Your mental fitness bootcamp with Maya Raichoora [REPLAY]

0:00Hustling and stress and all of that landed me in hospital. It is a really toxic culture. I was also rewiring my brain in the process. You're helping these people untap their limitless potential without the drug. Visualisation is a mental practice that is so deeply wired in science that we should take it seriously. The ones who just mentally rehearsed, there was between 18 and 20 % change in their performance. They actually saw changes in the muscles in their fingers. 90 % of people, they are limiting themselves with how their brain works. We seek comfort and we're addicted to our problems too.

0:38Your mind is half your health. So whether it's important or not is not really a question. I'll be really honest here. Welcome to another weekly episode of Strategy and Tragedy, the show that spotlights the highs and lows of starting, scaling and even exiting a business because as we all know, entrepreneurship is a roller coaster. I believe it has been overly glamorized in recent years, but that's not to say that you shouldn't still go for it. The purpose of this show is to help you avoid the most common pitfalls by learning from others who are a few steps ahead of you in their own entrepreneurial journey and to gain inspiration from a diverse lineup of truly admirable guests.

1:20Speaking of admirable guests, coming up on today's show, we have Maya Raichura, the CEO and co-founder of Remap Mental Fitness, who envisions a world where mental fitness is as common as physical fitness. She helps CEOs, athletes, and performers become the top 1 % in their field through the power of visualization. So I cannot wait to get stuck in. Just before I do, a quick thank you for tuning into my show. I know that there are so many other podcasts out there that you can choose from. So it really does mean the world to me that you're listening in right now. So thank you so much. If you haven't already, it costs nothing and takes a quick second for you to hit that subscribe button.

1:59Now that's out the way. Maya, welcome to the show. Hi. So there is so, so much that I want to ask you, but I'm going to keep it focused on your entrepreneurial journey and of course, visualization. Now, what I was thinking was instead of explaining what visualization is, I'd love for you to share a really cool exercise that our listeners can do while they're tuning in right now? Yeah, okay. So in the next 30 seconds, what I will guide you through is a very good example of essentially what visualization is. So if you want to close your eyes for me, and I want you to imagine that you are in a kitchen and you open the fridge.

2:38And in the fridge, there's a segment of a lemon. And so I just want you to pick this lemon up. It's quite cold. You can feel the tough yellow skin. and I want you to take this lemon closer to your face and just start smelling it. It's very fragrant. You can already start smelling how sour the lemon is. And now I want you to start slowly squeezing the juice of this lemon into your mouth. Drop by drop, really taste the juice of it. So really squeeze all of it in. It's very cold, it's very sour you're really really tasting it and your your saliva might be going a little bit crazy you might be getting that tingling feeling and just really the last few bits of that juice I really want you to squeeze it all in there really taste it okay and if you just open your eyes now you might have felt you know your body go a little bit weird or you get that like weird feeling here and it's just quite tingly but none of you are actually holding a lemon right um but in that 30 seconds we just visualize you holding a lemon and squeezing the juice in and yet your mind and body have reacted like it has happened um and so and you know you can do this with like a tang fantastic that sort of thing but it's a really quick example to show you how connected the mind and body are and how if you take advantage of the brain this skill could be very powerful in your life my mouth is fully salivated i've seen you were like words that we can see it's like oh my god but it's like filled with saliva.

4:11I love that. Such a powerful exercise that if you followed along with that, hopefully you've had some kind of physical reaction to that mental visualization. So what's the science behind this? Yeah, so put very simply, the brain really struggles to know the difference between what's real and imagined. So take the lemon, right? None of you are holding it, but the way your brain works is the same or nearly identical neural pathways will activate when you are physically doing something or if you visualize doing it. Now, obviously, a lemon is, you know, fine, it's a bit of an irrelevant example here.

4:46But if we apply that to the way we perform, or the way we learn a new skill, or even, you know, the way we public speak, how we embody confidence, if we can use mental rehearsal, we can start training our mind and body to be like that. And, you know, if I go a little bit deeper into the science, there's a system in your brain, which is basically it's the RAS system, which is your retacular activating system. And what it does is, you know, when I say to you like, oh, let's say you've got a new car and you suddenly see that new car like everywhere, it's your brain's filter system. So when you are visualizing things, even if you're visualizing your goals or where you want to be, what it does is it starts to train your brain's filter system so that you start seeing more opportunities that are aligned with that or you start seeing yourself being successful and so there are many different um I guess aspects that get affected when you do visualization but generally the science I would want someone to remember is that the brain is really struggling to know if you're doing it or if you're imagining it so let's use that to an advantage it's so fascinating isn't it you mentioned confidence which is a topic that I want to get stuck into as well but sticking with the science bit for a second are there any fast facts I love kind of some of these little factoids are there any sort of statistics or anything that come to mind on on this subject so um I I'm gonna address like quite a big elephant or an objection I get a lot which is, oh Maya, this just sounds like manifestation.

