Unplug Meditation: How Suze Yalof Schwartz Simplified Meditation For Millions

What if three minutes could change your day—and then your life? We welcome Unplug founder Suze Yalof Schwartz to trace the surprising journey from high-speed fashion editor to architect of a global, modern meditation movement. Suze shares the exact three-minute breathing exercise that snapped her out of panic, the moment she realized meditation needed a makeover, and how “simplify, simplify… simplify” became the design principle behind the first drop-in meditation studio and the Unplug app.

We dig into the science and the strategy: why thoughts drive feelings, how belief audits help you unsubscribe from inherited narratives, and why ten minutes a day—less than one percent of your time—can rewire stress responses and sharpen focus. Suze explains the habit architecture that makes practice stick: wake-and-meditate routines, guided “me time,” gratitude prompts, streaks, challenges, and rewards that deliver a double dopamine hit. We also cover the Unplug Meditation book’s breakdown of methods and research, the growth of corporate wellness programs that convert skeptics on Zoom, and the 40-day teacher training that turns personal insight into a skill you can share.

Expect practical takeaways you can use today: a three-step starter practice, myth-busting for “I can’t stop thinking,” and ways to choose the right style—mantra, breath, visualization, or sound—to meet your mood. Whether you’re anxious, over-scheduled, or just curious, this conversation shows how modern, accessible meditation fits real life without robes, jargon, or long retreats.

If this helped you breathe easier, tap follow, share with a friend who needs calm, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show. Your ripple effect starts now.

https://www.unplug.com/

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Transcript

Meet Unplug And Susie Yalof Schwartz

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hi Gradies. You are about to listen to episode 50 of Squats and Seances. Today I am talking with Susie Yoloff Schwartz of Unplug Meditation. What does Unplug, you ask? Great question. Unplug is meditation made simple, modern, and something you actually might want to do. It's the world's first drop-in meditation studio, a game-changing app, a corporate wellness solution, and a globally recognized t-shirt training. Founded in 2014 by former fashion editor Suzy, Unplugged has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Forbes, The Today Show, and in the lives of over a million people worldwide. Unplug's mission is to make meditation so easy, so accessible, and so powerful that everyone will want to do it. That the founder of Unplug agreed to come on the podcast was a major pinch me, I'm dreaming moment. I hope that you will deeply and thoroughly enjoy this conversation. Stay tuned.

Grit, Mindset, And Anti‑Fragile Living

SPEAKER_02 2:03

A former fashion editor, known for her lightning fast makeovers, featured on Vogue, L, Glamour, Good Morning America. She had spent years helping people look better, but this was the first time she experienced something that made her feel better in an instant. She wanted more. But meditation felt inaccessible, filled with long retreats, complicated practices, and spiritual jargon. So she gave it a makeover. Unplug opened in 2014 as a modern drop-in meditation studio designed to make meditation as easy as getting a blowout. Walk in, press pause, and walk out feeling amazing. The studio became a sensation leading to the launch of the Unplug app, corporate wellness programs, and one of the most sought-after meditation teacher trainings in the world. Today, people from Tokyo to South Africa, CEOs to college students, parents to pro-athletes unplug daily because meditation shouldn't be complicated. It should be simple, effective, and something you actually look forward to. Welcome, Susie. Thank you, Vanessa. I am so deeply honored and excited to talk with you today. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

I'm great. And I'm excited to be on your show because the two things that you're talking about, squats and seances, are two things that I'm very interested in.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yay. I'm so excited. Yes, I'll explain a little more. The podcast came from this desire to build a community and an intersection between the physiology, psychology, and spirituality. I came from a place with a very strong physiology and medical background and merged a little bit with psychology, but then it wasn't really until the spirituality component started to come in that I thought, ah, these are the pillars that lead to balance in my life and possibly for other people. Who knows? Let's put it out there and see. So before I get into asking you all the questions, like I mentioned, this podcast came from a place that I felt a need for community among deep thinkers, seekers, tenacious, resilient, people that have grit is how I defined that. So because of this, there is this question I ask every first-time guest on the podcast. And that is, what does gritty mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

It means anti-fragile behavior. It means thinking that every minute is meant to own instead of saffur through. Grit is when you know you want to do something, and even though you technically don't want to do it, you persevere.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

I love that. Thank you. I'm going to create a big poster or a book. I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm going to have everybody's version of grit because it's so unique to the individual. And I learn something every time I ask that question. Thank you for contributing. No problem. In preparing for our meeting, I was doing some research on the backstory because I know the application.

