In this episode, I help us prepare for a new season of life by unpacking a powerful quote from the yoga community. "The past cannot be fixed. The present can only be experienced. But the future can be crafted." Sadhguru. I applied this quote to different parts of your life – your work, your family, your health. Often our greatest burden in life is carrying the heaviness of our past with us into the present. The past was a pendulum – it was beautiful and it was hard. Let it be. No need to try to make sense of it all, or make it look pretty. It can just be. We can live a better present by not trying to control other people or circumstances. We can craft a better future by planning for it, and growing ourselves. 

“I want us to be in a place of ownership and planning of our own life, knowing it doesn't all go to plan.” - Trina

Key Topics:

• Our greatest burden in life is carrying the heaviness of our past with us into the present. 

• The past was a pendulum – it was beautiful and it was hard. No need to try to make sense of it all, or make it look pretty. It can just be. 

• We can live a better present by not trying to control other people or circumstances. We can create more moments of joy and think better thoughts. 

• We can craft a better future by planning for it, and growing ourselves to create it. 

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In this episode, I share a recent interaction with a customer at my local business. Her story helped me create  a new life lesson to benefit all of us.  This young woman was mentally thrown off course from her health and fitness journey because of a mean internet troll. His words pierced through her confidence and led her down a winding path of self-doubt and sabotage. This lesson is about giving more weight, more value, and creating more space in your head for your own thoughts. That leaves very little room for the judgments, opinions and even criticism from others. We can’t tune out the world, and often we do want advice and suggestions from others. But it’s hard to sift through the good and the bad and not get hurt along the way. This strategy is to give more weight to your own words, so choose wisely. 

“I want you to remember at the end of the day, you can listen to anyone you want. You can tune out the voices that don't matter at all, but for the people whose opinions you do value, even then, keep in perspective that your own words weigh more so give yourself good words to choose from.” - Trina

 

Key Topics:

• Other people’s opinions can sting, but they only have the power you give them.
• Your own words and beliefs about yourself carry far more weight than any outside judgment.
• Even one hurtful comment can derail progress, which is why self-affirmation is essential.
• Choose empowering words like “I am strong, I am growing, I am doing my best” to drown out negativity.
• Turn down the noise of others and turn up your own truth to live with calm confidence and clarity.

 

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In this episode, I share the behind-the-scenes of a keynote presentation that I’m delivering to incoming college students and their parents. After talking to my son who is a college athlete who serves in the military, I chose a lesson that has elevated my own life and led to greater levels of success. Success means different things to different people – success can be financial health, physical health, depth of relationships, or your contributions to the world. But we can all agree that success feels better – that a lifestyle of success is something to strive for. The key to success is found in daily habits and daily discipline. I dive into the concept of discipline and how it shows up in various stages of life. If you want to think bigger about your life and your future, this episode is for you.

“Success is not convenient. If it were, everybody would do it, but it's worth it. Now you get to define what success looks and feels like in your life, and there's so many ways to define it.”

Key points: 

• “We must all suffer one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” - Jim Rohn 

• Success requires you to show up even when you don’t want to. 

• Success requires you to shut down distractions and go the extra degree in your own work. 

• The pain of discipline can be applied to your chapter of life, based on where you need to get better, to grow or to advance. 

• Doors will open in life when you do things that were not asked of you to help or serve others, even things that are time-consuming or tedious. 

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In this episode, I share a foundational lesson that I consider a formula for a great life.  The basic premise is that the pendulum of life swings both ways — it swings high toward success and equally high toward struggle. They balance each other out.  You can’t have one without the other. If you choose to live an average existence – one that stays lukewarm – the pendulum doesn’t swing high either way. You don’t experience great joy or reward, and therefore, you don’t experience great defeat or risk. But you will likely feel regret for not living life to the fullest. When you swing the pendulum high, you experience all the color of life, and you have to learn to manage the darkness. When you love hard, you hurt hard. When you risk big, you can lose big. I hope this lesson helps you navigate your work and home life with a new perspective. You are highly capable. Go swing the pendulum. 