6:26And it's not about whether I believe in manifestation or not, but what I will say is visualization is a mental practice that is so deeply wired in science and neuroscience that we should take it seriously. So when it comes to the facts, there have been many experiments that have been done for this. A very famous one is the basketball experiment. and they had basically three groups. The first group were physically going on court, practicing free throws. So, you know, when we physically practice something, we're going to get a bit better. The second group were just mentally rehearsing. So they would sit in kind of like a meditative position, close their eyes, and they would visualize them getting the ball through the net.

7:09They'd hear the audience. They'd feel like the sweat of it, et cetera. And then there was the third group, which was control. So they did nothing. And the results showed that the control group, no change the ones who physically practiced there was about a 21 difference in their performance which is great so they had you know got better at it but the fascinating thing is that the ones who just mentally rehearsed there was a there was between 18 and 20 change in their performance now just take a step back and look at that they haven't even touched the ball and yet they've still being able to impact their performance that is pretty cool and this experiment has been repeated in different ways I think the ones I find really fascinating are they did it with piano players where they actually saw changes in the muscles in their fingers just by not even touching the piano but they're visualizing it but your body reacts to that so that was really cool and actually more recently in 2021 they did an experiment with cricketers and they did it with table tennis players as well, where again, they said, okay, if we make them visualize, you know, them going out on the pitch and hitting well, et cetera, what happens to their confidence?

8:21What happens to how effective they are when they actually perform? And it's just increase, increase, increase. And one thing I will say, whether it's 1%, whether it's 10%, that is cool. You know, you don't even, there's so much power in the mental training of this, that like we've got to take it seriously um so yeah i think the experiments are great and there's only just so much more coming in that yeah the film limitless just comes to mind with all of this right it is it's like you're helping these people untap their limitless yeah potential without the drug side effects exactly no it's true it's true actually that's what i find quite interesting um i don't know about my opinion on psychedelics just yet but what visualization does is very similar to what psychedelic is doing but you're not putting any drugs or things in your body what you're doing is using the most powerful part of you which is just the thing between your ears and none of us know how to take advantage of it and so yeah I'm like that can make you limitless and I think the point is for I'd say 90 % of people they are limiting themselves with how their brain works so that's the problem we're in negative we're not even in neutral we're in negative we are limiting ourselves well very nice segue into my next point so I was going to come on to the the self-confidence topic because what you just say there specifically around kind of some of that negative talk on the outside on the surface there are attributes that you have that for most if not you know all people would see as a disadvantage so I know age is just a number but I was floored to learn how young you actually are which makes me feel quite old um your you know your your background you know you're a young brown woman you have no formal education you don't have a PhD in neuroscience and yet that hasn't hampered this infectious amazing self-confidence that you have so of course you attribute this to visualization but can you break down exactly sort of what you've done to really boost your own self-confidence yeah that's I really like that.

10:29So I'm pretty obsessed with confidence. The first thing I would say is I very quickly learned the difference between being confident and then having self-confidence. Okay. So being confident is like, you know, being the last in the room, you can get on stage and people like, wow, like she can do her thing, right? That external one where actually you are internalizing external validation. It's what the world sees as confident. But that person could be super anxious inside. They could be so insecure. And I've been in many situations like that. Now, on the other hand, self-confidence is where you can be the loudest, the quietest in the room, but you feel secure in yourself.

11:13You don't have anything to prove. Exactly. And that's an inner game. Self-confidence is an inner game. And so I spent a lot of time working on, okay, how can I build my self-confidence and first I needed to understand okay what does that actually mean to me what does a self-confident Maya look like how does she feel um you know how does she even speak and that is where visualization really came in but then I also think there are tiny tiny things we can do every day that can help build it so a good example is look at people in the eye simple as it's scary to do in the world we live in because we're so used to our phones look at someone in the eye Know how to say no.

11:53Treat your time, your energy like currency. Like put yourself in that position where actually know I am a valuable person. Little things like stand a bit taller, you know? Pause before you speak. There's such little things that I don't think work for everyone, but I want you to experiment with them. And then along with that, I would visualize, okay, long-term speaking, yeah, what does Maya look like? What does she feel like? And that helped me in the short-term as well as the long-term. So then what was happening is every day I was seeing the small changes, but I was also rewiring my brain in the process, which meant that I started to act like that as well.

