Using Yoga and Mediation for Peak Performance

Kerry Fisher peak performance

For peak performance, I teach all of my clients a bunch of tools. I always teach them, meditation, I always teach them, breath work, I teach them that they should stretch and strengthen. So that means doing something like, yoga, Qi Gong, and then weight training or something that's actually going to improve their muscles.  In addition to these tools, I teach them a morning routine and the evening routine.

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Bio

Kerry is peak performance coach. Kerry was raising a family and working as an attorney when she began a daily yoga practice. She immediately noticed that yoga was the perfect antidote to her hectic lifestyle. Initially interested in yoga as a physical practice that made her feel good in her body, Kerry soon realized yoga was a lot more than that. She decided to take a teacher training and immediately began teaching. Kerry eventually left her law career and began to focus on teaching and coaching full time.

Kerry’s mission is to help others find a more balanced and fulfilled life. She believes in action and has created a system that is easy to implement so that people can create change quickly. She coaches corporate clients and elite athletes in mindset and peak performance techniques and creates tailored programs for private clients who are seeking mastery in all areas of their lives.

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iHeart Radio

Becoming a peak performance coach

Myrna: Tell us your back story? Your story sounds like Robin Sharma’s in the The Monk who Sold he Ferrari.

Kerry: Absolutely. And by the way, that's one of my favorite books, The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari. I read that book so many years ago and that was one of the books that changed my life. Even before I went into this wellness space, that's such a great book. And it really shows you that at any point in your life, you really can change and move into a different space if you want.

So, for me, I felt like my life was going great. I had a good career. I had my children; I had a nice house. Everything was great, but didn't feel great to be honest with you. And I had this experience where we were on a vacation hiking in the woods, and we came to this clearing in the woods.  It's like trees in a circle, pine needles on the ground and the sun was just coming in to the center of the circle. So, I walked into the center of the circle in the sun and when the hit me, I had this crazy moment.

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All my dreams came through but I wasn't fulfilled

I flashbacked to the Kerry I was when I was 20 and back then I used to spend a lot of time in nature.  The flashback I had was it me sitting with my journal it in all my hopes and dreams. When I was a 20 year old young woman, I wanted to have a career, I wanted to have a beautiful family, I wanted to have a husband that loved me and supported what I wanted to do and I could support him. I wanted a beautiful house; I wanted to travel and adventure. I realized that I had achieved all my dreams. But what happened in the next instant was I realized that even though I had everything I wanted, I really wasn't happy and I didn't feel fulfilled.

Myrna: And why was that?

Kerry: Because I think it was on autopilot, right? And I started to think like where did those dreams come from? And I started to understand that a lot of those dreams came from outside of me. My society, my parents, my teachers. I'm a people pleaser. I want to please people; I want to be impressive. So, I went back to my hotel room and I wrote another whole list of all my hopes and dreams and they were things like, start teaching. I had always studied, personal growth.

So, the book you mentioned, I had read that probably when I was 20 or 25 right around that same time. And I had been studying, personal transformation, philosophy for many, many years. So, I was like, you know I'd really like to teach people some of the things I learned. I'd like to be an author, and I'd like to be a speaker and I was writing all these things down. So that's all well and good. I get home from the vacation, lose the piece of paper or maybe it was my journal that I wrote it in, and I forgot all about it.

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The creation of the morning routine

Then one day my alarm rang. I hit the snooze button, but instead of going back to sleep, which I usually did, and Myrna I would usually do that like a few times back-to-back, so I usually started my day racing around being a lunatic trying to get everything done on time.  Get the kids out the door, get myself out the door. But on this day, instead of going back to sleep, I just sat up in my bed and I meditated for 5 mins.  I was just observing the thoughts.

That night I was in my bed with my husband and I said, you know, I had such a great day. And he's like, did you do anything different today? I told him what I had done and had gotten up and meditated for five minutes. And he said, Oh, that's so cool. I'm gonna try it tomorrow. So, we tried it the next day. And sure enough, at the end of the day, he was like, that was amazing. I had such a great day. So, we both started doing a, morning routine and, eventually I started teaching this, morning routine meditation, to my students.

