Ep 38. Stop Criticizing Yourself: How to Lead Your Future Self with John Mollura
Ever feel stuck in self-criticism, even after achieving the success you worked so hard for?
In this episode, John Mollura shares his journey from burnout and self-doubt to making conscious decisions that align with his future self.
You’ll learn how to:
Break free from autopilot and start making decisions that truly serve you.
Transform self-criticism into clarity and strategic action.
Leverage your past experiences and skills to build a meaningful legacy.
Become a hero for your future self, every day.
If you’re a founder or entrepreneur looking not just to sell your business but to leave a lasting legacy, this episode gives you practical guidance for taking intentional steps toward your next chapter.
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John Mollura is a personal coach and speaker who knows what it’s like to feel stuck, even when your resume says otherwise.
For fifteen years, he led test operations for NASA missions as a literal rocket scientist before reinventing himself as a multi-award-winning photographer, with work featured by National Geographic.
Behind the achievements and accolades, John faced self-doubt, perfectionism, and the fear of taking the next step. But he didn’t just overcome it, he created a framework for lasting change.
Through a unique blend of science, storytelling, and strategy, John equips people to take action, build confidence, and create momentum in their personal and professional lives.
Get ready to move from hesitation to action, from fear to confidence, and from stuck to unstoppable.
Connect with John:
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00:00 — Welcome
00:02 — John shares the slow realization that his career success wasn’t bringing fulfillment.
00:05 — The cost of walking away from a six-figure aerospace career, and what it made room for.
00:07 — “Thank God I’m getting paid so much to be so miserable.” A raw turning point.
00:09 — Who are you vs. what do you do? The question that changes everything.
00:11 — John’s anthem: “It could have been me”, and why he refuses to live with regret.
00:13 — Golden threads: how past careers connect to your future purpose.
00:17 — The personal tragedy that triggered John’s faith and shifted his life’s path.
00:22 — Why brave delay keeps us stuck, and what real bravery looks like.
00:25 — Listening to the whispers before life hits you with the two-by-four.
00:29 — John’s definition of legacy: being a hero to your future self.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
You put in all this time, all this effort, degrees, years experience, and then you're like, Ruh-roh! This is not filling me up anymore.
Welcome to the Legacy Branding Podcast. I'm your host, Laura Beauparlant, here to guide you through the journey of selling your business, and building a personal brand that leaves a lasting impact. On the show, we'll explore real life founder stories, expert insights, and actionable strategies to help you navigate the transition, avoid post sale crisis, and create your impact driven legacy brand.
Whether you're thinking of selling, building to sell, or already on the other side, this podcast is your go to resource for making your next evolution, your best one yet. Let's dive in.
Today on the Legacy Branding Podcast, I'm excited to welcome John Mollura, a personal coach, keynote speaker, and former literal rocket scientist. For 15 years, John led test operations for NASA and other elite level missions. Before making a very bold pivot into becoming a multi-award winning photographer with work featured in National Geographic, but despite an impressive resume, John was silently battling perfectionism, procrastination and overwhelm.
The very thing that keeps even the most accomplished entrepreneurs stuck. And personal tragedy and a spiritual awakening became the turning point that led him to redefine success on his own terms. And now through his coaching and keynote Elite Level Action, John helps high achievers break through hesitation, and finally take the bold, aligned action that transforms lives and legacies.
John, welcome to the show.
It is a pleasure to be here, Laura. Thanks for having me.
I love your story, and I know when I first read that, I was like, Oh, we've gotta have this conversation because I love that your career has spanned so many different areas, and for me, I know that working with founders, the biggest transitions aren't always selling their business, it's what comes next. And that feeling of now what, or realizing that what you've built, whether it's a career or a business, it doesn't actually fulfill you in the way that you thought that it might.
Right.
Yeah. So, and you've worn these impressive titles, NASA Engineer, National Geographic Photographer, and yet you still found yourself stuck and, battling that perfectionism and self-doubt. I wanted to ask you, was there a specific moment that you realized that the path you were on, no matter how successful it looked from the outside, wasn't the right one for you anymore?