12:30And now it's just part of my identity. And I think there's obviously like, you know, a line where you can then get a bit arrogant. So it's important to understand, like, you can be very confident whilst being quiet. you can be confident on your own and the thing that really changed it for me is when I woke up and when I went to bed I still felt confident and that showed me that I had actually changed my self-confidence and it wasn't just an external validation thing that I was experiencing yeah interesting I get it I was reflecting on this this morning actually obviously excited to to interview you today and I remembered one of the greatest compliments I ever had was you know anyone who knows me in real life you know we're both pretty petite we're kind of smaller kind of what's your height you know I'm like five two right I think I'm the same I'm not confident about that I can tell you should be small but mighty exactly got out of fire perfectly formed strong little women yeah and um and yeah it was just kind of yeah thinking about interviewing you this afternoon and I remembered I was in an office with a load of pieces pre-2020 and I don't know why we're kind of bored it was kind of dead afternoon or something we were bored and kind of looking at different heights and stuff and this girl in the office who I'd worked with at this point for I don't know at least a year what you could see on her face how shocked she was to see how small I actually was when I stood up kind of next she was like wow I never it was like one of the biggest compliments because to your point on you know the little things that you can do standing up a little bit straighter standing taller and without even really realizing it I projected a level of confidence that really suppresses like oh wow um so I I love that and I think that sticking with this kind of self-confidence point for a second the other reason I want to talk to you about this is because in my research listening to some of your older episodes I can tell how much your self-confidence has risen with the podcast that you've done over time it was funny one of the older ones you did you were just kind of you were a little you're a bit more kind of giggly more ashamed and even your story with how you came to realize the power of the mind which we can talk about as well um even that you were still kind of like oh it's a bit embarrassing but now of course you completely own it as part of your story so if you want to share a little bit about that to bring people up to speed um and I'll ask you the next one I'll stop there for a second yeah of course um yeah I I'll be really honest here um I don't think I'll ever get to a stage where I'm more confident about telling my story because every time I say it um it's a very like I don't find it hard but I think every time is just different because I think I'm in a different place when I do but yeah I guess for those who don't know um so I was a very like high achieving young woman I was from a South Asian and from a South Asian family so you know high grades um I was also training in national badminton so sports was like my thing and had very like high prospects as well um and then I started developing these symptoms where when I went to the loo there was just like a lot of blood and it was a lot of pain as well and then when I was 15 I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis which is an inflammatory bowel disease um which is quite common but the severity of mine was just like unfathomable I I just I it still baffles me today because you know every day it was like going to the loo 30 40 times um I was wearing adult nappies most my school life I was having accidents because the the things that we take for granted every day of like going to the loo or walking or eating just none of that was easy for me at all but I think the thing that was probably most crippling was the the physical and mental pain of it all you know you're you're in pain that is so dehumanizing and then you're scared of the pain so like when you're not in pain you you think that's coming up so then it's just like you you aren't in I didn't even know night till day I just didn't know it and um then mentally because there was so much shame associated with going to the loo or not feeling like a woman in any way and I didn't tell a single person like no one in my school knew my friends didn't know because I'm not gonna lie at 16 if you're telling people that you shit yourself and you you know it's not a nice thing right um and so I lost a lot of friends I missed a lot of school and ultimately you know I had to give up basically everything my sport my future at uni um even just my social life and I think the thing is I became I became so bitter towards the world rightly so like I just hated everyone I hated everything it was unfair I was so broken and I just didn't want to be here really like it was the painless option to just give up um and then it was in hospital when a nurse basically introduced me to the I guess the concept of visualization um and I started to mentally rehearse walking again and then also I saw myself in Bristol like studying it was my dream at the time uh and I just kept doing it and it's not like oh my gosh everything changed overnight but uh I got a little bit of hope and I think what I realized is hope is actually one of the most powerful things humans have hope is like it can take you out of some really dark places even if it's delusional I don't care I think hope is powerful and we should never ever like take it for granted um and then when I left hospital I basically continued visualizing every day I trained with the best you know trainers neuroscientists I read every book under the sun um I just kept going and going and going and then I did get to go to uni which is exciting and I decided to start the business so that I could share visualization to more people.

19:05But the cool thing is going from going to the loo 40, 50 times a day, adult nappies, extreme pain, about 60 tablets a day and going for infusions every six weeks. I am now sitting here on no medication, the healthiest I've ever been, the most grateful I've ever been, the most educated as well I've ever been. but also I am now helping others take control of their own mind and body. Now, you do not need to be ill or have colitis to do this. And I'm sad that I actually had to go through such an extreme situation to get to where I am. But if this is my purpose and my mission, I've got to do it, right?

19:48And you're here because of it. Yeah. Wow. Maya, I had no idea that it was so dark for you. I'm really sorry to hear that it took you to such a... Obviously, I'm aware of your background, but as you say, it's completely day and night with, you know, imagining your life, what it used to be to where you are now and sat here across from me. It's such just such a powerful story. So sticking with the self-confidence theme for a second, just on that, again, was such a such a huge kind of transformation that I can only imagine that you've had. I know that there are kind of these famous tricks that you know celebrities do so for example you've got kind of Beyonce's got her alter ego her Sasha Fierce some people might need to wear a particular outfit to feel their best selves do you have anything like that at all are there any other similar kind of places that you go to to help give yourself a confidence boost when you need to so obviously the my go-to would be visualization because I can like step into that really quickly and like just shift quite quick.

