Mindset, Yoga & Performance: Building Your Inner Coach with Tom Mitchell

This episode is a deep dive into what it really means to be in the business of yourself.

I’m joined by Tom Mitchell—performance coach and author of Embrace Your Inner Coach—and we explore the inner game of performance, self-leadership, and what it takes to trust yourself in a world that constantly tells you to look outside for answers.

We talk about Tom’s journey from athlete to coach, how yoga and mindfulness became unexpected tools for growth, and why authenticity and vulnerability aren’t weaknesses—they’re access points to deeper connection and stronger leadership.

This conversation isn’t about doing more.
 It’s about listening differently.

Because your inner coach? It’s already there.

🎯 What We Cover

•  What it actually means to be “in the business of yourself” 
•  The transition from athlete → mindset coach 
•  How yoga supports performance and self-awareness 
•  Zones of excellence vs. zones of genius 
•  Why authenticity matters in leadership and coaching 

Lotus and Luna
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Liforme Yoga Mats
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Favorite Yoga Leggings: prAna Heavana
I highly recommend the ones without pockets- best I have found to date.

RageCreate | Affirmations|Oracles & more
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The Expansion Room
Mentor cohort with Jennifer Liss

Personal Financial Planning
Money mindsets for conscious living.

Tabatha Debruyn 9D Breathwork
Active Breathwork is a powerful tool for self-exploration and emotional healing.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

The Business of Yourself

SPEAKER_04 0:03

Okay, hi. Hey. If you're new here, welcome to the Fitsin Project. And if you're not, you already know we don't play small around here. I'm Rachel, corporate project executive by day, yoga teacher and retreat host by passion, and a woman wildly committed to helping you stop outsourcing your power. This show is where structure meets soul, where we regulate the nervous system and scale the business, and where we stop pretending burnout is normal. Quick love to the humans and brands that brought this show. And I actually use all these in real life. One Oak Financial because money conversations should feel empowering. Rage Create for bold creative entrepreneurs. The Expansion Room with Jennifer Liss, Lotus and Luna, Lifeform Yoga Mat, Ma Ma Ma Rider Die. And Breath Work with Tabitha De Bruin. She is a game changer. Links are in the show notes. Support the ones that support this work. And all right, let's get it. Let's talk about today. Uh, hello. Man, I hope you guys had a great weekend. I know mine was really fun. I took my dad and my soon-to-be-husband suit shopping for our wedding. And it was so stinking cute. My dad is so adorable in total dad fashion. Him and my fiancee were just all um two of a kind. So I really enjoyed getting to hang out with both of them. I don't know that we've actually had a day by ourselves, and we we took that, and it was really so special to me. And I was really, really happy we got to do that. So anyway, enough about me. Today's conversation, it's about something we all have access to, but not all of us know how to use it. I'm joined by Tom Mitchell. He is a performance coach, speaker, and author of the book Embrace Your Inner Coach. And this is a book that dives into what it actually means to access your internal wisdom and lead yourself from a higher level. So we get to talk about my favorite thing, what it means to be in the business of yourself. And it's not about doing more, people. No, it's about listening and how to listen differently to yourself. And what I loved about Tom, he is the first NBA mindset coach that ever was. And he sits at that intersection of mindset, performance, and awareness. And this conversation, it wasn't about adding in more noise, but it was about learning how to trust what's already within you. This is the type of work I admire, the type of work that I just love to learn about. And as you've been part of this community, and if you haven't, please stay in because this is the type of information I love to share in this community. It is elevating your energy, trusting your instincts, creating your own playbook.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

And this is Tom Mitchell's story. So without further ado. Well, Tom, welcome to the Fitzin' Project officially.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

It's so exciting to have you.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Thank you. I'm excited to be here too.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Yeah. So I love starting out all of the podcasts with one question. And this kind of gets us rolling because, you know, with the Fits and Project, we're in energy, mindset, and yoga. But really it's about being in the business of yourself and how that lands for you. So I'm going to ask you, what does it mean to you to be in the business of yourself?

