The Yoga of Business Success with Mariko Hirakawa

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap em in bacon for business owners, marketing execs, and anyone trying to grow your business, pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week, our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the show. This is Brad and we're gonna, we're gonna mix things up today a little bit. We're not gonna go deep into business tactics and marketing strategies and just how to make all that coin that you greedy bastards love so much. Today I'm gonna talk about something a little bit different and I've got a guest on here who is going to enlighten us on some really amazing things that I think every high performer, every entrepreneur, every business owner really should pause, take a step back and really think about, which is kind of what's going on in that space between their ears. And before I introduce exactly who my guest is, I want to tell you about how we came to meet. So a few months ago, I think it was maybe back in October, November, September, October, I was on a panel at the New Media Summit with a lot of other podcasters and show hosts, etc. And we got to meet a lot of people. And I happened to just really briefly meet my guest today who is Mariko Hirokawa. And I do remember meeting her, but it was just kind of really brief. We didn't get a lot of chance to connect. And afterwards, like a couple days later, I got an email from her and I get questions all the time about how to, how to get on my show or what's the best way to get booked on podcasts, etc. And I get a lot of requests. I probably turned down 75% of the requests to be on this show just because it's either not a fit or because there's just too many. And with Mariko, she probably sent me the best podcast pitch I've ever seen. And I wrote her back immediately and I said, okay, no matter what, you're on, because this is awesome and I'm going to read exactly how she did that to you. And I'll probably even share a link to.

This in the show notes, but I'm going to do that after, after the interview. So you got to stick around and listen to this. Okay. Because it really was a highly effective way to get booked on anybody's show, especially because the type of topic we're going to talk about today is not something that normally dive into on bacon wrapped business, but it is something that I think is super important. So now let me introduce Mariko to you. So Mariko is the author of a brand new book which is available on Amazon. There'll be show notes here called the Yoga of Personal Development. Enlightened lessons on peak performance, leadership and living a life of no regrets sound pretty cool, but you're probably like, well what, what does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with business and making money? Well, understand that us entrepreneurs face a lot of pressure on a daily basis. A lot of negative self talk, a lot of things going in our brains. I know it's impossible for me to turn my brain off at night when I'm trying to go to bed. But she is an internationally recognized yoga and Ayurveda Expert. She's got 26 years of experience teaching this and she's the founder of Visionary Yoga, which is an interdisciplinary approach to peak performance and personal mastery. It blends the ancient wisdom of yoga and Ayurvedic traditions with the latest research on brain science and personal development. And she works with business leaders like you and entrepreneurs to create a highly attuned physical, mental and emotional state for optimal performance. And I don't care who you are, if you're not performing optimally, then you are leaving so much on the table. From money to happiness and satisfaction. Satisfaction. And with that being said, Mariko, welcome to Bacon wrapped Business.

Thank you so much, Brad. What a pleasure. And thank you for that generous introduction. Pleasure to be here.

Well, it's a pleasure to have you. As I said, this is not a topic that we talk about a lot, but it is a topic near and dear to my heart. I am big on personal development.

I try to make time for meditation. I don't always fulfill on that. I have done yoga and I've enjoyed it, but then I don't make it a habit. And it is one of the things that, you know, I'm doing great in a lot of areas of my life, but I do know that these are areas just being more centered and performing better are always kind of like the, you know, it's very important to me. So I kind of just want to have a chat with you about. What are you, like, what is it that you help entrepreneurs, business leaders, high performers do the most and like, what are some of the problems that you see people having that they don't even probably know? To reach out to somebody like yourself for Help.

