214. Your Breath Is Your Most Underused Tool With TEDx Speaker & Breathwork Coach Stacy Fritz

You breathe 20,000+ times a day without thinking about it once. This week, Stacy Fritz makes the case for why that needs to change. This week's sell: your breath is your most underused tool. Krista sits down with Stacy Fritz — TEDx speaker, longtime yoga teacher, and 11-time marathoner — who breaks down why most of us are breathing on autopilot when we could be using it to change our state in seconds. Stacy's story starts in an unlikely place: kindergarten rest time, where she remembers being told to "just lie there and breathe" and not understanding why. From there it shows up everywhere — in her marathon training, where learning to match breath to pace kept her from hitting the wall, and most personally, in 2018, when her younger brother Brad was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. Stacy used breathwork, Reiki, and massage to help him manage pain and anxiety through a two-and-a-half-year illness, and that experience became the spark for VidaBall, the breath-training device she spent over three years building and eventually launched in 2024. Stacy teaches what she calls "coffee, water, and wine" breathing — three simple patterns for three different moments: energizing, balancing, and calming. She walks Krista through each one live, including the 4-7-8 technique she recommends for sleep, and shares the backstage hack she taught a fellow TEDx speaker to calm her nerves seconds before walking onstage. The conversation closes on the bigger stakes: how watching someone's breath tells you more about their actual state than asking "how are you doing," and why Stacy believes most of our chronic stress responses come down to one simple, free, always-available fix. KEY QUOTE "If you want to know how somebody is actually doing, don't ask them how are you doing. Watch the breath." — Stacy Fritz IN THIS EPISODE 0:00 — The sell: your breath is your most underused tool 1:40 — The four parts of a single breath (not two) 3:10 — Is this a Western problem or a global one? 5:25 — Origin story #1: kindergarten rest time and Mrs. Fogle 7:45 — Origin story #2: marathon running and hitting the wall 12:25 — Coffee, water, and wine breathing — the framework explained 14:35 — Live demo: coffee breathing (energizing) 16:35 — Live demo: water breathing / box breathing (balance) 18:55 — Live demo: wine breathing, the 4-7-8 method (calming, sleep) 21:30 — Stacy's brother Brad and their "cosmic relationship" 23:05 — Using breathwork and Reiki through Brad's illness 26:15 — The bucket list: dolphins, the Ravens end zone, purple butterflies 27:40 — How Brad's passing led to inventing the VidaBall 29:45 — VidaBall demo: five breathing patterns, light, vibration, scent 33:10 — What's next: manufacturing struggles and future iterations 38:00 — The TEDx talk and the office breather PDF 40:05 — The backstage TEDx hack: breathe in, then start talking 43:50 — The real stakes of never learning to control your state 47:25 — Success story: how nervous system regulation shows up as weight loss, sleep, and inflammation 51:30 — Wrap-up and where to find everything CONNECT WITH STACY FRITZ → VidaBall on Amazon: search "VidaBall"  → Save 15% on VidaBall with code TEDXBREATHE → TEDx talk, "Your Breath Is the Heaviest Thing You Will Ever Hold" → Free download: "The 7 Archetype Office Breathers — Which One Are You?" → Website: www.stacyfritz.com → Instagram: @StacyFritzCommunity → LinkedIn: @StacykFritz --- Connect with us: Take the FREE Personal Brand Quiz: www.kristademcher.com/personal-brand-quiz Instagram: @SheSellsHeSellsPodcast YouTube: She Sells He Sells Podcast