Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Angela McBride. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Angela , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

The biggest risk I ever took was blowing up my life in my forties. Not because everything was falling apart. Ironically, from the outside, everything looked successful. I had spent years climbing the mountain I thought I was supposed to climb. Every degree, every accomplishment, every milestone told me I was headed in the right direction. But when I finally stopped to look around, I realized I was standing on a mountain someone else had defined as success. If you had asked me who I was, I probably would have answered with my résumé. The real risk wasn’t leaving a job or starting a business. It was letting go of the version of me who believed my worth was tied to a business card, a title, and how much I could accomplish.

Life has a beautiful way of unraveling us, not to break us, but to return us to ourselves. Mine did. Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking, “What’s next?” and started asking, “What makes my soul come alive?” That question changed everything. I started saying yes to things that made absolutely no sense to the version of me who only understood achievement and productivity. I found myself on mountain trails instead of chasing the next accomplishment. Practicing yoga beneath open skies. Listening to the vibrations of crystal singing bowls. Learning Reiki. Finding peace beside horses. Spending more time in nature than in meetings. Most importantly, I started doing the inner work, the kind that asks you to sit with yourself long enough to remember who you were before the world told you who you needed to be. Healing me changed everything. But sharing that healing with the world was even scarier. It’s one thing to quietly transform your own life. It’s another to stand in front of a room as a business professor and speak openly about healing, nervous system regulation, mindfulness, and the importance of slowing down in a world that celebrates constant hustle. I knew some people wouldn’t understand. Some would question it. Some would think I had lost my way. The truth is, I had finally found it. That journey became the heartbeat of Mindful Motion. My lifelong best friend, Brandon, and I didn’t create it because we thought the world needed another wellness company. We created it because we knew what it felt like to crave a place where you could simply exhale. A place where people didn’t have to perform, fix themselves, or pretend they had it all together.

Looking back, I don’t think I blew up my life at all. I peeled away the expectations, fears, and identities that no longer belonged to me. In their place, I found something far more meaningful than success. I found alignment. Today, I still teach. I still love education. I still believe in leadership. But I also believe the greatest leadership begins with having the courage to lead yourself home. That has been the greatest risk of my life. Choosing authenticity over approval. And if I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Angela McBride, and if there is one thing that has defined my life and career, it’s helping people find a way forward when life gets hard. Professionally, I wear several hats. I am a college professor, business educator, entrepreneur, advocate, and wellness facilitator. I teach courses in business, leadership, human resources, marketing, social media, business management, and personal finance. I also teach within a corrections education program, working with incarcerated students who are pursuing education as a pathway to change their lives and create a different future for themselves. Education has always been deeply personal to me because I know firsthand how transformative it can be. I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Business Leadership and later completed my MBA in Strategic Leadership. As a first-generation college student, higher education wasn’t just about earning a degree; it was about creating opportunities that didn’t previously exist for myself and my family. That experience continues to shape how I teach today.

My approach in the classroom differs from that of many traditional educators. While I teach business concepts and leadership principles, I also teach resilience, critical thinking, communication, and self-belief. Many of my students are balancing jobs, families, financial challenges, or personal struggles. Some are rebuilding their lives after incarceration. My goal is not simply to help students pass a class. My goal is to help them recognize their own potential and realize they are capable of far more than they think.

Outside of higher education, I am the co-founder of Mindful Motion, a wellness company focused on helping people slow down, reconnect with themselves, and regulate their nervous systems in a world that constantly demands more from them. Through yoga, sound healing, retreats, nature-based experiences, and community events, we create accessible spaces for healing and self-discovery. The truth is that I didn’t get into wellness because life was easy.
I found yoga, sound healing, Reiki, horses, and other healing modalities during some of the most challenging seasons of my life. Like many people, I spent years living in survival mode, constantly pushing forward, carrying responsibilities, and believing that strength meant holding everything together. My own healing journey taught me that true strength often comes from slowing down, becoming present, and doing the inner work we spend so much of our lives avoiding. That personal experience is what drives everything we do at Mindful Motion. We aren’t trying to create perfect wellness experiences for perfect people. We create spaces for real people who are overwhelmed, exhausted, stressed, grieving, healing, growing, or simply trying to find their way back to themselves.

In addition to teaching and wellness work, I am passionate about advocacy. Over the years, personal experiences led me into public speaking, community education, and advocacy efforts focused on issues affecting children, families, and online safety. I’ve had the opportunity to speak alongside members of Michigan’s Internet Crimes Task Force, helping educate parents and communities about online risks facing today’s youth.

When people ask what sets me apart, I think it’s that I don’t teach, lead, or serve solely on theory. Everything I do is rooted in lived experience. I’ve sat with people who felt like giving up. I’ve watched students discover confidence they never knew they had. I’ve seen healing happen in yoga studios, classrooms, correctional facilities, barns, retreat spaces, and everyday conversations. I’ve learned that transformation rarely happens because someone gives us the perfect answer. It happens because someone creates a space where we feel seen, supported, and capable of taking the next step.

