Molly Birkholm with Team Genius

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to have this guest on with me today, Molly Birkholm. She spent over 18 years pioneering evidence based, resilient resilience programs and trauma treatment programs, which are used throughout the US Department of Defense and US Department of Veterans Affairs. She probably doesn’t want me to tell you that she is also a CEO, a speaker and author, advisor, educator, and teacher trainer. Molly, welcome to the show.

Molly Birkholm: Thank you so much for having me, Trisha.

Trisha Stetzel: And your story is so much bigger than that. Like I couldn’t do your bio justice even if I read the entire thing, because you’re doing such amazing work. You and I connected because you’re working in the veteran’s space, and I happen to be talking to a mutual contact. And he said, you have to talk to Molly. And we became best friends just over the telephone.

Molly Birkholm: I mean, it was within minutes we had we knew we found the heart space, a shared heart space.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. So tell us more a little bit about Molly. And then I’d like to talk more about the work that you’re doing.

Molly Birkholm: Sure. Um, well, more about Molly. I live in Miami, Florida with my husband, my 15 year old man child who’s taller than all of us, um, two dogs, three cats, and whatever else happens to wander by.

Trisha Stetzel: And this is why we like each other.

Molly Birkholm: I just know exactly how many. How many animals do we have today? I don’t know. Um. So. Yes, the more the merrier. And our little farm here in the middle of Miami. Um, yes. And I love being in nature. I love swimming in the ocean, hiking in forests. Um, I love camping. Traveling all over the world, anywhere that I can. Just exploring this planet and people and culture and just finding new ways to connect with myself. Meditating, breathing, Pilates, yoga, anything that brings joy. Um, especially being with people I love. So yeah, I love that.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you for sharing. And, um, I was thinking as you were running through that list, I’m like, oh, we should all go barefoot and ground ourselves in the grass every morning, right? And I am, I’m so I walk from one place to another and I still have shoes on. Stop it. I should just stop it. So, Molly, let’s talk about that.

Molly Birkholm: That point right there. I just have to tell you one of my very favorite studies of all, because I know you like the science too. You and I connected on that, too. Was that as we, uh, we might talk about aging today? I’m not sure. But one of the best studies showed that people who go barefoot and also people who walk on cobblestones, have lower rates of falling in older age. So all these little old ladies, you know, living on the Italian hills, they they fall way less than those of us who walk on concrete. So.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, so the next time my husband says, are you going to put shoes on? I can say no with authority. That’s right.

Molly Birkholm: I’ll be well for so much longer, honey. Love that.

Trisha Stetzel: And I’m going to say. Because Molly said so.

Molly Birkholm: Yes, exactly.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Thank you. Let’s talk about the work that you do. Um, the work that you’re doing, not just in the veteran community, but the people that you serve on a regular basis. What kind of conversations are you having with them? What type of work are you doing with your clients?

Molly Birkholm: So oftentimes I’ll describe my client base because it’s very, very diverse as people who want to become more exceptional at what they do and people who are having such a hard time that oftentimes they aren’t even sure they want to be on this earth. Now, those people can actually be the same people sometimes, or they can be very different people. They could also be the same people at different points in life. But there’s something that both of those demographics, if we identify them as separate, have in common and that’s that they want to change. They want to evolve. I don’t typically do well with people who don’t want to change, because if they don’t want to change, then you know it’s a waste of their time. Mine and waste of money, a waste of waste of effort. Um, so and when people really do want to change, they’re willing to open their hearts to find new ways of looking at life, at situations. They’re willing to go deeper. And so the nature of the work I do is I jump in with whatever the person presents me with, um, in the private client work. And if I’m working with teams or with companies, then I ask them, you know what? What is going on in your life? What feels strongest where, what is really bringing you to life? What is holding you back, what keeps you up at night, and whatever comes in that context? We start working in that space. Now, oftentimes that will involve stress management and resilience. So we’ll use our whole cadre of stress management and resilience tools to help them ground, as you and I were just talking about, to help them calm themselves down, sleep at night, you know, work with difficult emotions, keep their cool in the face of things that could be very stressful or could cause anger or fear.

Molly Birkholm: Um, and conversely, I also work with people who are trying to do creative things, whether it’s write a book or make a film or create a new company. Similar to your beautiful work, how do we harness the power of the challenges in our life in order to create? Because those two things are always connected. Transformation happens when we want to create and evolve an idea, when we want to reconcile something. So oftentimes people feel discomfort because they feel like, oh, there’s something here, I have to look at this. I have to explore it, and they can feel so uncomfortable. And then as they move into it, they feel the power of what it is that, uh, that they’re doing. And then all of a sudden, sudden it starts to unfold and a lot of magical ways. So I in a typical session, to go back to your original question, are you almost always will meditate with people, at least for a little bit, just to connect with the moment, do a little breathing. Um, and then we will work with whatever comes up. And we would just submit it to the, to the creative process, the transformation process, and goes from there.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. So tell me how you got involved in the veteran community or even in the active duty community. How did you get pulled into this military space that you work in?