20:50And is that, so to paint a bit more of a picture for the listeners, is that kind of just imagining, I heard you describe it as kind of more active daydreaming, like imagining the details of the scenario. Yeah, so there's two ways you can do it. Either, so for someone who doesn't feel confident right now, you close your eyes, you would imagine a time you have felt confident. So what that looks like and what you were doing, but also how does it feel in your body? And then you bring that feeling to the present moment and you take it into where you're about to go. but like for me now I will similar close my eyes and I will be like okay what is Maya wearing how does she walk and that's actually a really good thing because then when you are walking to a room you do walk like that two how does she interact with people you know is she quite like warm does she hug someone even for example like today when I came in and I was obviously like oh my gosh Steph like I'm sweating I need to go hair dry it like that is confidence I'm not scared about what happened yeah and I think if I was I would have gone like oh guys like can I can I just use the loop but I don't care like if you judge me you judge me like I'm human and so I think it's about knowing okay Maya how do you want to show up in this world and I will do that and I will feel it in my body like I feel it in my heart I get a bit tingly and then all it is is like you know a two three minute thing and I'm ready to go so that's definitely one and I think the other thing is I think kindness is really underrated, like really underrated to the point that like, just talk to someone on the bus, talk to your taxi driver, talk to the person you get coffee from because by talking to strangers, that's actually probably been the best thing I've done for my own self-confidence because it's kind of scary, right?

22:31And look at the world we live in. Everyone's so scared to just like say hello. If you're really ready, say it on the tube. That is risky. Wow, that's hardcore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that is like teach me um but i think you're you're just either someone will ignore you they'll say no but cool like i think just exposing yourself to situations you wouldn't really normally do it's kind of fun yeah um to pushing yourself like just slightly outside of your comfort zone and and realize that the world hasn't caved in on itself yes um but gosh i feel like i have so much in this area. But the other thing, which I think not enough people do is, you know, we keep the, we have these, like, we're like, okay, I'm going to go to the gym today.

23:11Or, oh, I'm gonna, I'm going to eat healthy. When you do not keep those promises to yourself, your self-esteem goes so down. It is directly linked. So the promises that you make to yourself, you keep them. If you say you were going to go to the gym, go. And if you are scared that you're going to let yourself down, start very small. Like I am going to ring my friend today. When you follow through with that, you build a type of competence that feeds your self-confidence because you're building your integrity, right? You're like, I can do it. So I can see the link between fulfilling your promises and self-respect because it's a promise to yourself, but how does it tie to your self-esteem?

23:52So when we don't keep the promises to ourselves, right, we feel like we've let ourselves down. We don't think we're good enough. We don't think we can do it. Or we just, you know, when you, it's a really hard scenario where you want to be X person, but you're that person and you just keep seeing the gap. But just slowly build that gap and you just naturally build that confidence. It is a skill. No one is born confident, but every single day you can shape yourself to be that. I don't say like, you know, there are some days I don't feel very confident. Cool, but I know the tools to make me feel confident.

24:25And that's what's key. on the person you are the one you want to be it just reminds me of the of the meme with the two alarms i set one alarm for the person yeah and the other one yeah the other one wins always though let's be honest yeah super relatable yeah the other thing that i just noticed they're listening to you is for referring to yourself in the third person so earlier on like how does maya show up what does maya wear is that something that you do consciously is that another little hack there uh to be fair like I think it's uh I think I this is really interesting I think as I try and shape my identity more and more detaching from my current identity is really useful because then I'm not like I don't want to like I'm not thinking I need to grieve her and let her go I'm kind of like I know she's always evolving so cool like I have control over that maybe it just makes it easier for me um and I think like when talking about things like confidence because I'm not that person just yet cool I may refer to her like that so yeah I actually haven't noticed that but probably I use it in a way to detach so that I can attach to a new type of version of me yeah that makes complete sense I read a lot more about the power of how we self-identify right in the past couple of years and it was I think there was just a coincidence where I read about um like hardcore criminology so around like serial murderers and all this stuff just just interested on from a psychological perspective and then the next book I read straight after was more of kind of a professional self-development sort of self-help book and there was a pattern and they both talked about the power of identity and essentially with the murderer one I'm a weirdo like that I have very eclectic tastes there was this transition with the with the worst criminals where they gave themselves that label.