A Three‑Minute Practice That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_02 5:11

That was how I discovered UnSUG. And to say that this movement that you started is a success, I think is the biggest understatement. I could not believe the growth. So you opened the studio, the brick and mortar studio, in 2014. You started offering the corporate trainings in 2015. So a year later. Then you published a book in 2017, which, in full disclosure, I didn't even realize. And the app launched in 2018. You launched your Unplugged Meditation Teacher Trainings that same year, 2018, hybrid studio during COVID in 2020. And then present day, over three million meditators throughout the global unplugged community. I was blown away. I just understood this as an app that correlated to a brick and mortar studio down in LA and thought how neat is that? And your global reach is so much bigger than I could have even perceived in that moment. I wanted to just share this is just a little personal note on me. Why, in particular, meeting with you was so important. I discovered the app in just over a year ago. It would have been maybe late 2023 during a period of a great personal challenge in my life. I was struggling with some severe growth-limiting belief systems. I was overwhelmed with suffocating anxiety. And I was trying very unsuccessfully to reframe my present experience through things like CBT or traditional psychotherapy. It was like a dark and difficult period for me. And it ended up starting me on this trajectory of exponential growth that led me to where I'm at today. The framework of this growth came throughout daily use of the app. When I felt like everything else was falling apart, I quickly learned that I could find a few minutes of respite by cultivating a meditation practice. Now fast forward to present day. And I think that because of Unflug, I now have the framework of a meditation practice that I have been doing for over a year. It's helped me to achieve a fair amount of relief from a lot of these mental feedback loops that I got stuck into, processing, accepting, and even, dare I say, finding some grace with my youngest son who had an autism diagnosis at the end of last year and really helping me rewire some of my default mode network in my brain. I think if someone were to ask me what was the single most important change that I've made over the last year, it was using Unplugged to rediscover me. So I am deeply and profoundly grateful to you and to everything that this entity stands for. So thank you. Wow. Yeah, no, no pressure there.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I just I was like, I mean, but that's for audience face-to-face. I have to share this with you. I appreciate that because that's why I built it. I built it for you, I built it for me, and I built it for anyone else who discovers it because it's true.

Making Meditation Simple And Modern

SPEAKER_00 8:15

And this is my favorite quote, and I I know you're gonna love it. It's by Louise Hay, and it is feelings are just thoughts, and thoughts can be changed. And I think we all have the power to manipulate and control our own emotions for the better.

unknown 8:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Manipulate might seem like a bad word, but imagine being able to change from negative thinking to positive thinking. That's what I mean by that. So if you can change your thoughts, then you can change everything. That's the truth. I love that quote so much. And that's what I love about the Unplug app. I feel like a lot of people out there use meditation when they're in crisis. My friend David G calls it crisis meditators. But, and and a lot of people are crisis meditators. They hit a crisis, they show up, they meditate, they feel better, and then they forget about it until the next years. But you, because you're you're using this daily, are able to shift in the moment of crisis instead of having to use the app because you're meditating every single day. And I really feel like people would benefit if they just spent 10 minutes sitting with themselves every day. And that's less than 1% of their day. I mean, we have 1440 minutes every single day. So if you sit with yourself for 10 minutes, 14 minutes would be 1%. So right.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

And you touched on a few things there that are really key. And it's sitting with yourself. When I started meditating, I was terrified to sit with these overwhelming thoughts and feelings. I thought my traditional viewpoint of meditation, this is pre-umplug, was I've got to be cool with all that. I got to sit with these feelings. And how am I gonna keep all of that dampened down? Cause it's overwhelming, and that's what I'm running from. And instead, it was a dropping into me, like you said, gaining that perspective that I am a person having an experience. I am not the experience. It has so much power, it's taking your power back. Now, everybody I talk to, I say, have you meditated? Have you tried meditating? I'm a broken record now. Huge fan.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

That's good. Yeah, no, it's good. It means you're helping people. Right. Because if it's helped you and you're sharing it with others, that means that you are actually helping people. And we help one person at a time. Like we've never met, and you're telling me what an impact this has had on you. And I'm sure you've had friends who've been suffering, and you probably told them or shared hopefully the free app link and oh, yes. And on plot. And they were probably like, wow, thank you. So we all have to help each other. I mean, that's what it's all about. And you said something that just triggered a thought of me, and that is like, it's almost as if someone gives you the clicker to your own mind. We can change the channel. So there are all the things that are happening outside of us. Okay. And there's the chaos and the craziness and you know, the stress and the anxiety and the depression, but there's a peaceful place within. And a lot of meditation teachers, you know, will compare it to the choppy waves on the surface versus when you go beneath the surface of the ocean, it's calm and it's cool. And that's what we can do with this practice. We can access that place inside of us that's always there. Yeah. And how do we access it? We are aware of one of the 20,000 breaths that we take every single day. That's it. Just be aware of your breath and slow it down. If I was to simplify it, that's the secret.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

