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By Alison Swerdloff & Liesa Harte
5
1212 ratings
The podcast currently has 10 episodes available.
As human beings, we all need to take care of ourselves. What that entails can be different for all of us, but the general goal is the same: to live a good life. And if you're struggling with well-being, there are plenty of ways to help you figure out what your needs are and how to make them happen!
One of the most common indicators of a person's emotional well-being is happiness. Whether it be from a wide grin or a belly laugh, laughter is one way in which we can tell that someone's life is going well, and by extension their health. This is not surprising considering the health benefits that come with laughing - including reducing stress, improving mood and even increasing your immune system! So if you're feeling down, spending some time laughing with your friends or family members will make it feel like everything is going to get better.
It might seem difficult, but staying in a happy and healthy state is so rewarding it is well worth the effort of putting forth the right actions.
Antoinette Ryba is a registered nurse, lifestyle coach, patient advocate, certified laughter yoga leader, hypnosis coach and stress management specialist. She specializes in facilitating change through awareness, education and self- empowerment. She teaches individuals learn how to create a life filled with optimal health, energy, passion, fulfillment and fun
In this episode, we are going to take a look at how laughter can help us heal as well as provide insights into what exactly is involved with meditating regularly. Discover new insights and be inspired by life-changing experiences that will empower, encourage, and inspire you to grow in ways you've never felt before.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
· How Antionette defines Mind Body Success
· How Antoinette began her coaching career
· The ways she helps her chronically ill patients regain their inner peace
· Why meditation is essential towards having the right mindset
· The importance of self-awareness
· How thoughts can affect our body and emotions
· What is Laughter Yoga and how does it benefit our health
People Mentioned:
· Dr. Madan Kataria
Resources Mentioned:
· The Laughter Yoga
Connect with Antoinette:
· Website
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Lorna Sophocleous, is an instructor, health & weight loss coach, and founder of Lorna Wellness at Any Age and Lorna Pilates. She encourages female entrepreneurs in living a Light and Luxurious life and reintroducing themselves to the spotlight after years of hardship due to their weight. To help clients take control of their health, she helps them develop a better understanding of how food and their bodies function, and she helps them to enjoy moving about to build strength and self-confidence at any age.
In this episode, we'll discuss how food influences our state of mind and our capacity to be mindful. As well as, the importance of appreciating your body and embracing your true self towards achieving success in life.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
In this Episode, you will learn:
· Lorna Sophocleous's story of surrender
· Her desire to work as a nutritionist
· The impact of food on our mental and physical health
· The primary barrier to women prioritizing themselves
· How to build up your diamond self
· The difference between low vibration and high vibration foods
· Reasons why hating your body and expecting to lose weight don't work
· What are the best ways to embrace gratitude
Resources mentioned:
· The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks
· Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Joe Dispenza
· You are So Beautiful – Joe Cocker
Keep in Touch with Lorna Sophocleous:
· Website
· Facebook Page
Facebook Group
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Mindfulness is a word that is thrown around a lot nowadays, but do we really know what it means to practice mindfulness? It is well-known that the world we live in today is a fast-paced one, and we are constantly surrounded by various stimuli, whether it's through TV and radio, social media and the internet, or our jobs. But this means we also put ourselves under a lot of pressure through deadlines, responsibilities and pressures from society to be ‘successful’. Leading a hectic life can lead us to being less attentive and less mindful towards our surroundings – which can have a detrimental effect on our mental health.
Mindfulness is a self-awareness, attention and acceptance-based practice. It’s about being fully in the moment and slowing down. It is the art of controlling your thoughts and perceptions to avoid negative emotions. It's hard to be mindful, especially with distractions like social media, email, and texts that constantly beckon our attention.
One of the top challenges for people today is the constant bombardment of information, images and interactions. It's easy to get distracted. So, it’s important to develop a strategy for staying focused and developing mindfulness skills through exercises such as meditation and yoga. The more we can manage our thoughts, emotions, reactions, judgements and impulses in a mindful manner the less chance there is of being overwhelmed by these powerful triggers that pull us away from present-moment awareness.
In this Episode, we are going to subject our minds to fully understanding the essence of mindfulness. And how, despite the world's constant rapid change, we can immerse ourselves in daily meditation, journaling, and slowing down.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
In this Episode, you’ll learn:
· What true mindfulness is
· What does it mean to be mindful?
· The Importance of removing yourself from negative things and energy
· How journaling prevents you from falling to negativity
· How mindfulness may be practiced in a variety of ways
· Tips on how to effectively meditate
Connect with Alison Swerdloff:
· Gmail
Connect with Dr. Liesa Harte:
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Historically, women were often seen as weak and therefore less capable of attaining success in business. Throughout history, this has been a disadvantage for women. However, circumstances have changed and women have developed a greater capacity for accomplishment. Today, women account for a significant proportion of business owners and managers, making their mark on the world of entrepreneurship.
With all that being said, it is important for a woman to remember that she has a gender advantage over her competition. By doing business like a woman, she can use this to take full advantage of any situation that arises in her work place or personal life.
Julie Ritchie is an entrepreneur coach and the founder of Do Business Like a Woman. She assists female entrepreneurs in skyrocketing their businesses and achieving all of their client, income, and growth goals in a less stressful way that preserves their health and relationships.
In this episode, we're going to go inside the mind of a female entrepreneur who's dedicated to promoting financial success among women. She goes into the different emotions that female entrepreneurs experience and highlights the significant importance of managing their fears, uncertainties, and emotions in order to build a thriving business.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
· How Julie discovered Business Like a Woman
· The strategic framework or system of Business Like a Woman
· The types of personalities with whom Julie worked
· How Julie practice mindfulness to helped her clients
· The essential role that self-care plays in your business
· The significant transformation Julie made to one of her clients
Resources mentioned:
· Eckhart Tolle
· Michael Alan Singer
Stay connected with Julie Ritchie on:
· Join her Facebook Group
· Facebook Page
· Visit her Website
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Mindfulness: The Stepping Stone to Success
Focusing on the present is one of the most important elements to success. It can be challenging to do this in all aspects of your life, but it becomes that much easier when you practice mindfulness.
Mindfulness is an awareness that can help any person find peace and change how they interact with their environment. It is not about being perfect or trying to control everything in life, but rather being present with whatever you are doing so that the experience becomes richer and more meaningful.
As far as rocks go, there are many that provide this type of power to individuals who need it the most.
Pat Roque is a career leader strategist, motivational speaker, certified virtual presenter and the founder of Rock on Success. She helps individuals find their zone of genius so that they may love and be loved by their professions. She is an expert in fostering employee resilience, development, diversity, and belonging in order to attract, promote, and retain top talent. Her previous experiences and inspirations have fueled her passion to assist others in overcoming similar situations, particularly during this pandemic.
In this Episode, we will dive into the series of Pat’s journey in becoming the founder of Rock on Success and how a simple stone could mean such a huge significant part on her life. We will talk about stories of inspirations, empowerment and positive mindset to leave you a guaranteed feeling of fulfillment.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
In this episode, you will learn:
· How Pat discovered Rock on Success
· How she overcame her suicidal thoughts and feelings
· How rocks have played a significant part in her life
· The impact of Covid-19 on all businesses and employees
· How to bring out the best in your people during these difficult times
· The Importance of mindfulness reflections
Resources Mentioned:
· Rock on Success Website
· From No Worth to Self-Worth
· Rock On Success: 90-Day Fast Action Planner: Focus & Freedom To Live Your Best Life Without Selling Your Soul Or Losing Your Mind
· Rock Your Golf!: 90-Day Success System to Rock Your World On and Off the Golf Course (Rock On Success)
· Abundance and Gratitude Meditation
· FREE Soul-Searching Assessment
Connect with Pat to learn more about her:
· Follow her on Twitter and Instagram
· Join the Facebook Group
· Connect with her on Clubhouse
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Men are often seen as the strong and powerful members of society. But these are only surface similarities. Men are also very quick to hide their true feelings, especially when it comes to the things that matter the most in their life. Whether it is fear of confrontation or feeling unworthy of receiving help, some men have a difficult time opening up and being vulnerable.
There is a simple and powerful way to heal men from these struggles, and it lies in the realm of mindfulness and mindset. By bringing awareness to their present experience, these techniques allow men to gain greater perspective on their feelings, thoughts, and actions.
Lindsay Berman is a trauma coach, social worker and educator. He offers guidance to men who need to get beyond "stuck places" in their life and have been through trauma, helping them work through it in order to restore balance and live more completely. His personal experience with a brain injury and trauma, along with his professional background and training, has drawn him to this job, which seems very much in line with the effect and service he wishes to provide to the world.
Together with Lindsay, in this episode, we indulge in the power of mindfulness and mindset and how this has helped him become who he is today. Learn some new insights and be inspired by life-changing events that will allow you to feel powerful, motivated, and inspired to level up in ways you've never experienced before.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
· The journey of Lindsay Berman becoming a Trauma Coach
· Common reasons why men don't speak out about their problems
· The significant advantage of pausing
· How important it is to have a growth mindset over a fixed mindset
· How a brain injury accident has changed Lindsay's life
· How Lindsay challenges his clients to think beyond the box
Get in Touch with Lindsay Berman:
· Email: [email protected]
· Phone: +1 416-277-5782
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
When it comes to building healthy habits, small decisions add up over time. Many people are unaware that the thoughts we put in our minds are just as important as the food we put in our mouths. Karissa Adkins divulges how she was able to shift her mindset from unhealthy habits to healthier ones--and, evidently, the work has paid off! She was able to lose 100 pounds in a healthy and sustainable way, and, most importantly, gain habits that helped her “boss up” and become the best version of herself.
Karissa is a powerhouse, with a career as a best-selling author, global influencer, and the ultimate mindset coach. As a health and wellness expert, and CEO of the 365DailyHustle, her advice helps mom entrepreneurs and those looking to level up or “boss up” in their lives. This passion was inspired by her personal journey undergoing a complete mental, emotional and physical transformation. Throughout it all, Karissa continues to be an inspiration for women who are looking to take the next step and live happily, healthy, and successfully.
Join us on this week’s episode to learn some fabulous and important techniques to give you insight and awareness, and some useful methods that you can apply in order to achieve a positive mindset. This episode is guaranteed to leave you feeling empowered, motivated, and inspired to level up in a way like never before.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Topics Covered:
Resources Mentioned:
Guest Info
To learn more about Karissa, go to her website or follow her on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/365.daily.hustle/.
Follow Us:
Transcript
Alison Swerdloff: [00:00:00] Welcome to Mind Body Success with your hosts, Alison Swerdloff and Dr. Liesa Harte. Listen, along as we take you on a life-changing journey into creating success by incorporating; mindfulness, self-care, mindset, and personal development. Open your mind, let your adventurous side out and allow us to motivate you to remove the hustle and overwhelm while shifting your current reality to the life of your dreams.
