The Fully Mindful with Melissa Chureau
The Fully Mindful podcast explores what it is to be fully mindful and present in our everyday lives, uncover our worth and discover our purposes. Host of TFM, Melissa Chureau is a neurodivergent lawyer, mindfulness teacher, and embodiment and breathwork coach. On TFM, Melissa interviews inspiring creatives, wellness leaders, and social disruptors about how they have discovered their purpose(s), authentic wellness, and the value of their work on the world at large.
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The Fully Mindful with Melissa Chureau
How Positive Intelligence Transforms Stress and Empowers Creativity with Juliette Fassett | Entrepreneurial Resilience and Mindful Innovation
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Juliette takes us through her journey, from developing her product Flippy to fighting the battle against intellectual property theft by large corporations.
Key Takeaways:
Overcoming Saboteurs and Cultivating Sage Powers: One of the core principles of positive intelligence is identifying and overcoming the internal saboteurs that hold us back. She shares how she learned to recognize and manage her saboteurs, empowering her to tap into her sage powers — the wise, calm, and compassionate aspect of the mind that helps us approach challenges with clarity and creativity.
From Flippy to Intellectual Property Advocacy: Juliette discusses developing Flippy, a popular and innovative product, to becoming a passionate advocate for intellectual property rights. She shares the importance of standing up to large corporations that seek to infringe on the hard work of small entrepreneurs and offers valuable advice on protecting your intellectual property.
Building Resilience Through Mindfulness: Juliette emphasizes the role of mindfulness in cultivating emotional resilience. She discusses how practices like mindfulness and positive intelligence help entrepreneurs maintain focus, prevent burnout, and nurture the drive to keep pushing forward even in tough times.
Creativity and Purpose in Business: Juliette’s story powerfully reminds us that entrepreneurship isn’t just about building a business—it’s about aligning passion, purpose, and creativity to solve problems that matter.
Why You Should Listen:
If you’re an entrepreneur or creative looking for ways to manage stress, boost resilience, and unlock greater creativity, this episode is for you. Juliette Fassett’s journey proves that with the right mindset and tools, you can overcome challenges, protect your innovations, and stay inspired by your passion and purpose.
Tune in to learn how to apply positive intelligence principles to your life, cultivate resilience, and take a mindful, empowered approach to entrepreneurship. Whether you're building a business, advocating for your ideas, or simply seeking inspiration to push through obstacles, this episode will provide valuable insights to help you succeed with clarity and creativity.
Key Highlights
[02:25] Juliette's entrepreneurial journey and challenges
[05:23] The creation and success of Flippy
[09:21] IP protection challenges for small businesses and entrepreneurs
[14:13] How reflecting on others’ experiences helped build empathy
[16:48] The importance of recognizing and celebrating her inner sage powers
[22:17] The impact of integrated breathwork on positive intelligence
[24:17] The value of stress management and mindfulness
[26:03] Benefits of staying grounded with Positive Intelligence tools and PQ reps
Quotes
" If you’re smart and have a disdain for rules, you don’t make a great employee. That’s why I became an entrepreneur."
" If you're stressed out and you're just looking for a break and something fresh, something that is a little bit of a challenge intellectually, something that's going to have you kind of confront some things in a very mild fashion, I would highly suggest it."
Happy Products Inc.: h
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Intellectual Property Advocacy and Entrepreneurship
Speaker 1We are having a complete breakdown in this country of intellectual property protection. That's how I came to be an IP advocate and working with Fair Inventing, which is a nonprofit, and what we do is we try to support and do some litigation support for companies like my own that have been destroyed by bigger companies infringing and stealing our intellectual property.
Speaker 2Welcome to the Fully Mindful Podcast. I'm your host, melissa. I designed this podcast for you. I'm so happy you're here. We are talking about what it means to live with more intention, creativity and authenticity, so we can make aligned connections. I'm a neurodivergent lawyer turned coach who found the healing power of breathwork and the powerful impact of mindfulness as we navigate this wild and beautiful ride of life. Here at the Fully Mindful, we dive deep with inspiring guests, share solo mini-sodes that are packed with tools you can apply immediately, and I mix it up a bit with tangents and sidebars where my friend and host of the New World Normal podcast, debbie Harrell, joins us for some down-to-earth, sometimes random but always meaningful conversations. If you're ready to breathe, reflect and grow, you're in the right place. Let's get fully mindful, all right, welcome to the Fully Mindful. This is Melissa Shero, your host, and this is where we dive into how to live with more authenticity, creativity and connection.