It was really a slow fade, Laura, but if we rewind at the beginning, I never took the time to really figure out what I wanted to do, and the reason why was I didn't really know who I was from all the trials, transitions, and tragedies like I experienced in traumas growing up, in that process. I had just created this shell around myself where I really didn't even know who I was. I just went with whatever trusted advisor told me to do, someone probably told me I should be in engineering 'cause I did decent in math and science in high school. So I was like, all right, whatever. So I just kind of went trucking down that path and it creates this just huge amount of dissonance and stress with inside of you whenever you wake up to the fact it might be a very gradual process, like it was for me that holy cow. I'm not where I'm supposed to be. You feel like there are all these sunk costs that you've put into it and like you put in all this time, all this effort, degrees, years experience, and then you're like, Ruh-roh! This is not filling me up anymore.
So do you find that walking away from this identity cost you anything either personally, professionally, and what did that make room for? Because I think whenever we kind of give up something, let go of something, even if it's hard, whether it's an identity or something else, it opens up room for other things. So I'd love to know the two sides to that coin.
Sure. So when I walked away from corporate engineering in the aerospace field a little bit over eight years ago, I walked away from six figure salary from being flown around the world first class to go rep the company at very important meetings with international clients. So that's what I walked away from. It took a lot of time to kind of decouple who I was from what I did, because a lot of times it's so easy to put your identity and what you did and what you earned. I will be very straightforward. There were a lot of like sacrifices not only me, but also my wife and kids had to make. We watched friends and everybody on Instagram going to Europe and jet skiing and the Caribbean, and my kids were like why can't we do that? It's I'm building this business, but they're like young. They don't understand it. It was worth it to me in the long run because by the time I got to the end of my engineering career, and I was like 16 years into it. Like a watershed moment was when of my wife said she's are you doing okay? And I was not okay. She said, now of course. I'm like, yeah, what do you mean why? And she goes because your skin kind of has the color of a wet ash tray.
Yeah, yeah.
That's quite the visual.
Of, yeah. Not good. Like you get the visual and it was just because I was so out of alignment. After she said that, it really got me thinking and I thought, I remember walking in one day and it's, the weather's very similar to kind of what it is today.
Like we were talking about you're in Canada, I'm on the coast of the US. It's like we're in the same weather system. It's gross outside. It's like cold, it's rainy. And I was walking into work one day and it was just raining down the back of my jacket. And a pivotal moment for me was after my wife and I had that conversation, I said, thank God I'm getting paid so much money to be so miserable. Yeah. I don't even remember walking to my desk. Yeah. It's thank God I'm getting paid so much to be so miserable. It was like in the war movies when like a bomb goes off and like the ears are just ringing. That's how I felt like it physically manifested where like I didn't remember walking to my desk and I sat down.
I'm like, what am I doing with my life? Is this the example I wanna set for my young kids?
Wow. I need to sit with that one for a minute. When I talk with so many founders and so many entrepreneurs or people in a career, corporate career, it doesn't matter. Our identity is so often tied to what we do for a living. It's usually the first question people ask, what do you do? Not who are you? And I wonder how different our lives would be or how much earlier we might shift going into the thing that we're really meant to do if people asked to us, who are you?
Yeah.
not what do you do?
Right. A great question to kind of open that up 'cause a lot of times if you just have someone, like who are you? Like, when I work with people one-on-one, one of the first questions I always ask is if we were to talk like a year from now. Like you could finally have the momentum towards what you really want.
Like what is it you really want to have that momentum towards? And people would just go like we don't think about it. It's like we don't give ourselves permission. We think dreaming is relegated to the youth like children or like maybe someone like going to college, like getting ready to graduate high school. And then after that it's now it's time to do some adulting and like the dreaming stops.
The dreams must die now that you are an adult.
That's right. A lot of it is just becoming aware now, like where we wanna go and like I always say like, what are decisions you can make in the moment to be a hero to the future you? That's what we're really doing to build a legacy. Is we're making decisions in the moment to be a hero to the future you.
But you have to know who that is that you wanna be.
You gotta sit with that. That's exactly why it's the first question I ask people when I work with 'em one-on-one and then, we're able to step through that and I'm able to guide them through that process of really figuring out what like to call like their North star.