SPEAKER_01 3:57

In the business of myself, um would be to pay attention to many dimensions. How I feel, what I'm thinking, how I'm acting, you know, the whole holistic whole body uh approach. I wasn't really aware of that until I was about 17 or 18. I just kind of was cruising through, not not ever giving that a thought, and then um started becoming mindful of of a deeper dimension of myself. But yeah, I think it's, you know, mind, body, spirit, right? What what you're putting in your head, what you're putting in your body, and how you're feeling.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

Yeah, absolutely. So that's funny you said 17 or 18. I think that's way sooner than most people after um after have lived a couple uh years past that. But yeah, that is um that's pretty cool that that came to you uh in what I would consider early, early on.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Yeah. And and and painfully early, by the way. It wasn't I wouldn't wish that on anybody. The the way it uh I guess I kind of woke up to some parts of myself that I was unaware of. I, you know, I'd rather it be a gentler, smoother uh transition approach, but that's the way life had it for me.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

Man, good um uh way to put that because I feel like most people I talk to, so I I get to have this conversation with a lot of people, which I feel like is a blessing by itself. But I do feel like no one has a smooth way into this at all. It's like life is gonna life you into your uh mindset and energy and being in the business of yourself, whether you like it or not, one way or another. Yeah. But you got to pay attention to that. So that was cool, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

Yeah. And that how'd that lead you?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Well, actually, you know, when we talked uh few weeks ago about yoga, it it actually led me into yoga. Um, this was in the early 70s when yoga was not popular. And I was I started reading and exploring and meditating and going to workshops when I was on a full college basketball scholarship. I was a jock, right? I was a leading scorer on my team, and I was a weirdo because I was doing all these alternative things that my teammates were not only unfamiliar with, but kind of like rolled their eyes, right? And um and so it led me into the study of yoga, many, many dimensions of it uh back then. I actually lived for a very short time uh at a yoga ashram in uh Pennsylvania called Kropala Yoga Ashram in the mountains of like, I don't know, north of Philadelphia, about an hour north. Um so it it led me other places, but that was one of the places it led me to.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

Wow, that's super cool. I um have the privilege to get to be a mindset coach and yoga teacher for our local college at center and for the softball team. And they have never done yoga before. I mean, they're softball players, and yoga is really along um, I think in a younger mindset, along the lines of what you would do in cheer, right? Because you're lengthening muscles or stretching and doing all of those type of limber things with your body. And it's funny to me because I've been doing this for about, I don't know, two months now. And now they're like, when's Coach Fitz gonna come back? And you know, like when are we gonna get to do this again? But it's really cool how that um adapts to the body in uh what I would think is like a a way to feel good, you know, and keep that moment going.

Transitioning to Sports Psychology

SPEAKER_01 7:54

I have a real quick funny story I'll share with you. Yeah, it was around that time. I guess I was 18 years old, maybe freshman, and I got moved up to varsity. Uh back then it was freshman and varsity team. So I got moved up to varsity, and we were in a bus ride in the mountains of Pennsylvania in a snowstorm and our bus broke down. And so we have, I don't know, 25 basketball players, 12 from the varsity, 12 from the JV, and the coaches, so maybe 30 some people on the bus. And we're starting to freeze because the, you know, we're not gonna die, but we're getting cold. And I had um gone to this, well, who knows, encounter group workshop, and we were learning to chant Ohm. And um, so I somehow convinced the entire bus to keep warm that we would chant ohm until the you know triple A came or whatever. And uh I it's just a it's a funny memory, a weird memory, but it actually happened, and I got all these, you know, these masculine alpha guys to start chanting ohm on our bus so we didn't freeze.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

That is great.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

I just thought of that story as uh gosh, that was uh over 50 years ago. You know, that is awesome.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