Through conversations with high achievers, you will learn tips, tools, and strategies to overcome challenges and live a life of prosperity and abundance.
Liesa & Alison: [00:00:42] Let the adventure begin.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:00:49] Welcome to Mind Body Success. Liesa and I are happy you've joined us for another wonderful conversation. Today, we are joined by Karissa Adkins, speaker, coach, radio show host, best-selling author boss babe, and mother. Karissa's story sounds similar to that of many of us today, as she was trying to be everything to everyone else, but realized she was struggling to find happiness, balance, and self-love.
After her aha moment, she changed her life forever and now works with other women, empowering them to do the same. Today, Karissa is a certified life, health, and mindset coach, through Health Coach Institute, a certified personal trainer, motivational speaker, founder of 365 Day Hustle, and best-selling co-author of "Women Who Bossup."
We're excited to hear how she shifted her mindset, how she continues to utilize mindfulness and how she guides others to be their best selves as well. Karissa, thank you so much for being our guest today.
Karissa: [00:01:49] Hello, I'm so excited to be on y'all's podcast and just help spread the word.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:01:56] Awesome.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:01:57] So, I keep hearing about your aha moment. I'd love to know what was your aha? How did all this get started?
Karissa: [00:02:05] All of this, right? Well, who I am today is definitely not who I was 11 years ago, that is for sure. I don't know any woman who is the same woman that we were five, 10, 15, 20 years ago. Then my aha moment comes really in two parts. Because at the first aha, my eyes weren't quite open yet. And then the second aha just smacked me like nobody's business. So I was stationed in Germany with my family. We are an active duty family; we were stationed there. And I was sitting in the doctor's office, and that doctor looked at me and she said, "Karissa, if you do not change your lifestyle today, you will not be around for your little girl." Who was running around in her office at the time. She said "You will not be around for her. I can't guarantee that you'll be here in 10, 15 years." And I was just at first shocked, I was a little upset, and then I was just like, "What are you kidding me?" And she said, "Honey, you are five-foot-tall, you're 213 pounds, you're considered obese." Yeah, and I mean, if you can see me now, most people wouldn't even recognize. I mean, I've lost almost 100 pounds.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:03:16] That's awesome.
Karissa: [00:03:17] Thank you. And that was the moment that really opened my eyes. So there I was, I was upset, I was embarrassed. I knew I was overweight. I hated the way I looked, but how dare anyone call me out on how I looked. And more importantly, it made me feel so incredibly disappointed in myself. And I felt guilty, and I was like, "I am a mom, what happened to me?"
And so I shooed my child, grabbed my stuff, and I stormed out the office. I'm Puerto Rican, I probably said a few words that were not the best. I definitely let my temper get the best of me at that time, because I was so hurt, I was so hurt. And that night, I drive home. I'm having this giant conversation out loud, and in my head. I don't know if you guys have ever had one of those, where you're just so worked up and you're like, "How dare her?" And my little daughter is just looking at me in the back, in the rearview mirror. And I'm like, "Okay, I'm sorry." So we get home, I smoke about a pack of cigarettes that night. Drink at least two bottles of wine, cried myself to sleep, and thought if I could just wake up tomorrow and forget this all ever happened. Like, "I don't want to deal with that kind of news, are you kidding me?"
And so that's what I did. But turns out when you've had some honest truth being told to you, your life, it's not really the same anymore, when it finally hits you. And I woke up and I sent my son off to the bus stop, and I got home and this is where the second aha comes. So I walked him to the bus stop, I sit on the couch, I grab a cup of coffee, and I look over at a picture of my mom. And then for the first time, ladies, in my entire life, I saw just how heavy she was. For the first time, it was insane to see that. I saw all 320 pounds. I saw her battle with cancer, and diabetes, and her lack of energy.
And that was the moment that I saw myself in her for the first time. I'd always wanted to be like my mom, she was like a crazy hustling woman, doing the dang thing for me and my family, me and the kid. And I was just like, "Oh my gosh, if I don't change, that's who I'm going to be."
And I love my mom, don't get me wrong, she was my best friend. She was my teacher, actually, I worked for her, we were just so close. But I learned that what I didn't want that day. And I saw myself in her, and that was the moment that I was like, "Karissa, you don't know what you need to do, you just need to get up. You need to change your life; you need to raise your standards. Because what you're doing isn't working, and it's got to change, enough is enough.". And ever since that day, my life has literally changed forever.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:05:57] Now, what did you do to make those changes, and to figure out what changes you needed to do that? Or to go forward?
Karissa: [00:06:07] The magic question. Because everyone's like, "Well, what do you do? How do you do it? How do you lose (crosstalk)?
Alison Swerdloff: [00:06:12] We don't need every little bit, but...
Karissa: [00:06:14] No, well, but at the end of the day, I always like to tell my clients, because they all come to me and they're like, "I don't know what to do, I don't know what diet to be on, I don't know what exercises to do. I don't know where to start. They're so overwhelmed and stressed out." And that's exactly where I was. But then I sat there after I realized, I kind of woke myself, I was like, "Okay, you're going to do this." And you actually probably know what you need to do.
You've been thinking about it for years. All those shoulds, all those coulds, all those things that we say in our heads. I literally got a piece of paper, I was like, "What do you know about losing weight?" And I was like, "Well, I probably need to eat less," at the time because I coped a lot with my stress and my feelings with food, and food, booze, and (indistinct). Totally typical, like many women out there, food, booze, cigarettes, and work. And so I wrote down, "I need to stop eating so much and I need to start moving my body."
And that's all I did y'all. I was like, "I don't know what I need to do, but I need to obviously move my body." So what does that mean? "I need to probably go to the gym and for right now, I'm just going to start working on eating less." And so that's what I did. And then as I mastered that one habit, I slowly took on more and more and more. Where it went from, "Okay, now I'm going to clean up the diet." And I had no idea what a clean diet looks like, literally, I was like "Chicken, and salad, and tuna, and crackers." Like just taking anything that I've known, and I was like, "Okay, we'll try it, because I have to change, I have to change." And so those were honestly the first two things that I had to do in order to start losing weight.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:07:49] You know what, sometimes that's all it takes,
Karissa: [00:07:51] I'm living proof, right?
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:07:54] Your aha had such an emotional impact on you that there was no turning back. It sounds like you really made a decision. And you didn't know the hows, which is good, you don't have to have a hows, but you knew where you were going, so that is amazing.
Karissa: [00:08:09] 100%. I think that's the biggest kicker is, you got to know why you want to change. What I call boss up. Every woman, every man goes through a boss up moment, where we could either go one direction or we can stay stuck on the couch and play the victim. And the woe is me and I was like, "My mom, I don't want to be like that. And I want to live for my kids." And I think that my why has definitely changed over the years. But it's still like kids are still a big factor in there. My mom is no longer with me, that still is a why today, when I think about, "Oh, I don't feel like getting up and going to the gym or I don't feel like food prepping or I don't feel like meditating today."
We don't feel like doing everything all the time, well, it's hard to stay motivated all the time. But then all it takes is me to remember my "Whys" and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not going back to 213, like ever, never, ever.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:09:00] Very good. Well, that just answered my next question. Now, what inspired you to actually start your business?
Karissa: [00:09:09] This funny story. So let's see about, well, it was about 2018, I was working in the corporate world. I was a marketing and HR director for a local body shop. And so when we moved back from Germany. I should back it up just a little bit, we moved back from Germany, lost my mom that same week that we got here. It was definitely a traumatic time, but instead of going down another path, a dark path, it was just, "No, this was a sign, mom is still going to be able to teach me." And so I got into this marketing industry, and I really did love what I was doing. But as over the years, of course, I got involved in gyms and I was just doing my thing and just continuing to lose that weight.
When I moved back from Germany, I was about 170-ish, so I did a lot of work there. However, when I got back, it's where I really started slimming down, toning up, and just starting to feel mindset-wise, the shifting the confidence, everything was starting to happen. And so there I was at the body shop, and the community that I'm from, it's a small, tight-knit community. And yes, they saw the scale go down, they saw my body have this physical transformation. But what they also saw was this confidence level rise. And so I just become known as this super-fit professional. Like she has her life together. She's amazing at this marketing stuff, this body shop is growing. And I was slowly getting into this fitness arena, as far as like being coaches for where I was at. Not necessarily personal training, but being someone's cheerleader and accountability partner really at first is where it started.
And so all of a sudden, one day, I remember I was at lunch. And I was checking Facebook, and my name, of course, tagged about three times in one post. And I scroll back up and I look at the post, and there's a woman who says, "I'm looking for a health coach, I've tried everything and I'm ready to work with someone now."
And so at first see how I was like, "Oh, the community thinks I'm like this health coach." And I'm like, "I'm not right. I'm a marketing professional." And at first, I was worried. What if the boss finds out, I don't want them to think, because I loved my job. I cannot say that I left a corporate crappy job to pursue my passion as a coach, it wasn't that at all. It was probably one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make. But so I scroll up, and I'm like, "Oh, that was first an instinct."
And then I reached out to her, I said, "Listen, I am not a coach. I'm sure you're looking for someone who's certified or a trainer or all these fancy titles. "I said, "But I'll tell you what I do know how to do, I know how to lose 90 pounds the healthy way, meaning I know how to sustain my weight loss, and I'm helping other women do the same. I was meeting with other ladies from the gym, coincidence in well (indistinct) at Panera bread. And we were meeting and I was just helping them tweak their habits and their mindset, and I was encouraging them and I was like, "You can come and be a part of this awesome group."
And she's like, "Well, cool, how much?" And I was like, "For free, girl, this is what I love to do." And I kind of was realizing, I was like, "oh my gosh, I don't know what a coach does. But I'm here to help women, just boss up and become the best versions of themselves." And honestly, that is how I got into the coaching business. Because then, of course, I went to Google and I was like, "What does a health coach do?" And googled it found my source, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:12:32] That's awesome.
Karissa: [00:12:33] I've had so much fun.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:12:35] I like the idea of boss up. How did you come up with that name?
Karissa: [00:12:39] I like to think of me as an alpha, I have always had this masculine energy to me. I grew up in the wedding industry, but prior to the marketing job, I owned my own tuxedo and cigar shop. So I just kind of related to men a lot easier. The Collision Center, no different, 26 males in charge of them, not a problem. And so at first, I'll tell you, I thought it was going to be a coach for males. Because I had a hard time finding women that had that same mentality. Like the work hard, anything's possible.
And when I started to think, when my business is 365 Daily Hustle, which is pretty masculine. I mean, hustle is, in general, is like work hard, work hard. But this whole sense of boss up came about, and I want to say about two years ago. And I was just having a conversation like this with a friend, I was like, "Girl, you got a boss up." And then I was like, "Oh my gosh, I love it." And then the book came, and now my clients that I even work with, I mean, everything is like, it's a boss up moment. And I feel like a boss up moment is just a courageous decision like I said earlier. But the cool thing about a boss up moment is, once you do it a couple of times, it becomes like a habit.