Yeah,
Because that's what you can refer back to when you're in these moments of, do I really wanna do this? And the answer might be, is probably going to be no, whatever the hard thing is in front of you. But if you change it and say. Is doing this going to help me be a hero to this future you? That's a much more powerful thing. But like you said, we have to figure that out.
And it makes me think too what you said earlier about the fact that you've invest all of this maybe time, money into a career, you feel like you've gone down this path so far that I think a lot of people think I can't stop now. I can't shift gears. What will people think? Or, I've already invested all of this, I can't start over. But yet, we're often whether we're pushed into a career or we have to make a decision, in high school, like what do you wanna study at 17 or 18 years old? What do you wanna do for the rest of your life? And in some ways, I think we're beyond that point where people do one thing
Right.
their whole lives. I think people are going to have many diverse careers. Even photography, like people might think, oh, engineering and aerospace and photography. There's a lot of science in photography.
Yeah.
And there's an art to it, but there's also art in science. They're not that far different than you might imagine. So it is interesting how we feel like, oh, I've gone this far have to continue. But really is that, if you were to get to the end of your life and look back, what decisions would you have maybe regretted not doing or not making?
Yeah, yeah. I never want to say it could have been me. That's one of my favorite songs and that's what I listened to for inspirations by a band from the UK called The Struts.
And I've had the privilege to photograph them a couple times when they've been in the US but they have this song called, It Could Have Been Me, and that's exactly what the song talks about. I never wanna say that. I never wanna say, it could have been me. Like I would rather go down a blaze of glory been sitting on a rocking chair somewhere at the end of my days being like, I think I probably could have been a photographer. I think I probably could have, been able to pay the mortgage doing that.
And now you can say, that was me,
Exactly, or that is me.
And there's something you said a couple minutes ago that I really want to rewind to, especially since I know you work with founders in transition, and you said, what will people think? how could I start over? And I always challenge people. I'm like, you're not ever starting over.
The only time you're starting with zero knowledge is like the moment you're born after that point, after the moment you are born now life is just a beautiful dance of learning and then figuring out how to repackage all of these experiences, all of these skills that are unique to you and your life.
Like how are we gonna repackage this so you don't start over. I say look for these golden threads that go throughout your life. That's where the magic happens, is figuring out how just to reframe this stuff and continue to learn, and then repackage it and reapply it in a different way.
Absolutely, and I love that reframe, and I think that's probably a narrative that plays out, but if we can reframe it, that it isn't starting over. It's maybe something's fresh, but you've got all of this knowledge and background that you can bring forward into whatever you do next.
Absolutely. So when I was in engineering, in the space program, I did test operations. So they would drop us off anywhere on the planet, like Antarctica, to jungles, to the deserts, and our job was to figure out and make sure that whatever we were doing for the military or for NASA was going to work, before we launched it or put it on an air crew member. I had to become very adept as the leader of a lot of these tests of establishing rapports like that because you can imagine the amount of red tape that is present at a federal facility, doesn't matter what country you're in.
Yeah.
I had to really hone that skill of establishing rapports quickly with people and thinking on my feet. Because that would enable us to get the tests off. A lot of times those personal relationships we would create, guess what? Photography is. Establishing rapports and relationships. Being able to read people and figure out the way the messages land with them. The engineering my job again was testing, so like we had to figure out how are we gonna satisfy these requirements that the government would give us these you know, 300 page toes of, you shall do this, it shall not do this. Our job was to figure out that we've met everyone. Guess what happened when I went into the corporate or commercial photography realm and was working with Fortune 500 companies who needed like their website done like now. I was able to leverage that skill of being able to synthesize and read through requirements. And be like, is this exactly what you need? Is this going to check all the boxes? So I could be very efficient and provide the art, but leverage that discipline. Guess what? As a coach, I have to be able to establish rapport quickly.
I have to be able to synthesize information and figure out what the root cause of things are. It might seem like totally, all these things are way apart. But it's just a matter of synthesizing and figuring out, again, those golden threads that we can use to not only serve ourselves, but then how to serve others.
Absolutely, and it's similar work, but in a different vein that we do. I help find that common thread that we can build a brand around. And all of those nuances that you just said, it's oh, this is who you are, this is what you can do and take forward into whatever career or business you built. But it's finding those things, those threads that link and are you and unique to you. And we all have them, but we're usually too close to ourselves to be able to even see it.
