How to Unlock Your Life Code for Personal Success w/Babs Faseesin

J. Rosemarie Francis: 0:00

I originally wanted to share this interview on my other podcast, solo Mom's Talk, but I've been thinking about a report conducted by Alex Sanfilippo of PodMatch and wondered why so few podcasters were active. I've put a link to the report below, and I wonder if podcasters were experiencing burnout due to being overwhelmed. It's for this reason that I wrote a blog post sharing tips on how to prevent podcaster burnout. I've shared a link below as well, and podcast burnout is also my topic for this week's Substack. Oh yes, if you want to get more actionable tips and exclusives, join my Substack. I've left the link below as well. So have a listen to this episode and see if this interview about cracking the life code with Babs Faseesin resonates with you. This is Tools of the Podcast Trade, where you can learn about the tools and resources you can use to start and grow your podcast Tune. In this week, as we talk about the help you need to remove the mystery from podcasting so you can become a successful podcaster that can reach your audience where they are. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Babs Faseesin. Thank you for being on Tools of the Podcast Trade. I really appreciate you.

Babs Faseesin: 1:17

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be here.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 1:20

Yes, of course, All right. So I see we're going to be talking about some very interesting things about life and mindset and stuff like that. But before we talk about what drives you, can we talk about who you are? Who is Babs?

Babs Faseesin: 1:38

Well, thank you. Babs is, I like to say, a strategist speaker and an entrepreneur. Actually, I am the founder of Crackin' the Life Code, a platform that helps young, upward mobile individuals who are seeking to become better versions of themselves, seekers of personal growth and seekers of personal development. We help them essentially achieve that simple goal of becoming better versions of themselves. So, the Chief Strategy Officer of Roads Consulting and that's what I would call essentially my day job I am the author of Crackin' the Life Code, a recent book that I released earlier this year. So this three essentially summarizes who I am as of today.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 2:39

Okay, all right, Thank you for sharing Crackin' the Life Code. What's that about?

Babs Faseesin: 2:46

Well, think about it this way when a child is born, I have never heard a situation where the parents receive a manual by which the child navigates life. So life does not come with a manual. When a child arrives on planet Earth, by the circumstances surrounding the child's birth, the people in the child's life, the adults primarily, which might include immediate family members, friends, maybe teachers, educational teachers, spiritual leaders and everybody around the circles that the child is born in begin to determine what the child is programmed with. And at that point, as they speak and they act and behave in the presence of the child, they essentially send stimulus into the child's mind. And the child has been programmed. Now, these codes by which the child is programmed then becomes habits, mindsets and behaviors by which the child navigates life further down as the child begins to grow. So when we come to a point in life because we don't get to choose those signals at birth, so we can't really tell if they are helpful signals, the words that have been said, the mindset that we are adopting, the behaviors as kids, we can't really differentiate between the good ones and the bad ones, so we just take on whatever comes our way. But then, when we become adults and we are beginning to navigate the different areas of our life, it becomes necessary for us to take a break and say, hey, how are these codes helping me? How are these codes hindering me? Are they in any way helping me achieve success in these areas of my life? If yes, great. If no, it's about time to crack those codes and replace them with new, positive and empowering codes. So that's primarily, in a nutshell, what cracking a life code is about. Really.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 4:58

Hmm, okay, all right, thank you for sharing and enlightening us on that strange topic, I think. But from listening to you, it would seem like the term being a product of your environment resonates here right, at least until you crack the code, am I?

Babs Faseesin: 5:20

right, that's right, that's right.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 5:22

Okay, all right. So what made you have an interest in this? I mean, something had to have piqued your interest.