26:18So after they'd committed something, obviously it kind of escalate, you know, start with kind of stealing something or, you know, it gets worse from there. And when it does, it's they give themselves that label. Oh, so now I'm this. And so that's obviously, you know, a horrible, more kind of morbid negative side of it. But then the positive is, of course, what we're talking about here is how you want to show up, being your most confident kind of authentic self. Quick one. I need to tell you a bit about Patreon. If you haven't heard of it before, Patreon is the creative platform that enables people like you to support podcasters like me.

26:49I actually studied art history for all of five minutes, which is where the whole idea of patronage, aka financially supporting artists, comes from. Kings and queens would commission artists to create paintings to adorn their castle walls. Uple class lords and ladies celebrated their accomplishments by using their wealth to support the arts. And during the Italian Renaissance, my favourite era, the Medici's actually developed a close bond with Michelangelo, who painted the Sistine Chapel, and the Sforza family supported Da Vinci, who helped name Leonardo DiCaprio. That is a true story, by the way.

27:25Anyway, I know that you're not here for a history lesson thrown in to your business studies class, but if you're feeling like a rich Renaissance royal who wants to support your very own little Botticelli here, then Patreon is the solution for you. simply tap the link in the show notes to select your tier of patronage to support the show it starts from a low amount and it really means a lot to help me to continue producing these interviews that I hope you enjoy thank you so much for listening let's get back into the episode so I know that you've got to where you are now because you practice visualization two hours a day is that correct yeah around one one to two hours yes and I love how you did the physical fitness connection with that as well because you kind of compare it to weight lifting right yeah so it's kind of like strength training yeah exactly exactly that so you can now sort of lift 100 kilos yeah and that's the thing like people are like oh my god i can't do that but i don't think you should like i've been doing this for now yeah 10 and a half years so if you are starting go for two minutes go for five minutes that's all you need um it's like lifting weights you're gonna start you know two kilograms five kilograms and then build it up and that's cool um so yeah it's not about jumping straight to an hour like it's you know and I still do my mini like two three minute ones that's cool I just love the I love the the long ones for me and it connects back to what we're talking about as well before with the promises you keep to yourself so even with this so if you want to do two minutes a few minutes there I know you've got exercises who can download that or the audio recordings to just kind of keep that first promise with yourself and then gradually yeah and I think the thing that's really helped me which I haven't really heard of So I either see be super disciplined, like be, you know, like David Goggins vibes, or it's like, oh, no, be super kind to yourself.

29:10So I kind of merged the two. And I was like, right, compassionate discipline is what works for me. Now, if I miss one or two days, cool, that's OK. Maybe something was going on. Maybe you were just, you know, that's fine. But if I miss a week or maybe two, that's when I'm like, OK, Maya, you've lost your discipline now. what is actually going on. So 80 % of the time I have insane discipline, amazing. But if I like, you know, have a bit of fun or do something else for 20 % of it, that's cool. Like that is compassion. Like I'm just, you know, yeah, I want to watch Netflix all day, fine. But it's when I really start to not keep up for enough time.

29:48That's when I'm like, okay, go back and find the discipline again. So compassionate discipline is a very good way to maintain habits, start habits, but also protect your like yourself and your relationship in the process because you know I don't think it has to be 100 % of the time I don't think it has to be like that I love that so much it's such a great concept share with our listeners I really do love that I am definitely for more up the end of the harder discipline and then of course it sends you down this downward spiral when you don't keep those promises to yourself when you fall off feel guilty exactly you start beating yourself up so you don't get anywhere with that.

30:24I think actually, I'm trying to remember if it was, I think Andy Iyim, who's also been on the show, he's amazing. I think he also talks about kind of just sort of working a bit more instinctively with those sorts of things. Like, you know, watch out for if you trip up a bit too much, but, you know, otherwise you've got to allow for some of that tolerance to be human, right? To be a human being. So now you've worked your way up to kind of two hours to create that space in your diary. I know that we can create space for the things that we prioritize. however i think everyone listening is a busy founder running around then there are never enough hours in the day what advice could you give what do you do to actively carve out that time in the day okay two things i'd say i actually recently listened to um like a was it a podcast it was a journal it was it was saying that um they did this study on basically the top billionaires and most successful people in the world whatever that means and the biggest like thing they found was that every single one of them would make sure that they carved out at least one and a half hours for themselves just for themselves before they even enter the world if that meant they had to wake up earlier fine if it meant they had to start meetings later fine so one aspect I'm going to say is if you do not prioritize like it's just fact you need to that's one aspect I'm going to say the second thing is I do get we're busy and people may have kids we're also traveling etc so I would say tiny tiny tiny things often make big differences and so when I'm busy I'll sometimes do my visualization on the train or I might just do it just before I have my morning tea or like before I'm about to brush my teeth again the discipline aspect but I understand that some days I'm only going to do three minutes now if I'm super pushed for time what I have done before is I'll be on a meeting and I'll be like hey um I need to do like three minutes of visualization do you want to join sometimes they're like no I'm like cool well I'm still going to do it do you mind I don't you know if they don't respect that I shouldn't be working with them either but if you've got a team do it with them like this is something that people will want and respect so it's great and again if I get to the end of the night even if I can you know put in two minutes three minutes there great so I think and there's that I can't remember the exact saying where it's like um you know if you're busy or some you're meant to do like I don't know 20 minutes a day but if you're busy you need to do two hours I agree with that like if you are busy that is not an excuse I don't have time I don't have money it's not an excuse it's all the more reason to exactly like you're you're in that cycle but I'm also understanding that maybe we can't all carve out an hour and you know the one thing I do really empathize with is if I look at the wellness industry it's like okay wake up at five do a nice bath do journaling for 20 minutes then go on a like 10k run then do meditate then visualize honestly speaking I get it it's overwhelming You have to find the routine that works for you.