Molly Birkholm: So it was really interesting. I was an investment banker originally, and I almost died in a car accident in Manhattan in the year 2000. It was actually 25 years ago this month that I got into that car accident. Um, and I fractured my skull, my spine and my sternum. Um, my cabdriver died. I was trapped in the car with him for an hour. I had extremely bad post-traumatic stress disorder. I had every single symptom. If you read the list, I can’t find one that I didn’t have. Um. And in the process of healing. Uh, I had I still have an amazing, loving family. At the time, I had, you know, banker insurance, which is very good insurance. I had lived in Manhattan, where there were lots of, um, you know, top doctors and resources at my fingertips, and none of it was working. And, you know, I went therapist, I think I went to seven therapists. And they kept wanting to put me on a pill or do this or that. And I kept saying, I’m not depressed. I just had something traumatic happen. I need something else. Now, I do believe that medication does help a lot of people, and certainly talk therapy helps me. I still do therapy once a month because I think it’s a great time to check in with where I’m at, even if it’s exploring something that feels really good. Um, so at the same time, there was more to the equation. So I went on my own search, uh, and some of the things that helped me the most were yoga, meditation, and breathing.

Molly Birkholm: Um, when my lawsuit settled for my car accident, I bought a one way ticket to India. I went and as a Catholic girl, went and lived in a Hindu ashram and Buddhist monasteries. And I thought, there’s something here that I didn’t get, and I don’t want to become Hindu or Buddhist, but I know that they’re teaching these methodologies that actually help. And so I wanted to understand them. I wanted to understand them in a non-Western presented context. And so as I went deeper into the practices, I thought this everybody needs this. Every person who goes to war needs this. Every person who is having stress in their life needs this. And we weren’t taught, you know, even the most loving parents. My parents didn’t know how to teach me to deal with what happens when life falls apart. And so when I came back to the US, it was traveling for about two years. And when I came back, um, I ended up working at the Miami VA hospital in the PTSD program. Um, and with at first I was just teaching yoga and meditation classes, and very quickly we started doing. Within a couple of months, we got our first NIH grant. And then, you know, this was in oh seven, so we were still in oöphoi up that we had a lot of people coming into the VA, and we still had a lot of Vietnam vets.

Molly Birkholm: So it was overflowing. Seven month waitlist and we could pack a class for meditation. So and it was working. It was helping people. Um, we tried a lot of things that didn’t. And then we tried a lot of things that did. And we were just really in conversation with vets. How’s this? How’s this? And we were bringing it in a secular way. We were not teaching, you know, Hindu or Buddhist meditation. We were teaching how to breathe, how to be in your own body, how to be in your own mind, how to work with the difficult emotion. But we were applying these technologies to it. And as we got the clinical research to back it up, it just exploded. And we were asked, can you train other people to do what you do? So there were four of us that founded Warrior Studies and we, you know, we went on to train thousands of people who at 65 bases in Vas, and we’ve worked with foreign militaries and the work just kept growing. Eventually started working with the Special Forces community and working on resilience training, um, trying to apply the same principles to prepare someone for the experience of stress so that we weren’t just treating trauma after the stress occurred. But how do we actually create the conditions that someone can experience stress in a more, um, and a less impactful way, or maybe not experience stress at all?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Okay. So, Molly, we’re about halfway through our time together and I’m guessing just a guess that there are people who are listening who would love to connect with you already, and they haven’t even heard the rest of the story. But if they’re ready to connect with you, what’s the best way to get in touch?

Molly Birkholm: Sure, you can go to my website if you like the more corporate or team building side. If you have a team that you think could use this, you can go to Team Genius. And if you are more interested in the coaching side or in a keynote talk, or in just connecting one human to one human, you can go to Molly Comm. And for any veterans who are interested or first responders, we also have the Warrior Path program. You can go to Warrior Path with two H’s. That’s a free seven day post-traumatic growth program that any veteran or first responder can apply to attend.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you for all that you do for the greater community, not just veterans active duty, but also just the community in general. The work that you’re doing is amazing. I like to take what we’ve what you’ve been talking about in your past and the things that you’ve been doing into a conversation that I think is really real right now. And you and I talked about loneliness and how that has really weighed heavy on a lot of people. And now this morning, just before we started recording, we were talking about fear. And I think those two things are really heavy right now with people. So can you just give us a little insight in the types of conversations that you’re having around fear and loneliness right now?