What I am most proud of isn’t a degree, a title, or a business accomplishment. I’m most proud of the lives I’ve been able to impact. The student who became the first in their family to graduate. The person who walked into a yoga class carrying the weight of the world and left feeling a little lighter. The individual who believed their story was over, only to discover it was only beginning. If there’s one thing I want people to know about me, my work, and my brand, it’s this: Everything I do is built around helping people reconnect with their own strength. Whether I’m standing in front of a college classroom, leading a sound bath, facilitating a retreat, speaking at an event, or advocating for change, the mission remains the same: helping people believe that healing, growth, and transformation are possible even when life has convinced them otherwise.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Brandon and I didn’t meet through business. We didn’t meet at a networking event, through a mutual investor, or while building a startup. We met when we were kids. We’ve known each other since we were about 12, which means we’ve been friends for over 30 years. Today we’re both in our forties, and when I look back, it’s hard to imagine my life story without him. One of the things that makes our partnership unique is that it wasn’t built on a business idea. It was built on decades of friendship, trust, and shared life experiences. We’ve seen each other through almost every chapter imaginable. We’ve seen each other at our best and our worst. We’ve celebrated victories together. We’ve navigated heartbreak, loss, challenges, and the kind of life experiences that shape who you become as a person.
There is something incredibly rare about having someone in your life who has witnessed your evolution over three decades. Someone who knew you before the career, before the titles, before the accomplishments, and before the healing. We grew up, built lives, experienced setbacks, learned hard lessons, and somehow remained connected through it all. What I think makes our partnership work is that there has never been a need to pretend. We’ve seen the messy parts. We’ve seen the struggles. We’ve seen the moments when life wasn’t going according to plan. We’ve also seen the resilience, growth, and determination that have helped us keep moving forward. By the time we eventually decided to build something together, the trust was already there. Neither of us had to wonder who the other person was when things got difficult because we’d already lived through difficult seasons together.

Mindful Motion wasn’t born from a business strategy meeting. It was born from conversations between two people who understood struggle, healing, personal growth, and the importance of creating spaces where people feel supported. Over the years, we both found our own paths toward healing and self-discovery. We experienced firsthand how transformative it can be when someone is given the space to slow down, reconnect, and simply breathe. Eventually, those conversations turned into a shared vision. What if we could create those experiences for other people? What if we could build a community centered around connection, healing, growth, and authenticity? That’s how Mindful Motion began. Looking back, I don’t think either of us could have imagined at twelve years old that we’d one day be business partners. But I think the reason our partnership works so well is that it was never built on business alone. It was built on thirty years of friendship. On trust earned over time. On showing up for one another through every season of life. And perhaps most importantly, on knowing each other’s stories well enough to understand not just who we are today, but everything it took to get here. In a world where business relationships often come and go, I don’t take that for granted. Very few people get the opportunity to build a company with someone who has been part of their life for over three decades. I’m grateful that I do.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about resilience is that meaningful things are rarely built under perfect circumstances. People often assume businesses are started when life is calm, resources are plentiful, and everything is neatly planned out. That certainly wasn’t our experience. When Brandon and I started building Mindful Motion, neither of us had unlimited time, energy, or a perfect roadmap. We were two people with careers, responsibilities, families, and full lives trying to create something we genuinely believed could make a difference. What many people don’t see behind a business is the countless hours that happen before anyone knows it exists. The conversations. The planning. The second-guessing. The long days followed by even longer nights. The moments when you’re investing time, money, and energy into something without any guarantee that it will succeed. There were plenty of reasons not to do it. Both of us already had demanding schedules. There were easier ways to spend our free time. There were safer choices. But every time we talked about what we wanted Mindful Motion to become, we kept coming back to the same belief: people are craving genuine connection. Not another app. Not another distraction. Not another obligation.
Connection. Community. A place where they could simply show up as they are. So we kept going. We started small. We learned as we went. Some events exceeded our expectations. Some taught us valuable lessons. Some required us to adapt, pivot, and try again. That’s the reality of entrepreneurship that people don’t always talk about. Success is rarely one giant breakthrough. It’s hundreds of small decisions that keep you showing up. It’s solving problems you didn’t anticipate. It’s learning in real time. It’s continuing to believe in the vision before there’s evidence that anyone else will.
One of my favorite moments happened when we started seeing people return. Not because of marketing. Not because of promotions. Because the experience genuinely meant something to them. People began bringing friends. Family members. Coworkers. They shared stories about feeling more connected, more grounded, and more supported. That’s when I realized we weren’t simply hosting events. We were building community. To me, resilience isn’t just surviving difficult circumstances. It’s having the patience to build something meaningful one step at a time, especially when progress feels slow. Mindful Motion wasn’t created overnight. It was built through consistency, trust, partnership, and a shared commitment to keep moving forward. Looking back, I’m proud that we didn’t wait for the perfect moment.
We started where we were, with what we had, and trusted the process. Sometimes resilience looks less like a dramatic comeback story and more like showing up, again and again, for something you believe in. That’s exactly what Mindful Motion has been for us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mindfulmotionlifestyle.com/
• Instagram: @mysocalledcrazymomlife and @mindfulmotionlifestyle
• Facebook: @mindfulmotion
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professormcbride
• Other: https://linktr.ee/mindfulmotionlifestyle

Image Credits

@thesimplicitystudios