S3E12: Performance Meditation with Emily Fletcher & Sage Lavine
Welcome to Women Rocking Business, where we are here to help you rock yourself, rock your life, and rock the world as a woman entrepreneur, because the world needs you and the time is now. I’m Sage Lavine, CEO, trainer, unretired camp counselor, and best-selling author of the Hay House book Women Rocking Business. We’ve had the honor of serving over a hundred thousand women entrepreneurs around the globe just like you, who are here to do more, be more, and have more by giving your gift to the planet. Let’s do this.
Oh my gosh. I’m so excited for this episode on meditation tools for high level women, leaders, performers, specifically women speakers.
Sage Lavine
00:00:46
When I met Emily Fletcher, I thought to myself, “This is the woman who has so many answers for those of us that are really putting ourselves out there, getting visible and wanting to risk forward in a big way.”
Now, Emily Fletcher is the founder of Ziva Meditation. She’s the leading expert in meditation, specifically for performance. She’s taught tens of thousands of people the skill of meditation. She’s an international speaker and a bestselling author of the book Stress Less Accomplish More. She’s been in the New York Times, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Vogue, ABC. And she’s spoken at Apple, Google, Harvard Business School – Ziva technique, which is Emily’s baby.
Sage Lavine
00:01:29
It’s a powerful combination of mindfulness, meditation and manifesting that’s designed to help you get better at life and business and your full expression of your purpose and not just about getting you better at meditation. Oh my gosh. Welcome Emily. I’m so excited to have you.
Emily Fletcher
00:01:48
I’m so happy to be here. Thank you Sage for inviting me. I’ve been looking forward to this all week long. Thank you for the work that you’re doing in the world. Thank you for bravely raising your hand and saying, “Yes, I want to share my gifts with the world.” I am so honored to get to share this time with you. I’m really excited about talking about how meditation might help you to give an even more persuasive talk. One thing that I will mention that Sage did not is that I used to be on Broadway. I was on Broadway for 10 years and it was through my stressful career on Broadway that I found Meditation. For those of you who know and love Broadway, I was under studying three leads in A Chorus Line, which is very stressful. Going gray. Having insomnia Getting injured. Even though I was living my dream… Long story short, I found Meditation.
Emily Fletcher
00:02:31
It changed my whole life. It cured my insomnia on the first night. I’m 41. Now I stopped going gray. Even though I was going gray in my twenties, I didn’t get sick for eight and a half years. And I just thought, “Why does everyone not do this?” So I left Broadway. I went to India. I started what became a three year training process to teach. And since graduating, I actually taught 40,000 people. It’s up from 25. It’s up from that bio.
Sage Lavine
00:02:52
I believe you. I was actually like, “This bio is probably outdated.”
Emily Fletcher
00:02:57
40,000 now, which is like the accomplishment of my life. And not just for those 40,000 people, but for the ripple effect of how those 40,000 people are gonna impact their families, their communities, their industries. Right?
So what I really wanted to drive home today is, yes, how you, how meditation can help you personally, because we all need it right now. And so it’s a lot for us to adapt to as individuals. And you know, you have this calling, you know, you have this mission, so yes, you have to take care of yourself and you wanna show up for this mission. And so I’m gonna talk today about how meditation can help us with both. And then I’ll actually lead us through an experience.
So a couple of things is that when you’re stressed, right, if you are panicked or anxious or nervous, chances are people aren’t gonna want to listen to you, right?
Emily Fletcher
00:03:45
Like they’re gonna just turn off. Nobody wants to listen to someone who is nervous. You’re not gonna be very persuasive. And actually people don’t trust you. Like the more nervous you are, the more people feel like they have to protect themselves from you. And there’s some interesting science to back this up. So if you put, you know, 50 people in a room, we will naturally be drawn to and want to listen to the person who has the highest level of heart rate variability. You’ve probably heard this term before HRV, if you’re in the biohacking communities, but heart rate variability is basically your ability to adapt. Meaning that if a tiger comes in, are you gonna be able to protect us? Can you fight this tiger? Can you run away from this tiger when it’s time to rest? Are you able to downregulate and rest? So it’s not just being in fight or flight. It’s not just resting, but how adaptive are you?
