As soon as I booked the plane ticket, it started.

If you’re going to New Zealand, said my brain, you’ve got to do something exciting. They’re the inventors of crazy adventurous things. They even invented bungee jumping.

Bungee jumping. Oh, boy.

I’d heard you could do it off the Auckland Bridge, which sounded cool, but I wasn’t sold. I was scared.

All during the thousand-hour plane ride, my brain went back and forth. Do it, don’t do it. It’s exciting, it’s scary. You have to, I don’t know if I’m ready.

I got to the hotel at 6:30a.m. As soon as I checked in, the first thing out of my mouth was, “Do you think I can bungee jump off the Auckland Bridge this week?”

“I don’t know,” said the concierge. “People do, but maybe not in winter. I’ll call as soon as they’re open.”

I thanked him and went up to my room. An hour later, he called up. “They go...

Last week in Rio, the gold medal in the 10,000 meter track event went to Mo Farah, a British super-runner. (He holds about a million world records). But during this one Olympic race, you might’ve thought he’d lost the gold – because he wiped out in the final loop.

But what did he do? He got up and kept running. He wasted no time being upset, or worrying, or beating himself up. He just popped up and ran straight to the finish line. And he won.

It’s so simple, but what an important lesson we can take from that. Falling isn’t the end of the race. It’s not even a guarantee that you won’t win. You can take a major wipeout, and still win an Olympic medal.

Yet how often do we mistake failure for something permanent? We “fall,” or fail, or reach a setback – and we interpret it as final. But it’s not.

Falling is difficult, especially when the stakes are high. When we fall, gremlins like to jump right in with their...

Recently, my family and I went to Coney Island, and, as they often do, my kids taught me a powerful lesson.

My son Ty is almost eight, and he wanted to go on all the wild and crazy rides. Anything he was tall enough for, he’d go on. When we got to the haunted house, no one else wanted to go, but that didn’t stop him. So there I was, watching as he rode on the little cart, all by himself, into the Spook-a-Rama. His hands gripped the handle bar, and as he disappeared from sight, I caught a glimpse of his big blue eyes, wide with fear. I didn’t relax until he came out the other end.

When he did, his face was transformed. Actually, his whole body was. His fists were in the air, and he jumped out of the car and ran over, yelling, “I did it! I got through! Whenever I got scared, I just closed my eyes and faced my fear. That’s how! Just close your eyes!”

It was so cute, and at first, it didn’t strike me as anything profound. But on the way home, I...

We are super excited to announce that Moticise received the Fit Bottomed Girls’ Fittie Award for best workout DVD!

Mindset Reset is now officially an award-winning workout. What an honor! Thank you, Fit Bottomed Girls!      Get it here!!

It’s been an exhilarating 2016! I’ve been leading Mindset Reset workouts at a very prestigious financial institution for the second time, Seamless/Grubhub, the Grace Institute, and a handful of others around NYC. This summer, I’m booked to appear on morning TV in New Zealand (!), and last but not least…we’ve launched the latest Moticise speaking series – Holistic Nutrition for Maximum Potential, which looks at how your diet affects your mind, body, life, and everything else. Food, fitness, fun – all my favorite things! More info coming soon.

It’s so important to celebrate the highs in life. Celebrate all your...

Spring is a time of renewal, cleansing, letting go of the old to invite in the new. This week, I want to share the incredible story of how my friend Kim learned to let go of her pain and embrace a new life, while flying high above the Hudson River…

It was Monday, March 2013. I was sprawled out on my couch in Brooklyn, putting the finishing touches on my grad school application and waiting for my boyfriend to get out of work and planning what to make for dinner. When he got home, without explanation or apology, he broke up with me. Just like that.

I was devastated. We’d been together six years, talking about getting married – yet he gave me no warning, no compassion. In a second, my life came crashing down.