33:36Some people, it'll be two hours. Some people, it'll be two minutes. All I ask is just give yourself a little bit of time. I don't ice bath. I don't go on a 10K run. I actually wake up and I dance straight away. Like, you've got to shape it for you. I think as long as we keep the basics good, you know, you hydrate, you move, you train your brain, and you connect with the world and nature, you're good. but a lot of people we wake up phone or like emails or like everyone's screaming and you just got to like go straight on with your day that's the problem so if you can win your morning you can win the day so two minutes in the morning would just be the best thing ever or even when you're sleeping or you just like to wake up go for it so you're totally on my same wavelength because i was exactly thinking about all of the things that we should be doing within the wellness space for those five minutes hour hour and a half whatever time we can carve out because um in my experience and personally i've had to carve out that time to kind of go out in nature move my body like that's been a really big thing i'm the fittest now i've ever been because i'm kind of prioritizing that side of my health so given this vast array of you know nutrition physical all these different wellness activities that we could be doing with that finite time yeah bearing in mind i get what you're saying of like okay we'll wake up early if you need to find that you know you find it where you can but i feel like you know the lack of sleep eventually catches up with you so it has to be embedded into the sustainable habits where you are getting enough sleep you're getting you know you're well you know you're well nourished you're well fed and everything else i guess the question here is how important is visualization where can someone stack that even within the they're already carving out they're finding some time because i get it we can all carve out some time we can find 30 minutes or whatever in our days where does that sit alongside the going for a walk the you know just zoning out listening to a podcast whatever so

35:43your mind is half your health so whether it's important or not is not really a question like it's a it's a necessity it is a necessity um where you can stack visualization I think the reason I love it more than anything is once you learn it it's a matter of doing it like 15 20 seconds simply like I'll give you an example right um when I get anxious now that I've learned what visualization is and I've practiced it enough when I get anxious I will immediately close my eyes I'll feel the anxiety. I create a picture of it. So it might be like, you know, a red fire in my stomach. I use my mind to put water over it or slow it down.

36:26And I already feel better. That is 20 seconds of my life. But because I know the technique, and I've practiced it, etc. It means that in my day to day life, I can just do it in those snippets. And so I think I still remain at the beginning, stack it to a habit that you've already got, right? So whether it's brushing your teeth, whether it is your morning coffee. And actually, the cool thing about visualization is you know, when you're laying in bed, and you're like, oh, a bit tired still, do it then. It's great for your brain. But I think, you know, even if it's just two minutes a day, that you do for at least two weeks, you will at least start to get used to it.

36:59And the cool thing is, you will feel the benefits quite immediately. So then you're going to want to do it. It's like when you go to the gym, you like it. Well, hopefully, so then you tend to go a bit more. And even before you go to the gym so now when I'm in the gym after my gym I'll do a quick visualization and people like what is she doing I don't care like I need to get this in so I may take out five minutes from my run into that and that's okay like I I do not think we can think of so many excuses um but I just won't take them like you can find two minutes in your day well I love especially how you paint that picture of you know or you're still a bit sleepy in bed the other great advantage to doing visualization is you don't need a gym membership doesn't cost anything you don't need to go anywhere you don't need to have the right outfit you don't have to have the right tools you know you can do it you can find those moments so whether you're sleeping in bed or on the tube so I love that I mean I was converted long ago but all the more reason so moving on a little bit to your business so remap mental fitness I love how you've got again the physical the mental fitness so you've got that aim of making mental fitness as common as physical fitness and that line of helping CEOs athletes be in the top one percent of their field how are you actually doing that what is the work that you're doing with remap yeah so um I kind of have like two roles so remap the aim is to build the Nike of mental fitness like a hundred percent when I think about right how can I train my mind I want people to think remap that's all about remapping the brain now a lot of people have said to me oh like Maya you should do what headspace did do like meditation and breath work Like, honestly, no.