Babs Faseesin: 5:30

Yes, totally. I was just a young boy, born and raised in Nigeria. One of these days, as a young kid, I ran into the room and I saw my mom crying. I asked her why she was crying. She said she had received the bad news from her mom and she was not exactly in the position to help her mom at the time, and that broke my heart. It broke my heart to see my mom cry, but even more so to understand why she was crying, and so I made a determination as a young boy that I would do everything within my power to ensure that I build a life that enables me to provide help to the people that I love at every point that they might need to help. And so this whole journey of wanting to understand what exactly is life about and that's when the entire curiosity and the desire for change, for something better, that's where it started for me, and so, as I continued in my early teenage life, I just continued on that path. I understood that, while other kids were out in the field playing and having a good time, for me I had something within me, and it was just that fact that I wanted to understand what else life had to offer than the experiences that surrounded my childhood. I knew there had to be more to life than the ones that I experienced. I did experience devastation, poverty and lack in all of those. You know, that was the situation I was being raised in. But I knew there had to be more to life than all that I experienced, and I just needed to research and needed to find that out. That's where the entire journey began, and so I began to read books. I began to attend conferences, listen to speakers, people who had very interesting lessons to share, and I continued through that, through college and all the way through my career. So, as it came, as COVID hit two years ago, I decided, after over 20 years of this, you know, intensive journey of personal growth and personal development, I should probably put all of these lessons together into a book and maybe pass that on to someone else who might want to travel the same path as I did and maybe just help them shorten, you know, the learning curve and maybe they might find some value in the book. That's really why I got on it.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 8:11

Wow, I mean there's a lot of value there, even from what you just said. I mean you saw your mom cry and you didn't assume the victim pose Like a lot of children, do? They're like, oh, my poor mom, what's going on with my mom? And she tells you you know some things wrong and you go off thinking poor me, poor my mom. You started to ponder why is it like this? You couldn't help your mom, but you knew there was some way, there was a reason, there was something that you could do. You just didn't know what it was. You went searching for it, right.

Babs Faseesin: 8:52

That's right, yeah, absolutely.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 8:54

Oh, my God, that is just empowering to me. I have three sons, so you know this gives me goosebumps, you know? So, all right, so what? Wow, I don't even know. I'm tongue-tied because this is very interesting to me, that you know, a young man such as yourself would take it upon himself to find out for lack of a better term the meaning of life and the meaning of your life as it pertains to you and your family. Yeah, what's. Sorry, go ahead.

Babs Faseesin: 9:28

Yeah, I mean talking about having three boys. My mom had three boys as well, and so yeah it was, and being the first. Traditionally, there's a lot of responsibility on the first child either to show the rest of the path, so naturally you assume the role of the pathfinder, you assume the role of the leader and you guide the rest of the siblings. So I did carry that responsibility very seriously as a young kid to ensure that I provided direction for my younger siblings At the time.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 10:10

Okay, cool. And was your mom a solo mom? Did she raise you guys alone?

Babs Faseesin: 10:16

No, actually I was blessed to be raised in a two-parent family. My father was very busy. We had several instances where my dad had to be on the field working really hard and mom was at home taking care of the needs. I mean, I did see mom go out to her 95 job and came back home. She was the first to wake up every day and the last to go to bed. She had multiple other businesses. Both my parents even though we're professionals they still had side businesses that they had to get into. So mom had all these other businesses and then had a nine to five and I saw that she put everybody first and she was the last on the list. And every time I looked at her and how much she carried on her shoulders, wanting to be the best wife, wanting to be the best mother, wanting to be the best sister, the best cousin there is, and carrying the shoulder, you know, the responsibility of the entire family and without necessarily paying attention to herself. And sadly I have to say that that came back around years later where she's health began to take a negative turn. And there's only so much we can do with our human body. There's only so much stress we can subject the body to. So mom went through a lot of these stress just trying to show up in the best way possible for her family, for her friends and the people in her life.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 11:59

Yes, I'm so glad you recognize that, because sometimes we as children can be ungrateful and don't recognize, you know, what our parents go through for us. But it's also a fortunate or unfortunate situation where moms especially moms seem to take on everybody's problems without taking care of themselves. So I'm hoping your mom is okay now.

Babs Faseesin: 12:29

You know it's a and I haven't quite said this publicly at all, so this will probably be my first time of really discussing mom, but it makes sense because we're talking at on the solo, solo moms talk platform. Yeah, so mom, mom passed this time last year. So it's it's about a year past and it's been a really difficult time for and my family, especially just some. You know, thinking through all that she went through and you know her journey having to be caught. You're pretty short in life, but I believe very strongly that a lot of the lessons that I've picked from her life have been, have been with me and have continued to shape the man that I've become and the same man that my younger ones have become. So, although she's not with us and I would really wish that she was so she could literally just see the beauty that she created and enjoy, you know, the that wonderful results of the hard work.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 13:45

Yeah.

