15 Oct October 15, 2019 – NFL All-Pro Keith Mitchell, Self-IRA Terry White and Car Seat Safety Sarah Tilton
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Keith Mitchell – NFL All-Pro, Celebrity Yogi, Motivational Speaker, Founder of the Light It Up Foundation – Read interview highlights here
I’m adamant about how I can be the best representation of myself and do it authentically. So that’s what I share.
Keith Mitchell is a former All-Pro NFL football player turned internationally renowned Celebrity Yogi. As a Motivational Mindfulness Coach, Holistic Health & Fitness Advocate, Community Activist and Humanitarian, he is committed to providing purposeful holistic tools that help others achieve optimal health, peace and vitality to the fullest degree. A life-changing football injury left Keith partially paralyzed, he utilized Yoga and Meditation to fully recover, and he now shares his inspirational transformation with others as a highly sought after spiritual lifestyle, wellness coach, and motivational speaker. Although Keith’s football accident forced him into an early retirement, it led him to his true life’s calling — inspiring others to move beyond survivor and victim consciousness to full empowerment. Keith is a leader and exemplary teacher for people dealing with emotional and physical suffering. As the founder of the The Light it Up Foundation, Keith considers altruism and service as his life’s purpose. Keith has been featured in: NFL Films, People Magazine, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, Essence, Origin, Yoga Journal, The Huffington Post, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen (Bravo) and in many more national media outlets. As a speaker and teacher, he has presented at myriad venues including Wanderlust, Omega Institute, The White House, Capitol Hill with US Representatives, Just Breathe campaign for Veterans, LA Coliseum, Four Seasons Hotel, 1440 Multiversity , Los Angeles Police Department, he has worked with leading health and fitness brands including Lululemon and Sun Warrior.
Terry White – President of Sunwest Trust, Inc.
The only security you have is what you create for yourself and so I’m all about running your own business and taking care of yourself as best you can.
Terry White is the President & CEO of Sunwest Trust. He has more than 35 years of experience working in the real estate and investment world. After gaining experience as a controller for a title firm, he started First Financial Escrow, Inc. in 1987, which he ran while simultaneously serving in several financial startups. Ultimately, First Financial Escrow, Inc. transformed into Sunwest Trust, Inc., a company that itself grows and changes with the needs of the market. Sunwest Trust currently helps clients better handle their escrow and self-managed IRA-related needs. Terry’s company aims to provide exceptional service by seeking out clients’ needs and implementing solutions to the problems they really have. His customer-centric focus and sharp mind is sure to bring him success for decades to come.
Sarah Tilton – Director and Consumer Advocacy at Britax Child Safety
It’s amazing that three out of four car seats are typically used incorrectly!
Sarah Tilton is an active CPS Technician (2002) and Instructor (2004), and is the spokesperson for Britax within the advocacy community. She participates in child passenger safety activities at the local, state and national level. Sarah serves on the new product development, technical writing, and marketing teams at Britax. In addition, she managed and developed the training curriculum for the Britax Consumer Services department and organized and implemented a permanent checking station at Britax during her 16 years with the company. Sarah is currently active with the Safe Kids South Carolina, Safe Kids York County (SC), Safe Kids North Carolina, and Charlotte Mecklenburg (NC) coalitions. She has also held leadership positions as a member of the National Child Passenger Safety Board representing the At Large population and the Manufacturers Alliance for Child Passenger Safety. Sarah is an internationally recognized child passenger safety advocate and is deeply embedded in the study and advancement of child passenger safety. She is highly involved in public outreach programs, practical automobile safety training & research and child passenger technician training.
Highlights from Keith’s Interview
It’s a beautiful life. And it’s something as a child I manifested, not knowing the word manifestation. But I’ve manifested; I dreamed it, and I accomplished it. It set me up for the path of realizing what’s possible, which is a perfect segue to how I got into what I do now.
I do believe that we manifest our future life. We call that the inquiry, the contemplation. Granted, I didn’t know these terms at those times, but one of my teachers proposed the question to me a while back, when I was probably about 11 or so. They said, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” And it dawned on me that I need to prepare for something, I have to put something out that I’m into, and what I gravitated to was sports.
I was both a scholar and athlete in college. I think I’m more scholarly now. In my life, back then my focus was playing sports. And that’s a whole ‘nother conversation. But leading up to that, my goal as a child, when he suggested, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” the goal I set out was, I wanted every school to recruit me to play sports for them. That was the initial goal, and nothing else, just to get into the door of being educated wherever I chose to be educated. And that was something that was just so far out as a child, thinking something like that, and setting my pace, and setting my life to create something like that.