Yeah, so what I, you know, I'm based in New York City and I've been working with a lot of financial, you know, people who have hedge funds or, you know, in that arena. And you know, we're all creatures of habits. So we have a kind of a built in limiter that's like, you know, Gary Hendricks wrote this great book, you know, the, the Big Leap, I believe, or the Great Leap. We all have this upper limit. And as entrepreneurs, especially in this era of massive change that we're living in, we really need, I think more than ever to tap into this visionary capacity to think in unlimited ways and out of the box. I mean, that's so more important than ever before. And because we are such creatures of conditioning, I feel yoga, especially the inner dimension of yoga, that place where you go to at the very end when you're relaxing in that wonderful Savasana, that kind of expansive state, you know, is the place where we can tap into that unlimited consciousness. And yoga really teaches that, you know, we are spirit embodied, we are spiritual beings having human experiences where most of the time we are, you know, we're taught like the spirit dwells inside of us. But you know, yoga really teaches us that we are that unlimited consciousness. And due to a series of contractions in our consciousness, we have this human body. And so yoga is that system to kind of reverse that whole process. And so that's why I feel so great after yoga class, because your whole body has been opened up and that expansion, unfolding has happened. Right. So I help business leaders first, of course, to get rid of that contracting.

Habitual. You know, we tend to hold stress in certain areas of the body, we tend to hold fear in certain areas of the body. So help people to remove that blockage. And then after that it's really about thinking with, you know, with the limiter off in a way. Fantasize. Right. I think it's important to learn to fantasize again. You know, we've all kind of forgotten to dream in a way, and maybe we did it when we were a kid, but I think as entrepreneurs that imaginary capacity is so, so important to.

Keep alive, I think so I think it's one of those things that, and the busier we get, the less we have time to do that. And I know one of the things that I've tried to, I've kind of put down, I journal, I try to journal about every day and that I just want to start to give myself more time to daydream more time to just disconnect and not think about work and because that's when the breakthroughs happen and that's when the creativity comes. And that's where, you know, just being able to imagine as opposed to just, you know, diving into our to do list, which is, I think just, it's, it just wrecks us if we live in our to do list.

Right. And actually my book, I talk about creating the not to do list, right. And how having that is so, so important for productivity. Right. Because.

Again, we are creatures of habit and the cell phone has become more our enemy than our servant. Right. All those notifications we get, it's just like the knee jerk reaction of feeling like we have to answer to every single ping and ding and.

Signals we get from our gadgets. And I make my people, whenever I'm in class, I make them actually put their cell phones in the box. You know, just like you're not allowed to look at it, you got to actually turn it all the way off. It can't even vibrate because it's just, you know, people are just so, so attached to that phone and it's preventing people from living life and preventing them from trusting their own inner connection to the greater World Wide Web. Right. I mean, we have this spiritual connection and we should really learn to rely on that much more and cultivate that most resourceful state.

Yes, I love that. So, I mean, most people, they think of yoga, they think go to class, you know, do the stretches, do all that other stuff. But it looks like a lot of the stuff in your book and things that you teach because, you know, you can't just teach, not everybody can come to one of your classes. But is there a lot of things that people can do either A, without going to a yoga class or B, if fits in their hometown and using, utilizing some of what you teach.

To get these results where, you know, they're not there one on one with you. So that's kind of like what I'm like, what are some of the takeaways that some of the listeners can do if they're not up in New York, they're not able to come see you live.

Yeah, well, the book is, you know, a book is always a bargain because you get, you know, like a plethora of ideas for, for pennies on the dollar. So the book actually is all about the inner yoga. So you can do the yoga that I describe in this book in your business suit, in your, in front of your computer. You don't have to own a yoga mat or a Lululemon. Gear or anything like that. You can just because these are all inner processes. And I did draw on a lot of actually business visionaries as well because I wanted this book to be not this kind of Sanskritic, ancient, unaccessible, inaccessible thing. I wanted to really speak to the current.