You're constantly looking for ways to boss up, level up, boss up, thrive, however, you want to call it. But it just stuck with me, I love it. And I'm like boss up, that's me (chuckles).
Alison Swerdloff: [00:14:03] So it goes along with pull up your big girl panties and just do it.
Karissa: [00:14:06] Very much, get the job done.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:14:10] It sounds like mindset was a big part of what you teach, is that true, or do you just do that by example? Or do you focus on mindset? Do people know they're working on their mindset?
Karissa: [00:14:23] They don't know it. And then I think that that's what makes a good coach. Because I think if they think about it, they're like, "Ah, I don't know how to do this." And I'm like, "What is this?" But it all starts with, from the first call. Women come to me and they don't have a ton of confidence or they have a lot of self-doubt. Although no one would notice that because we feel like we have to put on this happy face, and we're professionals, and we can't show the weak side, and all these kinds of things where we just put this guard up.
And so I feel like from the very first like strategy call, the epiphany call, I'm already believing in their dreams. And when they can start to, they don't believe in it yet. My girls will be like, "I'm going to borrow your motivation, your energy until I have it of my own." But to get back to your question, yes, absolutely. In my program the very first week we address is mindset. Because it's more important than nutrition. It's more important than exercise, in my opinion. And I learned all that because the scale kept going down, ladies, and I still wasn't happy. And I was like, "Why am I not happy?" I thought if I could get to this perfect little hourglass shape that I would be so happy.
And it wasn't until I started shifting the way I viewed everything. I mean, I look for wins instead of negative. I don't even see that stuff anymore, I'm just shielded. Because I feel like my mindset is so strong and so resilient. And I'm like, "I can do anything with that kind of mindset." And I have, anything that I want to do, I'm like, "Yeah, go for it, what's the worst going to happen?" So I definitely address mindset. And then part of habit change, because a lot of weight loss is like environmental. Environmental, it's a lot of, I always say, "Losing weight is super easy if you just do it all consistently."
Do the things that we know consistently, but we can't do it consistently sometimes until we get to the real root of the problem. And so I do a lot of subconscious mindset work with them as well through VIP coaching calls, but yeah, mindset. If they don't believe they can do it, I can't get them there. So I have to get them to believe that first.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:16:29] Now your 365 Daily Hustle, that's about daily habits, correct?
Karissa: [00:16:37] Yes, I'm the queen of habit change. I do believe that my client, about a year ago, nicknamed me that, she's like, "You're the queen of habit change." And I'm like, "Oh, I like it." Yes, it's big. What I do is a lot of habitual, it's behavioral change. It's not just eating the right kinds of food, it's who are you being when you eat? Are you stressed? Are you being mindful when you're eating? Who are you being when you work? And who are you being when you're with your kids and family? So I like to change the habits, and some women that's all we need. We need to shift the habits, we need to shift and add certain rituals and routines into our life. That's the easy stuff.
But, because that is. But some women, they keep finding them self-sabotaging, and these limiting beliefs keep coming up. And so we do then have to go deeper and just work a little bit more on that mindset and detaching old stories. But predominantly what I do is helping women boss up their habits, for sure.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:17:33] Now you've had some hurdles and obstacles recently in the last few years. What are some that might have impacted your work either negatively or positively? Or forced you to make some pivots or shifts, other than the COVID pivots?
Karissa: [00:17:53] COVID was a great pivot for me. And, so I learned so much during COVID. Well, my divorce rocked me pretty good, I'll be honest. So I went into it with a really clear mindset of how I wanted to come out of that divorce. Because nobody marries a man and after 15 years just says, "I'm done." It just wasn't healthy, and I think it's my job as a mom to show my kids what that healthy relationship looks like.
So sometimes we got to do what we got to do, but, that was a tough one for me. That's a great question, I've never been asked that. Because I truly believe that everything that I've gone and been through, has shaped the woman that I am today, and I would never take any of it back ever. So I don't quite know how to answer that one.
They've all, I mean, between leaving corporate, that was a huge decision to follow my heart, to my divorce, to me picking everything up and moving to New Mexico. And my family was like against every bit of it. I'm leaving my son, who's 20 in Nebraska, to be with a man who actually supports, and loves me, and literally like pushes me to boss up every day. It's all been hard, but it's all the worth it.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:19:03] It sounds like you are being a wonderful example for your children. And it sounds like that is important to you. You learned so much by observing your mother. And you learned through the law of polarity, what you didn't want to be.
Karissa: [00:19:18] Yes.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:19:19] And can you see the impact? I know, I was reading in your materials, you love to work with mompreneurs. And as a mompreneur myself, I'm guessing that that is an important part of what drives you also, serving as an example. You already mentioned that about the divorce.
Karissa: [00:19:35] It is. I feel that it's my job to teach my daughter. Like I said, my son, he's 20 he's out of the house now. But he was raised by me, who I had him very young at 15, and he just had this very unhealthy mom. Obviously 213, I didn't get there because I was just a happy-go-lucky woman. I ate my feelings, I said that. I stressed out all the time, I have a lot of trauma in my childhood, and toxic, abusive relationships. And so I just didn't know that loving myself was so important. I just wanted to love everybody else because I didn't want to focus on me.
So my son grew up with a very different mama. And where my daughter has really not known anyone who isn't this strong, "You can do it, follow your heart." Like I'll preach that all day long and kids can see through that. So if you're not happy, I feel kids can feel that. And so I was like, "Yeah, we're going to go." And she's my best friend, and that melts in my heart to know that I was like, "Wow, my mom was my best friend." And to know that she's like, "I wouldn't, couldn't live any day without you, mom." And I'm going to be there, and she's my manifestor too. Before my very first book, I told her I wanted to write a book one day, this was a couple years ago, not that long ago.
And so every time we'd go into like a Barnes and Noble, or just see a book on a bookshelf, she's like, "Mom, one day your book is going to be on those shelves." And I was like, "That's so cute, blah, blah, blah." And so now it is. I feel like when you're a working mama, you have to bring in your family to make that sense of balance and flow.
And, she has her own dreams, 100% but she would believe that she's my producer too. She's like "One day when you're flying all over this country, speaking on live stages, mom, they're going to have to book through me." And I'm like, "Okay, girlfriend, you got it."
Alison Swerdloff: [00:21:25] That's great, bringing your family into it is huge.
Karissa: [00:21:30] Yeah, I think so. And that's why I love working with, to take it back to mompreneurs, and just busy executive women, like women that are family-oriented. Not that I don't work with women who don't have kids and all that, but it's important for women, we want more for our kids. And I don't want my daughter to grow up, or my son, I don't want them to grow up having troubles and struggles with food, and exercise, and obesity, because that's what my mom did. And I saw how crappy that life turned. That's the life I was heading down, so I kind of broke the chain, I'm like, absolutely now it's so important. So to see the moms, like they kill it in their careers, in their business, to finally put themselves on the front burner instead of the back burner.
And then they're like, "I'm teaching my kids to eat clean too." And I'm like, "Yes, this is so amazing, you're breaking chain." So that's what I love about working with moms.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:22:26] Now, what advice would you give to other entrepreneurs, or other women looking to break their chains, and start a business, totally, without necessarily knowing what they're doing?
Karissa: [00:22:39] Easy. (laughs) And I've actually already told you the answer. I'm going to say follow your heart. I think when you can turn the volume down on what other people think of you, and what you should do, or what is a smart decision, or what a success. Step outside the box that everyone keeps trying to put us in and follow your heart. I am the happiest I've ever been in my life, these last couple of years. And it truly is, because I'm like, I don't care what people think of me, and that too is a mindset shift, and trust me over the years, I've had to work on that. But when I can finally get to that moment where I feel so confident and comfortable with the decisions that I'm making, and I trust that whatever I do that it's definitely going to lead me towards something cooler. I have no reason not to follow my heart.
And I learned that decision, I was actually being coached at a health coaching conference. And I was so torn between staying in corporate, staying with my cushy easy job that I liked, and becoming a coach, and stepping outside. And not knowing what to do or how to start that type of business. And she walked me through a very powerful exercise and I was like, "Holy cow, I like what I'm doing here, but I freaking love the impact that I'm leaving over here." And when I could put it all out there like that, I was like, "I owe it to the world to be my best self, and those other women, they need me.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:24:03] Did you start your business as a side hustle or did you just quit, and then create from scratch after you quit?
Karissa: [00:24:12] A little bit of both. The only thing that I stayed doing while I was still at the corporate job was I did all my schooling. So I did all the schooling at night. Part of Health Coach Institute is they make you have three or four practice clients.
So once I went through all three or four of those practice clients, I graduated from health and then I got my life certification. And then at that point, I was like, "you know what, I've got women who want to work with me? And I stayed at that corporate job for six months, then I gave him that notice. And finally, I was like, "Okay, I'm actually going to go now. I love y'all, but I've got people waiting for me." And, so, then I just broke the chain and I started with one client, and I just had faith that I'm doing what I need to do. And there's still days that are tough, it's not constant yet, I'm still a new business.
I'm not going to sit here and lie to you, but I am having a lot of fun and that's more than I could ever say that I had at the Collision Center. I had a lot of fun, but I had a lot of stress that was literally killing me.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:25:13] Now with everything you're doing, because you are very active. You've got a lot going on with your business and with your children, but how do you find time for you? What do you do for your self-care, for special interests? Anything that's not giving to others?
Karissa: [00:25:30] I think that that's important for coaches and speakers because we love to pour energy for everybody else. But yet that's a very thing that we have to protect, is our energy levels. So the answer to that would be to, I always say, "Schedule it first."
Alison Swerdloff: [00:25:47] And schedule everything.
Karissa: [00:25:48] So I take care of me first, always, always, always. I set really strong boundaries, and I roll with that. But things that I love to do for self-care would be reading. As much as I'm an extrovert, I love just being by myself with a good cup of tea and reading.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:26:05] A woman after my own heart (chuckles).
Karissa: [00:26:07] Yes. And seven years ago, my mentor looked at me and she said, "What's your type of books that you like to read?" I'm like, "Girl, I haven't read since 'Of Mice and Men' in high school." She's like, "What?" I was like, "Yeah, I hate reading." So she's like, "Here you are today, you've written two books and you want to write a third." And I'm like, "I know it's crazy," but I love working out, it's not a punishment. So every morning from, 4:00 to 5:30 a.m., I'm in the gym. And then I have a spiritual practice before I even start work, so that's where I'm doing my reading, my journaling, my meditation, but it's scheduled in. And I think that that's so important because ladies will be like, "Oh, well, I'll just, we'll put that in as an appointment."