Emily Fletcher
00:04:27
This to me is the single greatest byproduct. It is the single greatest benefit of meditation is our ability to adapt, to not be rigidly attached to how we think life was supposed to go and rather flow. Be present and flow.
Right now, you know, just because of the state of the world, we are all being asked to adapt to a lot. So if you’d start a daily Meditation practice, two things happen. One you’re filling up your reservoirs of adaptation energy every day, twice a day. That’s what I teach at Ziva. And you’re increasing your ability to adapt, which affects your heart rate variability. So we naturally are drawn to the calmest person in the room to the person who has the highest level of heart rate variability.
Emily Fletcher
00:05:08
We can’t help, but want to listen to them. Okay? So this would be a drop in the bucket. This is me persuading you to wanna start a daily meditation practice or recommit to your daily meditation practice and certainly utilize this tool before you go and give your talks to an audience just before you even open your mouth, people are already gonna be like, “Oh, what’s that? What does she have?”
Like, they’re just gonna feel that something is different to you and they’re gonna want to pay attention. Now, the other thing, interestingly, that happens when we start a meditation practice and this takes somewhere between like six weeks and four months, but you’re not just changing your neurochemistry, meaning that you’re not just getting rid of adrenaline and cortisol, which are stress hormones. You’re not just flooding your brain and body with dopamine and serotonin, which are bliss, chemicals, which that’s all awesome. We need that to happen
Emily Fletcher
00:05:51
But over time, you’re actually changing the structure of your brain with only a few weeks of daily practice, you can strengthen something called the corpus callosum. Now this corpus callosum is the thin white strip that connects the right and left hemispheres of your brain. And if you look at a human brain, it actually splits right down the middle. There are two different organs. The only thing that connects the right and left hemispheres of our brain is the thin white strip called the corpus callosum. And we’ve known for a long time that meditators have thicker corpus callosum than non meditators, but we weren’t able to prove if that was causal or correlated. But now we know that the longer you meditate, the thicker, your corpus callosum becomes, you might be like, “Yeah, yeah, cool party trick. But why would I want a fat corpus callosum?”
Emily Fletcher.
00:06:32
Well, everybody should. Here’s why.
It’’s quite literally the bridge between your past and future and your present moment awareness. It is the bridge between your critical mind and your creative mind. It is the bridge between your masculine and your feminine. The way that this shows up in life is, you know, if you still have a day job, or you had a boss, let’s say, or there’s just like a deadline that comes up at work, things are really crazy. Your boss comes and yells at you and you just freeze. Instead of coming up with amazing ideas, you’re just like frozen. This is fight or flight, or a better example would be, you get into a fight with your partner. It gets a little heated. Then it gets really heated. And eventually you shut down, retreat to the bedroom, and start crying behind the door. Two hours later, once you’re calm, then you start coming up with all these hilarious, witty comebacks.
Emily Fletcher
00:07:17
And you’re like, “Why can I have thought of that in the moment?”
Well, my theory is that the thicker your corpus callosum is the easier it is for you to come up with these creative problem solving ideas when it counts, when it’s go time. Right? So when you’re giving your persuasive talk, you’re gonna want both the right and left hemisphere of your brain engaged. You’re gonna want your left brain engaged, cuz you’re you need to remember your bullets, right? Like, “What’s the science? What’s the stats? What are my five things that I wanna hit??
But you’re also gonna need your right brain engaged because you are gonna wanna be so hyper present with everyone in the room, especially with Zoom, right? Because right now I’m looking into the camera so that you feel so you can see in my eyeballs, so you can feel engaged in my soul, but I also have to have an awareness on your faces, right?