That is the secret, folks. I love that you mentioned David G as well. When I first started the app, he was one of the people that I gravitated to listening to. It was almost like I built a little bit of meditation distress tolerance, right? Because I was coming from this highly analytical prefrontal cortex focus in my brain of constantly

Thoughts, Beliefs, And Rewiring The Brain

SPEAKER_02 12:20

being on and so hyper-focused on my thoughts that I didn't want to sit with myself and be in silence. And I needed somebody to walk me through it and I needed to feel safe. He was definitely one of the people on the app without knowing him, without knowing his connection to you. I didn't even know you were the founder of Unplugged. Both of you felt organically safe to listen to. Then I built up my ability to sit with myself longer and longer. So maybe my original meditations had to be completely structured and guided. And now some of my favorite ones on the app, and we'll get to this too, are the ones that it's just here's the opening, go forth. And I'm just so happy to drop in, and then the timer ends, and I'm like, oh, I have to come back to reality now.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, we're funny because we have um our studio manager likes transcendental meditation. And with transcendental meditation, you're using a word as your anchor. Um, you know, you're repeating a word silently to yourself, and then you let it slip away, and then your mind wanders, and you begin again. That's a secret formula. And the key is to be in the gap, the gap between repeating the word and your mind wandering and taking you away. So tiny little bit of present moment that is squeezed into that section between your anchor and your mind wandering. That's kind of what we talk about, the gap and stretching that gap out. So I love that you say that because there is a teacher, his name is Steve Ross. He was one of my first teachers. And I said, What's the secret to a deeper meditation? And he said, You just sit with yourself for a longer period of time. I'm like, okay, how do we do a class? Like it's like I will come in, I'll tell everybody to close their eyes, I'll go out for dinner for an hour, I'll come back and I'll have more. And I love that so much because people think that there's more to it than there is. And you said something so important. And I, and it is probably the number one biggest myth of meditation. And that is I can't do it because I have too many thoughts, or I don't want to sit with my thoughts. And it's true, we all have 5,000 to 80,000 thoughts every single day. That's a lot of thoughts. That's an incredible number. Many of them are repetitive, many of them are negative, many of them are not even true, and are on autopilot. So they are governing your life without you even knowing that they exist. So what happens is when you actually sit and you notice these thoughts, I always like to say there's one thought I unsubscribed to in the early days, which was my arms are fat. My arms were not fat, but my mother thought her arms were fat. And she, I have secondhand beliefs for birds. Right. We all do, we all do stuff like that. Yeah, I'm like, that's not true. I'm like, why am I thinking that thought? You know what? I'm gonna let that thought go. And then I came back to my breath. And guess what? I never thought that thought again. That's powerful. Other than using it as a a sample of one of the silly, one of my silly between five to 80,000 thoughts a day. The key is you want to notice the bad ones so that you can release them. And you can feed your mind. When you close your mind, it doesn't know what's true and what's not true when you close your eyes. So you can actually feed your brain with positive thoughts. Like, I am the healthiest person on the planet. I can't believe how healthy I am. I can't believe how smart I am, I can't believe how kind I am. We don't all think these thoughts, maybe they're even lies. Yeah, we call ourselves, but better to be planting those than I can't believe how stupid I am, I can't believe how weak I am, I can't believe the opposite. So people who tend to say words to themselves like that end up becoming the thoughts that they think. So if we become the thoughts that we think, we better start planting the seeds that matter.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

I believe that to be true. Oh my goodness, 100%. I did an episode earlier on predictive processing in the brain, which talks about just what you're describing here. And it's our brain's inability to recognize the physical reality from the thought of the reality that we're having. It is so loud and clear. If our brain is going to fill that gap with something, you might as well give it something good. I wanted to ask about the original three-minute breathing technique, the one that you said just radically changed your life.

Building Habit: Daily Ten Minutes

SPEAKER_02 16:58

What was it?