I'm like, "Cool, you would keep an appointment with the boss or a potential client. So why are you not keeping your own appointments with yourself?" So the tip there is to schedule it, schedule your self-care time. Figure out what you like to do, what brings you joy, and then schedule it in first. And even if you have to get three or four weeks ahead, because if you're like me, my appointment book is like solid for a couple of weeks.
So start next month, but start somewhere, get ahead of the game. But yeah, I love fishing being outside with nature, it's one of my core values, actually. I just love walking on the cement, with barefoot when it's warm. Simple pleasures make me happy, but I'll take a book out and just walk around.
Typical self-care for me is definitely not like hair and nails, those are like tasks for me. Where some women will think that, and that's fine. I think self-care looks so different for everyone, as long as it brings you happiness, and without guilt, and that's what I think is really cool. When we work with women and when they start to see the shift that self-care isn't selfish.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:27:49] That's one of my core statements and so many people don't quite get it.
Karissa: [00:27:57] And it's not something you just do every once in a while, it's not going to work like that. It's like the gym, if you do it consistently, you will see the results. And then you're like, I can't imagine my life without my own self-care. I mean, my calendar looks like a self-care sandwich. Like a club sandwich with the bread as the self-care, because I need to fill my bucket back up. I can't give...
Alison Swerdloff: [00:28:21] You can't give to people what you don't have. And that's what so many moms do, or even just busy women. They just give to everybody else without replenishing themselves, and that's huge. Now, if somebody listening wanted to learn more about you. Wanted to contact you or ask for your assistance in some aspect of what we've discussed, how would they find you? How would they reach you?
Karissa: [00:28:51] I would just say go to 365dailyhustle.com. Honestly, that's where you can find my coaching programs. You can read my full story of how I lost all that weight. You can find speaking opportunities there. Everything that there is to know about me is on there. So 365dailyhustle.com. I, of course, I'm on Facebook, I have an awesome community for women only. I'm on Instagram, but yeah, if you're really looking to boss up your life, and just want to see if I'm a great coach, I have a free training video on how to lose weight on my website, so you can always go to that, that's the best resource.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:29:27] Excellent. Thank you, Karissa, for joining us, this has been wonderful. We've enjoyed learning more about you, and how you got to where you are today. I think Liesa and I both agree you are definitely a wonderful addition to the Mind, Body Success podcast group. And we look forward to further conversations.
Karissa: [00:29:48] Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:30:03] Thank you for listening to The Mind Body Success podcast, and being part of our amazing community. We hope you've enjoyed this conversation and gleaned some tidbits that you can incorporate today to start changing your life. Our goal is to be your guides and we look forward to continue to provide amazing content.
Don't forget to join in the discussion at mindbodysuccesspodcast.com. For full show notes, resources, and further conversations. If you have a specific topic idea feel free to recommend it.
Liesa & Alison: [00:30:34] We look forward to seeing you on our next episode.
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This week on Mind Body Success, we explore the topics of mindset and mindfulness with the CEO of Authors Who Lead, Azul Terronez. We talk about releasing our expectations and turning inwards to gain the necessary confidence to take the leap in starting a personal project. Azul also shares his own journey from educator to best-selling author and book coach, and how his shift in mindset has helped him achieve his lifelong goals.
If you want to learn how to incorporate mindfulness and personal development into your everyday life, this week’s episode will divulge some of Azul Teronez’s best kept secrets on living a more productive and well-balanced lifestyle.
Azul Terronez is a former educator, best-selling author, book coach, and CEO of the six-figure company Authors Who Lead. He has coached Wall Street CEOs, health and wellness gurus, and Emmy award-winning producers to help build their confidence, improve their productivity, and increase their visibility within a company.
Join us on this week’s episode as we learn more about Azul’s personal journey from teaching in the classroom to finding the courage by taking the leap in writing his first book. He even shares some of his personally favourite authors who have shifted his mindset and have helped him along his journey.
We talk through the best tips, tools, and strategies to overcome challenges and live a life of prosperity and abundance. Buckle-in for an exciting episode on how you can gain the inner confidence and mindset you need to help you reach your lifelong goals!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Connect with Azul on his website Authors Who Lead or join the Authors Who Lead Summit to learn more.
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Transcript
Alison Swerdloff: [00:00:00] Welcome to Mind Body Success with your hosts Alison Swerdloff and Dr. Liesa Harte. Listen along as we take you on a life-changing journey into creating success by incorporating mindfulness, self-care, mindset, and personal development. Open your mind, let your adventurous side out, and allow us to motivate you to remove the hustle and overwhelm while shifting your current reality to the life of your dreams. Through conversations with high achievers, you will learn tips, tools, and strategies to overcome challenges and live a life of prosperity and abundance. Let the adventure begin!
Welcome to Mind Body Success. Liesa and I are happy you've joined us today for this conversation with Azul Terronez, a former educator, best-selling author, book coach, and CEO of the six figure company Authors Who Lead. In his capacity as the CEO of the company, Azul has enabled Wall Street CEOs and health and wellness gurus sell tens of thousands of books.
He's the host of the podcast Authors Who Lead and serves as a creativity coach with CEO's and Emmy award-winning producers to build their confidence, improve productivity, increase their visibility within their companies. Following two decades in education, where he served as a teacher, principal and founding faculty member of High Tech High Graduate School of Education—I will personally want to hear more about that—he has been a keynote speaker and hosted a TEDx talk entitled “What makes a good teacher?”. Azul, thank you so much for joining us today.
Azul Terronez: [00:01:48] Thank you so much Alison for having me and you as well.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:01:52] So, I loved your TEDx talk.
Azul Terronez: [00:01:56] Thank you.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:01:57] I have six children and this is my, you know, so very inspiring.
And then I realized when I was preparing that that is a former chapter. And then now you're a creativity coach and have this successful business. So, I was wondering what caused you to shift from being a classroom teacher? And, I realize now that you were principal and school founder also, but it seemed like you really loved the classroom—to now being a creativity coach.
Azul Terronez: [00:02:28] Yeah. Well, that's a great question. I think along the way, because I went into teaching in-between things, you know, it's sort of the thing where I couldn't find a job and I was working in television at the time and television jobs come and go, you try to get a job. And I had some background directing children's theater, and I saw a job meeting someone that could speak Spanish, at least mildly, and to be able to work with kids. I didn't ever have a degree in education nor any teaching credential, but they were desperate and they hired me. And, uh, I stayed there for a year and then realized that I had to go back to school and I was like, I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to school again. I had just finished graduate school in a totally different field, so I wasn't necessarily planning to stay, but the kids just kept me there. Man, they taught me more than any of those degrees ever did and so that was really the reason I stayed. Education has its, I have my own, you know, discrepancies with the way it's done, but what I did learn and pushing back on the things that I thought needed to change as the kids were the ones that had all the answers.
So, one of my students, we were doing a book fair. When I got into publishing about 2007/2008, my goal was to help every young person that was in my classroom; every eighth grader would graduate as a published author. So, I started publishing students and I had a fair one day of all their books. So it was a book fair, but it was of their published works and people were coming to see their books.
And one of the students came to me and said, Mr. Tarnas, where's your book? I want to put it out. And for a second, I thought, you know, I could just lie here and say I was too busy. I focused all about you. And the truth was, I was just scared, and I told them, I said, look, I'm just really afraid to put myself out there.
And he said, you don't need to be afraid. And he shrugged his shoulders and walked off. And that's when I realized that I had been telling kids, you can do anything you want, anything you put your mind to, but I wasn't accepting it for myself. So, I started after that to write books, I no longer just talked about it and worried about it, spending 24 years thinking about writing a book, I finally wrote it in 30 days because of that sort of bigger 'why', and that changed my life.
And that's where I met Pat Flynn and The Smart Passive Income Podcast, who was also like, wow, you wrote a book in 30 days? We need to talk because I want to know how you did that, and so my life shifted from that moment. It was really an internal shift that came from a kid.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:04:51] I want to learn how you did that.
Azul Terronez: [00:04:56] You know, I'm glad this is about mindset because honestly it was a mindset. It wasn't that I didn't have the knowledge. You know, I was very skilled in helping people publish books; I knew what it would take, I knew how to run things on Amazon, that wasn't my issue. My issue was believing that my voice was worthy, that it would be any good, could I really get it done? I started before, but never finished. Would anybody read this? Mm-hmm, which is what was in my head. And that's why, I tell you, kids do the most amazing things by just calling you out in a really beautiful way, which is you don't need to be afraid. And the shift was for me, why am I doing this? My 'why' was I really want to figure out how these wonderful people make a living online and travel the world and work from their laptop. I'm in education, locked in a cage, it felt like. I had no idea how people were doing this. So my shift was, I was determined, and I only spent an hour a day.
I wasn't spending, you know, 10 hours a day writing a book. I've built a system that realized I had to undo all the training that I had in my mind from schools about what a book is and what it isn't and that's what really helped me.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:06:01] So when did you publish your first book?
Azul Terronez: [00:06:03] Uh, it was 2014, um, in the fall 2014 was the first book that I published as, under my name, that I wasn't a ghost writer. I've written other books, which is great when they're all, they become number one and have 605-star reviews.
But if you're not the one with your name on it, it's easy to just hide behind that. I still struggle with it, to be honest, I have to remind myself how important it is to shine.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:06:26] What led you to starting your podcast?
Azul Terronez: [00:06:29] You know, it was a little bit selfish in some regards. I wanted to have conversations with authors because I've only had conversations with teachers and educators and I spoke and train teachers all over the world, from Barcelona to Shanghai to Canada to Chile.
So, I've had an incredible education life, but I didn't really know too many people out of education. So, I wanted to start interviewing authors and ask them, how did you get here? Did you really write this book? Is your, your name's on it, did you write it or are you just the author? I wanted to know. I wanted people to hear that it wasn't as hard as they thought, or it was every bit as hard as they thought.
And my goal, ultimately, was starting. I wanted to be able to interview Gay Hendricks of the book The Big Leap because I really admired him. And, I thought, I'm going to stick at this until I interview him, at least, you know? And, after the first time, I thought I quit. I was so tired of doing it already 10 episodes in.
And I was like, there's no way, but I had one author on my show who was a coauthor with him, and I asked, could you ask if he'd be on my show? And she said, yes. So, I, you know, that was, that happened a few months ago. That was amazing. So that was, I've gotten to interview such amazing authors, but like being able to interview him was a goal.
So, that was really the main reason. Now, I do love to serve people and help them, but at the beginning, I was motivated from within.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:07:54] Now, how do you incorporate mindset and mindfulness in your work with your clients? How do you help them shift their mindset and work with mindfulness?