Paradigm of where we are at with business. And so some of the things are, I mean, first I talk about really knowing yourself on a deeper level. And I drew a lot on Peter Drucker's work for this because I think what he had to offer, I mean, he really is kind of a yogi in a business suit. I thought when I read some of his work, you know, and first it's like yoga talks about, well, Rene Descartes talked about, you know, I think therefore I am. And yoga is really I am aware, therefore I am. And it's that slight shift, right? It's a, it seems like a slight difference, but it's a huge difference. Because when you say I think therefore I am, you're so attached to your thoughts and you know, you're just don't have freedom from your own thoughts. And this is the problem when you say you can't, you know, turn your mind off at night. It's because we're so enmeshed with our thoughts, we haven't learned to distance ourselves from the non stop barrage of thoughts, right? So I am aware, therefore I am is understanding that you are the source of thoughts and that is a much more unlimited place. You are the witness of everything that's going on. And when you're able to have that separation, you can actually choose the thought that you want to empower. Because we're all on the loop, right? We have this non stop loop from our past conditioning. And most of the time we, you know, those loops are the things making decision for us. But when you can meditate, the value of meditation is that you're able to see those loops running in the background and be able to let them run their course without them affecting your current decision. And you're able to see much, much, much clearer your own thinking process. Not only that, the yogic meditation actually starts to.

Cleanse your subconscious. And so every day we're living and we're accumulating so many.

So many impressions through the senses. You know, all the marketing messages, all the, you know, the negative stuff that we receive from CNN news or whatever, you know, it's all going into our subconscious and we're doing nothing to really cleanse it. And so the meditation, but especially yogic meditation, helps to Start to literally burn away those latent impressions. If we have, you know, conflicts, if we have negative experiences, they all get lodged in our subconscious. And so it's so important to doing something to help kind of lessen that inner burden so that we can create more degree of freedom in our consciousness. And that's the beauty of inner yoga is, you know, we're only operating from a very small part of our mind always. But yoga, the real yoga, the yoga with capital Y, the Maha yoga that we call is all about.

That 90% below the tip of the iceberg. Right. The, the subconscious that is affecting our decisions on our actions. And that's why habits are very hard to break, because all those patterns are ingrained in our subconscious.

Yeah, they're not happening. That's like willpower doesn't really work because they're, they're underneath. It's like the roots. You, you know, you can pull out a weed or like unless you pull it out at the roots, you're, you know, it's still just going to go right back to where it was.

Right. So, yeah, plugging, kind of like removing those seeds, you know, burning the seeds at the root.

Right. So switching a little bit to your actual, your actual practice, and I don't mean like your personal practice doing yoga, meditating and just doing all the things that you teach, but your, your company, your expertise, your business.

How do you, how do you typically work with people? Obviously you do speaking and you, you're writing this book, but.

How have you kind of evolved your business in order to work with people and really impact them, the ones who need it?

Yeah, So I have, you know, I do of course, one on one coaching and that's my main work at the moment. But I also do, you know, corporate events and corporate retreats, which is really nice because of course, you know, progressive companies, especially kind of tech companies or they're much more open to this kind of thing. But yoga is also about alignment. Right. So it is alignment on the individual level, but it's also alignment on a group level. So I hold these visionary retreats for groups and really help them kind of get laser clarity on individual level and connect that.

Personal mission statement to the company mission statement because that's when you really get the best resources from each person. If you want a company full of rock stars, you want to connect them so deep that their personal mission is connected to the company's personal mission and that they're seamless. And so that can drive the whole company forward in a way that cannot be done. With just kind of stiff corporate board meetings because it's that soul energy that I think is lacking a lot. And a lot of the employees and corporations don't feel seen be as valued as an individual. And so these corporate retreats are really great for allowing that space for the whole individual to surface. And so people connect in a much deeper level. It's great for team alignment. And I think that also even for the leaders.

Opening up their body like this in a whole different way than they're used to, it's great because it's just opens up all those different intelligences. Right. Emotional intelligence, first of all, it deepens the team members connection to each other as well as, you know, connection to the customers or the people they serve. It's all, you know, business is really human relationships. So tapping into emotional intelligence is huge. And yoga is a great way to do that. So it's a combination of, you know.