Speaker 2Today, I'm thrilled to be speaking with Juliet Fassett, CEO of Happy Products Inc. An intellectual property advocate here in Portland Oregon. What else can I say about Juliette? She's a badass entrepreneur, a good friend, a hell of an advocate and cooks mean chicken, tikka masala, and also happens to be one in. I think she was in one of the first cohorts of the positive intelligence programs that I ran in the early summer with a cohort of other smart and amazing women, and I'm really excited to have her here to talk a little bit about what she does and what her experience was in the positive intelligence program. And I just realized I might have butchered her last name because even though we've been friends for like 25 years or something like that, I don't say her last name. You did so, I did just fine, okay.
Speaker 2Bassett, yeah, bassett, yeah. So yeah, ceo of Happy Products, and you've also been an entrepreneur for I don't know a couple decades, right.
Speaker 1Well, yeah, 30.
Speaker 2Yeah, a couple, three decades, something like that, not to give away ages or anything.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Since the ripe age of three, you've been an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, how did that happen? How did you become an entrepreneur? That's not, it's not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1So no, no, it's not, and I didn't want to be an entrepreneur and I don't encourage people to become entrepreneurs. You know, the thing is, if you are smart and you're a smart ass and you have a, what do you want to say A little bit of a thing about, a little bit of a disdain for rules and doing things by rote, then you don't make a great employee, and I never made a really good employee. So you have to figure out how to make a living, and so I had my first business when I was 23, started my first business, and then I did go on to spend a little bit of time behind the corporate wall, but that didn't.
Speaker 2That lasted less than two years and uh you have a little problem with authority, maybe a little bit of authority, yep, you could say that.
Speaker 1So you got to figure out a way to make a living. And I have my passions, you know, about business and consumer products and problem solving products. So it was kind of a natural fit problem-solving products so it was kind of a natural fit. It hasn't always been easy, but I have managed to make something of a living a couple of years. Yeah, you got to have somebody to balance you out with. I mean, unless you are a spectacularly successful entrepreneur, which I would say I am sort of successful. But being married to someone who is an engineer and has full employment has always been fully employed and provides the benefits for the family. That's how I've been able. And having older stepchildren, so that my kids were out of the house really young when I was still quite young, I think that all kind of contributed to me being able to continue to do what I do.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean you're hyper creative. You have a very creative engineer husband and you were in a position where you were in a supported in that creativity and in those endeavors.
Speaker 1Right, I mean, if I wasn't married to him, I would still be probably doing what I'm doing, but I would have a much different lifestyle, right, right, and I'd have lots of cats.
Speaker 2You'd be that cat lady. Instead, you get to be a horse lady because you get to ride horses and have that passion as well.
Speaker 1You get to have one horse.
Speaker 2Yes, yeah, and you get to have a dog as well. You get to have one horse, yes, yeah, and you get to have a dog as well. Yeah, and so many years ago you and your husband actually put together a product that has become pretty successful and you put it out on the market and you have been wheeling and dealing that thing for quite a while, right?
Speaker 1Yep Going on. Let's see. We first applied for our provisional patent, I think, in 2013. So yeah, we've been at it for 10 years and my sellout on QVC was in November of 2018. And this is for none other than what is called the Flippy, the wonderful Flippy.
Speaker 2Yeah, tell us a little bit about that and then we'll get into the positive intelligence program. But I think people need to know about this product. It's so awesome.
Speaker 1Well, flippy and I don't have one actually right here. Flippy is the result it was. Well, it was a result of a couple of things. One was that someone asked me to solve a problem. One was that someone asked me to solve a problem, someone said to me, a buyer for a catalog company said we think that there is space in the market for more tablet stand products and we think that the tablet stand category is going to grow.
Speaker 1And, having come from a background in fashion accessories, I had an idea about manufacturing things related to textiles, but I had never developed something from the ground up myself, because I had always worked with designers. So I just set about deciding that I was going to solve this problem and come up with a solution, and it took a very long time and I went back and forth and back and forth on it. And then, when I finally came up with this concept, which was for a product that doesn't is not made of metal parts and doesn't have any moving parts, and it allows you to use the same product whether you're sitting, standing or laying in bed, when I finally came up with the concept for it, I thought, wow, this is pretty cool, and I showed it to Bruce and I said when you have a triangle that's non-equidistant, the sides are not even and then you flip it, it does this. And then, when you flip it again, it does this. And he's like I have no idea what you're talking about, but let's make a CAD drawing of this thing and see what it looks like in 3D. So we made a 3D model and that was it. I was like, oh, this thing is amazing and you know it took a lot.