SPEAKER_00 17:00

So, my mother-in-law, I was in New York and I was filming 11 commercials for taxi television with Lord Keller at the time. And I had left three of my children in Los Angeles where I just moved. It was the first time I went back to work and left my kids with a babysitter. Yeah. And I was kind of having a panic attack about it. My husband was working, I felt really worried. And my mother-in-law, who's a psychotherapist, said, Close your eyes. And so I closed my eyes. And she said, picture or imagine that you are in a place that makes you feel calm. So I did that. And then she said, Now slowly breathe in through your nose and exhale through your mouth and visualize you being in this place of calm. Continue to breathe slowly. And now open your eyes. And when I did that, I was like, what was that? I felt like a different person. She said, It's called meditation. You should really learn how to do it. And I said, Okay, I will learn how to do that. So I came back to LA and I started, you know, I was still working a little bit with Good Morning America on the Today show, filming different segments around LA. But I also started taking classes at the UCLA Mark Center. I did a Vedic course. Like I was studying with Steve and I was trying to like go to all the different places. And one time I was in my car and I got a call from a producer at Good Morning America. And he said, Okay, we want we need you to do this segment on Princess Kate, who was getting married and what she's wearing. And I was like, I can't. I'm I have to go to UCLA. I'm doing the mark thing. And I realized I rather go to the meditation class and do the thing I used to love all the time. And that is when something clicked in me. And I'm like, I, you know what? This is what I want to do with my life. Because if I can feel better in three minutes, then I need to share that and not hoard it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

That was it. How did that trajectory lead you to opening the studio in 2014? Was it pretty immediate after that?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

No, it was it was 2012 when that happened. Okay. And when 2011, 2012, I can't remember when I when the first moment happened. But what happened was I was taking classes and I didn't always trust the teacher. And I didn't always like the message. And I was kind of thinking, oh, I wish this person wasn't wearing a robe. I wish they were wearing normal clothes. I wish they weren't talking so slowly. I would I was trying to produce the teachers, the atmosphere, the whole thing. I'm like, gosh, I wish there was just like a dry bar of meditation or soul cycle meditation. You should just go in 30 minutes later, walk out, feeling great with a great instructor who inspires you, who's trustworthy. And then like, what would that look like? Oh, remember that movie Heaven Can Wait? It's like he Warren Beatty went into heaven and it was like white on white, he was like a white cloud. That's what it would look like. Just blank.

unknown 20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

So people could come in like a blank slate. Yes. And that's what the studio looks like. It looks like a white, like say so many people are like, Can you put some trees in there? Can you people look a little bit more? And I'm like, no, the whole point is it's a blank slate. Yes. And so that was where once I had that thought, then I became obsessed with it. And then I started working towards that goal. And my friend who my husband's like, if you're going to do this, you need to create a business plan. And I said, A business plan? Doing inspiration's not enough? I'm a little bit. I know it's going to work. Why do I need a business plan? My gut told me it was going to work. So I had a friend who was very smart. And I said, Would you like to help me with this and do this with me? So we sat on my kitchen table and we went back and forth and we we worked on this business plan. And then I opened up Unplug and it was a lot. And she was like,

From Studio To Global Corporate Programs

SPEAKER_00 21:20

I don't want to do this with my time. I, you know, this is your idea. She just said, I'm pretty much out, but I love you. And let's stay friends. You're gonna be 24-7. I'm not. So that's kind of what happened. That resonates.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Yeah. I'm in the fitness industry. I've been working in the fitness industry for over 10 years as a CrossFit coach and various levels of gym management and gym ownership and things. The full-time 24-hour gig to open up a service-based industry place for people to come and gather. On top of opening the studio, then you began offering corporate trainings. I'm guessing that things just took off and people were like, we need more, we want more. How do we get more?

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Yeah, I was really lucky because, and I still am, I don't go out and sell the corporate trainings, but clients come in from Google and YouTube and Bank of America, and they want to then bring it to their offices. So they'll reach out to us. And now we've done so many huge corporations multiple times. They want to do it every other month or four times a year. We'll go on Zoom. And, you know, we even sent a teacher to go on the Oprah Winfrey cruise. Wow, what it was called, but four different times where they traveled the world with Oprah. You know, we've had like great opportunities. It is such a privilege and an honor to work with people who are really skeptical and aren't into it at all. And then watch it work. Well, have them watch it work and teach them the three-minute exercise that changed my life. And then they share it with friends and so on and so forth. So that has been that's been very exciting. So we do have a big corporate program, and it grew when COVID hit. Oh, yeah. Because they wanted to keep the community going, even though everybody was working from home. So that's when we launched our Zoom business. And then we started doing corporates on Zoom, and it's so much easier. You can have 60 people or 6,000 people on a call, and all I have to do is look into the camera like this and talk to them like I'm talking to one person, and they feel connected. And I do a lot of exercises and we make it engaging so that they stay with it.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