Azul Terronez: [00:08:06] Ya, so that's a great question. So, what I've noticed and part of it was, I was part of the problem, is that we in schools don't teach people to be writers and we definitely don't teach them to be authors or have author mindsets. We teach them to be editors. And what I mean by that is we know we're going to get a grade; we know there's a certain criteria, rubric, thing you have to follow to get the grade, and we edit to the grade. I'm an A student so I will do what it takes to get an A. I'm a B student, what I need to get is a B. So, we type, we edit, we write, we edit it, we delete, we edit, our minds constantly editing towards, will this be good enough for the teacher?
And so, we have an editor's brain, so we've been trained to be editors. So that part of your brain is that left side of your brain is really useful to correct and make corrections to pieces of work. It's really poor for creativity. So, what I do for my mindful thinking is I don't let my students or my clients think about writing as words.
I make them draw their book first. I say, I want you to draw your book. And a lot of them are resistant. You could imagine doctors, lawyers, dentists, really struggling with this. They're like, I can't draw. I'm like, good. You think you can't draw? So, we're gonna work with that. So, draw me what, you know, use a picture of symbols colors, or show me your book idea.
And that is really valuable because it allows them to detach them from having to be right. Um, and that's one of the mindful practices, if you can stop attaching to this 'it's gotta be good' or 'it's gotta be right', and then you actually start to find your way through your story, your truth. If not, what creeps in is what people know as imposter syndrome or writer's block—which isn't a thing, writer's block is a made-up thing.
Uh, we don't get plumber's block or carpenter's block or hairstylist block, right? We don't. We get writer's block because it's so much easier to say that there's something I can't do, and really, it's a mindfulness practice that needs to shift. So drawing your book helps you start to talk about a book and see it's real. Words are just the things you put there because you can't be there with the person—reading their book, you know, reading your story, you know, talking to them. And I tell people, people want to be with you. Your words are just part of that. So, once they can detach from their words, they can actually start telling their story. And I don't let them write for a long time, like six weeks into our programs, because I want them to figure out their message.
Why are they the unique messenger? I don't want them to focus on the words. That's because their editor brain constantly wants to try to make something right before it's even an idea. And the best books are not the books that are even read or memorized. The best books are the ones that people talk about.
Hey, hey, Alison, you look like you're very cheerful and you're upbeat these days. What's going on? You're like, gosh, I've been reading this book, Happiness and Cheerful, Mindfulness, whatever the book is. You're like, I think that's great. I should get that book, right? That's how books have a life, but too many authors are worried about the words and the words are just slightly the best you can do, because if I had a chance to sit and have lunch with Oprah and talk to her about her life and how she got here, I'd much rather do that than read her book about her life.
And that's the truth for every human being. We'd much rather be in-person learning about who they are. And so, that mindfulness shift helps authors release all this expectation that it's supposed to be something big. And once they do that, they actually can start showing up on the page.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:11:28] Interesting, that's my thought process on writing the books that I've been talking about writing for a year.
Azul Terronez: [00:11:37] Ya, because if you believe your book is already in you, then you won't worry about, I have to create a book. You're not creating anything. It is in you, mainly in you, who you are a human. Again, where I learned this was from children.
So, as you know, when you get along in years and you start to teach other people, they call you a master teacher, which is just sort of silly. You really don't know anything more than when you started, but I would go do demonstration lessons in classrooms, and I would go in to teach writing and authorship to kindergarten classes and I'd hand out the paper. You remember that paper that has that brownish paper? And I'd hand out colors and I said, okay, everyone, we're going to write a book! And those kids would get so excited, we're going to tell stories and I'd say, you ready? Set, go. And they would just start going. And the teacher was like, oh, we don't have, they don't have writing skills yet, just some of them know the alphabet. I go, don't worry. And they were writing and scribbling, drawing. And then I'd say, time's up and I'd go over to Jose. Jose, show me your, let's go over your story. And it'd be scribbles, I mean, not even pretending like it's writing, but really not much. I said, Jose, what's this about?
Well, this is a story about a young aunt who on the way home from school got in trouble. He got lost. Oh, my goodness. And so his mom, who's an elephant, also went looking for him and she got lost. She got stuck in a tree and Jose would go on and tell this beautiful story. And he would fall along on his pictures, falling the doodles, he had it perfectly visioned out and then he would have a beautiful ending.
And I said, that's quite a wonderful story. Stories live in you. Words are just the thing you use so that you can pass them on. So, I try to tell people, stop trying to write with words, words aren't the thing, you are the thing. Your imagination, your creativity, your unique view of the world is the thing.
And once you start to understand that you stop having all this anxiety because you can't be wrong, how can creativity be wrong? So even if we're writing a very serious book, a very technical book or a memoir, it still has that same principle of it's within you—that the book comes not from your head alone. Not just words, you know, grammatically correct words, that's just what we're trained and that's unfortunately why most people who graduate with a degree in English and/or creative writing don't ever publish a book because they're trained in a way that makes it difficult to believe that they are the ones meant to share their story.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:14:01] Very interesting. You've sparked something in Liesa, I can see it in her face.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:14:13] My first question that came to me when I found out that you are a creativity coach, I'd never heard of a creativity coach. So I was going to ask you, can you really coach creativity, but obviously you can, you've already described it so beautifully, oh my gosh. I mean, I could almost cry. It's like this is so wonderful.
Everyone needs to hear you, so glad you're here.
Azul Terronez: [00:14:35] I was asked by the co-founder of the Stanford Design School, which was designed, built for engineers to have a more empathetic look at design, the human element. He said, Azul would you be interested in the project teaching creativity? I said, possibly, tell me more. He says, we want to see if we can teach AI (artificial intelligence) to be creative.
Well, we're not going to destroy the earth, are we? What are we talking about here? He's like, no, we're just curious about this notion we've, anything mathematical or logical, we've been able to have computers learn. Creativity, we're wondering is that something that innately human or is it teachable? I said, I'm wondering that the biggest problem with, when I go into organizations that are wondering about innovation or creativity and I look around, I said, oh, you don't have a creativity problem. You have a curiosity problem because creativity comes from curiosity. And I don't see any evidence of questions or curiosities anywhere in here and that's your problem. So, where's the opportunity to be curious? And so, my wonder about artificial intelligence is can you teach artificial intelligence to be curious? Because curiosity doesn't have a reason to exist. It just, it's a notion that just lives in you, right. So, I don't know about that, but what I've learned is that I'm not training people to be creative.
I'm retraining them to connect to the part of their body and their brain that is creative without them. You don't teach kids to be creative; schools basically undermine creativity and teach them to be compliant, which is different. Sir Ken Robinson talks a lot about schools being the result of killing creativity.
I would agree, and it's intentional, it's not a mistake. It's not that we don't know we're doing it in education, we want them to stand up when the bell goes off, we want them to sit down, get their pencil out, we want them to have the behaviors of workers. We don't want them to pause, stop, reflect, question.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:16:25] Right?
Azul Terronez: [00:16:26] And that's where creativity comes from.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:16:28] You know, it's interesting you say that because my daughter is an elementary school teacher, and she has always said she does not want to work with kids above third grade. Part of it, you know, they start getting personalities. And the other part is, she is young at heart.
And her mindset is always the creative aspect of things and once you get above third grade, creativity goes out the window.
Azul Terronez: [00:16:58] Yeah, well think about it. So, we're all expected to be able to read by third grade and at least have the beginnings of writing, basic writing. And after that, if you don't cling onto it, you're sort of out of luck.
That was my problem. I'm pretty severely dyslexic. I don't, I couldn't read at third grade, I flunked freshman English at UCLA. I had to take it again, even though I have a master's degree from UCLA. Ironically, I became an English teacher and a book coach and a creativity coach, but it wasn't because I was good at reading.
What I was really good at is everyone else was focusing on the words and I was focusing on what's really happening underneath the surface? What's the subconscious thing that people are thinking here. What's my observation? Why would this be happening? And I'd get, they'd stop me say, okay, did you read that paragraph? What'd you get from it?
And I would say something totally right, but it wouldn't be because of the words. I was trying to process this other thing. So, it's just a, it was an intuition built up out of necessity because I couldn't catch up and read the words. I'd go read the book three times just to be able to process what they were doing, but it became a superpower because it's the thing that helped so many kids because I couldn't teach them to the way everyone else was teaching them.
I taught them to be authors at a young age. So, when my students walked out as 13-year-olds to maybe have their first job, I said, don't worry about experience. Just write your name on the application and staple it to your book and say, see attached. And that's all, you'll be fine. You'll get whatever job you want.
And, so I help them just be more successful, that was more valuable outside of school than it was in, being a published author at 13. And I feel like, yeah, so it was just a switch in the way I was thinking in creativity, you know, it has to be reignited in people. So many people, so many adults that I coach, when they're working on something, whether they'll be YouTubers, I help with YouTubers, which is interesting because I'm not a YouTuber, to be more creative.
And part of it is an undoing the blocks that sit in their head to keep them from being the person they're trying to be. So, I say, I'm not teaching you how to do anything. I'm teaching you how to be. That's a different thing.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:19:07] Hmm, so you are basically teaching them how to be the best forms of themselves, without changing their thought, without changing them.
Azul Terronez: [00:19:15] Right, without judging them too soon. I'm okay to be critical about your work, but don't do it before you create it, do it after. It's okay to go, hmm, I could have done that differently. I will next time. But don't do that while you're creating the thing because you'll never finish or you'll never feel proud or you'll never get the thing that's so important out of you that it's actually not just good, not just great. But, like, the only thing that, you're the only one that could be creating this, there's no other way, there's nobody else like you on earth. So don't create the thing that everyone else can create, create the thing that you stand for and that's uniquely you. And the reason I say that is, you know, in the world outside, we're all basically selling sunshine, right? What I mean by that is, authors are focusing on content. Oh, if I get really good content then I'll be worthy. If it's good, unique, different, and... my friend Jadah Sellner who is a co-founder of Simple Green Smoothies says, how so? There's no unique messages in the world. There's just unique messengers.
And I would agree. You're not creating anything new. So, stop trying to tell people your sunshine's better than the sunshine down the street. You know, what's important is that you think about you. So, when I was a kid, I got a science kit. You know, you got a telescope, microscope, and a magnifying glass. And I love the magnifying glass because quickly figured out besides seeing things up close, that I could burn my friend's leg. That was really cool.
Just the right angle, right. And you could start a leaf on fire, or unfortunately I burned a few ants I owned so karma for, but what I learned from that was that ordinary sunshine, which just warms your hand, if it goes through a lens, can ignite. So, most of my authors come here wanting me to talk about their sunshine, their thing they're creating and I want to focus on them. I said, you're the lens. You're the only thing that's going to ignite this, not the content because if you write the book on 101 ways to, you know, use butter, someone will just come around and write the 102 ways. You're never going to beat someone on content, but if you're unique and show your shine through you, there's no one else that can be you. And it will be so magnificent because your uniqueness is the gift. So is this a lot of reframing and mindset work with authors to give them confidence to do the thing that they're meant to do.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:21:33] Very interesting.