The thing about it is, when you decide to set a goal so hard like that, in my opinion, it’s hard to have a plan B. This is why mindfulness is such an incredible concept, because it encompasses all of it. I’m invested in the human capacity, right? The human potential that has the capacity to be an athlete or whatever you choose to segue into. But right here, I solely pick the character. And that’s where we get twisted, because the character can only go so long. In some cases, such as a football player or an actor or something like that, you have the character of a doctor or a lawyer, I can go on forever. But the characters such as the doctor, the football player, or the actor, I have the timetable.
The injury was my first year in Jacksonville. We played our first home opener, and we were playing the Buffalo Bills, and making a tackle a half million times. And on this particular play I make this collision and I am on my back and I can’t move. I had never been in a predicament in my life after collision since I was in high school, middle school. And this was a very awkward moment for me, because I had never been vulnerable. In yoga, we call it service. I’m flat on my back and I can’t move, and I remember the first thought I had when I experienced that for the first time. I was like, “This is embarrassing. Get me out of here.” Not really thinking about my health and what was happening in my body.
I was diagnosed with a spinal contusion, because I didn’t move while I was on the field, and I didn’t move for a while. The right part of my body was paralyzed, the nerve damage was… I still don’t know to this day exactly what was happening. You have the player, the linebacker from the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan Shazier’s here who had the contusion from his lumbar, which is lower back down to his legs. I had it from my cervical spine, which is my neck, down to my legs. So I was in a really critical state. And at that time, they had an very more limited understanding of the spinal contusion and what was actually happening in the situation.
I’m basically looking at the doctor asking them for answers. We’ve been told the doctors have the answers, and the doctor is looking at me like, “I don’t know what’s going on with you.” And that’s a whole ‘nother dynamic when, as they say, the rubber hits the road, because you either have a choice to be the victim, or you can find some way that you can be the victor with your mindset. That’s where I learned mindfulness. That’s where I learned conscious breathing. Because while I was in the hospital, someone, the nurse in particular, she talked to me about conscious breathing, and she told me what happens when you breathe. For me, that allowed me to be a contributor to my circumstance. And that’s how I was gauged. That’s how I was made at that time. Give me the playbook and let me execute.
I didn’t know mindfulness at the time. But to be an athlete, you have to be very disciplined, and it’s a mindset. I had that already; I have been developing that for years. So when you put a conception to how you can contribute… For instance, most people breathe, but they can’t conceptualize what was happening in the bodies to breathe. Therefore, if you don’t know what’s happening in your body to breathe, then you can only use it to a certain level as a tool. But when you understand that, when you could conceptualize it and really understand what you’re doing, now it becomes just like football—just an analogy—you stumble into a running back, when he’s trying to run away from defenders, it’s a shake, move in a spin move on the football field; the actual tool that when time is presented, I can access it, I can tap into it to use it. So for me in the hospital, that was my mindset, that I was going to be the victor. It’s not about whether I’m going to be able to walk again, it’s what I’m going to be able to play again.
Mindfulness is an overall conception, like a meditation, a yoga, but it has a call to action. It’s an implementation of using your will, using this understanding of self to maneuver in the world in which you live.
Is it something that’s you’re born with? It’s that light, it’s that shine inside of you that is the curiosity, is the wonder. That’s what allows us to grow to our potential, to be curious, to question. And what you’ll find is, we’ve lost that. And I think a lot of times, we lose that at an early age, because we get conditioned by our environment, the people that we’re born to, the circumstances we attached to, and it’s like a happening is going on. But the happening doesn’t have to define us. When a person in the hospital is getting diagnosed with cancer, or cancer is what they’re suggested to have. But you in your mind can be well with the challenge of dealing with a sickness like cancer. If you claim it, then 75 trillion cells in your body will conform to it. This is what mindfulness allows us to do; there is a happening, but I’m not defined by this happening. I can make a choice, whether or not I want to accept this or move in a whole ‘nother direction. And that’s possibility.
So for me, I go around sharing tools, how you can access this, how you can contemplate your life and study things like sports. We do a lot of film study, but have you ever studied you? In a lot of cases we have these things we call pet peeves, things that consistently and constantly disturb us. And we discuss why we shouldn’t have to do that. We shouldn’t allow—if you really want to be in your power and become your powerful being—you can’t allow people’s words to move you, because if that’s the case, then you’re not that powerful. So we have to begin to understand how we can maneuver in the way that’s the highest vibration, the greatest representation of ourselves, and in our day-to-day to have that peace, and to have that love that we truly want. We have to create it. And knowing that we’re in the environment, we have a lot of sickness, so we have to learn even more. To lean how to maneuver in spite of all the distractions, and how we can again make choices, and decide what we want and create what we want.