I fell apart. I lost ten pounds in a week, surviving on coffee and liquor, moving through my days in a painful, unreal fog. Everything hurt. I just couldn’t absorb the truth: that relationship, which had been my bedrock, my identity, was over.

...

Last week, I got to go on The Daily Burn, a fitness show based here in New York, as their guest celebrity. I did the morning workout with them, and we did a really cool exercise about “reaching new heights” on a trampoline. You can still catch the interview, and if you’re looking for a fun, challenging workout to do every day, you can stream the workouts free for a month – check it out!

During the workout – it was about a half hour of cardio and strength-training – Greg, the instructor, said something that really struck me.

“If you’re thinking ‘I can’t do this’ – remember, that ‘I can’t’ is just an interpretation of a feeling. It’s not a reality,” he said. “Breathe into it, stay calm. Keep going.”

How profound! And it’s true in several ways – not just about exercise, but about life. Self-talk is a hot topic these days, and it’s continually...

The other day I went to this fundraiser for a friend of mine, where we played poker with the Poker Divas. This was the first lesson – you have to play to win. If you just play not to lose,  you will almost definitely lose.

I thought, what an applicable lesson to life. It made me think of a time I was at a conference, where they asked you to put a number on a ping pong ball at registration. And then throughout the conference, sporadically, they’d come out with this big box full of ping pong balls, like a lottery, and they’d call a number and give out some pretty significant prizes.

One time when they were calling out numbers, I was out in the hallway, and a guy who worked at the conference asked me, ”How come you’re not in there? They’re giving away prizes.”

I said, “I know, but I never put my number on a ping pong ball, so, I’m not going to win.”

And he said, “Hm, that’s interesting. I wonder where else...

Recently I came across a new mindset tool that I just love. It’s basically a happiness exercise, where at the end of the day, you recap what you’re happy about. But what I love about this one is that it takes it a step further, by asking “Why did that happen?” about each thing.

What I found while I was doing this, is that even such a simple question can have this global effect of changing how you see things. Suddenly, I saw my life in a more cumulative light, not just isolated events happening one day but not another. Something you did yesterday, or last week, or even years ago, can contribute to one moment of happiness today.

The first time I tried this was after I got confirmation that I’d booked this one particular speaking gig. I really wanted to do this, but it just seemed like it wasn’t going to happen—then it was, then it wasn’t, then it was again. Then, a couple weeks ago, it became official—success! So I was...

With Thanksgiving in just a couple days, you might be hearing a lot about gratitude – why it’s important, how to focus on it, and so on. For good reason – it’s essential to both physical and mental health. 

But sometimes we think that in order to be grateful, we need to be one of the Lucky Ones... those got-it-all-together, successful, confident people you meet at parties. (You know who I mean?) They must feel grateful all the time, because they’re so lucky. Right?

Wrong.

Yes, there IS a link between gratitude and being “lucky” – but, luck doesn’t just fall from the sky. Sometimes, you create it.

One morning last winter, I felt like one of those Lucky Ones. I woke up early; I had tones of energy. On the exercise bike, I had one of my favorite guilty pleasure songs blasting –  I’m totally embarrassed to admit...

Last week, I had the honor of co-hosting a fitness talk show with my good friend Eraldo Maglara on WMCN TV. It was such a thrill to be on set, talking about fitness and lifestyle and mindset (all my favorite things!)—but you can bet, I was nervous.

Backstage, after having my make-up and hair done, I had a few minutes before the cameras started rolling. And in those moments of waiting, nervousness crept in: my hands were sweating, my shoulders were tight. I tried to relax, but I only succeeded in getting more and more worked up. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, tried a little meditation—but it didn’t work.

After a minute, I thought, this is stupid. Let me just get up and do something. So I went out into the hallway, and did jumping jacks and boxing moves, trying to disperse all that nervous energy. I made a fist and jumped up, like my team had just scored a goal, like “Yes! I did it!” And I got so excited!

Then, since...