Absolutely. Yeah. When I'm working one-on-one with a client, and I'll say something and they'll be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't see that. I'm like, all right time out. Remember what we talked about was switching from being judgmental about ourselves. Let's be curious and realize that you are in the middle of it. You're in the middle of the fight. You're in the middle of the woods, you're in the forest. I'm floating around as your coach detached in the helicopter going, Hey man, turn left. And that's why coaching and bringing outside advisors like you in is so important to give that just perspective.
📍 So I wanna go back to that moment in your office when you walked in and you said, to yourself, I'm so glad that I'm getting paid so much money for something that makes me miserable. What was the sequence of events that followed that and how soon after that did the photography and leaving that job become a thing?
To really rewind and give people a very good view of how my journey went. And you touched on this in my intro, about seven years into my job. I lost one of my best friends to an intentional overdose, and I was already on shaky emotional ground pretty much for most of my life.
Like really wrestled with anxiety, probably even borderline depression, and had tremendously low self-confidence. Like I remember standing on a stage getting a letter of commendation from the US military, which was a big deal, as a civilian. I remember when my name got ready to be called, I had a panic attack and I thought they're going to realize I've been faking it and have just pulled the wool over everybody's eyes and they're gonna tell me I don't really deserve this. Meanwhile, the thing that we did that the team and I had been working on for years was out doing what it's needed to do and is actually still out there doing its thing today. I didn't believe it cause I just had this just intense lack of self-confidence. I didn't believe the good things people told me despite a track record of like successes and being able to figure it out in life and in business. I thought I was just one mistake away from it all crashing down at all times.
I felt like I'd built this house of cards, so how did I defend it? I would of course, strive even more. Raise my hand for the most difficult assignments. Oh, potentially hazardous. Oh yeah. Put me, put me in coach. Right? Because I was trying to generate this self-worth. The time crunched projects, the hazardous operations, none of it made me feel good. In fact, it just put me higher up on this pedestal that I thought, oh my gosh, what if I fall now? So I had this just veneer of like superhero that I had created but didn't believe it. So I would defend it by pretty much just being an, a-hole. I don't know what your language policy is, but everybody gets the impression I got a lot of other adjectives. I could use to describe myself during that time in my life because it, it was fear-based. And after we lost my friend in 2009 it put me in a extremely dark place, Laura, to the point where I was like, I don't know if I really want to go on. I don't know how to get out of this. Like I was a new dad. I had a lot of fear around being a good father, and I thought maybe my buddy was right.
And in that moment, for whatever reason I realize now is it was the grace of God. The serenity Prayer popped in my head and I hadn't prayed for a decade and a half. I wanted nothing to do with religion after graduating Catholic high school. After I said the serenity prayer, I like immediately, and I said the wisdom to know the difference, I felt this warm sensation come over me. And I thought, that's odd. My highly logical engineer brain kicked in. It's like, that's weird. And I thought I've either, A, just lost my mind, or B, maybe there's something to this God thing. That was the moment I was so broken that my faith was restored in Jesus and it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns because the first thing that happened was the proverbial scales fell from my eyes and I was able to see what a jerk I was. So I started keeping track of when I would lose my temper, when I'd be triggered, when I would cut people down. Use that intense ability to read people I talked about I used to be like Darth Vader at the force. I used to use it for evil protect myself.
Right.
So I started just figuring out then getting a handle on myself, like learning to breathe before I would say something. And that started this journey of really becoming back towards myself. Meanwhile, the company I worked for. Was taken over by venture capitalists and it went from this tight family run business for the past 50 years in the US Space and defense program to now became about profit, which nothing wrong with money, but the stuff I did we were very expensive because sometimes we would test something and a lot of times it would not work. So it would as I would write up in the report, sometimes energetically disassemble AKA blow up and turn into confetti and we'd spend the rest of the day cleaning things up.
Yeah. That eats into some profits, right?
So yeah, that is not good for profits when your thing explodes, right before you give it to, you're supposed to give it to your customers. But you rather have it happen there or on Mars?
Yeah.