Emily Fletcher
00:07:57
So just it’s like pulling the lens of my awareness out, taking you all in. I can see you. Sunny’s just like with me, she’s nodding, she’s smiling. Rachel’s just like giving me a lot of silent amens, right? So I’m taking all of that in while I’m simultaneously pouring as much of my energy into the camera as I can. Now, I actually find that easier in a room with humans. But you have to have the simultaneity of consciousness going left, brain remembering all your points, right brain hyper present with your peeps. The best standup comedians can do this. Right? They know their whole set and they’re improvising with the people in the room. The best athletes can run the play in their sleep and they’re able to improvise with wherever the ball is going in the moment.
Emily Fletcher
00:08:38
Okay. So to truly give as persuasive a talk as you are capable of, you must have access to both hemispheres of your brain. And if you don’t have a daily Meditation practice, the reality is it’s likely that your left brain is overdeveloped. You’ve been thinking, taking action, achieving making money so you could be happy in the future. And what this style of Meditation does is that it quite literally takes your right brain to the gym. And over time, we start to increase neuroplasticity, which is your brain’s ability to change itself. We, like I said, strengthen that corpus callosum, and you can actually increase the size of your hippocampus by 17%. Imagine if you could increase the size of your bicep by 17%, you’d be like, “Whoa.” This is in your brain, which by the way, is responsible for making every single decision in your life and printing every single cell in your body.
Emily Fletcher
00:09:24
So this excuse of like, “I don’t have time to meditate” is 100% malarkey. Okay? This thing is making every single decision in your life and printing every single cell in your body. Sage called it, the mother skill, the meditation really is the mother skill. And sure you could just meditate right before you give a talk. And that would be better than not meditating, but where you’re really gonna see the magic is if you create a daily practice for yourself. So that’s plenty of yammering on. I think that’s plenty.
Sage Lavine
00:09:54
This is amazing. I just wanna echo that. So the comments thread is blowing up that women are saying, “This is so sexy. I could not love Emily Moore. I love this Meditation. Literally saved my life,” says Charise. “You’re speaking my language. Emily Fletcher, thank you for being here.”
I just wanna say that as soon as my business started to take off, I actually started meditating by force. Like I was the person that was like, “No, I’d rather go for a bike ride. No, I’d rather go for a hike. No, I’d rather do yoga.”
I actually needed to learn to sit on my cushion for 10, 15, 20 minutes a day and bring all the energy in. And that has been really in so many ways what has sustained my ability to juggle all of the balls that I juggle on a daily basis and not get plowed over by life and responsibilities and CEO.
Sage Lavine
00:10:42
Now my life as a CEO feels a little bit more like surfing. It feels a little bit more like riding some fun waves and it all comes back to meditation. And if I don’t meditate for a morning or two, I absolutely notice a difference. When I meditated with Emily for the first time, I immediately was like, “Emily, you get this, you know.”
I just wanna point out for all of you who are speakers and are starting a business, you guys can see that Emily knows her shit. Like she’s not winging it right now. She’s prepared. She’s got it all. And how can each of you start to really think about, right? Like what are those three or five or seven awesome things that you wanna lay on people when you first get to meet an audience, whether it’s virtual or live, because Emily, you’re just such a shining example of that.
Sage Lavine
00:11:28
And right now, yes, let’s move into a practice. And Emily, thank you for your transmission and All right. So if this content is resonating, I’d like to invite you to consider attending our exclusive Women Rocking Business 3-day training, which you can attend virtually or at certain times of the year you can attend live.
This is a 3-day business building right of passage that thousands of women have attended from all over the world and used as a launch pad for their greatest entrepreneurial dream. Throughout the course of the three days, you’ll actually create your individualized launch plan to launch your business in the next 90 days and to grow it in a way that’s aligned with women’s values.
You’ll get our entire system for finding your clients online, so you can go out there and confidently enroll the perfect high paying clients, even if you’re just starting out. This is an experiential event where you’re actually interacting with the content all three days in small breakouts and meeting with our coaches. It’s amazing. You can get all of the details, the dates and grab your discounted VIP seat at womenrockingbusiness.com/rocksales/. And I can’t wait to see you there.