The first thing I noticed when I started teaching, yoga, was that yoga,  is a lifestyle and it really encompasses everything.

  • The way you live in this world,
  • The way you're thinking,
  • The way you're eating
  • The way you function in general,
  • The way you treat other people,
  • The way you treat yourself.

The timeless principles of morning routine meditation.

So, I said I would love to teach, yoga, and, meditation, to lawyers, business people and doctors.’ People who wouldn't normally do it because honestly professional people, they are like, I don't know about, meditation, they get a little nervous when you start using any of the lingo. So, I started to study the mind. And what I realized was you take those Eastern practices like ,yoga, meditation, and, breath work, and then you marry them to the science, which is all about how the brain works. so, I didn't call it, meditation, but I just said this is a stress relief exercise.

I created this whole one hour, morning routine, and for me, I started to understand how important it was not only to create this, morning routine, but to tailor it to my lifestyle. So, for my husband, he started with half an hour, morning routine. I have an hour, but I always have as my base as my minimum five-minute, morning routine.

So, basically this whole, snooze button routine, that I came up with is for you to use as you need.  In my book, the snooze button sessions, I show you 12 different things you can do for, morning meditation, breathwork, exercises yoga or stretching, and journaling. There are so many different things, but then you choose which one of those things or what combination of those things you use. So sometimes I'll break it up. Robin Sharma actually suggests not to do it the way I do it, which is you know, hitting the snooze every time and then moving to a new routine.

Transform your Mind Stitcher
Transform your Mind Stitcher

Achieve peak performance with a 20/20/20 morning routine

For peak performance during the day, start your day with a 20/20/20 morning routine. 20 minutes of spiritual growth meditation,  20 minutes of learning like reading a book, and 20 mins of exercise. You can do whatever works for you, and that's what I advocate. I advocate for you learning the tools, figuring out what works for you, and even adding something you might like that I never even thought about. The reason this system works is because it's a thing called, habit stacking.

When people make their New Year's resolutions then do them for a few days, a few weeks, maybe even a couple of months then stop? It's because the goal is not linked to anything. That is why I love doing, habit stacking, and starting with this, morning routine.  I believe that not only learning tools that will relax you and keep you in, ease and flow, but improve your health as well. These little changes can have massive effects and that's really what I advocate.

Myrna: You're seeing that a, morning routine, helps your clients achieve, peak performance, as well as, ease and flow. What else is the science behind it?

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Podbean

The function of the brain is to keep you alive

Kerry: Well, basically, the way your brain works is that your brain is designed to keep you alive. We are using all of our senses, our sight, our hearing our smell, or touch or taste. All of our senses are really designed just to take in information from the outside world. It goes to your brain, your brain processes it, the only thing your brain is really looking for is what is a danger?

Our brain actually filters out a ton of information that is actually right before our eyes, we don't even see it. So, our brain is just looking for those negative things. So, when we're talking about any of these practices, when we're talking about creating a, morning routine, when we're talking about meditating or doing anything that's outside of what we would normally do, we're actually rewiring our brain and we're teaching our brain to behave differently.

Let’s say someone is driving really slow in front of me. I'm late for work. I start to get angry and stressed. My brain immediately goes into flight or fight mode. It registers it the same as it would if there was a lion in front of you. Your brain will react to a minor inconvenience like that the same as it would react to a terrible danger. Our brain either is like danger or no danger. It's not like really degrees of it.

So, we really want to learn first of all that awareness piece. First you need to notice that you are getting angrier and angrier, I could start cursing out the person in front of me, or I could have some awareness and say, Oh, my body's reacting. All these chemicals are starting to flood my body, cortisol, a stress hormone and a lot of other things to get you ready to run.  Adrenaline is flowing. But then you have your tools. You can turn the radio on and listen to a song. You could say to yourself. I'm running late, that's fine.