Discussion, deep discussion and kind of a mastermind format. And sometimes we do hot seats, but then we also do the physical movement and we do it in a beginner friendly way. But my style of yoga is very much flow oriented because that's another thing is like putting yourself in a state of flow is an amazing way to put yourself into peak performance in business and in life. And there are certain parameters that really help to set yourself up for that flow. So corporate retreats are fun. You know, people really enjoy that because it's a whole new way to get to know one another and re energize and really focus on that company vision and personal vision as well.

I like that. Now what can people do today when they get off of this podcast to kind of utilize some of your teachings center themselves or is there anything that people can do if they're, especially if they're not used to, if they've never gone to a yoga class, they don't really want to go. Is there anything that you can, whether it's an exercise or something that they can do to.

Yeah. So, you know, think about as an entrepreneur, as a business person, like what's your most.

The thing that you're working on right now? What do you feel blocked about? You know, we always have an emotional block about this thing we're doing, you know, because we always have to make this. If you're really, you know, living your entrepreneur as a personal development journey, it's like you always hit that place of kind of fear, right? Because. And if you don't, if you're not hitting it, you're not really pushing yourself to Grow. And so if you, when you hit that place of fear.

Just, you know, get into that. Set yourself up in a kind of a meditative posture. Whether you have, you know, whether you're sitting at the chair or at the floor or lying down even, and just observe, you know, taking a few deep breaths, scan your whole body and notice where that first notice where that emotion is residing in your body. Because usually when we feel fear, we react mentally, emotionally, and we let the story about that fear inhibit us. Right?

We live in our minds. And so when we feel fear, when we feel held up by fear, we don't translate it into the pure physical sensation that fear actually is. In the moment when you feel fear, it's actually a group of sensations. Where do you feel fear, Brad? When you experience fear or whatever the emotional block is?

Oh, probably right in my solar plexus. I think I'm not feeling fearful right now, but I would think that would probably be right around where it is or maybe up in my throat area.

Right. So in that moment of fear, if you could just take a few deep breaths and focus on the exact location where fear lives and you just treat yourself like a little kid and just send that part of your body love, just like non stop. Send that part of your body love and stay with that for at least, you know, and just. It's also very helpful to give that sensation a number between 0 and 10. You rate it like, okay, right now this fear for me is like at an 8. When, when a fear sensation is at an 8, it's very probable that it can stop you from taking that action because it's just simply too great. But if you can be with that sensation and breathe into it and, and send it love until the sensation has subsided to at least a three or two, and if you got time, you can just work with it until it's actually completely gone. It will just like that pattern of fear, you have taken steps to really diminish that pattern of fear in a big way. And next time it really won't come up to that degree that it normally has. So sometimes we need to anchor a new belief in its place. If you have time to work with your inner belief, like what is that belief that is causing this fear to come up? What is that limiting belief? If you can do a little inner archaeological work and just excavate that deep seated inner belief that is causing that fear and.

Install in its place a new belief as you send that part of your body lots of love.

This is a great thing to do. I Mean it's changing. Belief is the most productive thing you can actually do because. Right, because it's like, how many years does it eat away from your life? How many, you know, patterns and you know, experiences, you know, do you have to go through in order to realize you have a limiting belief? But if you do this on a daily basis, you know, if you kind of like do a self inquiry, you know, what is the limiting belief that's holding me up today, specifically with this fear? And where does it live? In my body. And just spend like five minutes working with that and in its place, install a brand new belief that's gonna not only just flip the belief, but like ask. You know, as long as you're like taking the trouble to install a new belief, you might as well make it like as awesome as possible.

That's true.

Right, so like ask always, like, how much, you know, can I 10x this new belief? Can I get a really like, get behind the 10x version of this new belief and kind of like repeat it, you know? You know, if you're alone, you can just like repeat it until it really feels like it's a part of you. You know, this is such an amazing practice to do and I promise you it will really, it will shift your business, it will shift your whole, you know, you can do this with relationship stuff, but we're talking to entrepreneurs, so.

But you know, they have relationships.