“I want you to embrace this pendulum swinging and tell yourself, this is part of my human experience. I am highly capable. When I push this high, I'm going to reap the reward, the excitement, the adrenaline, the adventure, potentially the income, the reward, the depths of joy. I'm going to experience that, and I'm also going to experience loneliness. I'm going to experience criticism.” - Trina

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• How I learned to see life’s highs and lows as the natural swings of a pendulum.

• The real story behind opening my health club—both the wins and the setbacks.

• Why I believe courage means pushing the pendulum higher, even knowing it may swing hard the other way.

• The personal and emotional cost of ending ties with my siblings—and the peace it brought.

• How you can build resilience and trust in yourself to handle both success and struggle.

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In this episode, I discuss the journey of parenting. I share three lessons to help you navigate the tumultuous waters of raising kids. This is a thoughtful guide, not a rulebook, or a playbook. Your parenting is as unique as your own fingerprint. You bring your values, your experiences, and your skills to the table.  We are often combining our parenting styles with the other parent. It can be a lot. I share three truths and myths of parenting that offer you food for thought, suggestions and ideas for your own parenting. This episode can be helpful for parenting littles to parenting young adults or grown adults with kids of their own. Our love for our kids takes on different shapes as their needs change. Here are three ways to show up better as a parent and to make the ride a little less bumpy.

Keypoints:

1. Truth: Parenting is adding drops in the bucket daily.  Myth: Parenting is not just the big events like birthdays and vacations.

2. Truth: Parenting is living for our kids.  Myth: Parenting is not living through our kids

3. Truth: As parents, we are role modeling. Myth: As parents, we are not creating carbon copies. 

 

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In this episode, I discuss your commitment level to different endeavors or relationships in your life. If you’re “one toe in the water,” that means that you are hesitant, unsure and not convicted. If you are “two feet in,” that means that you have decided to be all in, to be committed and to trust that you can rise to the challenge. Life always feels better with two feet in. You don’t need to do something full-time hours to be two feet in, you need full-time conviction and belief. Whether it’s your health, your marriage, your friendship, your career or your side hustle, decide. Get in the water, or get out. Be two feet in or none at all. Being one toe in the water never feels quite right.

“What does full time honestly even mean anymore? In HR talk, full time means 35 to 40 hours a week. But in real life, I'm a full time mom, I'm a full time spouse, I'm a full time business owner, I'm a full time manager myself. I care about all of these things. They don't all get the same designated number of hours, but it's not full time hours that I care about. It's full time conviction, full time committed.” - Trina

 

Keypoints:

• Being “two feet in” means making a decision to go all in.
• When you go all in, you build confidence and rise to the challenge.
• When you are one toe in the water, you are hesitant and people sense it.
• Being “two feet in” doesn’t mean you do something full time, it means you’re fully convicted.
• You can apply this lesson to the different roles you have in life to see where you can improve.

 

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In this episode, I apply a very simple, but profound concept of doing hard things. We explore this lesson in all areas of our life. It can be hard to choose daily actions to better ourselves and our lives – from eating healthy, to paying bills, to learning new job skills. But it can be harder to NOT do those actions. It can be harder to live the result of inaction. It can be harder to live unhealthy, financially stressed, and stuck in your career. 

“Living stuck doesn't feel good. It feels more mundane. It feels like you're always beating your head against the wall. It feels like you're not growing and learning and expanding. So yes, it's hard to grow in your career, it's hard to go back to school to get the advanced degree, or it's hard to learn the new skill. It's hard to work on yourself and your communication. It's hard to work on your time management, on your efficiency, on your focus. It's hard to grow in your career, but it is a heck of a lot harder to stay stuck.” - Trina Gray

Keypoints: 1. Taking daily action can be hard because no one is looking, or asking, or requiring you to grow and get better. 

2. You have to want more for your own life. 

3. Taking daily action can be hard because we are busy, distracted and even tired at times. 4. Ignoring or delaying the things we need to do to live a vibrant life will lead to much harder outcomes. 