They'll never forget that either, I'm sure. That is great. So that also led you into your next phase of um being your own mindset coach, right? Did you go from college to you did uh psychology, sports psychology, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yeah, I coached um as a head basketball coach, a college coach for 12 years, and I leapfrogged from that into the um NBA um with the Golden State Warriors. I was the team sports psychologist. So, and I did that for another 14 years. So I've been around a lot of basketball and around a lot of the inner game of basketball and sports, because I worked with a lot of different athletes. But at the college level, it was so cool. I had every sport team in like you're working with the softball team. So I would have the softball, baseball, soccer, wrestling, swimmers, dancers, boxers, uh you name it, skaters, all in my sports psychology classes. And we would explore a lot of the stuff that um I write about, you know, just self-talk, visualization, having, you know, the the power of words, teamwork, empathy, those kinds of things. It was cool. Very cool. I did that for over 30 years as a full-time and then part-time teacher. But yeah, I love I love that. I actually miss that. I don't miss a lot or regret a lot, but that's one thing I miss is that impact with young student athletes, um, and just being able to, you know, inspire them to tap into a different dimension of themselves.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

Yeah. I love that. And it is totally a different dimension. I mean, you've got your face blank, like point blank realities, and then you get to really kind of explore what the body is saying instead of your mind, right? I that's what I love about it myself. Um, when you were doing that, what was your like starting point with them? Uh so someone brand new coming in, what how did you introduce this to them?

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Gosh, let me go back and remember. Um probably just a little bit of uh because remember, this is sport and not yoga class, this is sports psychology, right? This is the the exploration of mind and emotions as it relates to performance in sports, right? So I would probably give them a little bit of a history background, how it originated, you know, with the Russians back in the 50s and so forth. Give them a little history lesson. And then I always wanted to make it super personal. And so I would have them immediately um ask themselves, what are they striving for the most? What's their greatest desire right now? What are they wanting to achieve? You know, so it kind of looked like what their goal is, their athletical. They might want a scholarship or they may want to go play professionally, or who knows, what many, many things. And then next class or two, we would start looking at roadblocks or blockages that may uh ways that you're thinking that may keep you from achieving that goal and like how we can become aware of those. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

Yeah. That's cool. I did not start there, but now I'm gonna have to track backtrack. But I don't have a degree in this, so I just I think that's really neat. When I was basically asking for myself. So when you um did this, you got inspired, you started writing books, and now you're a well-known author. Do you want to talk about those? I know you have several.

Exploring Zones of Excellence and Genius

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Well, so I have a map had a master's degree, and I started working for the Golden State Warriors. And I'm I'll be 72 in a couple of months, but I was 40 when I started doing it. And my hair was white then. So I looked like a, you know, an older dude with white hair. And I was going with my friend who was a Hall of Fame basketball player, Chris Mullen of the Warriors, played on the dream team with Michael Jordan. And I was his sports psychologist for a season. And I would travel with him to the games, and people would see me and say, Hey, Doc, hey, Doc. And I I didn't have a doctorate. I had a master's degree. So I said, Oh, shoot, I better, I don't want to be like a fraud. And so I went and got a a um my doctorate while I was still teaching, yeah, in sports psychology, in psychology, emphasis sports. And I then started uh one of the my dissertation. I got to write a book for uh for my kids who were ice skaters. They were young at the time. They ended up both being professional ice skaters with Disney on ice, one of them for 10 years, traveled the world, I think like 48 countries, you know, six continents as a professional ice skater. But it when they were six or so, I wrote a book called Finding Greatness Within Ice Skating. I don't even know how to skate. But it was all the mental principles, the psychological principles around performance written for kids, written for elementary school kids. And so that was my first um experience of really writing, like a public publishing. I've written a bunch, but I never published. And I got my doctorate. And then from that, um, I started, you know, I wrote an Amazon bestseller with Joe Montana, uh, NFL quarterback legend, and another one with Chris, the NBA star. And then I just published one recently called Embrace Your Inner Coach. It's one I'm maybe the most proud of because there's no superstar attached to it. It's just me, me, myself alone. You know, I tell stories about them, but it's it's I wrote it myself without the collaboration. It's I'm I I when you said he's a published or a uh successful writer, I don't really think of myself as a writer, even though I've written like 15 books. I because I'm I don't think I'm that other writers, I read people who are great writers, right? I just write like C-spot run stuff, right? Basic principles that with a story that might be interesting. Um, so yeah, I don't I don't have a real attachment. Um when you say I'm a coach, yeah, I I'm a coach. I am that. I feel the power and the influence of my coaching. My writing has always been kind of like an extension of my coaching.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

Yeah. And it's like you C spot run is keep it simple, right? Not to overthink.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, especially if you don't spell that well like me, and and you don't want to have a lot of big words that I wouldn't understand. So why would I write them for other people, you know?