Yeah, I mean, it's all one life at the end of the day. And you know, we're all entrepreneurs because we want that lifestyle too, you know? Right. So I believe, you know, this yoga work is also like that. It's, it's. We got one life and yoga should not be compartmentalized to the mat practice or in a yoga studio. We gotta take that wisdom, the spiritual wisdom passed down from these enlightened beings and step into it, you know, why not? It's like such a divine hack, such a divine hack that could change your life and it could save you years of frustrations and time wasted living in the limitations of your conditioned mind. So I think now is the time to live that visionary life.

I love that. Do you talk a lot about this and go into a lot more detail in your book?

I do, yes. First I talk about, well, that, you know, first it's about knowing yourself deeply and it's, it's how to, you know, just dig into yourself. Because this is one area we all kind of resist, perhaps especially the dark side. Right. It's like looking at ourselves, being able to look at ourselves in the. Not the most flattering way, but. But that's the place where we get the most transformation. So first knowing yourself and then healing yourself. And I have this kind of somatic release technique all outlined in there. And then it's manifesting your higher destiny. All the steps that, you know, that envisioning process and then reverse engineering from your vision backwards and taking concrete steps every single day and unblocking yourself to take those scary steps that get you out of your comfort zone, you know. So, yeah, it's all in there in the book.

I love that. I love that. So I encourage everybody to go out and pick up this book especially, I mean, if you're only balanced, if you're off balance completely and just thinking about business and just worried about how you're going to make the money and just worrying about how you're going to pay your employees and, you know, how you're going to succeed just financially or physically or etc. I think you're, you're really. I say you're. I mean, we, I think we're really missing the boat because ultimately that's not what matters. It is that inner peace. It is that. It is that. That sense of satisfaction with your life that we're all certainly seeking. I mean, ultimately, why do we become entrepreneurs? Why do we do anything? It's not to make money. It's not to, you know, it's not all the nice things. It's to experience, it's to experience fulfillment and experience.

Things we want to, we want to have a good life. Now it just so happens that a lot of entrepreneurs, we believe that, like, rightfully so, that we have the ability to make our own life the way we want it and to design it the way it is. But oftentimes we, we neglect the things that really, really matter, which is the root, which is like who we are and deep inside. And I love these tools that you're providing, Mariko, which is allowing us to kind of tap into that. And I also think it's really smart to go after like the high performers and the leaders etc, and not just going after the people who are already into yoga and already doing that. Because there's a lot of people who could probably benefit greatly, not just from doing yoga, like the physically stuff, but, you know, going through the mental yoga that you talk about so eloquently. Now you mentioned earlier that you have a. Did you have a gift for people or something to share with the audience?

Yes, I have several gifts. First of all, well, the book is just 99 cents at the moment. So that's, you know, practically and I really hope you get a lot out of it. And inside the book there is a. It actually leads to a mini membership site which has meditation downloads and kind of yoga and peak performance exercises you can do right at your desk. And that site is visionary yoga book.com visionaryyogabook.com and for those of you who are interested in that physical yoga, I also have an entire five day course that is completely free and I would love for you to take advantage of that resource. It's just a kajabi course that takes you through five days of practice from 12 minute long to I think it's about 35 minutes. It's very beginner friendly. It's about stretching your back, opening your shoulders, strengthening your core, doing deep twists. And it's all related to life themes and of course business themes. And that.

Site is visionary yogachallenge.com so yeah, it comes from my 30 day yoga challenge and people have paid 200 bucks to access that course. So this is a real course? Absolutely. Yeah. It's a, you know, I think it's so important to get in your body too because you have your cellular intelligence, has an intelligence all its own. And yoga is that technology that gets you in touch with that and listening to that intelligence so that you can make better decisions not just from your head, but from your heart and your gut. And usually those are the better decisions. Right. That deeper place. So that's visionary yogachallenge.com perfect.

Well, now I, earlier on I mentioned to everybody who's still listening that I was going to.

Divulge why I thought that your introduction email to me was so effective.