Molly Birkholm: Sure. Um, you know, I just want to start out by saying everybody feels alone in some way. We might not have a generalized sense of loneliness, but even a person who has a beautiful Marriage might feel lonely in the workplace. A person who has beautiful family connections may feel very alone in their community. We might feel alone with ourselves because we’re not connecting with ourselves. So please, if you feel loneliness, I just first want to blast the notion of shame out of this because it is a totally normal human condition that every single human being faces. And in fact, loneliness can be the key through which you find connection. Because when we are vulnerable with ourselves, first of all, because we have to learn to be vulnerable with ourselves before we can extend that generosity to anyone else. A trusted person. You don’t want to be vulnerable with untrusted people, but you have to at least try to see, could I be vulnerable with this person? Does this happen to be someone who perhaps someone else trusts? Or I see something that is trustworthy, and then you can test it with a small thing. And if they prove trustworthy in that way, you can keep growing it. Now, what’s behind that? It’s fear, right? We are afraid we’re going to get hurt. Now, oftentimes, and I’ve been throwing up my hands, I was someone who thought, I mean, it was so. So not a good way to live.

Molly Birkholm: Please don’t be like this. But I think it might connect with some people. I would say I trust everyone until they prove me wrong. Terrible idea. I was like, the worst idea. But you know. So you know what happens? I end up, you know, getting a divorce. I end up, you know, you know, in business relationships sometimes that weren’t trustworthy. What we want to do in the creation of connection with this notion of loneliness is, first of all, identify what makes us feel afraid and try to start identifying how we can feel safe now in the same way. And I’m going to come back to loneliness in the same way that that loneliness is so common right now in our own lives and in the world. Fear is really this water that we’re swimming in and why? Because especially in, you know, since 2020, the whole world has turned upside down. Whether any of us like it or not, it’s a different planet than it was before. And you can pick any number of topics that make people feel afraid at all ends of the political spectrum, at all ends of society. And you will find that everyone feels afraid. Every single one of my clients that I’ve talked to in the past few months, if not years, come with this. This piece that says, I’m just so afraid, and we get shut down and we’re afraid to act, and then we actually create loneliness.

Molly Birkholm: We don’t know who we can trust. We don’t know if we can even trust ourselves. We don’t know if the old systems are trustworthy. We don’t know if the people that are running the systems that we operate inside of are trustworthy. And the whole thing is up for grabs right now. Now that feels scary. It feels scary. And it is unifying. It is so unifying when we can all sit down and say, I have fear in this way, or I have fear in that way. And in healthy communities and healthy conversations, listen to each other. Now we suffer when we want reality to be different than what it is. So there’s no getting out of fear without naming it, without allowing it to be there. And then the second we name it, you know, if Trish and I kept talking, I’m sure we could find other things like that. We have. Maybe aging parents. Maybe. I mean, we haven’t even had those conversations. But there’s lots of things I’m afraid of right now. You know, I don’t know, my 401 K went way down the past couple months. I’m afraid of that, too. Like I’m afraid of lots of things right now. So I don’t I. And that’s just human. So I don’t know. Trisha, tell me, how is this sitting with you just so we can connect in this space before we go any further?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Like, it completely resonates with me, and, um, I so I wouldn’t personally label it as fear, and I’m sure that’s what it is. But my label for that is confusion, right? There’s no forward, um, plan or path that seems clear to me. So I would just put a different label on it. But I’m absolutely feeling that same thing right now. What’s around the corner? Sure. Yeah.

Molly Birkholm: Yeah. What’s around the corner? And that I love that labeling as confusion because the way we all internalize it is different. And by hearing Trisha say that I now have a new dimension, that I can look at my own experience of it. So that’s so powerful. We might have different things that cause confusion, and yet at the same time, we can start to isolate even the feeling in the body of what that’s like and start to notice it. So when you feel confusion, what do you feel? Trisha?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Um. Tension. Right? Because I don’t know what’s around the corner. I’m confused by what the process or the path ahead is. So tight shoulders. My body gets a little tense. Maybe there are some other emotions that are coming up for me. Right? As we’re having this conversation, I got a little warm, like, okay, so I’m a little warm and I’m a little tense because I’m I’m like reliving this confusion or this what’s around the corner next, right? And I can feel it in my body. That’s where I feel it now. So my so my face got red and my chest got red. And I get warm and tense. And so that’s what I feel when you ask me to talk about that confusion. Right.

Molly Birkholm: Yeah. And even as you’re saying it, I’m feeling it in my body. And I don’t know if our listeners are noticing where it ripples in them. I get same as you right up here. And you can see I don’t know if the video everyone’s seeing the video, but my chest is a little red right here, too. I always get it up here and in the throat, and then I get it kind of in my belly, and I start to notice that I’ll start to hunch over as if I’m going to protect myself. This very primordial, instead of sitting upright and all of a sudden, like lunging in. And then in those moments, I every time I start to feel that way, I create this trigger. And maybe we just invite everyone to do it. Maybe we just take ten deep breaths together. And even though we’re here talking, we give real honor to the fact that sometimes stopping and just breathing together with other people or by ourselves is the most powerful thing we can do. So I welcome. Are you okay if we do that?