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Yeah. So you've got there's two different things. I want to ask you this your zone of excellence versus your zone of genius.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

What is that to you?

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Well, okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

And I'm not, this is a good question, but I'm gonna probably come at it a little counterintuitive or a little. I am not a genius. I've been around geniuses. It's like I've in the NBA, I was around 7'2, 6'11, 6'9 guys. You're in the elevator with six guys that are all above 6'8, and I'm 6'1. I'm not confused. I'm not as tall as them. I am not trying to like, I'm really tall. Well, I'm average height, maybe a little bit above average, but these are giants, right? And and I, so I know contrast, worked, I've coached geniuses, and I'm not one. So when people like, what's your genius? I I know it's kind of semantics, but I I kind of get literal in there. I I have a friend who's a mensa genius, one of my good friends. And when I'm around him, it's obvious when he gets that part of his brain going, I'm at a different level. I coached the drummer of The Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart, for three years. We walked like 300 miles. It the story's in my new book. He's a genius. Like, whoa, that what so when you're around that, you kind of get a little bit protective of even using that word. But if you want to like ask me it again, sort of what's my greatest strength, you know, maybe I could answer it that way. Sorry, I don't want to challenge you, but but I I just have a uh I'm a little triggered by that word because it's thrown around so much and and I'm not that.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

Yeah. Yeah. I totally understand that. For me, it's more of a personal lineage. I've got a zone of excellence. I am excellent at being a project manager. I can t I can do it inside and out. I'm excellent at it, but that's not my drive of passion. My drive of passion, where my zone of genius is a yoga teacher. I can teach a yoga class and it will land in your soul as you on your mat. And that I know, that's how I know it's my zone of genius. I'm not a genius at yoga, though. I'm a genius in me teaching and letting it flow through.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah, yeah. Uh that if if with that example, excuse me, just get over a little cold. So I'm No, you're right. Um I don't know if it's genius, but my zone of passion, I've had the good fortune several times in my life, of going really deep within my soul, my being, my essence, where whoa, it sort of transcended imaginary limits of who I am, what's possible, traveling, you know, through time and space, like like kind of alternative realities, sort of, so to speak, right? Deep meditation. Not very often. A couple couple times I can really point to those, right? That's I aspire. Now, I don't know if I'm not a genius in those spaces, but I aspire towards those spaces. I, you know, if I had a magic wand, you know, you could have, you know, millions and millions of dollars. You could live in that space. There's no question my answer, live in that space, right? There's because that space is beyond wealth, right? Whatever that is, I call it the invisible treasure in my book. That place that we tap that's that's you know, not logical, not necessarily, it's not necessarily rational. Maybe it connects into our imagination or something, but um that that's a really cool space. And the only reason I aspire towards it is because I visited it. I have I've walked in those pathways for, you know, five minutes or ten minutes, or it's not even minutes. It's it's not a time thing, but just, ooh, wow. Life is bigger, broader. Walt Whitman said something. I am a famous poem, poet in the 1800s from Philadelphia or Camden, New Jersey, someplace back east where I was originally from. I loved him. And he said, I am bigger than I thought. My I something I embrace the East, the South, the North, and the West. You know, basically, I am way more than I ever thought that I was. And that's that's what I aspired to.