Babs Faseesin: 13:46

But today I'm telling the stories, but then I'm encouraging mothers who tend to sleep into that you know trap of wanting to take on every possible responsibility to find some time to slow it down a little bit, because work is replaceable but health is not exactly replaceable. So we want to focus on the things that money cannot buy versus the things that money can buy. And I understand that, just being caretakers, there's an unending desire, an unending need to meet everybody's need. It's just the way I perceive that mothers are wired. But it's usually encouraging to find that, to know that sometimes mothers can also just sit back and put themselves first.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 14:42

Oh, man, words of wisdom out of the mouth of babes and suckling. Not that you're a babe, but that is such wise word. And I am sorry your mom has gone on before us, but yeah, she has left like amazing fruits that I could see before my eyes. So you're truly blessed to have had her as a mother All right now that you've given those words of wisdom to moms and solo moms who may be listening, in order for us to live a life on purpose, so that we remember to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first. Right, how can one design a life plan, a life plan that encompasses taking care of ourselves?

Babs Faseesin: 15:33

I mean, that's a very, very important consideration, especially in this era where self-love and self-care is becoming mainstream. I guess we need to continue to do what I call to do realistic self-assessment. Realistic self-assessment essentially takes a look at the different areas of our lives, from finance to relationship, business to career, to every area of life that's important to the individual. Using what I call the tool called the wheel of life, we can explore and just have a look at each one area of life and ask ourselves simple questions like how satisfied am I with this area of my life? What are the opportunities for growth in this area of my life? And the last question is are there any opportunities for me to contribute to the world beyond me or the world outside of me or society in general in this area of my life? As we begin to think through this, what I find very often is a lot of people have time for everything else but don't quite make time for themselves. So what we wanna do is just have some time out for ourselves as we take care of everything else. And now, during this time, we wanna reflect on our lives and these key areas of our lives and ask ourselves those realistic questions. I did an extensive workbook area or workbook part of my book cracking the life code. That can be very, very helpful. Just walking through that workbook can help you reflect and think through what actions you need to take to put yourself first or what actions you need to take to ensure that you're constantly maintaining balance. I did talk about how to maintain balance in life, in career, in business, in relationship, in every area of life. It's very important constantly to ensure that we're maintaining balance. So, yeah, I think the primary thing is to pay attention to ourselves is the first thing. Let's pay attention to ourselves, let's do some self reflection, let's do what I call the realistic self assessment and as we do this, we can begin to see what might be off from our lives and then we can begin to figure out how we might pull these back together to maintain balance. It's an ongoing process. We would always have to constantly walk to ensure that we're trying to maintain balance and put ourselves in the center.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 18:13

Yes, for sure, and I want you to tell us about the book. But also, it would seem that the cracking the life code isn't limited to kids, right? It seems like some of us, as adults, haven't even reached that point yet. So tell us about the book and comment on that if you choose.

Babs Faseesin: 18:35

Yeah, cracking the life code with the subtitle Keys to Master your Mindset, habits and Behaviors for Personal Success. Essentially, it's 20 years of lessons that I've learned through my personal development journey. It examines six areas of life, from finance to relationship, to career or business, to health and wellness and spirituality. I believe that these areas of life are fundamental to personal success, and so I did a deep dive into every one of these areas, talking about what mindsets, what behaviors and what habits might limit us from achieving great success in each one of these areas of our lives. And so, when I got into health and wellness, I did talk about mom briefly in the health and wellness part, because I know that very often we can prioritize career but then not prioritize our health and wellness, which in this case was the case for my mom, and so I talked about that very briefly, how we need to ensure that what we pay attention to our health and our wellness. I did talk about career, I did talk about finances and all of those. So the book is I believe it's just a manual that helps to navigate the different areas of life, and I ended the book with the walkbook section, which again helps the reader to reflect and then commit to action. In all of the books that I've read, I found that the most impactful books are the ones that actually led me to take action. I've read so many books, some of them, yeah, great lessons but then the ones that really led me to taking action were my most favorite books, and so, ever since I thought about writing a book, I've always wanted to write a book that helps the reader to commit to action, because I do believe that the only way we can change our lives, our situation, is to take massive action, and so the walkbook element enables the reader to take action, to commit to action and just basic little steps that can help us get there. Essentially, the primary premise is that I am really looking that readers would commit to becoming 1% better each day. That's all I really ask for. It's 1% better each day versus looking at the holistic and massive vision that becomes overwhelming.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 21:10

Yes, yes, it is harder and we get overwhelmed when we look at the whole picture at once as opposed to just a little bit, one step at a time. Biting that elephant one bite at a time, right, that's right and of course, we could find your book on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Babs Faseesin: 21:30

Absolutely. It's available on Amazon and everywhere books are sold.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 21:34

Okay, I put a link to that on the show notes, all right. So what is Bob's grateful for today?