Trisha Stetzel: I already started, I’m ahead of you. Okay, great.

Molly Birkholm: So, everyone, if you’re driving your car or cooking dinner or doing whatever you do, just if you want. I love touch, so I always put one hand on my belly, one hand on my chest. But you can find whatever feels good to you and just feel your feet grounding on the earth. So if you had roots extending down from your feet into the earth, you can even think of a favorite place in nature, a favorite place that you love. Start to breathe up and through the body. Feeling. Grounding. Calming energy. Moving all the way up and through. Really expanding your abdomen on the inhalation. And as you exhale, just feel like you’re washing tension out of the body. Continue breathing at your own pace, but as you inhale, try to really expand the belly like a balloon. Expand the chest, expand the lungs till you can’t get any more air in, and then squeeze them out as if you’re squeezing out a wet rag. Pull the belly in towards the spine. Squeeze out the lungs. Get all the air out. Keep going. Like this.

Molly Birkholm: Deepest inhales you possibly can. Let’s see if you can make the exhalations even a little slower. A little deeper. Take five more breaths at your own pace, visualizing breathing in all this calming, grounding energy. And as you exhale, letting go of any confusion, any fear, any tension, let it go. It’ll come back later if it needs to. If you don’t want to let it go, you can also just welcome it. Just let it be here. Surround it with peaceful, calming energy, knowing you’ll be better equipped to handle whatever is here. More. You breathe and find your center. One last, very deep, very present breath. If you’re not driving before you open your eyes, bring your hands together and rub your hands together, making some heat between your hands. Really building that warmth between the hands. Place the hands over the eyes. Just cupping the hands over the eyes. And letting that be the transition that brings you back into this place, into this conversation, to this exploration of the human experience. Learning to be comfortable. Being uncomfortable. How do you feel now, Trisha?

Trisha Stetzel: I’m lost for words, Molly, because I relaxed. I actually cleared all of the garbage out of my head. So let me come back to reality. Right. Um. Much calmer. Right? More present. I feel like I have more direction. I’m really. And I think that the most important thing right now is that I’m even more tuned in to the conversation that we’re having now than I was before. And I’m a really good listener, and I’m really good at removing distractions. But that alone, I feel like I’m even more connected with you now having this conversation. Yeah. Thank you.

Molly Birkholm: Thank you. I feel so much better, too, and more connected to you. Um, sometimes people think that this could be woo woo or weird or something. People think I’m strange if I’m doing this thing. But we feel stress when we feel like we don’t have a choice. We have been breathing every single moment of this life, and we always have a choice how we breathe. Even people who have asthma, even people who have trouble breathing. We all have a choice about how we picture the breath. We have choices about how we work with the breath, and the breath is the only function of the autonomic nervous system we can directly affect. And it’s so quick. We just took ten breaths. That’s it. We can all do that. Even setting an alarm on your phone for every hour of the day it goes off. If you’re in a meeting, if you’re in the school pickup line, whatever you’re doing, stop and take ten deep breaths while you’re doing it, whatever it is and you will see it will invite your nervous system into deeper states of security, of safety, and you will feel more. Grounded to your own feeling of well-being. Regardless of what the stories of the world are.

Trisha Stetzel: We can only control a certain amount of things, right? And that is something that can really shift or change the way in an instant. Write in the way your day is going, or the way you feel, or the things that you worry about around the corner, right? Or are confused about. Yeah.

Molly Birkholm: Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Molly, you’re going to have to come back. I’m just saying, because they’re at the back end of our time. And I’m, uh, thank you for taking us through that exercise. Completely unexpected and unscripted. And I think it’s going to help a lot of people who are listening or even watching today just to take those ten breaths. So you’re going to have to come back and teach us how to belly breathe and how to do all of those things. Right. That would be so much fun. I would love that. Thank you so much.

Molly Birkholm: Anyone want some free guided meditations? Just send me an email Molly at Team Genius. I will send you one for pain, one for healing, one for sleep, and one for daily living. And you can just try it and see if it works.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you so much for being with me today. You guys connect with Molly. I will also have all of the links and ways to get in touch with Molly in the show. Um, in the show notes. So all you have to do is point and click. I encourage you to connect with her. I also encourage you to rewind this, uh, show that you’re listening to and keep using that ten breaths that Molly gifted us with today. Molly, thank you so much for being here.

Molly Birkholm: Thank you Trisha.

Trisha Stetzel: I can’t wait to have you back. I hope you’ll come back.

Molly Birkholm: Of course. Anytime.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, good.

Molly Birkholm: We, our weekly meditation circle are fantastic.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. All right, family, that’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another amazing episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.