The Power of Words and Vulnerability

SPEAKER_04 20:35

Man, that is beautiful. Full body chills. Full body chills. And I feel like that is such an energetic level. And it's very cool because everybody can reach that point. I I truly believe everybody can reach that point because I know I feel like I know in my bones exactly what you're talking about. And and me too. I've been there and I can't do I do don't do it all the time, but every once in a while I'll get to this place in a meditation I'm like flying in a in my meditation. I'm going places and I know it's energetic, but the things that I see and then match to my experience in that moment, it's unmatched. You know, I and it's to me it's like my sacred space.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

It's when when I when that space you're talking about, when I was thinking, what am I gonna call this when when you're writing a book and you're coming up with chapter titles, you know, you play around with different ideas and stuff. And I was I originally caught was going to call it my billionaire place. But then I thought so much um kind of stigma with you know, billionaires who aren't really respected anymore and they're taking advantage of peop. So I uh I kind of threw that one out, like not not the bit so I call it the invisible treasure. But it's it's uh you know a very, very, very, very wealthy, almost priceless space that um it's it's joy on steroids.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

Yeah. Yeah. A total release. I wonder uh I'd love to know like if I could be hooked up to a machine and get into that air and that space, like what would the charts read? You know, like what hormone does it mean release the most during that?

SPEAKER_01 22:26

It's interesting. Uh this was 30 years ago, maybe. My best buddy, best friend, was the president of Pac Bell and AT, then at ATT. He was college roommate, ended up being godfather of my kids. And I coached him for 20 years, and he was like a uh sort of a new age corporate guy. We used to go to Germany to meditation retreats. He went to the New Age School of Business, plus and he's and he is a corporate guy that has 25,000 people reporting to him. So he was one weirdo meets another weirdo, and we we we became but best buddies, right? But he found this Bahrain wave guy at near at Stanford University or right near Stanford University, and he put like he he did this research of monks that had meditated it for their whole life, you know, Tibetan monks or whatever, and they had meditated and uh did like a brain scan of them, and then he was somehow, and I I don't know the science of it, but he was attaching these helmets to your head to see if they could kind of program that same type of brain wave chemistry into normal people like us. And so um I just remember doing it. I I can't remember much about it, but I was always doing kind of alternative things with him like that.

SPEAKER_04 23:47

That is cool.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah, I have I have, by the way, my oh, you can't see her. My my sweetheart, um, nine-year-old Great Pyrenees just came in to say she's laying on the floor there.

SPEAKER_04 24:00

Yeah. That must be a compliment to your energy, which I was gonna even say, like, your energy is amazing. I love this conversation so much. So I always feel like when the dogs come up around me, like when I'm by myself, I must be emitting some good energy, or they're just like, yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

You want to see her? Yeah, I do actually. Let me see. I have to move my camera and see. There she is, Sunny Bunny. There she is. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 24:25

Sunny bunny, that's super sweet. That's so sweet. Oh. So when you're talking about um your friend, and now you know he's corporate, but you're retired. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

You retired.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

Uh with Are you still in this space like of corporate mindset coaching and and things such as I I'm still working it.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

That's my job. That's that's that's sort of how I make my living these days, is with companies, not with athletes. Um writing books is is a nice thing to do and and you know, get you on some podcasts and maybe a speaking gig or something, but but pr predominantly I coach uh business, not just leaders. Um people like to say business leaders, like you know, you're coaching the C-suite, which I do. I work with top-level people at Google, at construction companies. I also coach first and second year salespeople that are selling uh prosthetics or or um medical devices or real estate. So I'm not attached to the level or the status of the person I'm working with. I am sort of attached to their burn, their desire for growth, for hunger, for want to, you know, want want to explore themselves.

SPEAKER_04 25:43

Do you have like a set process you use, or is that outlined in your book?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Or yeah, kind of. I I would like to say I do more than I do. It's my style is I guess if I had a process, it's kind of like what you're doing. You ask questions to explore where the river flows, and then have a bunch of tools to be able to tap into from what I hear. But I think asking questions, you know, the Socratic leadership approach, right? Ask questions, get to really know somebody, what they're wanting, where they're stuck, you know, um, what they fear, what they love, and then going from there, you know, because um I've tried the cookie cutter, kind of here's my system, my approach, and occasionally it works, but it gets a little boring, to be honest. Like I like the I like to flow and dance with the moment, right? And and so each person then becomes a unique uh experience, experiment in a way. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_04 26:47