Do you work with clients just one-on-one, or do you do groups?
Azul Terronez: [00:21:38] Yeah, I do both. So, I got a lot of one-on-one clients at the moment and it's hard because I can't keep up. I can only have so much time in the day, but I do group programs. So, I built a process around this method that basically helps people utilize that skill to be creative. And we've called it the Diamond Method where you basically, just like a diamond has carrots and all the different parts, the four Cs to get clarity and all the things that... we have the same thing for our programs. Because the people get clarity, then they commit to it, they create, and they crystallize. That's how they make a message. So basically, my group program is following my method and then we have author success coaches that coach them through it. Mainly, it's the writers that come to CSR and group programs. I do coach creatives, one at a time: actors, comedians, screenwriters. It's interesting who comes to find me and how they find me. I don't always know. But what they're trying to do is find that breakthrough, that thing that they're trying to get through.
So those group programs are great because you follow a method, but you also have accountability, which is the other part. You can't just think about it. You have to do the thing.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:22:45] Right. You actually have to walk the walk and do the… and talk the talk.
Azul Terronez: [00:22:49] Yeah. Words have to show up on a page, right? Just because you have a good idea.
I do love the premise of the TED organization, ideas worth spreading, and that's basically an important thing to keep in mind. And when I've coached TEDx speakers, they'll come to me and will say, I really want a great idea, a big idea. And I say, well, I think that's a misunderstanding. There are no big ideas.
And they're like, wait, what do you mean? I said, well, I think what you're talking about is an idea worth spreading. And they're like, yeah, that's it. I said, well, think about this. You have to think about something you've noticed that other people have walked over and just walked by, like at an Easter egg hunt where they had eggs or some treasure hunt, everybody was looking, and they walked right by it.
But you stopped and found it somehow, you said, hey, did you guys notice this? And like, oh my gosh, I've never noticed that. That's interesting. That's a small idea, teeny idea that you notice that other people just didn't notice or pay attention to. So, big ideas are really just small ideas that more than one person talks about.
And the more people talk about it, the bigger it seems, but the truth is it's every great idea is a small idea.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:23:56] Very interesting. Now I have a question for you, how do you keep your mindset focused on your passion?
Azul Terronez: [00:24:04] You know, part of my practice is morning meditation because, to be honest, I live in my head just like everyone else if I'm not careful. So, my mindful practice starts with meditation. It starts with, you know, some of the work that I got when I met Gay Hendricks, focusing on the things that I'm trying to put into the world. And then also, having a creative part of my day. I don't try to force my creativity to be something specific, but it might be today.
I'm learning the ukulele, which is something I've tried. I'm trying to rewire my brain to be like a kid who can do things because they believe they can. So, at 50, picking up the ukulele and going, okay, this is going to be a journey. It's part of that creative practice. So having creative time every day, that has no, like, there's no purpose. Right, I'm not trying to do anything that's separate from writing. Writing to me is a doing activity for me cause it's part of my business. But I really try to just have that time of expression, Gay Hendrickson and his book Joy of Genius talks about it as how much time in the day are you wanting to live your life in that zone of genius, being the creator?
And if you're not doing it, then ask yourself why? And then ask yourself, how much will I give myself today to be a creator? So, I sit and played the ukulele or draw or read or be in my creative zone for half-hour and every day I add a little bit to it. My goal is to spend four hours a day being creative.
I'm not there yet because I haven't quite got my zone of genius kind of cranking, but it's getting more and more easy to make a living and then not worry about the rest, that four hours of creativity, that has nothing to do with my business is really what's fueling it because I find myself more able to do things I couldn't do when I was trying to do the work of a business.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:25:54] How long have you had your practice?
Azul Terronez: [00:25:55] 2015 is when we started. My husband and I both were working traditional jobs; he was in healthcare and worked in executive leadership and development. And I was in the teaching position, I was an instructional coach. When he decided to leave and went from making the six figures to driving Lyft for $12 an hour, and Uber.
And then I got a job in Shanghai and shifted, and then I left that and said, you know what, we're going to make a go at this. And we were empty nest at the time and thought, well. We packed up everything we owned into two suitcases and sold or donated everything else and spent several years traveling the world, living in our suitcase, in different parts of the world.
That was amazing, and that's how we started our business because we had so little, we didn't have cars, we didn't have a mortgage. We just, you know, let's live in Portugal this year, this month, let's go to Italy, let's travel, let's do whatever our heart desires. And that's when the business actually thrived when we were actually living our truest life.
So, yeah, that was about, that was 2015 and 2017 when we both left our jobs, we had no other income besides our jobs. So that was, besides our business, so that was a huge shift for us.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:27:10] That's great. Now, what did you do? You were mentioning about your learning, your education, you know, doing the ukulele or things like that, but when you're not focused on your work or helping others, what do you personally enjoy doing for fun? What are some of your hobbies?
Azul Terronez: [00:27:26] Yeah. You know what, I love doing yoga. I realized I was storing a lot of my, maybe angst or anxiety in my body—not trying to, but I think that's where it lives. I didn't realize that. So, I didn't start yoga until I was almost 40 and realized that I was able to do a lot of work that was internal by moving my body different.
I coached an author who was an Ayurvedic practitioner to write a book a few years ago, and I learned a lot about your whole body, how it's connected and how it can heal itself. And one of the ways that she talked about was yoga. So, that's something I love to do. I like to read and because of my podcasts, I, you know, I read every book that comes to my podcasts.
I read a lot of books. Ironically, because I'm dyslexic, I learned to speed read so I could read very fast. So, I might get through a book in an hour or two. It might take five, so that's fun. I like to read. And when the world was open, I like to participate in
Alison Swerdloff: [00:28:24] I like that terminology.
Azul Terronez: [00:28:25] Right, I don't know how else to say it and stay in the positive vibe.
I would participate in the story slams, which are things like The Moth, The Moth Organization, where you have to tell a story in five minutes or less. And so, yeah, it's really great. There's a podcast also they do. But you put your, you basically go to these live events and there are judges and there's a topic and you put your name on a piece of paper and throw it in the hat and they call your name.
You tell a story and then you get juried. You get judged, crazy pressure and exhilarating at the same time. So, I like storytelling, I miss that going to those things and putting my name in the hat, which means I have to constantly be working on stories in my head. And, lastly, travel. Travel is one of my passions, you know. When we left, we didn't have a home. For awhile, for several years, our kids would go, okay, where's Christmas this year? Where's the Thanksgiving this year? I was like, wow, we're going to be in Paris. We're going to be the south of France. We're going to be, you know, Asheville, North Carolina, wherever we decided that we'd be. So, travel is great.
And our kids also love travel. So that's something else that really fuels me and allows me to visit, meet people I've met on the road and stay with them, visit them. That's pretty amazing. I didn't really travel until I was later in life as well. So, having friends all over the world is pretty amazing.
Like, I could call up somebody, I want to be in South America, and I could probably find two or three people I could visit while I'm there. I think that's incredible.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:29:55] Very cool. Liesa, do you have any further questions?
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:29:56] No, I'm just mesmerized. I'm so excited to know you now.
Azul Terronez: [00:30:00] Oh, Liesa, thank you so much. I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw that you asked, I'm always a fan of helping podcasters out because I know it's hard to get guests that you care about. Especially getting started, and I was very fortunate enough to have Pat Flynn as my first guest. And I really appreciated that he took that time to do that. And so whenever people ask me, I try to make time for it because it never hurts.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:30:23] Actually, I do have one further question: with everybody that, all the books you've read, what stands out as one of your favorites and why?
Azul Terronez: [00:30:33] You know, more recently, one of my favorite books, there's a couple, but one of the most recent I am biased towards Gay Hendricks was his book called Conscious Luck. It's a more recent book. The reason it stands out, the reason it stands out to me is that the idea that there is good fortune and poor fortune, good luck and bad luck, and you can choose which one you have and there's science behind it. And there's evidence that go-lucky people, if you ask them, they're just lucky. If you ask them, they tell you I'm lucky. And I changed my fortune completely because I'm incredibly lucky. And I think that changed everything about the way I see the world.
I've always known it, but it just helped reaffirm, like, oh no wonder, great things happen to me. You know, I was interviewing the creator of the game, board game Pictionary. Maybe you've heard of that? Incredible game. I met him, we got connected. He was on my podcast and he told his story how he was a 26-year-old waiter who basically had an idea for game, didn't know anything about business.
There was no internet at the time, took a risk and built this game, assembling them by hand at first. Became the most popular games of the world. We were chatting and then we got offline, and he asked me, hey, would you coach me? Would you spend some time with me? And I was thinking, who am I? And I was like, oh, I'm incredibly lucky.
That's it, I'm just lucky. That's why these things happen to me. So, I just, that, that book really struck me. And another book that's really struck me early on was this book called Bluefishing. It was about this idea of this bricklayer who, basically, is sort of like the guy that can make anything happen.
You want to get married at the Vatican? He could make it happen. If you want to parachute on the stage, play in a journey concert, he can make it happen. It's just an interesting premise. And I thought the way he does it is by delighting people more than you expect to be delighted. That people that he connects with, the celebrities, the hosts, these incredible people, and also the people that he serves. He has a really high niche, people with lots of money use of service. You can imagine, hey, I want front row tickets and I want to meet Mariah Carey at a music award—he makes it happen. But I thought it was fascinating because I just, that's a world I don't know anything about, but I thought it was fascinating. And I really loved, and I'm biased again because helping Pat Flynn “Will It Fly?” was really great because I learned about how to build a business while helping someone write a book. So that was like amazing to me. So, I got the benefit of being the first one who had all this content, the first one to read it, the first one to have the first copy, but it proved itself out because my life is the way it is because of that book. So, another incredible book for me.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:33:08] Great. Azul, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a wonderful conversation. I know Liesa and I have both learned a lot from you and we've thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, if the people listening to this interview want to get in touch with you or reach out to you or learn more about your business, how would they do that? What is your website or email address?
Azul Terronez: [00:33:28] Yeah, they go to authorswholead.com. That's where you have stuff about our programs, about my podcasts. It's great to listen to podcasts. That's something I think anybody who wants to be an author, you can hear first-time authors talk about what it was like, and also very seasoned authors, New York Times best-selling authors.
That's what I love about it, is it's a mix. That's a great place to go. And if they really want to hear more behind the scenes and they want to learn from these people, they could go to the authorswholeadsummit.com and it's a free summit where I interviewed 35+ authors—authors agents, book, marketers, anyone he could think of in the book industry.
And they can hear over 40 hours of teaching around what it is to write a book. So, it's sort of like all contained in one spot and they can do that for free authorswholeadsummit.com.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:34:18] That's excellent. Thank you again. I know I'm going to go to the, to your website and look at that. I've always been interested in that area of things.
So, it would be very interesting to listen to the summit.