I think of the ripple effect, like you mentioned, that that creates. And to it's really encouraging and heartening for me in a time that you know 2025 is not going to be an easy year for anybody, I think. We're all in different spaces. The world's a crazy place. It always is and it always will be. But it's really neat to see that people will prioritize that kind of self-care and see the value and how it helps everyone connect as a community. So, in the midst of all of this, you also wrote a book. Yes. I say that like a question. I know you wrote a book, but what was in the book? Was it your story? Was it different examples for different teachers? I obviously haven't had a chance to read it yet.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Well, people have said to me, How do I meditate? And I wanted to answer that question in a very simple way. Well, why should I meditate? And I wanted to answer that question in a simple way. So what I did was I basically simplified this practice. People always asked me, you know, what is the difference between this way, this way, this way? Because it's usually you have a teacher and they're like, it's my way or the highway, but it's not. They all work. So what I did was I interviewed all of the teachers from Unplug and I told my story. And it was funny because it they Penguin Random House came to me. Wow. I was really lucky to write this book. And my mother said, My mother, who's written 15 books and she's an amazing author, said, You're too busy to be doing this with your

The Book: Science And Simplicity

SPEAKER_00 25:05

three kids and your business. You need someone to help you with this. And you're not even a good enough writer to write this book by yourself. Because I'd written another book, which she edited for me. Well, thanks, Mom. On a subject before she she knew my writing. She was right. She was right. So I ended up working with this amazing writer, Deborah Goldstein. We sat down and we just she interviewed me for the entire book. And then we interviewed the people from the studio, and then I connected her with all the people that I love. And then there were certain studies that we were always citing in the studio. And I'm like, we have to put those in. Right. Because people need scientific proof.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Oh, you are preaching to the choir. I am so about that. I'm always on PubMed to research and back up everything that I come on the podcast to talk about. Science is connecting now with what was associated as mysticism or just spirituality ungrounded in materialism. No, no, no, no. We can see now how these practices play into the physiologic body in a way that is replicable via the scientific method. That's so neat. I love that that's in there. I'm gonna have to get the book.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Yeah. So we showed, like we talked about the before and after MRIs of the brain and the impact that it actually has and how it would affect your DNA and all these proven studies. But we simplified it so that people would get it and they could read the book in four hours and be done with it. And that was my goal.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

What about the app? This one is really near and dear to my heart because this was my exposure to Unplug. It was like discovering the tip of the iceberg and then being like, oh, there's all these other things that this does. And the reason I have shared the link, I'm gonna include in the show notes the option for people to get that 30 days. I've already offered it to my listeners before. Hit me up, I will send it to you. This will change your life. There are so many things on the app. You can filter by time domain, teacher, topic, unguided, anything that you want. There's a meditation for it. And there's other things on there too. Like it's it's just all-encompassing. And like I said, it gave me as a new meditator and growing as I will continue to do. It gave me the option to have a completely guided turnkey experience and then to get a little more comfortable with myself and then be able to go into these longer meditations, maybe a little less guided. I've had some incredibly powerful experiences through the app, things that have brought me to tears in good ways, like cathartic growth moments that I didn't expect going into it. Like, oh, this title looks nice. Let me see. Oh my gosh, 10 minutes later, my life is forever changed.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Where did the idea for the app come from? And I really want to know the best. You said so much in what you just said