Speaker 1Even after we came up with the model and what became the final form factor, it still took a year and a half to get it figured out and figure out how to get it made and everything that was impossible. Yeah, yeah, it was years, years of development. But then, you know, also another bunch of years trying to get people to pay attention to it and I was selling it slowly to this catalog company. They were buying a couple hundred units during the holiday and they always sold out and it was really expensive because I was making it in such low volume. And then I finally, after getting the door slammed in my face for three years at QVC, I finally got somebody where the light went on, and even the buyers at QVC were very tepid about it, but they tested it and it tested really well.
Speaker 1And then, in November of 2018, we sold half a million dollars worth of product in 12 minutes Wow, yeah. And we sold the same day. We sold $40,000 worth of product on Amazon and that was more than we had ever sold on Amazon period In the entire history of a couple of years of selling on Amazon. $40,000 in a day was huge, absolutely huge. So we were off and running. And then, of course, we got ripped off, and I've been fighting the ripoffs ever since.
Speaker 2Yes, and that is another huge story that we could spend five episodes of this podcast talking about, for sure, and another reason why entrepreneurship can be so difficult, especially for a small business person. Right, it's absolutely impossible, these big fish, who their business model is, to find small fish who have really good products and to just gobble them up, yep, and just gobble, gobble, gobble, and that's their business model.
Speaker 1We are having a complete breakdown in this country of intellectual property protection. And that's how I came to be an IP advocate and working with Fair Inventing, which is a nonprofit, and what we do is we try to support and do some litigation support for companies like my own that have been destroyed by bigger companies infringing and stealing our intellectual property.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think I'd like to put some stuff in the show notes in case there's anybody out there listening who would like to know more about that and how they can get some help with some advocacy, because I think it's such an important topic. Absolutely, we're just barely touching on that and that wasn't really the point of this episode, but just in case people need some help with that.
Speaker 1It's a whole big rabbit hole, that's for sure.
Speaker 2Yeah, 100%. So we did want to talk about how you came to be interested in the Positive Intelligence Coaching Program that I launched I think it was an early summer this year and just wondered what you know when I pitched it to you as a possibility. What interested you about it?
Speaker 1I didn't know anything about it when you picked it. I had never heard of it before and I wasn't familiar with this work, and all I knew was that, just like everybody else these days, I have my problems with stress, some actually really profound and serious problems with stress, and I will alter anything to try to stay sane and whole and healthy, try to keep from getting swallowed up into everything that is the technology in our lives these days, and it just it sounded accessible. Sometimes these things sound to me they're too big of a commitment and the fact that we could do it from our own home, you know, so I didn't have to get in the car and drive somewhere in traffic and worry about parking. I thought, wow, car and drive somewhere in traffic and worry about parking.
Exploring Saboteurs and Sage Powers
Speaker 2I thought, wow, that's if it works if it's relatable in this form factor of doing it online, then why not? Yeah, yeah, and it was. We did this in a very small group, so there were just a small. I think there were maybe five of you women only in that particular group, and so it made it a little bit cozy, right.
Speaker 1No, it was really. It was a great size. It was very manageable yeah.
Speaker 2Well run. Hey everyone, I'm excited to announce my eight week positive intelligence program, the PQ program, starting February 25th. To reduce stress, break through barriers and tap into your true potential. With just one to two hours a week you'll quiet inner saboteurs, strengthen your inner sage self and build lasting mental fitness through live meetings, daily exercises in the PQ app and powerful practices. Ready to transform? Set up a call with me today in the Calendly link in the show notes. We'll see you there.
Speaker 2Well, so what did you think about this idea? You know we started off talking about our saboteurs and you don't necessarily have to talk about your particular saboteurs. But this idea that we all have saboteurs, generally run by the ringleader of the judge who's like always yammering on about whether we're judging ourselves or somebody else or our circumstances, and kind of getting the other saboteurs the other nine saboteurs to hop on the bus and drive the bus down the road, much to our chagrin, right, yeah? So what did you think of that idea? That whole premise of figuring out who our saboteurs are and kind of figuring out their stories?
Speaker 1You know, the thing that I really liked about that part of it was that this is all stuff that if you've been to therapy in some way shape or form, you are kind of familiar with it. But this was in a way that was a little bit more. But this was in a way that was a little bit more I don't want to say lighthearted, but it was treated in a little bit more of a. I guess maybe it wasn't quite so intimidating to me because we were doing it as a group and everybody else acknowledged oh yeah, I have these problems too. When you're in therapy by yourself, you're always oh you know, it's all about you and I'm the only one who feels this way and I'm such a mess. But when you're doing it in a group and everybody's like, oh fuck it, we're all a mess, you know, it's a little bit different. So I kind of enjoyed that format. I had never participated in a white. I've done some group stuff, but never something like that before. So it was refreshing and not so heavy.