Yeah, I love that. I love how you just divided the two as well, because I do see a lot in mentorship programs and things like that, where there's like these step-by-step processes, follow XYZ, and you're gonna make so much money. And I'm like, I just don't feel like that would work for me in my mind, and how I relay it out to others because everybody's end goal is unique to them, as we're just unique individuals.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Yeah. And and some people do really need that approach. And I've had not very often, but I've had times where a relationship didn't necessarily work out on a coaching thing because they needed a more buttoned-up, systematic, step-by-step approach, you know? Um, and there's there's definitely a place and time for that. I'm not even mocking it in any sense, but you also got to know who you are and what works for you because I think you can't really coach others in ways that don't ru work for you, right? And and so I love being asked questions. So I love asking questions, you know. I love being heard and listened to deeply. So I love now, I've learned to love to listen deeply and hear others, you know.

SPEAKER_04 28:00

Yeah. So what's your biggest impact with your corporate coaching now? Biggest impact.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

See, I have a business partner who works a lot with the ROIs, the the the day-to-day I call it, looks under the hood, can tell you what's wrong with the carburetor or the engine if it needs an oil change or something. And which gives me the freedom to spend more time, not necessarily as direct and mainline as you and I are talking, but to get into some of those thoughts and questions around personal growth and development, even though they're working for a company and they have a job and they have a team and they have a budget and a, you know, they have things that requirements they have to meet. It's all there. I can also talk to them about, you know, how they feel about that. What what are they, you know, learning about themselves in that. So I get to work more on the inner game, not completely, but but a partial partially. And my business partner can get work more on the outer game of of the of the people. So it's really good to have a teammate in that way.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

That's really cool. Yeah. I can see that. And I'm like putting that together in my own life right now, um, as how to um kind of use that's the wrong term, not use, but flow with my organization, but bring my full self into it instead of compartmentalize this is me and fits in, this is how I operate versus this is me and my corporate job and this is how I'm gonna operate. I'm actually bringing them both together right now, and it is beyond fruitful when I can bring my full self into my corporate world and then learn my corporate world's learnings and bringing it over into fits in. It's kind of like yoga on and off the mat type thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Good for you for doing that. And I tell you the potential challenge of that, you have to be a little thick skinned because not everybody will resonate with more of the the yoga dimension, the the more of the internal soft skills. A lot of people will, especially as things have changed and more and more and more openness. But remember, I came back in in the 80s when this was thought of as odd or weird or what? Like, you know, and um like I was one of the first sports psychologists in the NBA. Like teams didn't even what what's that? And now every team has multiple ones, some, you know, or a a a company. So so you have you're lucky in a sense, you may not get the the same resistance. But one of the things that I learned, and I did this in my new book, I I told a few stories that I would never normally tell to people that I know weren't of the same kind of tribe of consciousness, right? Like if if that that I would just hold that story off because I don't want to be rejected or thought of as too strange or whatever. But I said, you know what? Heck with it. I went ahead and told those stories. One is uh about a a Hindu saint that I hung out with and that uh her name's Amachi uh Amah. She's was won the the religious uh leader of the year award with the Pope and the Dalai Lama, and like she she has all these orphanages across the world. And I got hugged by her, and the news camera came and was filming us. There were thousands of people there, and it just happened to be when I was getting hugged, and I was freaked out that the all the players and the owner of the Warriors and stuff was gonna see me. Like, oh my God, like this is weird, right? And so I kind of kept that as a compartmentalized thing. And now in my new book, I tell the story, you know. So so I'm just willing to be a bit vulnerable with the truth of who I really am.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Yeah. And I feel like this where we are now, authenticity is what people really want. And in my mind, if you come with your full self and your full authentic self, then there's nothing really, there's no question about who you are, where you stand and what's going on. And there's nothing that anybody can make up. It's black or white, you are or you're not, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:23

That's a great point. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

So when I am coming in at in that angle, I um fully also have to embrace well, I gotta let them now make the decision that they are either gonna accept me or reject me. That's hard, you know, because it's like, oh well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Let me let me do a little thing with since you're asking about let me ask you this question, right? Okay, so when you make a choice to whatever that is in a yoga class, you talk about something that's a little bit more philosophical or deeper, or you talk about breathing or something and it could be rejected or it could be really accepted and loved. What's the what what is where what is the fear that arises in you of potentially holding back from doing that, or has been the fear?