Inside The App: Design, Features, Streaks

SPEAKER_00 28:00

because, and I'll tell you where the idea came from in a second, but 10 minute tiny transformations. That is the my, I feel like 10 minutes is the sweet spot that you can really shift in 10 minutes. And I wanted to make every single meditation inspirational, effective, and powerful so that you could actually connect with yourself. So it gives you back your me time that most people aren't taking. It's guided me time. I also created a meditation for absolutely everything. I have so many friends, I have so many issues myself that I can get solved. And I would ask, and I've had great access. So I asked all the teachers, how would you do this? How would you do this? How would you and I would sit with them and we'd produce these live videos in the studio in our private loft section, and we would just come up with different things. How do you transform from this to this? How do you switch from warrior to warrior? I did that with David G. It really works. Yes. So so that's was my concept. Sprinkled in, there's another teacher who I'm sure you've tried who you love, is Heather Hayward, loves her. But she told me that when you meditate, you don't want to take a vote. Should I or shouldn't I? It's kind of like working out. If you say, should I or shouldn't I work out today? You probably won't work out. You just got to not take a vote and do something. So she said that. And in my brain, I was like, I need to do new challenges every month for the people who are like me, type A, and just want to do day one, day two, day three, day, and not or create the meditation of the day for people who just don't want to think and just want to click and go. Yeah. The idea came from one of our students who was at the studio who was taking classes with Lauren Ekstrom and said, I hate, he was worked for ESPN and he was the very famous M. Award-winning producer, and he said, I hate leaving LA because I I love the classes and I wish I could take Lauren with me. He she really soothed him, and so he said, You should really record her. And I would love to buy the recordings, maybe make an app. And I'm like, I should do that. You know what? Let me try it. So he's like, I have a producer, I have a bubble. So he kind of connected me with people in the beginning, and one of the teachers also connected me with her guy. And we started recording, and all the teachers were like, I'll do it, I'll do it. And then we created this app. And then the app became something that was, I wanted it to be better, but the platform I was using wouldn't allow that. So I ended up creating our own app. Oh my gosh. I would suggest to anybody who is listening to this who's thinking of starting their own app, do not do it. Money pit of all money pits. Stick with the platform. I again I work within the realms of the platform. It'll be the best advice I ever give you. But um, but we were lucky because I wanted to go to Apple and I saw I didn't know anything about apps. And I saw this guy called the app master, Steve P. Young, on YouTube. And I started listening to him. I thought he was really smart. And he said he was doing a retreat in Santa Monica or Venice. And I said, Oh my gosh, I'm gonna go. It was a one-day retreat. I went, I met him. He's like, I can get you on the app store. I'm like, how? And I did a one-on-one session with him, and he kind of gave me tools on how to get on the app store. And then I wrote to Apple and I said, I'm coming to Cupertino and I would love to introduce you to the Unplugged app. When are you coming? I'm like, Well, when are you available? I'm like, okay, that's when I'm coming. How funny is that? You just keep hitting flow. It's just like everything just I wasn't going to Cupertino, but I went to Cupertino. I introduced and see the app, and then they invited us to Apple Entrepreneur Camp. It was right before the pandemic. So it was 2020, February of 2020. Oh, wow. Okay, literally right before. Yeah. So we got to live at Apple for nine days in the donut in the space gap. No. And we went to Apple Entrepreneur Camp and we learned from the best. And then I said to one of the designers there, because you got like little modules with everyone, I gave him a pencil and I said, How would you redesign this app? And he started sketching it. And I just did that. And so that was the beginning. The concept that Steve Jobs had on his wall was simplify, simplify, simplify. And then he crossed out to simplifies. That's what Unplug is. It's a very simple my mother can use it, and all of her friends, my 86-year-old mom and all of her friends can use it.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Yeah, like I said, it's been life-changing for me. And I'm so grateful that the universe aligned and you listened and you were ready because that outreach is phenomenal. Three million global unplugged community members.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Let's talk about let's talk about the number. So the number really comes from partnerships. So we have

Challenges, Gratitude, And Guided Me Time

SPEAKER_00 33:15

worked with companies like Beach Body on Demand, Body now, and we have a program on their platform called Unstress. And that's been viewed by millions and millions. And then we've had our app used by many, many, many, many, many thousands and thousands. And then we've shared it with American Eagle and all of their people and FabFit Fund and all of their people. So we've given it and we've exposed, and people have millions and millions of used it. So Paige, the karma is honest with you, but that's what not what it's about for me, anyway. It's really about the ripple effect.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

The link to get 30 days free. I think that was how I first got into it. I thought, there's no way this is free for 30 days. I'm gonna download this and it's gonna be like, here's your $20 subscription for the 30 days that you wanted for free. Do you know because of that, that basis of giving first, I said to myself, if I do this for 30 days, I will buy this app. And I I knew I would be a hard sell because I was already so anxious about being in my own head by myself. Wow. And it worked. It was simple, it was intuitive, and I loved it. I got to the end of the 30 days and I said, Yeah, this is something that I am willing to 100% pay for and then try to get to a year. And you know, it took practice, like all things, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

But so that's my technique because I want to show you something really quick, but yeah, love that you say that because it used to be that you would get seven days and then you'd have to subscribe. And I was and I said, I don't want people to have to put in a credit card because then they're gonna be turned off. I'm turned off every time I have to. I want to just try things, see if I like it. If I like it, then I'll pay for it. But if I don't, then don't auto-bill me. Right. So that's kind of why I did that. But I do want to show you something. I'm a consistent meditator, and the reason why is because I do a little practice called I now call it RCB, and I'll tell you what that is. Can you see how many times I've can my daily streak? Is that yeah, 1650? Yeah. Wow. How in a row? Yes, that's the daily streak. Because my I've done your lifetime is 40, 45, 4,500. Yeah. Okay. I'm not even the biggest streak, by the way. I'll tell you, I'll tell you how I did that. So we were talking about building a habit that sticks. And if you take a vote, you're probably not going to do it. So, what I do is I wake up in the morning and I click the app and I meditate. That's David G's word. I've heard it. Trademarked meditation. Meditation means I click the app, I lay back down, I meditate for 10 minutes, and then I start my day. And you couldn't pay me to start my day any other way than that. And if I'm not getting out of my bed until I meditate, then guess what? I'm building a consistent habit.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Your habit stacking, right? You're putting it around things you already do in your day-to-day routine. You have to do. You've gonna wake up. You're physically gonna get out of bed, right? But I insert something right in between that.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Yeah. That's brilliant. We just built that new. I don't know if you've tried that new daily check-in. Have you done? What do you what do you think of that?