Babs Faseesin: 21:44

Well, I'm grateful that although mom is gone, she did leave incredible values of character, integrity, hard work, discipline with us and I'm just very honored for that opportunity to have spent the first couple of decades of my life with my mom.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 22:07

Okay, all right, oh, wow, okay. So thank you for sharing that with us. Now I wanted to talk about some other things, but first I want to finish off talking about cracking the code. Why is it important to do that? You know we could read the book, do the exercise, but why is it important that we really get this done? Crack this code.

Babs Faseesin: 22:37

There's so many reasons why it's important to crack the life code. In fact, the very first one is think about it. If you had to leave this planet, what would be your legacy? I mean, what would you pass on to the generations yet unborn? Essentially, if we crack the life code, what we are doing is we're stopping certain behaviors, habits and mindsets and we're adopting new, positive ones. Now it's not enough to just adopt those. What we do essentially, after adopting new, positive and empowering mindsets and behaviors and habits, is to transport them to the next generation. So if there's any reason we want to crack the life code at all, it's just so we could have the next generation enjoy the benefits of a better code, of a better mindset, of better behavior, so they could lead a better life than ours. Ideally, every generation is expected to be an improvement over the former, so it's our responsibility to ensure that the next generation is better than ours, and to do so, we need to crack the life code now, so we can transfer better codes to the generations yet unborn.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 23:47

And in layman's term that would mean you set a good example so your kids and your grandkids can learn from those better examples.

Babs Faseesin: 23:58

Absolutely share some of these things at the dinner table. Share some of these values with your children and your grandchildren. Transfer the same things, the same lessons life lessons you've learned through the course of your personal development journey to the next, to your children and your children's children.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 24:16

Okay, thank you. All right, so, as you know, this show is geared towards solar moms, moms who are raising children alone. Can you give me one piece of advice for a solar mom listening to you speak right now?

Babs Faseesin: 24:31

Yeah, well, I would start by saying that your efforts are not. They do not go on scene, they do not go unrecognized. Any might seem as though they are not recognized, they are not seen, but truly I believe that you are the strongest and the biggest heroes we could ever ask for, because you're the uncelebrated, you're the unrecognized, but then you do far more than the ones that we see. I think it's important that, as we close, that we pay attention to ourselves as solar moms. This is essentially my one ask for today. If you, if there's anything you want to do after this episode, I want you to just take a moment and ask yourself what's the one thing that I can do today that really just puts me first? What is that one thing that is really about me? Because you cannot pour out of an empty glass, so you need to pour fill yourself first before you can pour onto others. And as much as you want to do all these for everyone else, please pay attention to yourself. Think about my mom, please.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 25:47

Thank you, thank you for sharing that. You know, when I first started this podcast, I thought you know, I only want to interview single moms and a couple of guys had reached out to me and I'm like you're not a single mom, but I am so glad I listened. I didn't keep my mind closed because I would have missed this.

Babs Faseesin: 26:08

I'm glad you didn't as well.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 26:09

Yes, of course, thank you. So how can we get in touch with you?

Babs Faseesin: 26:15

Help at Krakkindelifecodecom. We are always available to listen, take in whatever requests at help at Krakkindelifecodecom. I'm also very active on social media at BabsFashersen and Krakkindelifecodecom is our website.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 26:35

Okay, I'm Bob Fossigian F-A-S-E-E-S-I-N for those listening, and we'll put that in the show notes as well. That's right, okay, I appreciate you coming and talking to me today. Now, anything, any final thoughts? Feel free to speak.

Babs Faseesin: 26:53

Gratitude. I like to always close with gratitude. Thank you so much for having me here, and I really encourage everyone who, for whatever reason, might be going through a rough patch at this time. Please think about one thing at least that you are grateful for. If nothing at all, it's really the breath in your nostrils. The fact that you're still here is victory. So gratitude, and gratitude, and gratitude. Always remember to be grateful for something specific every day.

J. Rosemarie Francis: 27:24

Amen. Thank you, bob Fossigian, for coming and talking to us today. Thank you.

Babs Faseesin: 27:28

Appreciate you. Thanks for having me.