Pat Croce: Finding Presence, Losing Ego

Send us Fan MailThe strangest trap is the one that looks like success. Pat Croce has lived a life most people only read about, from pro sports leadership to entrepreneurship to daring adventures, yet he hit a moment where the wins stopped working. When the next achievement still feels like it is not enough, what do you do with that wanting energy?I sit down with Pat to talk about his book, Enjoy Your Self Now!, and the real story behind it: a blunt rejection from a literary agent that forced a deeper question about transformation. From there we follow the trail of “grace camouflaged” through a Pico Iyer quote, TED Talks on stillness, early attempts at meditation, and a perfectly timed copy of The Art of Happiness. Along the way, we unpack a grounded approach to mindfulness and presence that does not require a monastery, a retreat, or a personality transplant.We also get practical about the voice in your head. Pat shares how to reverse engineer worry and frustration from body sensations back to fear-based thoughts, then use simple “sacred shifts” like a brief pause, a mantra, or a change in attention to stop identifying with the thought stream. Finally, we bring it to the next generation with four mantras Pat gave middle schoolers and a powerful singing bowl practice that teaches kids to find silence, feel love, and extend it outward.If you care about true happiness, self-talk, emotional regulation, education, and everyday spiritual practice, you will find both heart and usable tools here. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein reflects on the role of awe and wonder in learning and how it's incumbent on us--the educators--to teach in a way that evokes that sense of being moved with what we teach, why we want our students to learn it, and what we define as the markers of successful learner. Learning for mere information or test-taking ends up primarily being transactional--not transformational. That's also one of the issues with the use of AI--information without the learned and transformative impact of engaging with the learning process. It smooths out our thought process, homogenizing, and flattening out the creative wrinkles which are the most interesting thing. This is an episode you'll want to listen to and share with a friend. Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailMeditation Practice Changes How We Teach And ListenKnowing about mindfulness is easy. Practicing it, especially when life is loud, is when everything changes. In this episode, Amy Edelstein brings an inspiring and insightful  conversation about why real practice matters for educators, students, and anyone who wants more stability, clarity, and joy in daily life. She brings illustrations from her recent 8-day training intensive for new  Inner Strength Classroom instructors, why she began the training with a two-day meditation retreat before touching curriculum, classroom management, or pedagogy. As she describes, "When we immerse in stillness, we learn to observe mind, thought, and feeling without grasping, judging, or trying to force experience to be different. That direct experience can dissolve layers of stress and return us to presence. We also explore “just this moment” as the only time we ever live, and how that changes the way we relate to memory, worry, and the stories we carry into the school day."For all educators and really for everyone committed to living a balanced and fulfilling life, this is a great episode to start this school year with. Subscribe, share the episode with an educator friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailWhat if your teen's complaint of "I'm bored" is not something to fix? It's something to encourage?In this episode of The Conscious Classroom,  Amy Edelstein explores the  value of unstructured downtime for adolescents. Drawing on neuroscience — including Marcus Raichle's research on the brain's default mode network — Amy explains how boredom activates self-reflection, empathy, imagination, and creative problem-solving, all essential for teen identity development.Amy shares personal reflections on rest, unpacks why over-scheduling and screen time crowd out this vital internal reflection, and offers practical contemplative practices parents can invite teens to try, from sensory awareness exercises to "sauntering" inspired by Thoreau. Tune in for a compelling case to protect unstructured time this summer — and give your teen the space to simply be.Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailSummer is supposed to feel like space, yet so many families enter the break with the same tight grip they used all school year. I’m Amy Edelstein, and I’m inviting you to consider a different kind of summer for teenagers: less optimization, more presence. When life is overscheduled and overstimulated, the mind loses the room it needs to roam, integrate, and create. When there’s slack in the day, something surprising happens problems quietly solve themselves, imagination returns, and young people get to hear their own inner life again.Join Amy Edelstein as she unpacks why unstructured time matters for teen development and mental health, and how our adult pace becomes a powerful lesson about what “being grown up” looks like. Instead of chasing the next big activity,  explore small, concrete alternatives: unplanned walks, noticing overlooked corners of your neighborhood, sitting by water, and simply spending time together without an agenda. Let yourself unwind, and learn to model that for the youth in your life.Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailIn this session of The Conscious Classroom, Amy Edelstein brings to life the connection between meditation and creativity and how this can be employed in the classroom. She articulates how blending mindfulness with creative writing helps young people find their voice, regulate their inner world, and build real confidence through imperfect drafts. Sharing a simple structure educators can use to create community, deepen attention, and protect imagination in a time of constant stimulation and fast AI tools, you'll finish listening ready to start your own Meditation & Creative Writing Retreat!  Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailIn a rare podcast, our host Amy Edelstein shares a personal experience of meditating at the site of the Buddha's awakening in Bodh Gaya back in 1985. In her inimitable narrative style, you'll feel the chill of a predawn rickshaw ride, the rustle of Bodhi leaves, and the mind challenge of conquering challenging mental states. Through Amy's experience, you'll settle into the posture of true meditation, open, curious, and willing to discover. If you’ve ever tried to “win” at practice, chased a perfect sit, or judged yourself by your mental mood, this personal account offers a reset rooted in classical texts, and supported  by lived experience. Listen, reflect, and then try it: loosen your grip and let the moment show you what the nature of consciousness is. Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailWhy awe belongs not the makers, not the machines...Awe belongs to the makers who dare, persist, and stand by their work. In this episode, Amy Edelstein opens with a striking contrast: Olympic snowboarders whose courage makes us hold our breath, and synchronized robots whose elegance points back to the human minds that designed every leap. From that lens, she digs into a question shaping classrooms and homes everywhere: how do we welcome synthetic intelligence as a powerful collaborator without losing the accountability, empathy, and taste that make learning transformative?She highlights the quiet--and stultifying--drift toward bland, ownerless content and why it leaves us numb. Then she suggests  a better path: the choreography of co-creation. You’ll hear how teens can volley ideas with AI, test the edges, and return with sharper insight—while still being responsible for the outcome. Drawing on mindfulness and the principle of right speech, she shares practical ways to center intention, timing, and impact in everything your teen writes, says, or publishes. Instead of chasing polished shortcuts, she champion the process that forges inner strength.Throughout, Amy returns to what truly moves us: human tenacity, honest feedback, and the joy that comes from work we can proudly own--and from the responsibility to own it!This is a call to educators, parents, and creators to raise standards, not lower them; to use tools boldly and love the craft more; to keep empathy alive while technology accelerates the pace. If this conversation sparks something for you, tap follow, share it with a friend who cares about the future of education, and leave a quick review so others can find the show. Your voice helps keep the human in the loop.Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailA simple request for the time turned into a lesson on hidden defaults and the values they carry. When Alexa, perhaps the most popular voice assistant offered eight new voices, Amy Edelstein follows the breadcrumb trail from “small” UX choices to big cultural scripts that land in our homes and classrooms. Along the way, she unpack how labels like “professional” for a male voice and “soothing” for female voices quietly reset expectations for students who are still forming their sense of agency and identity.She looks at the idea of “meme carriers”: everyday cues, tones, and rituals that spread norms, for better or worse. From monks walking for peace to smart devices whispering who belongs in the boardroom, she looks at how these signals shape what young people believe is possible. Sharing strategies to teach meta-awareness, Amy offers methods on how to guide teens to notice who writes the menu of choices, what got left off, and how to envision the values that lift us up. She leads a guided meditation that helps listeners touch clarity, compassion, and strength .Looking ahead, she offers a sketch for values-aware AI in education: tools that enable cross-cultural exchange with nuance, establish firm safety boundaries, and make empowerment the default. If you’re an educator, parent, or builder who cares about how design choices ripple through student lives, this conversation offers both reflection and action.Please like, subscribe, review, share with a friend. Your insights fuel future episodes!Support the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.

Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Amy Edelstein unpacks why mindfulness goes beyond technique and how wonder is a key ingredient that develops authentic leadership in young people and adults. Mindfulness as only an add-on falls short of what it can be and how awe, gratitude, and presence foster the qualities of autonomy and leadership that are becoming more and more important. She encourages reflection on the wonder of human capacities, at a time when there is much attention on the capabilities of synthetic intelligence. In this session, Amy will• contrast typical executive coaching models with the Inner Strength model of cultivating inner strength for outer stability • reframes mindful awareness as reverence for our capabilities, not only as a productivity tool• explores gratitude for how evolution has unfolded, leading to the beauty and diversity of life on earth, and see that as a foundation for empathy and courage• shows how intuitive leadership does not need to be sloppy, it can be  informed, integrated and multi-faceted discernment• invites educators to point students to wonder and to see mindfulness in terms of what it can reveal rather than as a tool to address only deficitsSupport the showIf you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Your review supports our podcast to reach more educators and share the importance of creating more conscious classrooms. We are committed to sharing insights that transform outlooks and inspire with what's possible. Subscribe so you don't miss a single episode!Download our new Understanding Teen Stress guide for all adults who care about the teens in their life.  Visit Inner Strength Education for more on the great work of the Conscious Classroom. Bringing mindfulness, compassion, and systems thinking to empower young minds. Get your copy of the award-winning, #1 bestseller The Conscious Classroom: The Inner Strength System for Transforming the Teenage Mind.