So where I worked changed dramatically. I was changing dramatically. So over the course of years, I just became very discontent with where I was at. I was like, this is not right with my soul, photography had always been a side hustle a hobby. Then it became a side hustle.
I thought, wouldn't that be cool to be a photographer? I had a brave delay kick in. I thought, how could I, now at this time, being a father of three, do photography full time I'm the primary breadwinner, all blah, blah.
All the things, all the things that made me seem very brave. But were really just delaying what I wanted to do. So, I left that engineering job and took another engineering job where I got paid even more money and that's one where I realized how miserable I was. I lasted nine months at that second job and my wife and I, had a lot of discussions and once I was able to figure out how to get in with businesses and network and leverage some professional societies in our area, that's when we prayerfully made the decision for me to step away from engineering 'cause she said. Look, the worst that's gonna happen is you could always get another workaday job and go back to engineering, right? Don't go outta the parking lot doing donuts with the middle finger out of the air. Leave on good terms John.
Please don't burn any bridges.
So that was, like I said, I just celebrated my eighth year just being entrepreneur in April.
Amazing. What a journey.
It was a very slow fade. It was a falling of the scales from my eyes. It was discontent with where I was at, and then going somewhere else where I thought the grass would certainly be greener on the other side. And then I realized I just need to start watering the lawn where I'm standing instead of thinking what's gonna be better.
That's a beautiful analogy.
Thank you.
I think a lot of times we think something will be better somewhere else. But imagine if we did nurture or water, where we are, what that could be like, and that can be everything from a business, a career, a marriage, as a parent, the home you live in, relationships you have to nurture All of these things so they can grow, otherwise
It takes effort.
It takes effort all of these things do. Oh my gosh I love that. I know it's hard, if you look back, I know those were not easy times, but I also believe that the growth comes from the challenges, from the discomfort. And often we have to hit those moments in order for us to change something.
Yeah,
I often say that the universe or God, or whatever people believe in, is gonna tap lightly on your shoulder and say, Hey, maybe this is not the path for you. I said, and if you don't listen, it'll eventually come in with a sledgehammer.
Yeah, yeah. I call them two by four moments. Sometimes God needs to get my attention with a two by four, right between the eyes. I didn't pay attention to the rock in my shoe, so
Do you feel like now you're better at identifying the taps as opposed to waiting for the two by four moments?
Oh man. I'd love to say yes, but it's definitely not. I'm better. As always, I'm a work in progress,
that's why it's so important just involve mentors in your life or coaches, people that have walked that path and can be a guide for you. I was talking with one of my mentors, Ken Roberts, and I said, man, I just don't understand why like the photography business is drying up and not getting traction.
You look at the resume like, it's featured by National Geographic, your shot. I've done Fortune 500, like all the things. And Ken's real wise, and he kind of puts his glasses up on his head and he steeples his fingers. He goes, oh, you're experiencing spiritual pullback. I went, huh, so what do you mean? He said obviously you weren't paying attention that you needed to start shifting things, so God just pulled the handle back on one faucet and it's drying up, right? I'm like, yeah. He's pay attention to where things are flowing from now.
So every time I feel like things are drying up that's a very vivid analogy that Ken graciously shared with me.
Yeah, that is so true. And we don't often see those clues or listen to them. We just continue as you did too. Like you just push harder, go for the hazardous job, you do more hoping that it will fill maybe that void or that lack of fulfillment. But it actually takes doing that deep inner work.
Right. I know it sounds scary and I do a lot of work with the first responder in military special forces community. That might sound terrifying to get in and do that work. And these are people that are being shot at. I'm like if you wanna excel at what you're doing and you want to be able to do it long term, and this doesn't matter if you're a first responder military or you own a bakery, like it doesn't matter. There's only so much you can do. But when you do this deep work and you can start to shift outta autopilot and become aware of things and are able then to shift out of being judgemental and be curious about stuff, then you can be a true seeker towards your North Star and not only serving yourself, but now you're able to serve everybody else around you from a place of abundance instead of being like the reservoir that's supposed to be supplying the fresh water, but there's holes all over the front of the reservoir and it's leaked out, and now it's just the muddy drags coming out the bottom, like that's not where you want to be.