Speaker 2I think that's such a good point, right, that sometimes it's helpful to see what, how other people are experiencing their saboteurs. And even if it's a different saboteur, you're like, oh God, you know, I'm not the only crazy person here, right you?
Speaker 1know these other people are experiencing. My God, these people are so hard on themselves, right, and I don't feel like I mean everybody's hard on themselves, but I don't feel like I am particularly hard on myself. But I saw some other people that I thought, oh, my God, they are really hard on themselves, and it kind of was good to have that contrast too.
Speaker 2Right, right, just to see that, see how they were treating themselves, and and maybe then even reflecting on, I wonder if I say anything like that to myself.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, some of the things that people shared I completely empathized with, and then some of the things that people shared I completely empathized with, and then some of the things that people shared, while I couldn't relate to it from my own behavior and my own brain, was really interesting.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, If nothing else it does kind of build the empathy muscle right.
Speaker 1Completely.
Speaker 2Yeah, did you feel like you learned any particular tools about how to intercept your own saboteurs so that you could understand them or be aware of them more?
Speaker 1was helpful. Yeah, thinking about it because I'm not in therapy now and I think I told you that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do the class was because I'm not in therapy and I could use some help getting out of my head. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it was just a good contribution and, as part of it, examining the saboteurs is really helpful.
Speaker 2Right, yeah, and the program also really emphasizes not just identifying the saboteurs, but so that we can activate the sage within ourselves, right, the sort of knowing, the all-knowing person that has always been there but kind of gets hidden right by all these saboteurs and what society and culture and education and media and all that stuff does to us. And so we ended up exploring things like the sage powers of empathize, explore, innovate, navigate, activate. And did you feel like being able to explore some of those sage powers within you was helpful?
Speaker 1Absolutely. You know you have these powers in you, but you don't identify them in those different buckets, right? So sometimes I'll have a thought and, for example, just the other day I said something to someone and he said oh my God, you just blew my mind with what you just said. And he said I have to sit down and think about that for a second. And I was laughing and he said that is so sage what you just said. And I was like, is it? It was just kind of obvious to me, and having that recognized in that example, having an external recognition, was one of the first times since our class that I felt like, oh, and I kind of did that sort of the bell went off, oh yeah, that was the sage. I need to go back and remind myself that that's in there, yeah, and pay more attention when she shows up.
Speaker 2Right, and maybe even I don't know if this is the right word, but celebrate that right.
Speaker 1Like, recognize it.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me, yeah, look at her.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2That's awesome.
Speaker 1Yeah, it was actually really cool. It actually has happened a couple of times recently where I've had people say what somebody said to me just two days ago. Whenever we meet, you always say that you're out of your depth, but I don't see any indication of that whatsoever and I thought, god, I gotta stop. That's one of my saboteurs, right, right, I gotta stop doing that because it's such a less. I suppose it's such a female thing and also given our age well, my age anyway sort of not wanting to praise ourselves or being afraid to come across as too strong, right.
Speaker 2Right, but it's okay to be in our power, right To acknowledge that there's nothing wrong with that and, if anything, it gives other people's permission, other women, to be in their strength and their power right.
Speaker 1Absolutely so. That was just another example of a saboteur showing up and me kind of going put that back.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So when you notice you're about to say, oh, I'm out of my depth here, you just like oh thanks, saboteur, that's really interesting that you're here. I think I'm going to, I think I'm just going to nip that one in the bud and just yes.
Speaker 1And you know, what's funny is that it was a very how do I say this? A big like a VIP, somebody who had run a multi-billion dollar governmental agency. And because it was him saying it, I got to cut the shit. Yeah, because I don't want to undersell myself, especially to people like that.
Speaker 2Especially to people like that, but just in general, right and right. And I mean you're here, you're this badass entrepreneur and also this intellectual property advocate like you are not out of your depth period.
Speaker 1Well, not for most of the stuff that I'm dealing with. No, you're just not.
Speaker 2No, I'm not. You know what the hell you're talking about.
Speaker 1Yeah, most of the time.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's. That's interesting. That's great that you're still noticing that right.
Speaker 1Yeah, I am still noticing it.
Speaker 2And that's the thing, this work, it's not like it's a destination, it's not like we finish, you don't get there.
Speaker 1You never get there.
Speaker 2Right. You know the man who developed this work, shirzad Kamine, and he talks about that all the time. He's like I'm still doing the work. I've been doing this work and he recently reconfigured the program altogether Right, and I think that speaks volumes, right? So they have a new iteration of the program. They beta tested it and now there's this whole new. It's more or less the same, but they've improved it. Why? Because that's what you do, right. You continually improve it. You continually do the work yourself. That's what you do, right. You continually improve it. You continually do the work yourself and you're never done right.
