Carrie Muehl
Carrie Muehl, a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT), is a Life Coach and Wellness Educator who empowers individuals to embrace change, wellness, and purpose. With a focus on self-care, mindfulness, and personal growth, she helps clients cultivate joy, passion, and authenticity in their lives. Through her coaching and educational workshops, Carrie guides individuals and organizations to prioritize wellness and mindfulness, transforming their approach to life and work. Her work centers on living in alignment with purpose, encouraging clients to embrace new directions with courage and heart.
If your business could have a mascot, what would it be and why?
A hawk. I’m a nature lover, and I love seeing this strong bird both in my city and on my hikes and adventures out in the wild. Hawks symbolize focus — choosing my priorities, eliminating distractions, and dedicating my time and energy to what’s most important to me during this season of life.
I have a conscious gratitude practice in which I focus on and name what is going well in my personal life and business. This not only helps me feel more positive and happy, it also seems to bring more of the good stuff to me…prosperity, the right people to serve, and the right opportunities.
The hawk also reminds me to keep a bird’s-eye perspective – to get up above the situation facing me and see it from a higher perspective. Will this matter in five years? Ten years? Focus on what is really important.
What strategies do you employ to maintain a healthy work-life balance while running your own business?
Balance is an area I dedicate a lot of attention to because for many years I was terrible at it, and it affected my relationships and me on every level – body, mind, and spirit. Now I give talks and workshops on the topic of self-care and my personal story, along with practical steps we can all take to improve at self-care, mindfulness, and work-life balance.
I’ve learned that I am much more effective in every role in my life when I prioritize my top needs. After I get conscious of what I really need, it’s easier to determine the non-negotiables in my daily routine, and to find balance.
I start every day with an early morning walk at an urban park with lakes near my home. Not only is it healthy for my body to get exercise, it’s healthy for my mind and spirit too. I use this time for my gratitude practice and to connect to my Higher Power. This grounds me and gets me clear for the day ahead. I also schedule an afternoon break into each day, with a power nap or short Headspace meditation. That resets and refreshes me for the rest of the day. I’ve found that prioritizing rest is essential for me to optimally function.
When faced with unexpected detours on your business path, how do you pivot with grace and resilience, showing fellow women entrepreneurs the way forward?
Again, experience has been my best teacher. For a lot of my life, I tried to control everything, and I found that the writer Elizabeth Gilbert was right when she said, “You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control – all you had was anxiety.”
I’ve made a lot of changes in my life over the past few years to support myself in living with more trust, faith, and heart. I don’t seek to control life now, whether in my personal life or business – it’s simply a waste of time and effort and just creates stress. The results have been very positive. When I get out of my own way, the universe has space to work its magic and has consistently brought amazing gifts into my life and business that are FAR beyond what I could have cooked up in my mind alone. These gifts have come in the form of finding the soul-aligned love of my life, world travels, and successful business moves.
I also work to cultivate a growth mindset. This doesn’t come naturally, so I’ve had to learn it
and replace old beliefs that weren’t serving me. A growth mindset reframes setbacks as redirections – detours to something even better. There are no failures, only learning experiences.
Grace means getting clear on my priorities, focusing on staying in my lane, and allowing my Higher Power to solve what I can’t. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with surrendering to what is beyond my control and reframing my perspective.
How do you measure the success of your business beyond financial metrics, such as customer satisfaction or community engagement?
The measures of my success are pretty simple and come down to: How do I feel? Am I enjoying this and excited about this? Am I growing and expanding myself as a human?
My past career in the corporate world was all about financial metrics, getting promotions and raises, acquiring the outward signs of “success,” people pleasing, and accomplishing. It felt stressful and like I was running uphill to rack up accomplishments and make everyone else happy except me.
My current path is about following what excites me, lights me up, and feels joyful. Howard Thurman said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I’ve seen the results. When I’m in my genius zone, I’m in the flow. When I’m using my gifts and living my purpose, opportunities align. The people who need my services come to me. The money, the client satisfaction, and the impact on the world are all flowing naturally as a result of me living with more ease, more authenticity, and more happiness.
Can you share a memorable moment where you witnessed significant growth or transformation in your business, illustrating the impact of your services/products?
Part of getting out of my own way and following trust and faith with my business is that I follow my intuition and gut. I recently had a gut feeling that I needed to reach out to a business acquaintance that I didn’t really know and had only met online through a business networking site. It’s led to a wonderful series of real conversations, in which we’ve both discovered how aligned our businesses are and that there is a big opportunity for us to team up to expand our reach.
I also use an intuitive approach with clients. A few years ago, I was in a first session with a client who was very unhappy and feeling stuck with her career. I sensed at a gut level that I needed to speak a simple but direct observation. It was only our first session and the logical, thinking part of me said, “Oh, it’s much too soon to say that.” But I followed my intuition and said it. Many months later she shared with me that hearing that specific statement was hugely impactful, helped her get unstuck, and was the catalyst to taking her power back not only in her job, but her entire life.
What role do you believe mentorship plays in the success of small businesses, and how have mentors influenced your own entrepreneurial journey?
I’m a lifelong learner so I see mentorship as essential to growth and expansion. We can’t do it alone, we are here to support each other. My mentors have come in the form of authors, inspirers, and a few key people I look to as my teachers, supporters, and guides. I feel extremely grateful for them because they help me maintain my focus and grow as a human.
What’s your work all about, and how does it make a difference in the world?
I am a Life Coach and Wellness Educator.
As a coach, I walk with clients through proactive growth areas in their lives – overcoming fear, embracing change and risk, mindset, health and wellness, and career transitions and progressions. My clients go on to live their lives with greater joy, passion, purpose, and aliveness. They become world changers, living more authentically and aligned with their purpose for being on Earth. It comes down to this: Never underestimate the power you have to take your life in a new direction.
As a wellness educator, I go into corporations and other organizations and talk to people about self-care and mindfulness. Mandy Hale said, “It’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. It’s necessary.” Most of us really need to hear that. I teach people that understanding their needs and taking good care of themselves is actually the best thing they can do not only for themselves, but also for the people they love AND the world. It comes down to simple self-care actions and mindfulness techniques that we can easily incorporate into our lives.
Get in touch:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carriemuehl