SPEAKER_04 33:22

I got 10 in my mind right now. Okay, so my most recent experience, I'm teaching a new way because I'm just trying to figure out what hits and what lands. So I'm bringing new stuff to the classes uh every time I get a chance. So if I learn something new, I bring it. I learned how to do a kundalini yoga, which is bringing up energy from your root chakra and trying to move it up and out through the crown, right? And it's all chakra-based.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:50

And with that, I'm also acknowledging um spiritual terms and using godlike uh vocabulary. So I would say you're a masterpiece, a piece of the master. You are someone, some of them one. And those were the terms that I used. And I knew it was risky going in, but I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna do it because I'm just gonna see what lands. And I had two people in that class get up and leave. And I've never had anybody just up and leave in the middle of a class. One of them never came back, and one of them came back, and I'm like, that's really weird. But it's a psychological warfare for me because I'm like, oh man, I did it wrong, or I ruined someone else's experience, or oh man, I should have never gone outside of my comfort zone. And then the other half of me is like, you know what? This is yoga, it's not that serious, it's one hour of your week. And if this is that serious to you, this must be saying more about you than it does me. I'm playing. We are only playing, and this is just a human experience. And then I have to just let it go. And that's those are the fears, and that's how I combat it. And that's now what I believe. Like, I'm like, well, don't come back then. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Yeah. And and you know, in being yourself and just letting it rip. There's always a chance words trigger somebody from some that the that word triggers has I mean it has to do with you because you said the words, but it has nothing to do with you. It's it, you know, they um interesting. You said kundalini yoga. So um the the ashram I told you when I was uh I don't know how old I was, 20 or 21, 22, that I went to live at briefly. I didn't like it. That's why I didn't stay. It was a kundalini yoga ashram. It was that the guy was a kundalini master, use that word, right? And um, and it was uh you talk about odd, these people, they there's a term, did you hear the term Shaktipat?

SPEAKER_04 36:10

I have not.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

No, it's Shaktipat or something. I may I might have the spelling or the verbiage wrong. But it's like this from the root chakra, it goes up your your spine into all the chakras, and and people would be like shaking and doing all these weird things for like 10 seconds, 30 seconds, screaming. And it was like just in a silent meditation, somebody would just, I don't want to do it on the thing, but like a real loud ah, like I thought, hmm, this isn't for I was like that person. Yeah, it wasn't like bad, it wasn't you know offending me as far as that it's it's illegal or it's immoral. It just wasn't my for me. So I and uh I was that woman who who ended up leaving leaving because I didn't like it, right? Yeah. So so uh maybe that helps you out. It's to to yeah, it's easy to say not take it personal, but not take it personal. You know, I I I've had students in my class many times get up and leave because I made them uncomfortable with an exercise and I didn't intend to. You know?

unknown 37:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Do we have any time? I could take a minute and tell you a really funny, not so funny story. Do we have another minute?

SPEAKER_04 37:27

Well, I've got all the time. Yeah, I'm on your schedule.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