Speaker 1I think that having him share his own examples of this work, his journey and how he came to create it, that was particularly appealing too, right? So getting to know the man behind the work and being able to see him and hear him speak, even if it wasn't in person, I thought was great.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think hearing everybody's stories, you know whether they were yours, the other members mine. I think that can be really helpful.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely I actually. You know, I'm at a point now where I kind of preferred it to one-on-one therapy. It's just a little more active.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, there's something to the small group that is really.
Speaker 1And having a little bit of homework and something to think about for you.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I love the fact that there's an app and there's an opportunity for a daily focus on the app and it's nothing too strenuous, but there's stuff to do, stuff to focus on.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it's not a lot, it's a tiny little thing right.
Speaker 2It's not like go home and meditate for two hours and then write in your journal.
Speaker 1It is no big deal and that's part of the other appealing part of this program was that it was such a small commitment but with a really big impact part of the process.
Speaker 2I just I love conscious, connected breath work and, as you know, I added that in as a hey, we're just going to release whatever we dusted up here, whatever saboteurs we dusted up, we are just going to release that shit and we are going to just access our sage in one hour of crazy ass breath work. And so wondering what you thought about that aspect of the program.
Speaker 1Totally loved it.
Speaker 2Good.
Speaker 1Good and I think we all did everybody that participated. I just thought it was awesome and I have done a little bit of breath work in yoga class before, but not an intense uh process like we did, and I think adding it together at the end of our class was just really helpful. It was like the cherry on top yeah, a little bit of a graduation ceremony.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that was definitely the point. And to try to describe what this is, I think you have to experience it to really fully appreciate the impact that it can have on you labor of the mind, right.
Speaker 1So you're working on your head, but by integrating the breath work it connects the two, it brings it out of your head and into your body and it's the whole picture, right. So to me they're kind of opposite sides of the same coin opposite sides of the same coin, right?
Speaker 2No, that makes sense. What would you say to someone who was considering doing this program?
Speaker 1Oh my God, I mean I wouldn't even hesitate If you're stressed out and you're just looking for a break and something fresh, something that is a little bit of a challenge intellectually, something that's going to, something that is a little bit of a challenge intellectually, something that's going to have you kind of confront some things in a very mild fashion. I would highly suggest it, and I've recommended it to other people. Yeah, I really enjoyed it and I got a lot out of it.
Speaker 2That's great. Well, I really appreciate your time and talking about it. I know you're a busy entrepreneur and a busy wife and a busy dog, mom and horse.
Speaker 1Gotta go feed her.
Speaker 2And I'd love to have you on again to actually talk a little bit more to the extent that you can about your intellectual property advocacy. So I think that's a really important topic and I'd love to have you on to talk a little bit more about that if you'd be interested.
Speaker 1Absolutely. I'd be really happy to. It's really important work and we're doing everything we can to get people to pay more attention to it. I have a reporter from Inc Magazine coming out next month to interview me.
Speaker 2Oh, wow, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's a big deal, and this litigation that I'm in is huge.
Speaker 2It is huge and ongoing, and so I won't ask you questions that you can't answer, but I'm dying to.
Speaker 1We're just getting off the ground with it, so there's really not much to tell. It's still in the sort of getting organized phase. I don't think anybody's filed any motions yet. We were requested to dismiss one filing and so we're going back and forth on whether or not reps that you learn to do to keep yourself sane and grounded and centered and through all that craziness and use all those tools to keep your head above water and feel good about what you're doing.
Speaker 1We all have to try. It's just a bizarro time we're living through Not that any time isn't bizarro, but it feels. I think I'm not the only one. I think a lot of us feel like the world is coming apart at the seams, and maybe our own worlds are coming apart at the seams, and anything you can do, like I said in the beginning, to stay sane and stay grateful for what you have, is terrific.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, we got to keep on keeping on and, and we can do so, and, and even in crazy times, we can find moments to find gratitude, appreciate one another and enjoy our friendships and our relationships and our time with our loved ones, our furry ones and all the rest.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you. I'll sign off now and we will get you back here in short order, and can't wait for people to listen to our episode.
Speaker 1Thank you very much, Melissa.
Speaker 2I'll talk to you soon. Okay, Thank you for joining me on the Fully Mindful podcast. If you got value from this episode, I'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review or share this episode with someone who loved this content too. Remember, small moments of mindfulness can lead to big changes in your day-to-day life. Until next time, take a deep breath, stay present and tap into your own mindfulness. I'll see you next time.