SPEAKER_02 36:48

I like it. I

Teacher Training And 40 Days Of Change

SPEAKER_02 36:50

find that sometimes I won't do the meditation of the day because, like you, I'm type A and I'm working through the monthly challenge and I want to grow.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

That still counts towards the check. It does.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

I noticed I was very grateful to see because me being the perfectionist that I am, something I'm working on. I love seeing that. Oh, I've made progress on my goal. Yes. I saw also that you're launching something that's gonna unlock like rewards for so many days in a row. I'm also a Duolingo fan, so that reminded me a little bit of Duolingo. And I was like, Well, that keeps me going. We have family-wide, you know, streak challenges. So I would love to do that with meditation.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Oh, you're gonna you're gonna be excited by that. But for those people who are listening and don't know what we're talking about, inside the app, you know, it used to be I would just wake up and I would meditate and then I put the app down. Then I decided what matters to me. Um, one, the first thing I see in the morning being a positive quote, because that's what I'm wanting to feed my brain with. So when you open up the app, you get a positive quote. And then there's a question of the day. You ask yourself the sacred question, like, what makes me happy? And you notice what pops up. So you connect with yourself. Then there's the gratitude journal where you write three things you're grateful for, and then you do the meditation, and that's it. And the whole thing takes about 12 minutes, 10-minute meditation and the two-minute other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

That's great. That gratitude journaling is huge. I stumbled upon that as an adjunct to meditation before I before you guys even had that option. And I was like, this is brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I can do all of it in one place, right? It's just easy and it's good to like focus on the things that you're grateful for as opposed to thinking of all the things that you don't have and want because our minds usually go to that. Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

I would love to chat a little bit about the Unplugged Meditation Teacher training next. I know that you just launched it yesterday. I confession, I desperately wanted to do it. I wanted to do it last year when I had no idea what it was. I'm like, oh, this looks great. Where did this path develop? How did it come about that you wanted to train teachers?

SPEAKER_00 39:08

It didn't come from me. It came from our clients at the studio. We're like, Do you have a teacher training? And I said, No. And then I thought about if I did have a teacher training, who's the best teacher on the planet that I would want to lead at? And I met David G and I asked him if he would be open to it, even though he has his own training, which is very different than ours. And he said he would love to do it. And we shook hands on it. We have no paperwork. We're on our 16th training now. Wow. And basically, what it is is it's a 40 days of transformation program where you basically meditate every single day so you build a consistent practice. So whether you're a big meditator or never meditated before, we help you build to the tiny habit of waking up and meditating. Then you learn the science and the different types of meditations and different techniques every single day. And then you send us videos every week so we can kind of look and make sure that you know it. Because we believe that if you want to learn something, learn how to teach it because then you'll really know it. And so by this week six, when we're all together, that's the magic week. That's where people connect as a community. We go deep, we meditate in the morning with David G, meditate at night with him. And then the people in the group, whether they want to be teachers or don't want to be teachers, teach. So they do breakout rooms. By the end, they've taught 14 times. They started one-on-one, and then they're teaching all 25 people in the program. And then they teach on our platform. And then by the time we graduate, they're certified unplugged meditation teachers. So they can teach in a company, they can just meditate. And we've had tons of lawyers do it to keep themselves calm. Yeah. And it's a magical transformation. It's really powerful, but it's really fun because he's really fun. I just look at

Pipeline: Rewards, Partnerships, Strategy

SPEAKER_00 41:10

him and people must think I have a crush on him, which I do not. But I am smiling and laughing nonstop because he's just so smart, so clever, and comes up with the most genius sound bites. I wrote down so many of them yesterday. And yeah, he's so smart. It started yesterday, but there's still space. We'll have like spots, like a few more spots if you are interested.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

I would love to do it. I feel called to do it, and I don't know why. My husband was like, Were you gonna teach anybody? And I'm like, Oh, no, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

You know, that is exactly what he said yesterday, which is so weird. He said, Most people hear calling, but they ignore it until it whacks them in the head and they have to do it. Maybe I will do it, and some people just ignore their calling. Yeah. Um I wish I had the paper with me because I did it at my house yesterday, but it was so smart. And I'm like, wow, you're right. People just they're afraid. Yes. Or they're and I and there's always a teach meditation. And then the next thing you know, they become like the greatest teachers. We have a teacher who's in London who opened up his own studio and teaching at Apple now, and now we just have corporate programs, and it's really a great add-on. And it's expensive, it's an investment.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

But it and it should be honestly, what the program asks for is pennies compared to the dividends it's gonna pay just in that individual's personal life. And I have felt I felt so incredibly called to do it just on my own.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

And your kids will thank you for it. I can tell you that. My kids love when I meditate. Oh, and they know when I don't.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Isn't that the truth? I also have three kids. I have an 18-year-old, a 15-year-old, and then my little guy, my three-year-old with autism. Second marriage, miracle baby kind of thing. And they know. And interestingly enough, I got my husband meditating about six months ago, and now I can tell when he's skipped a day or two. I'll ask you just a couple last questions. What, if anything, is in the pipeline next for unplug?