5. Learn the five-step process for putting the “choose your hard” mentality into your life.

 

Reaching episode 20 felt like a benchmark. I wanted the topic to be uplifting. At the heart of this episode is the theme of joy—how we cultivate it within ourselves, and how we pass it on to others. I share a lesson from my recent mastermind retreat in Napa Valley, where I felt joy on a deeper level when I shared something I love with others.

  I hope this episode helps you tap into what fills your own cup — from workouts to time in nature. I hope you also identify how you serve others in a way that brings you joy — from creating experiences for your family to serving your clients. It’s a lighthearted topic and one that can improve your daily life. 

 

“What is it that you are specifically doing that brings other people joy? And can you schedule that? And can you make sure you are doing that on the regular? Because I think it deepens your well of joy. “ - Trina

 

Keypoints:

• I’m proud to reach episode 20—a big achievement in the podcast world—and it reminds me why I started this: to help others live calm and confident lives.
• I’ve learned that joy doesn’t just show up; I have to intentionally create it, both for myself and for others.
• My trip to Napa Valley served as a reminder that I can 10 X my own joy when I serve others with my passion or talent. 
• I wrote down two lists: what brings me joy personally and what brings me joy by serving others. 
• Whether I’m paddleboarding, mentoring, or podcasting, I now prioritize joy as a non-negotiable—and I want you to do the same.

 

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In this episode, I share on a topic that I built my entire career on— health and fitness. The Calm & Confident podcast is about living a better life overall.  Embracing an active lifestyle is part of that formula. I share my own journey from being a high school athlete, to losing my way (big time) in college, and ultimately finding fitness for life. I share about the three kinds of people who start a fitness program, or join my health club — they are health-minded people looking to stay active, they lost their fitness for a season of life and are ready to get it back, or they’ve had a recent health scare, and have a more urgent need to get healthy. The latter is the hardest. Don’t wait to start until your back is up against a wall.  I urge you to take care of yourself now because sometime in life, you’ll need someone else to take care of you — and at least you’ll have been carrying your fair share of the load. Fitness is prevention, it is health care, it helps you navigate the inevitable challenges that we all face. Arm yourself with a health body. You’ll never regret it. 

“Once fitness is out of your routine, out of your rhythm of life, it can be easily lost or forgotten. I'm encouraging you to start fresh, to get back in the rhythm, in the routine, to find a way to take control again, to put yourself in your own driver's seat of your health and to take care of you, to do your fair share.” - Trina Gray

Key Points:

• I opened up about how fitness shaped my life—from being a high school athlete to losing my way in college, and finally making health a lifelong priority.

• I explained the three types of people who join my health club: the consistently active, the ones returning after a break, and those facing a health scare.

• I urged listeners not to wait for a wake-up call—fitness is prevention and should be part of our routine now, not later.

• I shared how finding group fitness helped me rebuild confidence, energy, and a sense of control in my life.

• I believe taking care of myself today means less burden on others tomorrow—and that’s a responsibility I take seriously.

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In this episode, I open up about the real-life challenges and opportunities that holidays bring. I remind myself—and you—that it’s completely okay if our holidays don’t look like they used to, or like anyone else’s. The goal isn’t just to get through the season but to actually enjoy it. I share four practical tips that help me stay grounded, honor my personal values, and design holiday traditions that bring peace and joy, not pressure and comparison. Whether your family structure has changed or you’re simply craving a different rhythm this year, this episode is your permission slip to redefine what holidays look like—for you.

“Be willing to keep the good and carry it over and let go of maybe what doesn't serve you anymore, or what just doesn't fit your current family situation anymore, things can look different from before and still be right now. The other side of that equation is things can look different from others and still be right.” -Trina Gray

Keypoints:

• I embrace that holidays can look different now and still feel right.

• I set personal standards to stay true to what matters to me.

• I focus on whose opinions truly matter in my life.

• I design holidays around what brings me joy and meaning.

• I let go of traditions that no longer serve me.

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