Emily Fletcher
00:12:50
Great. Let’s do it. So the one thing I want you to hold with you as we go into this experience is that thoughts are not the enemy of meditation. Okay? So if you have ever felt frustrated because you couldn’t clear your mind, if you’ve ever felt like, “Oh, I wanna meditate, but I’m just thinking about my ex-boyfriend or I wanna meditate but I’m thinking about this launch.” You’re not a meditation failure. Okay. You probably just haven’t been taught yet, or you’re trying to do monk meditation instead of meditation for people like us. And that’s what we do at Ziva right. We teach people with busy minds and busy lives. We’re all about meditation for better performance, ‘Cause I don’t care how good you are at meditation. I care how good you are at life. I care how good you feel when you give your talk right after this. Okay? So you don’t have to clear your mind, just go along with the journey.
Emily Fletcher
00:13:30
So before we even mess with our breath or our bodies, our brains, what I’d like for you to do is look up from the computer screen and look at one point in your room, just find one focal point something to look at. That’s not your computer screen and really focus in on it. And just notice what that does to your brain, to your body. It’s like you go into hunter mode. And now like, like your eyes are a movie camera or a lens of a camera… I want you to soften the focus and see if you can take in more of the room. You’re looking out the right side and the left side of your eyes. And you’re not really looking at any particular thing.
Emily Fletcher
00:14:12
You’re looking at all the things simultaneously, softening your focus, softening your gaze, breathing into that. Noticing how that shifts your body. The eyes are an extension of our nervous system. They’re an extension of our brain and we spend so much time focusing in on screens and phones just to take a moment to soften our gaze. Taking in the entire horizon of a room can change our brains almost immediately. Really good. Now I want you to close your eyes and take a big delicious inhale through your nose and a juicy exhale through your mouth. Beautiful inhaling through your nose, breathing spaciousness into your belly, into your chest.
Emily Fletcher
00:14:58
And this time we’ll exhale, letting everything in the body surrender completely. One more breath, big belly breath, big breath into the chest. This time, as we exhale, we’re gonna create some sound. If you feel safe and if you’re alone just “Ahh ha ha ha.” Really good. I lied. We’re gonna do one more big breath in an exhale, making some sound, letting yourself, sigh it all out, letting your brows soften your shoulders, soften your belly, soften.
Emily Fletcher
00:15:38
As you exhale this time with some sound. Really good and keeping the eyes closed when you get to the bottom of this exhale. I invite you to let your breath be easy and natural. So we’re not manipulating. We’re changing or controlling the breath in any way. We’re just allowing it to flow in and flow out. We’re allowing ourselves to be breathed. Keeping the eyes closed that you can peering all your attention into yourself, into your body. Really good and imagining your breath washing in and out like the waves on a shore.
Now, ever so gently bringing your awareness to your sense of hearing, Noticing what’s the most prevalent sound you can detect right now noticing the prevalence of my voice.
Emily Fletcher
00:16:44
And now listening beyond the most prevalent sound and noticing the most subtle sound you can detect. Is there traffic or birds outside? Can you hear your own breath? Really good.
Now, ever so gently bringing your awareness to your sense of sight. So even though your eyes are closed, I invite you to notice the prevalence of the blackness behind your eyelids and the subtlety of the light from the computer or the light from your room. As it streams through your eyelids.
Emily Fletcher
00:17:31
There might even be colors happening in your mind’s eye, really good at not ever so gently transitioning into your sense of touch. So what’s the most prevalent, tactile sensation happening in your body right now. For most of us, it’ll be the weight of our bodies against the chair. There might be a pain happening in your knee or your chest. Instead of ignoring that right now, we’re pulling the lens of our awareness out and we’re including everything that’s happening inside of this experience.