And I don't know if I actually doubt that a lot of people will actually follow up on this because it actually took a little bit of effort on your part. And I know for a fact I would be so blown away if I was the only one who received this. So I know because you met a lot of other podcast hosts there that you probably did a little extra work to not only, you know, connect with me, but some of the other people that you probably really wanted to. So yes, hands off to that. So I'm gonna read this to you loyal listeners and I'm gonna. And then I'll even read my reply. So Mariko wrote this was probably the day after the event, by the way. Hi, Brad. It was so awesome to meet you at this pioneering event. I really appreciated your practical, no nonsense advice. Truly helpful. I don't even remember what advice I gave her. I was so inspired by your example. And here is a review I left on your awesome podcast. And she did a screenshot of her leaving a five star review, like each one of you people should be doing. And she shared the title, she shared the stars, she shared what the review said. And then she said, hey, I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat anything wrapped in bacon. But I do devour your podcast. I just returned to New York City. I was inspired to shoot this video to express my gratitude and appreciation for the uplifting message you bring to the world. I click on the link and it is a, like a short, maybe one or two minute video specifically for me, just telling me thank you. Like, you know, kind of reiterating this. And I knew it was for me. It wasn't just for absolutely everybody. And it said, hey, if I'm not the right fit for your audience, I would greatly appreciate your referrals to a show or a host whom I may be the right fit for. Love that line, by the way, because it, it kind of takes the onus off me where it's like, ah, you're not really a fit. But, you know, you bring that up ahead of time and it really, it helps the host out and it actually disarms the host. Now it says, whether you choose to book me on your show or not, please don't hesitate to let me know if I can be of support. My one sheet is attached if you'd like to reach me. Here's the bacon wrapped entrepreneurial life. And I wrote her back and immediately said, you know, normally I don't think that your topic would be a fit for my audience. However, I'm going to make an exception for a couple reasons. This is one of the best pitches I've ever received. Flattery. Check. Reviewed my show. Check. Realize you might not be a good fit. And asked for a referral. Check. Timely and personal video. Even though it was sent to others, it felt authentic. Check. And your one sheet offers what topics you can speak about based on multiple areas. Business, health, spirituality, etc. Which means I don't have to do all the thinking about how could I fit this person in. So I said, yes, I'll book you for a show and I'll enjoy this. And we'll talk about how entrepreneurs can use some of your accumulated wisdom to remain calm when business gets extremely stressful. Good job, Mariko. A plus. So I wanted to share that with you guys because there is a way to reach out to people. And she took the Extra, extra effort. And it does pay off because quite frankly, had I just met you, Mariko, and you talked about this, it probably wouldn't have hooked me as much because it's just not top of mind for me. That doesn't mean I don't like, like the topic. It's just I get so many other things that are top of mind. But you did a fantastic job for this and I think you should whatever what you're doing right there, keep it up because it's probably working with others. So congratulations on that.

Thank you, Brad. And really thank you for the opportunity. It was a pleasure and I truly did appreciate. I think you were very generous at that event. So, yeah, I can't recall exactly that advice, but you are very generous and I know that your listeners really appreciate that too.

I hope so. Well, if you guys do appreciate it, subscribe to the show and do what she did, which is send me a review. Like review the show. Send me a screenshot. You can always email me@askbradakenrappedbusiness.com if there's anything I can do for you. If you need a second opinion on some of the strategies you're pursuing or you're stuck in a place you don't really know the way out. I am always looking for opportunities to help. I'm always looking for companies that I can either invest in or acquire. I am on the lookout for some companies that or for some business owners who might be open to moving on, letting go of their company or maybe even staying around and creating some new liquidity. I've got a lot of resources. I've got a lot of interest in knowledge in this area as evidenced by even some of the most recent episodes that I've shared with you guys. But if there's anything I can do for you, send that email to askbradbaconrappbusiness.com and go check out Mariko's gifts and her book. You can go to her website@visionary yoga.com and the other gifts will be in the show notes. So you can just click your thumb or your mouse on it and get those. And Mariko, thank you very much for taking time to be a part of the show.

My absolute pleasure. Have a great bacon wrap day.

You know it. And I'll see you guys on the next episode.