Azul Terronez: [00:34:31] Awesome. Well, it's been lovely. Thank you so much for having me.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:34:34] We've enjoyed it as well. Thank you for joining us and have a wonderful afternoon. And thank you again.
Azul Terronez: [00:34:40] Thank you both.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:34:53] Thank you for listening to the mind, body success podcast and being part of our amazing community. We hope you've enjoyed this conversation and glean some tidbits that you can incorporate today to start changing your life. Our goal is to be your guides, and we look forward to continuing to provide amazing content.
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This week on Mind Body Success, we talk about mental health and performance coaching with our guest, Kenneth Zhou.
Ken is a Mental & Performance Coach, and his mission is to empower his clients to be their best selves and accomplish the things they want most. He has coached business owners, entrepreneurs, company executives and directors, professional and amateur eSports players & teams, University educators, and individuals struggling with adversity (career, financial, personal challenges).
In this episode, you will hear how Ken’s own personal development journey sparked his interest in coaching, and how he used books and podcasts to teach himself everything he needed to know to be an effective guide for his clients. Ken even shares the books and authors that have been most impactful.
Ken discusses strategies he uses to learn about his clients and help them learn about themselves including mindset work, asking intentional questions, and listening. He also talks about the routines that keep him grounded like a daily gratitude practice.
Finally, Ken shares his favorite hobby, dance, and how it creates a mental and physical release that has taught him about practicing what he preaches with his coaching clients.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Topics Covered:
Resources Mentioned:
Guest Info
Connect with Ken on his website at https://www.kenempowered.com/, by email at [email protected], or through social on Discord, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Get in Touch:
Transcript:
Alison Swerdloff: [00:00:00] Welcome to Mind Body Success with your hosts, Alison Swerdloff and Dr. Lisa Hart. Listen along as we take you on a life-changing journey into creating success by incorporating mindfulness, self-care, mindset, and personal development. Open your mind, let your adventurous side out, and allow us to motivate you to remove the hustle and overwhelm while shifting your current reality to the life of your dreams.
Through conversations with high achievers, you will learn tips, tools, and strategies to overcome challenges and live a life of prosperity and abundance. Let the adventure begin.
Welcome to Mind Body Success. Dr. Lisa and I are happy that you're joining us today for this incredible conversation with our guest, Kenneth Zhou, founder of kenempowered.com. Ken is a mental and performance coach and speaker who empowers his clients to become the most opportunistic, effective, and brilliant versions of themselves.
He has worked with professional and amateur esports players and teams, entrepreneurs, educators, and students to improve their mindset and achieve their goals and dreams as well as speaking to organizations of all kinds.
Ken, thank you so much for joining us today.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:01:18] Thank you, Alison. Thank you, Lisa, for having me on.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:01:21] Great to have you. I watched your video, and I looked at your website, and I was just wondering, how did you originally get interested in mental and performance coaching?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:01:33] So actually, my interest in psychology and my interest in neuroscience wasn't born of wanting a career in this field. I actually studied economics because I wanted to get a decent-paying job. That's what I felt that college is important for, especially when, at this point, when you're paying so much money. But I found that they were really applicable to me because I wanted to figure out how to process my upbringing, how to process my identity, how to process my purpose, handle stress, and turn away from pessimism. And build the sort of resilience that I saw in other people that I admired.
And I think that after I had spent multiple years just fascinated with the field, just watching all of these sorts of podcasts, reading all of these sorts of books, you know, the first ones that I remember that I loved so much was Feeling Good. I eventually just said, okay, well, I feel a lot better, a lot more confident about myself, a lot more certain on my outlook on life, my purpose, and overcoming the things that had given me a lot of chronic stress in the past. And I asked myself, well, wouldn't this help other people? And wouldn't this be useful to people who are not necessarily, just used to working with a coach, you know, people in the real world, professionals?
And so I just started, I felt that it had something to give. And then in 2017, I just decided, well, I've been thinking about it and mulling over it, you know, maybe it's time to do something about it. And so that's when I got my start.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:03:09] Nice. Did you get a certification?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:03:12] No, I worked for free for about four months and my whole thing was, look, you don't know who I am. You know, you are my first clients and if I'm terrible, then you tell me I'm terrible and you don't hire me and you don't pay me when I start asking to be charged. And then I exit the industry. I, you know, say, well, I did not work hard enough. I did not care about the subject material enough, and I didn't learn the skills well enough to be in this industry. And if I succeed, then my clients will tell me. If I fail, my clients will tell me. And that's where I began.
And after four to five months, I said, okay, you know, I've been doing this for free for some time. Let's say I charge. Are you going to stay? Are you interested? And most of them stayed. So I'm happy to have continued from there. I think that certifications are, I think they're extremely important. I have, you know, instead continued to learn and read and apply on my own. But I think that that doesn't mean that certifications are not important. I think they are very, very valuable.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:04:16] I agree. I was just curious.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:04:19] You mentioned some of the books you read. Is there anyone in particular or any two or three authors or gurus who interested you more than others?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:04:33] I think his name is Daniel Kahneman is one. I think that Daniel Pink is one. I have read a lot. Okay, so I separate what I learn and read into two different parts. One is subject matter material. This is stuff like textbooks. This is stuff that, you know, you get a curriculum and you say, okay, well this is a performance psychology textbook, something really content-heavy, and you're going to learn a lot of techniques. You're going to learn a lot of terms, but that doesn't mean necessarily that you'll know how to interact with people, right? Just because you understand the subject matter, doesn't mean you know how to inspire it and communicate it effectively to somebody else. And basically, convince them that it's important in facing whatever they're facing.
And so a lot of those books are important, but the ones that I've found the most useful are those that talked about the coaching habits and how you communicate to people, how you relate to people, how you angle your own personality and angle your own communication style to get people to understand what it is you're trying to inspire in them. And I think those are the most important ones. So I, you know, I couldn't, I wouldn't normally list subject matter experts, but Daniel Pink and Daniel Kahneman are my top two go-to's.
If I had to say one book that really started it all and finally made me get on this treadmill. I think it would be How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:06:11] You know, for a lot of people, that is the first book, along with Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:06:18] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:06:21] Now a lot of what you do with your clients is discuss mindset and how to shift their mindset to move forward. How do you feel mindset affects everything in our daily lives and how do you work with your clients to shift theirs?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:06:35] First of all, I think mindset is predominantly a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think about it like this: every single person has data that comes in through their eyes, their ears, their experiences, their upbringing, and the same person who goes through the same experience can have a completely different outcome to somebody else, depending on their mindset. Because their conclusions, their takeaways, their behaviors, and their beliefs are impacted by how they process that information. And so mindset really is the culmination of all of those dials, of those belief systems, of those framings, of those, you know, how they limit themselves or how they unlimit themselves and see the world.
And I think that mindset creates behaviors. Because if you believe your you or your world, is a certain way, you will behave, act, and think a certain way. And the more that you think a certain way, the more that you'll reinforce those thoughts, those beliefs, and behaviors, and it becomes a cycle where you build and cement your own world.
And I think that in that sense mindset affects everything. It affects how you learn, affects how you treat other people. It affects how you interpret what happens to you. It, it affects whether or not you feel like you have autonomy over your choices. And whether you give up autonomy and responsibility over your choices. And it also affects how we treat other people. And I think that that's why I focused so heavily on mindset because, you know, if you're just giving somebody tools, you know, if you're just teaching somebody meditation, you're just giving them tactics. You're not really substantively, changing how they behave and use and see, you know, the tools that you give them.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:08:29] So how do you work with your clients on shifting their mindset to get them to that point of being able to get out of the negative and into the positive aspects of their lives?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:08:39] I think, uh, you guys know this very, very well, but I think my favorite approach is always going to be questions. It's always going to be stepping out of your shoes as somebody who thinks they know everything. Because when a client steps into a, well, your zoom meeting, you don't know anything about them. You don't know who they are or what they've experienced. You know, a lot of people want to give advice in this world, and it completely strips the person in front of you of context, of being heard, of being understood.
So the first thing that I do is always spend as much time as possible understanding the person. Cause otherwise, you're preaching to the wrong crowd. You don't know what they've been through and you don't know, you know, what their motivations are, what their struggles are, and what their beliefs are. And if you don't understand why they've come to be the way that they are, well, you're just limited in what you can do as a coach.
And so the first thing that I do is understand who they are and really, really listen. And, you know, sometimes you have to double back and ask the same questions again, just to see if they give different answers and see how they respond and change over time. And I think that's the best way to interact with anybody really. I don't, I don't think that this only applies to coaching, right? Anything that you do, it's best to understand other people. And that being said, what is your favorite way of starting?
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:10:15] Oh yeah, well, you're right. You have to really get to know the client for sure. Where they are, where they want to be, established that gap. Which brings me back to the question I wanted to ask you, you know, since you are a mental and performance coach, and we have an idea of how you approach with a new client, what about with yourself? Because you found this on a journey of self-discovery. What have you done to change your own mindset or beliefs?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:10:43] I think the biggest one that has had an outcome on my life was the application of gratitude. And it sounds very simple because everybody online talks about, oh, you have to be grateful, right? You have to be positive. Right? And I think it's something that is thrown around everywhere. But through my upbringing, I was one of the most pessimistic and defeatist people I have ever known. I struggled a lot as a kid, I had a lot of experiences that put my self-esteem down, um, my worldview down and made me feel like I had no choice and I had no power in my outcomes.
And I also so knew that living this way was not going to turn out well for me. You know, there are, the life outcomes that are affected by how you see yourself, but they're also the biological outcomes by how you see yourself. The more negative you are, the quicker that the telomeres on your DNA start basically shrinking and the more damage you do to yourself. And so yes, you might be having a poor life as a result of negative behaviors and thoughts about yourself, but there are also physical and biological ramifications to how you treat yourself.
And I specifically remember Conan O'Brien, who's one of my favorite comedians, but, uh, back in 2010, He had been kicked off his prime show and it had been something that he had worked up to and looked up to for a long time. And, you know, Jay Leno had retired and then came back and took over the show again against what he thought was his. And he talked about how he never wants to give in to cynicism and that his message to all the young people was to not give in to that negativity and to always do something about it. And that stuck in my mind for years as a negative person, knowing all that I knew about what, what happened if I stayed on that track.
And, you know, it took me years to finally get to a point where every single day I was saying, okay, every single hour, I'm going to practice gratitude. Every single time that I feel something negative, where I make a mistake and talk poorly to myself, instead, I'm going to choose to be grateful for something that I have, something that I've done, something that is I've experienced. And that changed my life.