So I'm in my class and um I had to go to Scotland to give a speech with all these other writers. Um, and I could talk about anything I wanted. And I was going to talk as a writer, the power of words, but not words on paper, but words that we speak, right? So I've been contemplating words, words, words. So I do this exercise with my class, and I get my whole class sitting down, and I said, Hey, I have something really intense I want to share with you today. And I I'm I'm now acting, I'm being very I'm over-dramatizing this. And I say, I want to ask you a question. Nobody has to answer, but I want you to think about it because it's a really, really weird personal question. And they're all in anticipation. And I whisper, has anyone ever killed somebody? I had 30 some students in my class. Well, this one football player that really um really religious Christian kid starts packing his bags. Like, yeah, I'm not gonna hang with this conversation. And somebody says, Why are you asking? Have you? And I bow my head and I'm I'm I'm playing this to the max. I had thought about it in advance. I'm a bit of an actor, right? So I said, I have three times. You could hear you could hear an ant crawl. And I said, I've killed three people with my words. I've ruined relationships because of mean, ugly, unintentional things that I've said from things that bullets that came out of my mouth, even if they were truthful. The way they came out and landed in that person's heart or their mind, destroyed those. I don't have those friendships anymore. They're gone. They're dead. I killed them by the power of my words. I said, I could also tell you many, many times I've healed and uplifted and and inspired people through the power of my words. But I right now I want to talk about the negative aspect of when you aren't conscious of your words. The kid sat back down. I apologized. I said, man, I wasn't trying to freak you out. I just was really using a drama, uh, a theater experience to let people see how powerful words are. Even me asking the question was power, my words, right? So anyway, um but but as far as people that you can imagine if I have the ability to do that in a class other and I I taught on and off full-time, part-time for 35 years. So you meant thousands and thousands of students I've had in my classes that I'm sure I've, you know, ticked some people off with things I've asked, things I've said. Yeah. So I'm not telling you it's comfortable, but you gotta, you're if you're gonna be out there, you just gotta get used to it. I've been booed um by about 200 people in a speech, booed. Just like some people stood up, boo, because I joked around about Joe Montana. He was a he um we were in Dallas and they loved their Cowboys. And Joe Montana threw this famous play called The Catch against the Cowboys, and they won the game. And it's a sore spot, really sore spot for a lot of cowboy fans. It's like their religion. I was mocking their religion, but I I had no zero intention to hurt anybody's feelings. I was just I was the keynote speaker for Comp USA, and it doesn't even exist anymore. And I was making a joke and I got booed. So it happens. It happens, Rachel.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah, that is and I never really recovered. I I was like probably the worst speech I ever gave. I didn't make my it wasn't a high-paying speak speaking gig, but whatever they paid me, I should have probably given given it back to them because I uh it wasn't a good speech because once I got I got knocked off that horse, I'm of being booed. I mean, I don't know if you've ever been booed, but it's it's weird.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

Yeah. Wow. That is wild.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

But I've also had other the others extreme, right? Where standing ovation. So so like, you know, go it goes with the territory if you're gonna put yourself out there. Even this this audio, this podcast, somebody could be listening to this, say, that guy, I like hated something I said or you said, right? Like just turn it off, click it off. It's it's yeah, we're we're making ourselves um vulnerable.

SPEAKER_04 42:21

Right. Oh man. I feel like we can talk about this for hours. And I know we don't have hours, but I feel like this is such a hot topic. Man, I'd love to have you back on here just to speak about vulnerability and how to overcome that because you're not only vulnerable even when you're giving a speech or you're doing a podcast or you're teaching, but you know, even the guys that are out there on the courts and doing everything that they're supposed to be doing, they're booed too and they're or they're cheered on. And it's like, how do you reset real quick after a failure or something like that? And that's just kind of like that mind game that you really have to hone in on, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Yeah. How do you use fear, rejection um to your advantage, right? It's a it's so yeah, some some other time, you know.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

Wow. Well, I so totally appreciate you, Tom. This was such a gift, and thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and just your energy is wonderful. Thank you. Have a good day. All right. So something that really stayed with me from this conversation is this your inner coach isn't missing. It's just often the quietest voice in the room. And most of us have been conditioned to look everywhere else before we ever look within. So if you can take anything from today, let it be this. Where in your life are you outsourcing your own knowing? And what would you shift if you trusted yourself? Even just a little bit more this week. Because, like we all know, with all of the podcasts, all the episodes, all of the everything, being in the business of yourself is not about having it all figured out. It's about being willing to listen, respond, and lead yourself anyway. That's literally the work. That's the practice. So if this episode resonated, share it with someone who needs this reminder. And if you're ready to go deeper into this work, join me. Join me inside the fits in world. Whether it's through a class, a retreat, or staying connected in this space by joining the email list. You're not doing this alone. All right. So let's bring this in. Let's close this episode with an ohm together after an inhale. And remember, you are your most important project.