That doesn't serve anybody, you or anybody else.
Right. Absolutely.
I think that's such a beautiful lesson for the people listening. You can't give from an empty cup. You can't give from an empty reservoir and doing that work. It is work. It does require time and effort, but the clearer you get on who you are, not what you do.
Right.
How you wanna have that impact, that North star, that impact that you wanna create, the legacy you want to create, the more in alignment you can get with your career, your business, the relationships you have in life.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's all about alignment, and learning to become honest with yourself.
Yeah, absolutely. So the podcast is called Legacy Branding. What does legacy mean to you? I'd love to know your perspective.
Yeah. The way I look at legacy, and that's actually one legacy is one of the pivot points or the leverage points that I talk about in my content because it's so powerful to look at. What choice can I make today to have you be the hero to the future you? So that's what legacy means to me, is like taking the time, figure out who that future you is you want to be. How you show up in your relationships, how you show up in your job, how you show up in your learning, your self-care, your finances, like all the things. Who's that future you? Spend some time figuring that out. And then the beautiful part about that is it's not just some nebulous thing out there.
Now, when it comes time to make a decision in the present moment, because that's when we actually create this reality for the future version of ourselves is now you ask the question instead of saying, do I want to do the thing? Did I wanna wake up this morning at 4:30 and go work out with my men's group in the cold and rain?
No, I did not, but. I know that like I'm getting close to 50. I know I want to be able to be mobile, I wanna be agile. I still wanna be able to travel, walk around, play with grandkids or even a dog in 20 years. So I wanna serve that. I wanna be a hero to that future version of myself. So legacy to me means take the time, figure out who you want to be in all aspects of your life. And if you don't know, that's okay. At least start thinking about it. And then when the tough decisions come about in the moment, don't say, do I or don't I want to do this? Say, is this action or inaction going to cause me to be a hero to the future version of myself? Or is this decision going to keep me stuck?
I love that. And this is why you and I are so aligned, because I've asked people that same question and I'd say it in a slightly different context is does this action opportunity, new offering in your business, whatever that might be, does it get you closer to your goals, to the impact you wanna have, or does it get you further away? Or keep you stuck as you said, and then the decision becomes easy.
Super easy. Yeah. It's binary at that point. It's a yes or no. Like the gray dissapears, from those decisions.
And I think we often underestimate the importance of listening to our gut. What is that first initial response? And if it is a yes, then explore that. But if it's no, but you're like, I feel like I should, that's also a problem. Right? The shoulds.
Yeah. Don't should all over yourself.
I don't. Exactly. John, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. I'd love for you to share a little bit about how you work with people, how people can connect with you, follow you, and we'll make sure to share any links in the show notes, but please share.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. So I can be found johnmollura.com It's M-O-L-L-U-R-A, I have free resources where I talk about the six leverage points. We talked about one of 'em today, legacy. The other ones I talk about in that are confidence, how to take action once you get action, how to maintain that momentum. And then once you get the momentum going, like how do you stay focused and not look at what everyone else is doing? And then finally, the six leverage point is how to create boundaries around your energy with communication skills. Skills that I sorely lacked through, the first part of my life.
So that can be found at johnmollura.com. Free stuff. You can download my Elite Level Action Playbook, which outlines all of these leverage points, which is first and foremost is legacy is in there, which is why you and I connected so much and what it looks like to work with me. I do group webinars on all of my leverage points and then I also do one-on-one coaching where we really get to deep dive and dig into what's going on. And I always say, I don't even like to use the term coach. A lot of times I'm like, I'm a guide, and guides are folks that have been up to the mountaintop and then have come back down for someone else to help them safely on their journey.
So that's what I like to work with people as a guide.
Amazing, and you're a beautiful gift to the world and to the clients that have the privilege of working with you. Thank you again so much for being here, John.
Thanks for tuning into the Legacy Branding podcast. I hope today's episode has inspired and empowered you on your journey to building a brand that truly matters. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with other founders who you think would benefit from listening.
And if you're ready to take the next step in building your legacy brand, visit our website, labcreative.ca to learn more and book a call. Don't forget to join us next time for more conversations that will help you navigate your transition and create your legacy. Until then, I'm Laura Beauparlant.