Emily Fletcher
00:18:14
The sounds, the sights, and right now the feeling. If your heart is racing, give it permission to race. We’re not judging these sensations as good or bad. We’re simply noticing what’s the most prevalent sense of touch. Can you feel your breath as it moves in and out of your nostrils? Can you notice the subtle sensation of your clothes against your skin? And we’ll take this one layer deeper and noticing how we’re feeling emotionally.
Emily Fletcher
00:18:57
If you’re sad, you can give yourself permission to be sad. If you’re angry, you’re allowed to rage. If you’re nervous, it’s okay to feel the fear. If you’re happy, please be joyous out loud. Again. We’re not judging these as good feelings or bad feelings. We’re just checking in and bravely asking, how am I feeling right now? And whatever starts to bubble up for you, giving yourself full permission to let it bubble up to be where you are. Not because there’s anything to fix, but that we need to know where we’re starting from. So we know what our journey is to get to our talk.
Emily Fletcher
00:19:39
Really good. So once you’ve given your body permission to talk to you, you feel like you’ve checked in. I invite you to imagine yourself giving this talk. It could be to your partner or it could be on your dream stage. I don’t want you to really see yourself. Where are you? Who’s in the audience noticing what happens in your body.
Emily Fletcher
00:20:21
As you see these faces, does your heart start to race? Do your palms get sweaty? Does your mouth get dry? And instead of judging this as bad or seeing yourself as a failure, can you remind yourself that this is just your body protecting you? Can you remind yourself that “I care so much about this topic I want to do so well that this is my body helping me.”
I want you tohave a magic wand and you could wave it over this talk. And I want you to see yourself totally rocking it. Totally crushing it. Feeling confident, feeling inspired, connecting from your heart and from your soul, with every single person in the audience, letting this energy exchange be uplifting and reciprocal and knowing that there is no such thing as failing. There is only learning and growing.
Emily Fletcher
00:21:16
Imagine yourself finishing this talk, walking off the stage or closing the Zoom and just feeling that feeling of accomplishment of joy of generosity, and imagine giving yourself a big high five, a huge hug, celebrating the success for yourself and the success for every single person who just got to witness your talk. Really good and taking a big, delicious, inhale, knowing that this or something better is already on the way to you and exhaling letting go of anything that’s not serving you or this dream.
Emily Fletcher
00:21:59
I’m starting to breathe life into your hands, into your feet, bringing your awareness into the body, into the room. And just because it’s fun, let’s bring a smile to our face and let’s breathe this smile into every single cell in our body and then exhaling, letting go of any nervousness, any anxiety, anything that’s keeping you from giving the most persuasive talk that you are capable of giving in your own time. Let’s open our eyes.
Sage Lavine
00:22:31
Such a gift, such a gift, such a gift, such a gift. Oh wow. Thank you so much. I would head over right now to zivameditation.com because this is really, you know, it’s a subtle shift in just a regular meditation. It’s a meditation that prepares you to go badass that you are. Emily, thank you so much.
Emily Fletcher
00:22:53
I love you. I’m so happy. I love all of y’all good luck. Godspeed. I’m here to support in any way that I can.
Sage Lavine
00:23:00
Pay attention to Emily, go over to her website and watch her as an entrepreneur. Watch how she brands herself because she’s so smart. She’s already built into seven figures with her business and Emily. I’m so excited to support you and know you and all the adventures that lie ahead. Thank you so much.
Emily Fletcher
00:23:18
We’re just getting started. Y’all we are just getting started.
Sage Lavine
00:23:22
All right. Women are the future of the planet. Mwah!
You’ve been listening to Women Rocking Business. I’m Sage Lavine. The next step is to join our private Facebook group, The Women Rocking Business Sisterhood. Introduce yourself over there for the real and vulnerable conversation of what it really takes to launch and scale a business you love in that Sisterhood group. We have each other’s backs, each other’s sides and each other’s fronts. This is true collaboration. So go grab a seat in the Sisterhood because we can go so much further when we go together, you’ll find a link to the private Sisterhood group and to our upcoming events in the show notes.
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