How can I use this entity, this body, this thought to go into my highest level? We talked about it. We talked about the principles of how you stand, how to you stand in your truth, allow your voice to be free to speak, to articulate yourself, because we use these terms freely that’ve been propagandized to us, like stress and anxiety, but when you break those words down, there’s more to it. There’s something that’s specifically your anxiety, from a medical standpoint; it’s just not enough oxygen to the brain. When you understand that, breathe, slow down, you understand stress. Stress is your interpreter of the situation. We’ll then reevaluate your interpretation, step back from it, and maybe you find other alternative routes to deal with those matters. It’s not something that you’re taking on as a collective, as this word has been told and given to us. And not just those two words are our whole life experience, whether it be love, whether it be peace and things like this. We haven’t taken the initiative to break down the terminology and the words we use and how we use them, and their effectiveness. Because the reality is, you are the protein. You know, a lot of times I taught nutrition a lot as well. I was trained under Dr. Sebi, and the realization that the protein is you and the body will adapt to what you want to do, it will conform to what you want to do. We’re working out what the body will conform and create, in US minerals to adapt, to hold you down. And this working out to hold you down and speaking your truth, or leaving a meeting for your company or whatever it may be.
We’ve had opportunities to work with a lot of different corporations from Bank of America, Wells, Fargo, Deloitte, companies like that. And it’s all around understanding of how you work, how you connect, and engage with your environment. It’s an all around relationships, building an understanding of that.
Light It Up Foundation is this an organization that I like to implement in places that wouldn’t know about my work, and in some cases, a lot of places that may not be able to afford some of the work that we do in the corporate world and things like that. It’s my way of extending it to all sectors, to say, “Hey, this is an amazing tool that’s helped me, that’s allowed me to grow and expand my understanding.” We cover nutrition, we cover physical movement, we cover the meditation practices, and all these types of things that we can learn to better understand this vehicle that we’re in, and how we can use it to create what we want in our lives. Granted, I keep saying creating, because we don’t realize in a lot of cases—I go around the world—we don’t realize that we’re creating the experience. We’ve been taught that there’s something outside of us that’s supposed to be laying down this ground and lay of the land for us. But no, it’s you, it’s you and what you’re choosing to do, and putting that as a priority going forward in your life.
The Mindfulness Playbook is covering that. The first two chapters is defining your words. It’s a glossary of putting the word. Every team in the NFL has their own playbook for when in the practices for when the rubber hits the road, when the game is on the line. You saw the Saints play the Texans last night; we don’t practice for when it’s all good, because we can all be sent out when it’s all good, before that tension gets very tight. Now I have a practice to pull from, so it’s one of those things of execution, and how can I execute when the rubber hits the road? I’m on code with myself and with the people around me, so when when it’s go time, it’s game time. I can take it to the next level.
Super Bowl. New England is, I hate to say it, they look like they’re going to be really tough, and they just added Antonio Brown. So I hate to say it, but New England looks like they’re dominating the board.
I guess our looks contribute to the life that we live. I’m adamant about how can I be the best representation of myself and do it authentically. So that’s what I share. I share some of the great teachers like Dr. Sebi who I learned nutrition from. I never thought I would be a vegan, and I’m from Texas, I would eat meat three, four times a day. But then I learned and met with Dr. Sebi, I’ve visited his place 10 times in Honduras, to learn from him. And just different things of how to rebuild myself after you do the damage like I did in sports. There’s a repercussion for that unless you go into that to understand how to heal. You can’t expect it to be what it used to be after you’ve broken it down so much. But I’m here to share with you that you can rebuild, you can restore in all aspects of our lives. It’s an amazing opportunity, and I’m so grateful I get the opportunity to share it with you and your audience.
My Instagram, my Facebook is KeithMitchell59.com, we just actually loaded some meditation. So you get to see mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation is a little bit different than basic meditation. Mindfulness, like we said earlier, is a call to action. So it’s an implementation of this into my life and how I can integrate it. I give different interesting tips about how and what I was dealing with through sports. Maybe that could help as well and make it more practical too. So I look forward to seeing that and reviewing that.