” 

Jenn says, it was like suddenly meeting your guardian angel. The two of us did get evacuated – we ran for hours together, finding places to shelter only to get kicked out – until finally Jenn had the idea to take Nancy to the dojo she’d been training. For the first time that day, Jenn finally started breathing deeper and the dojo became a safe place. 

In the days after, she left the city, but when she returned she wanted to spend as much as possible at that dojo. This began her journey of healing and taking responsibility for her safety and teaching others to do the same. 

This conversation was incredible. Jenn talks us through personal safety (and many other types of safety) and how we are responsible (and able) to enhance our safety for ourselves. We also dive into what got her to this point – it all started on 9/11 with fear and uncertainty entering Jenn’s life quickly and at full force. It was what came after that made the difference. Jenn journeyed through life saying yes to many different opportunities and running her own business. 

Jenn is a mentor, coach, and public speaker on a mission to help women feel strong, safe, and powerful from the streets to the boardroom. In her book, The Art of Badassery: Unleash Your Mojo with Wisdom of the Dojo, Jenn uses the dojo as a metaphor for life. She teaches readers “how to flex their mental muscle, how to rise above fears, and how to turn setbacks into superpowers.”.

In this episode, we chat about:

• How your subconscious might be blocking you from getting what you want (and what to do about that!!)
• The power of feeling SAFE (and how to build that feeling when things are uncertain)
• The ultimate “bounceback” strategy – i.e., what to do when things are not going your way
• How Jenn went from managing an event space to speaking on stages and keeping women safe around the world.

Listen below… and learn more about the art of badassery!