Google Podcast Transform Your Mind
Google Podcast Transform Your Mind

Meditation and breath work reduces stress

You could even just do some, breath work, sitting in your car. You can call somebody and chat with someone and you know, say to them look, I'm feeling stressed.  You can listen to music or a book on tape or a podcast anything to signal to your brain, I'm not in danger. Now I'm going to take that time when I would have normally been angry or fuming even getting myself more and more worked up so that I arrive at work, not in a good place. And what happens then you get to work and now you're complaining to everyone and you're not the person you want to be.

Myrna: How do you help your clients solve this problem? Are your classes about, peak performance, or about a, morning routine?

Kerry: So, when I first start working with someone, I like to look at every area of their life so we go through everything, their social life, their love relationship, their parenting if they're a parent, their career and finances and really survey all of the areas of their life. And what I find is people are really excelling in one area and then in a lot of the other areas, they haven't even looked at it. So then once we know that, what area could improve, we start with that.

I personally believe that health should be a priority for you, focusing in on your health could really be a game changer for everybody. And again, I start small, five minutes, go take a walk after lunch, just do some jumping jacks, get up in the morning and do a very quick five-minute, morning routine stretch. Just start to bring more activity into your life and start to really care about your health, care about what you're eating.

Transform Your Mind Podcast Pandora
Transform Your Mind Podcast Pandora

Our health is the stop on the peak performance chart

We can't have, peak performance, without our health. It doesn't always have to be health, though every person kind of knows once we go through all the categories which area they really need to work on. Some people need to work on finances. So, when you survey your whole entire life, all the categories of your life, your intellectual life, your emotional life, we all have certain areas that we're like, that's the one I need to work on.

So, I basically teach all of my clients a bunch of tools I always teach them, meditation, I always teach them, breath work, I teach them that they should stretch and strengthen. So that means doing something like, yoga, Qi Gong, and then something like weight training or something that's actually going to improve your muscles. And you know, I have all these little things that I teach them the morning routine and the evening routine.

All of my clients have at least a five-minute, morning routine, and a five minute, evening routine, without your cell phone. Just something you're doing for yourself. And I always say to people if you can make it longer than five minutes, try 15 minutes morning and 15 minutes at night or even longer, depending on your life circumstances.  Setting yourself up for success and having the tools to fall back on when you fall down. It's something I think in the wellness world people don't talk about as much.

Myrna: Are you still teaching yoga just for the stretches? Tell us about that.

Transform Your Mind Luminary podcast
Transform Your Mind Luminary podcast

Yoga as a peak performance tool

Kerry: I had stopped teaching yoga during the pandemic because I did not like teaching it online. So, then I started teaching, breathwork workshops, and all these different workshops on, peak performance, in the yoga studios. I would do that as a weekend workshop.  I'm not teaching, yoga, although I started going to, yoga, again as a student, which is so nice to be back in a yoga studio. I really am not going to tell anyone I'm a, yoga teacher.

If you have back pain, how to relieve back pain? Yoga. I'll tell you I have this little routine I taught my husband on his hands and knees for his spine. He was having terrible back problems. So, every day for five minutes, he would just do this simple routine, and it completely healed his problem.  I always advocate to everybody move your spine in every direction every day. So forward and back, side to side, and then in a circle either direction because that's what's going to keep your spine limber and that's what helps you stay youthful.

Myrna: That is great. I do the same thing with the Sun Salutation movements. I learned about the sun salutation a long time ago. It’s in my memory and I can actually go through those poses without even thinking about it.

Kerry: The absolutely works. And the reason it works, by the way is because it's exactly what I said. It goes through all the motions. So, you're moving all of your joints, you know, in every direction. And I don't even think it would take five minutes to do three of them.

book Snooze button sessions
Book: Snooze Button Sessions

Conclusion

Myrna: How they connect with you?

Kerry: Thank you. You can find me at KerryFishercoaching.com. I am on Instagram@ IamKerryFisher. I handle my own Instagram and I love getting messages from people. You could find my books on Amazon. One is on that

Tools for Extraordinary Living: The Snooze Button Sessions

My second one is called Routines for Extraordinary Living in these two books you will find so many tools and tests that will help you. I have them right now both on Amazon for 99 cents for the eBook version. So I would love for you to check it out.

Additional Resources

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