38:35I want to niche down so much into this one technique that like people realize that really that's kind of all you need, right? But I want to become the go-to person in that space. And so how we do that, with Remap, we host Mental Fitness Live every month, which I know you came to. So that's about making mental fitness physical. You know, when I learned like meditation and stuff years ago, it was something you had to do on your own. Like kind of felt like I'd been on a mountain as well. like just on your own don't tell anyone kind of thing like I don't do this but I'm like no this is cool this is sexy let's do it together let's build a community so that's why I like bringing you know a lot of people together and we do it all at once so that's the mental fitness live aspect and a big mission of mine is to make it accessible because visualization has stayed amongst the elite athletes and CEOs for decades now, and it never trickled down, I'm helping do that.

39:32So we are building a platform where people can do them on demand, where, you know, you don't have to then like, think about it too much, you just put the recording on and it can help you in that situation. But again, the community aspect is key. So just like how when we think of Nike, we're like, right, just do it. We're like, we get the community, we get the feeling, that is what I want to create. but then yeah individually I also will coach high performing CEOs, athletes, executives, performers basically. Why? I'll be honest, firstly I need to keep pushing myself, I need to keep getting better at my craft, that means I need to keep practicing the basics and I need to keep working with the best in the world so that I can marry the two and bring it to the mainstream and I love working with people like that because they're visionary they they don't see limits they still have limits in their brain but they don't want them and so that's kind of the one-to-one coaching aspect and then yeah the big mission is we've got to do world domination you know I love it I'm here for it I'm loving it I'm feeling the energy the power I want that for you too it's fantastic um you mentioned what was it you just said before you made me think of something all the limits that they still have and that you say they have the limits but they don't want them what you made me think there is I definitely know people perhaps I'm even a victim of this myself who maybe don't really want like the good stuff have you ever come across that before do you have any thoughts on that like some people like want to stay where they are yeah and I love that as well So I was with my friend the other day and I was like, oh my God, what's the dream?

41:12What's the vision? She was like, yeah, I'm so excited to be a stay at home mom. And I haven't heard that actually recently. But you know what? I was like, go you. That is amazing. And when I say think, feel and perform like the top 1%, I don't mean that has to be that you are taking over the world or building businesses. I just mean do you know how to handle your emotions your stress your confidence do you know how to have better self-talk and that you can make decisions and that you aren't overthinking and do you know how you can achieve the goals you want even if that is being at peace or you know being a stay-at-home mom so I think the first thing is to understand that top one percent what does that really mean to you for some people yeah it will be like you know being president but for some people it's not and that's totally cool I guess one thing is people have their different goals and desires which is great like whatever works for you is is fantastic but I I definitely know people who like who want the bad stuff as well like as weird as it sounds to say out loud so people who like to complain and some you know how it's like they some people might tell you some yeah like we all need to vent sometimes and just get stuff off our chest but I definitely know people who almost thrive in that who want to keep it that where it's been become so calcified over time that i guess it's all part of their self-identity and maybe it's too scary to move out of it but it's almost like you know like the comfortable complainers exactly and you've hit it on the head there hit the nail on the head we seek comfort and we're addicted to our problems too so we would absolutely rather live a life um sitting in comfort than in the discomfort of like uncertainty and I was the same like you know one of the most comfortable positions is victimhood oh my gosh it's the best thing because you know you feel sorry for yourself it's very comfortable you don't have to do anything and I happily stayed there for years um how do you get out of that that really resonates like what are the steps to getting out of victimhood so I do think it depends and obviously I don't think there's like a black and white answer for me what helped me was finding a little bit of meaning in my life like I and I think the word purpose is really overused because I don't think we have one purpose I think purpose is attained on a daily basis but when I was in victimhood, honestly, it's a decision you have to make to be like, do I want more for my life?