I don't think that I could be a coach had I not done that because then I would be talking about concepts but not implementing. And you know, when I think of gratitude, I think of Conan O'Brien. That one clip still plays in my mind and that no matter what happens, and certainly, there's been a lot, especially this past year that has happened, that is negative and cynical. And I know that all of us are dealing with it. You still have to show up. And that's what I try to live up to every single day.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:13:35] Attitude for gratitude is the biggest motivator. And once you start seeing the positives, even within the negatives, it does totally change your life and your outlook, and your vision on the world, around you.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:13:52] Yeah. All props to gratitude. I wouldn't be here without it to be quite honest.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:13:58] Okay. I had another question that, first of all, I had to look up what e-sports are. So now I get it, but it looks like you work with quite a variety of clients. I mean, individuals, teams, athletes. Is there one type of client you especially enjoy working with?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:14:18] This is both an answer and a non-answer, but it's not based on their background or their industry, but I prefer predominantly working with open-minded people. I couldn't care if you came in and you said, you know, you had been struggling with trauma and you're working with therapists for the last 10 years, and you need somebody to help you process through the future. Right? And to give you some sense of hope for the future. I don't care if, you know, you're an e-sports player and, you know, you're 19 and you're still, you know, trying to figure out the world around you. And you know, you're playing games for 15 hours a day and you're stressed out because you thought this thing that you enjoyed now is becoming your occupation. Right? And you know, you're taking time off of school and risking that growth for this chance at success.
If you are open-minded, I will enjoy working with you. If you have the attitude to show up. Attitude to try things and to commit to them more than just the first time where you feel, you know, meditation, oh, this is weird or trying a new, you know, certain habits or certain new thinking patterns, oh, this is weird. If you can get beyond that and commit to it and be open enough to stick with it, then, I'm happy to work with you. So that's what I mean by not exactly what you were looking for.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:15:44] Exactly. No, that is exactly what I was looking for. I just didn't know it.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:15:49] Do you work with a specific area of e-sports or is it e-sports in general?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:15:54] So e-sports has a lot of different titles. Think of it as, you know, the thing that I can compare to most is e-sports kind of has an umbrella of all sports, right? In the sense that in sports, you kind of have different arenas for every single game. You have different arenas for soccer, for basketball, for hockey, you know, for cricket, you know, things that we don't do in the United States. But in e-sports, you know, a single organization will have their toes in a lot of different titles. You know, they'll have teams for League of Legends, which is probably one of the biggest e-sports out there right now. Counter-Strike which has been around for probably 20 years at this point. Valorant, which is a new game, and I do coach a lot of players that play that game.
Most of the time, the type of coaching that I provide is the out-of-game stuff. So it's not a single type of title, right? If you play a game at a very high level and you want to succeed and you want to be able to make the decisive quick decisions that you have to do under pressure to communicate well when you know, stress is at its highest and your teammates may not be performing up to your expectations. You have to learn how to navigate those things really quickly. And that's not an end game thing, that's something that you have to develop out of game. And I think that more and more e-sports organizations are starting to see that, so there's more hope.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:17:26] So you're coaching, not just performance, it's full life coaching in that aspect as well.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:17:34] Yes. I think that it is important to do both. I think that life coaching is important to develop motivation, right? But performance coaching is also more about stress testing, handling high-pressure situations, having the techniques and skills that are so practiced that you can implement them when you're under pressure, right? Not meditating when you're safely in the comfort of your living room in your home, but how do you reduce stress? How do you, you stay focused when you're actually on the field.
And you know, this game determines whether or not you become a professional. Whether or not other teams will take you seriously and potentially give you trials and allow you to work in it professionally. So there's a lot of risk there. And there are a lot of teenagers, but also college students that take their classes. Some of them might have work and then they spend 7:00 PM to 12:00 AM.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:18:36] Right.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:18:36] You know, training. And so the outcomes are very, very focused and you have to be able to have a strict regimen and be productive and maximize not just the outcomes of the onstage games, but the outcomes of your practice. Otherwise, you know, you don't know what you could have achieved. And I think that for most competitors, that's something that they're not willing to accept.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:19:01] I think that's the same in every sport.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:19:03] Yeah. Well, that's the thing though. I think it's all relative, right? One of my favorite basketball players growing up with Kobe Bryant, and he had just this ruthlessness and this inability to accept laziness about him. And even in the Lakers, when he talked about looking around, he said that he thought that other people did not work hard enough and that he always wanted to inspire people to work harder. So it's, it's all relative, you know, so, yeah.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:19:33] Very true. I have a question for you on a personal level.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:19:38] Sure.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:19:38] You're so involved with working with your clients and with their performance and their mindset. What do you do for yourself? What are some of your forms of self-care or hobbies, something you do for fun just to get away from life, the real-life for a little while?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:19:57] You know, I'm going to have to be honest here. I have not gotten away as much for real-life recently, as I want. I'll answer your question by saying, how do I stay sane and manage, manage my stress as much as possible. I live on routines. I don't just have a morning routine. I have nighttime routines and I have conditional routines. And I think that over the past six years now, I've been experimenting with how to develop and refine these routines. And once again, that helps my clients too, of course, but, you know, I did this because it helped me.
And so some of the first things that I do are in the morning, I always set time aside to be mindful, to meditate, and to also make sure that I set the tone for my day. Is my purpose in mind when I go about my day? Am I staying true to my end goals? Am I taking good care of myself? Are my relationships in order? Is there something that is in my blind spot that I have to evaluate and that I'm not taking care of? And if I'm not taking care of it, what are some habitual things that I can change? There were times in the past few years where I was working straight til probably 9:00 PM, and I said, you know, is this fair to my girlfriend? Is this fair to my friends who I have not talked to enough? And I said, no. And I said, okay, well, guess what, you can talk about being effective to your clients as much as possible, but if you can't set a time limit and cut it down and force yourself to be more effective, you're sacrificing relationships and you're not improving how you work.
And so you have to put your feet to the fire and say, okay, well, something needs to change. And that's sort of the purpose of that morning set of time. And I usually give it anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. And I just say, okay, you know, this is the time for self-evaluation. And I think that helps. And then honestly, at the end of the days, when I need to do some, you know, just personal enjoyment, I do play games myself. Not as much anymore, especially since the COVID, and since, you know, my workload increased, but I do enjoy video games, which is probably why I got into the space, so.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:22:17] Sounds like it. Well, assuming COVID didn't happen and you want to do something other than with your habitual aspects of things and playing your games, what else do you enjoy doing for fun?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:22:33] Oh, that'd be easy; dance. I love dancing. Actually, I started dancing in college about 10 years ago. And you know, one of the things that I didn't mention cause you know, I don't know if we have enough time for my whole life story, but dance was my outlet for stress. It's so amazing because, right, you're listening to music, which A. soothes the soul, but you know, to neuroscientists, that it suits the mind. And B. You're moving and you're learning to coordinate your body. Oftentimes, dance as a social thing, right? There's somebody teaching you, you're in a class, and you get to listen to all different types of music. You know, my favorite was lyrical hip hop dance, which is interpreting the song, not by the genre and not limiting yourself to a genre, but expressing what's the songwriter is trying to convey with their body.
And so that was, you know, my favorite thing to do. And if COVID didn't happen, I would still be back there. I think that I kind of had an issue about six years ago, what I, where I had a tendon tear. And so for a few years, I was really, uh, depressed because dance was my outlet from stress. It was the thing that I put like, okay, dance. This is the thing that I'm going to use to balance me out. And then it was taken away from me, so to speak. And that's sort of why I needed to do the gratitude work that I talked about.
Because at that time I was at my lowest, I had no ability to handle stress. And then all of the negativity that it had just came crashing down on me. And so that was really a defining moment. So I'm glad that I've been able to learn so much from these amazing authors, researchers, psychologists, you know, scientists who have done so much work and publish so much information because without them, I would have never learned how to handle the things that were in front of me. So I'm grateful for them.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:24:28] Excellent.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:24:29] This has been fascinating. Very, very fascinating to me. Yeah.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:24:35] Well, thank you for having me on.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:24:37] Yeah. I'm grateful that you were able to join us and I wish you all the success in your career. Very interesting person.
Kenneth Zhou: [00:24:47] Thank you so much.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:24:48] Ken, if our listeners wanted to find out more about you, whether to learn about you or ask you questions, or potentially even become a client. How would they reach out to you? What is your email or website or how would they find you?
Kenneth Zhou: [00:25:04] Okay. My website is Ken and Empowered. So, E M P O W E R E D .com. And every type of communication is on there. My discord, which is something a lot of gamers use is on there where they can join a community and you can pretty much asked me anything. You know, I don't need somebody to be a client for me to, you know, help them out for a little bit. And my email is [email protected], and I'm happy to answer any questions or to talk to anybody, including yourselves and, you know, thank you so much for having me.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:25:42] Thank you very much for being our guest. And we will let you know when this is being published. We'll send you the link so you can promote it on your own social media, as well as ours. And I am very grateful that you have decided to be our guest. Thank you so much. We enjoyed learning about you. And as Ken mentioned to anybody listening, you can reach him at kenempowered.com or email him at [email protected]. And you can find his social media on his website. Ken, thank you again. And we will definitely be talking again soon.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:26:16] Bye, Ken.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:26:17] Bye-bye.
Dr. Liesa Harte: [00:26:30] Thank you for listening to the Mind Body Success podcast and being part of our amazing community. We hope you enjoyed this conversation and gleaned some tidbits that you can incorporate today to start changing your life. Our goal is to be your guides and look forward to continue to provide amazing content.
Don't forget to join in the discussion at Mind Body Success podcast.com for full show notes, resources, and further conversation. If you have a specific topic idea, feel free to recommend it.
Alison Swerdloff: [00:27:01] We look forward to seeing you on our next episode.
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The path towards change seems like a lot of work. Change can be complicated, heartbreaking, and uncomfortable. But, that doesn’t mean you’re destined to remain where you are. If you’re feeling the need for change bubbling up inside of you, then the message is clear: it’s time for a mindset transformation, and it’s up to you to take action!
In this episode of Mind Body Success, we’re revealing the hidden power that you’ve always possessed - the power to shift your mindset and change your life as you know it. By sharing our backgrounds and life experience, we’ll explain how mindset can be recalibrated. We’ll also talk about the importance of self-care in finding the space to recognize where change needs to happen.
Too often, life seems to “just happen” as we go along for the ride. But, it’s important to understand that you truly do have control. With our hard-won wisdom and breadth of experience in mindfulness, we’ll equip you with the practical tools you need to make actionable changes in your life. It’s time to build the future you’ve always wanted!
Some Questions Asked:
● How did you get into mindfulness and mindset? (3:22)
● How did you become certified? (5:16)
● How did you get interested in self-care? (7:10)
● What do you wish people knew? (15:49)
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
● Liesa’s career journey (1:33)
● A story of loss and rediscovery (8:19)
● Misconceptions about self-care (12:15)
● How to make a self-care box (13:21)
● Recognizing your power in reshaping your thoughts (17:08)
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People Mentioned in this Episode:
Connect with Alison Swerdloff:
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The podcast currently has 10 episodes available.