SPEAKER_00 43:24

The next big thing is we're going to be releasing the awards for unplugs. So when you meditate, you'll get a double dopamine hit. You'll get the dopamine hit you get for meditating, and the dopamine hit you get for being rewarded. Brilliant. We're like, why give them only one hit of dopamine when we can do? So that's the quickest thing in the pipeline. And then it's really just about more of the same: more corporates, more clients, um, more partnerships and reaching out to as many people as possible. My goal is to share this far and wide with as many people as possible because it's so life-changing.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

It is. Would you ever open another Unplugged Studios brand name?

SPEAKER_00 44:12

I would not. I opened up a second studio

Personal Practice, Myths, And Getting Started

SPEAKER_00 44:15

and I was like, you know what? No. I like the digital because it's easier. I don't have to worry about people getting callings to go to India.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

And then they leave for six months.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Um, I guess I didn't think about that. Yeah. Your teacher could just be like, oh, this just speaks to my heart. I have to go, and you can't say no, right? Yeah. How can I deny their calling?

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Um, so that happens a lot. But I love having one studio because I think of it like a think tank here for my entire business. So my plan is not to open up a second studio because, as I mentioned, teachers give callings to go to India for six months. And I definitely can't fight them on that. They end up goodly. And it's just easier to have a digital brand because then it can be perfect, perfect, in my opinion. So I'm able to edit some of the content to be short, powerful, and effective, like I like it. Yeah. And also we do live sessions, and anybody can access those globally.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

That's a brilliant setup you've got right now. In closing, what is your personal meditation style? What's your favorite?

SPEAKER_00 45:24

So I, as Olivia Rosewood once said, she's one of our teachers, there's more ways to meditate than there are to make an egg, and I love all of them. I love variety. I think variety is the spice of life. So one day I might do a mantra practice, one day I'll do a sound bath, one day I'll do a guided visualization. I like switching it up, and that's what keeps me consistent. I've tried TM, I've tried Vedic, I've tried Zen, and I've done them for long periods of time, and then I fell off the wagon. So for me, I know what helps me show up, and that is variety.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

I'm right there with you. I feel like we were very kindred souls in the many aspects. You kind of answered this earlier. I think it bears repeating. What would you say to someone that's considering trying meditation, that's worried it won't work for them or that they're going to do it wrong?

SPEAKER_00 46:18

I would say to them, if you don't try it, you'll never know. And the only way you can do it wrong is by not doing it or falling asleep. And that happens a lot. That's not even doing it wrong. People fall asleep when they meditate. I think, you know, it's gonna be different in the beginning. It's hard to sit with yourself and notice all your thoughts, but it's interesting. They need to befriend their mind, befriend their thoughts, and see what is actually going on in there and learn to love that, learn to love themselves through that. And it does work for everyone. The only way it doesn't work is if you don't do it. I've never met a human being that has become a meditator and it didn't work for them. And I've personally seen thousands of people do this. I just know it works. It works for everyone. If you've got a brain, it will work for you.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

So, where do you prefer people go to find you or discover more about Unplugged?

SPEAKER_00 47:19

Unplugged.com. I think you can find everything there. We have an Instagram, I'm personally on LinkedIn. And yeah, I think those are the three best

Closing, How To Connect, Listener CTA

SPEAKER_00 47:30

locations.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Thank you so much, Susie, for your time, your energy, your wisdom. This has been an absolute pleasure, and I have enjoyed every minute of our conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

Thank you so much. This has been so exciting and fun. And I love listening to how Unplugg has impacted your life. So thank you for sharing your stories.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

You have a great day.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

You too. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope you found it interesting, actionable, and worthy of sharing. You can help contribute to this growing community by emailing topic ideas, suggestions for interviews, and feedback to Vanessa at squatsandseances.com. That's Vanessa with an E at squatsandseances.com. You can find new episodes of Squats and Seances on all major podcast platforms and the vlogcast on our YouTube channel, Squats and Seances. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave us a review if you are enjoying the content. Season one will be drawing to a close on October 31st. Visit us at squatsandseances.com and subscribe to our newsletter. While there, you can also check out our weekly blog posts on all ways to optimize your health and fitness. Follow us on social media at squats and seances, on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube. And until next time, stay gritty, friends.