43:43If not, fine, stay in victimhood. And I know many people who are there. But if you do, then actually you can make the decision right now to, okay, not just flip the mindset, but take one step towards it. You know, follow a little bit of joy, find a little bit of something that makes you feel alive, use it as a GPS. But victimhood is just you protecting yourself. And so I think first it has to be that decision that you actually want it and sometimes when I when I coach people the first thing I ask is like okay but do you actually want to get better do you actually want to do that and so they're like they're like well obviously I'm like yeah but do you I don't know I can't I can't feel that you want it and yeah it's it's a brave thing to be like no I actually do want this and so I think like yeah really victimhood is a human thing and you can sit in it for a long time but I think first you need to make that decision then it's about taking little steps towards being a victor of what you're doing and I think the difference is and I don't think a lot of people like it when I say this is no one is coming to save you if you are a victim you have to take responsibility for yourself no one else is coming but actually we can see that in two ways either taking responsibility is like oh for goodness sake or it's like okay I have responsibility I have the power to take me out of this state and take me into a new one and that is a really really good position I think it's important to remind people especially if they're used to it if it's just again become a habit that they've kind of they've fallen into this comfortable space is a reminder you don't have to because I get because I think over time I'm definitely you know victim of this is over time you don't even realize it's not a conscious choice anymore but these reminders of like you don't have to accept this you do you do actually have a choice you can you can actually control things all right we're going to move things along so you talked a little bit about kind of the remap mental fitness so you've got kind of the one hat which is the one-on-one kind of training if you like and then you've got the mental fitness live events which are amazing I can definitely vouch for that as you say I came to one and it was just mind blow we had tears streaming down our face oh my god it was it was incredible so definitely go and check that out if you can um your own entrepreneurial journey just to touch on that fairly briefly with whatever time we've got left um what have been kind of the struggles for you in your entrepreneurial journey starting your business and how have you used visualization again to help overcome some of those challenges in business i think my biggest struggle was how to do entrepreneurship like how to do it yeah but in the way that you know hustling and stress and all of that landed me in hospital and I was so scared to go back into it I really didn't want to it's such a it is a really toxic culture and a big struggle of mine was like Maya do it your way slow productivity uh seasonal entrepreneurship that's what I love I love sprinting I love walking and then resting I treat it like I'm doing the Olympics.

46:47And so I have these like harvest seasons, which is great. But when I look around me, it's like, no one's doing that. So I'm like, oh my God, is that the wrong thing? So that is a big struggle of mine to this day is like, I want to build a company without, you know, killing myself in the process. And I see so many entrepreneurs that, yeah, they sell their company for millions and they're like, I'm super unhappy and I'm now really unwell. That is not what I want for my life. That's definitely one aspect of it. um two I've actually been really surprised that in the sports industry that I kind of like you know dabble in I am like very often the only woman of color in that room and everyone talks about how in the corporate space that you know diversity inclusion is like really important but why is no one talking about it in the sports arena you know when I go to these conferences or when I'm talking at these big companies like it's just not there yes athletes obviously like very broad and there's a lot of diversity but actually in the companies and when it comes to who is at the top of these places I don't see anyone there that looks like me so that is a really big thing that I recently realized um which connects back to what I was saying before about all those attributes that you have from the outside looking in anyone else would be like I'm the only young brown woman in the room and they would kind of listen to that internal narrative obviously you've got much better self-talk than that to overcome that but obviously yeah this is the middle page that you talk about as well what you're still dealing with while you're in it yeah yeah I'm on the middle page completely and like look I really struggle with envy as well yeah uh and I don't think it's spoken about enough but you know you're in a very competitive environment and there are times I don't feel good enough there are times where I'm like oh my god am I gonna get there but um cool but can you use that to fuel you as well I guess I do but you know what I instead I do is I make the belief louder and that's where the visualization is great because I visualize every day my vision where I want to be what that goal is um that's way louder in my brain so I always will remember yes I may have doubt cool that's human but as long as I see the end of the movie and I know I keep working towards that and I'm on this mission and I wire my brain for that success and performance that's cool and in that sense I've done the best I can to get myself there um but look like you said entrepreneurship is a damn roller coaster I literally like no one can predict it no one it's so uncertain but you've got to have fun and I'm just playing I'm playing like I'm in a sandbox and whatever happens happens um I'm just proud of the person I'm becoming on the way uh and truly speaking I don't think I'm an entrepreneur I don't think I'm a very good entrepreneur but I am making a way or finding a way out of no way so that's what I'm doing Maya I love that I'm so impressed by whatever label you want to put on it whatever you're doing you're doing a fantastic thing and I just want to highlight you know some of the really important messages you've shared of you know doing business your own way like I think yeah you know you you mentioned um you refer to some of those you know the hustle culture and how you kind of kill yourself almost to raise millions and then sell the company for hundreds of millions and then you're just kind of a shell of a human at the end of it entrepreneurship i think boils down to two core concepts i think it's creativity and freedom and yet we seem to have forgotten you know the freedom part of it you've gone out there to create something but you can do it in your own way and that's part of the purpose of this show as well is to share more of those kind of stories different ways of doing business it doesn't all have to be in that formulaic vc funded sort of way so thank you for kind of shining a light on that as well my of course unfortunately we've run out of time which i always part two incoming exactly this was just the warm-up yeah maya thank you so much for your valuable time on the show and sharing such interesting stories and fascinating insights i really hope that the people listening are taking away you know some really you know i hope they're going away and visualizing right now so thank you so much again of course yeah it's been a pleasure and thank you so much for listening please do hit that subscribe button the episodes are weekly hope you've enjoyed this one with Maya she's been amazing so leave a comment below and tune back in for next week thank you so much