Ballroom State of Mind

139. Teacher Transitions- The Year of the Snake

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we're talking about a very real—and often emotional—part of every dancer’s journey: transitioning to a new teacher.Whether ...

138. Three Pockets of Growth

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Amber introduces a powerful new concept that came straight out of a recent coaching session: The Three Pockets of Growth. Whether you...

137. Grit Gets it Done--OSB 2025

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes we go to a competition and we feel motivated, ready, on top of the world and ready to slay! And other times we ride the struggle bus and han...

136. Dance Wellness Update with Christine Bar Noel

13 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a ballroom dancer, community is essential for success! In this episode, we welcome Christine Bar Noel to tell us all about the Dance Wellness Commu...

135. Train Your Focus

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You are always training something—so what are you training?In this episode, we unpack why focus feels harder than ever and how modern life has quiet...

134. Respect Your Talent

13 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Many ballroom dancers have an issue with comparison! We see so many great dancers around us and want to be great as soon as possible! But looking arou...

133. Frustration Tolerance

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Frustration isn’t a sign you’re failing—it’s proof you’re learning. In this episode, Amber reframes frustration as evidence you’re operati...

132. Why You Shouldn't Listen to Me

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why would a coach ever tell you not to listen to her? In this episode, I’m flipping the script. I walk through four reasons you might think I’m no...

131. Vulnerability Hangover

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever felt raw, exposed, or even regretful after a competition, showcase, or intense lesson—no matter how well it went? That’s what Brené...

130. "Yeah, but..."

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Ballroom State of Mind, we dive into a common but confidence-killing habit dancers don’t even realize they’re doing: deflecting...

Ep 129. It's Not That Deep

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Your dancing is SO important, right? You invest a lot of time, effort, and money into this thing and it really matters, right? Or maybe not? Sometimes...

128. Problem Avoiding vs Problem Solving

18 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If you find yourself ruminating on possible negatives outcomes, catastrophizing what might happen, and/or avoiding certain aspects in your dancing, yo...

127. Advice for Newer Dancers

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What might I say to a newer ballroom dancer that was just getting started? This was asked of me in a recent coaching session with a brand new bronze l...

126. Motivation Killers

09 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After pushing forward from Newcomer to Open American Rhythm in 5 years, I have been feeling the fatigue. Am I tired? Burned out? Unmotivated? Being bu...

125. Self Trust

19 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

All dancers can relate to wanting to be more confident. If we could just dance more confidently, with less anxiety and more freedom we could finally s...

124. Be Patient

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It can be easy to get discouraged when you have been working hard at something and you're not seeing the results that you want. All humans love a good...

123. The Life Cycle of Relationships

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If you are concerned or having doubts about one or more of your dance relationships, listen in to this episode. I list 5 stages that relationships ten...

122. Time to be Discouraged

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes trying to be positive just isn't working. Maybe it's an injury, maybe you've been competing a long time and never won. Maybe you've been try...

121. Limbo and Locking In

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In episode 105, we introduced the term glitch to represent the moment where a ballroom dancer gets distracted and knocked out of the zone. In this epi...

120. Limiting Beliefs- Part 2

31 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a continuation of the previous and explores 5 specific limiting beliefs that I have heard dancers express in our private coaching sess...

119. Limiting Beliefs Part 1

25 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

All of us make decisions in our life that are heavily influenced by our beliefs. Beliefs are things that we believe to be true that govern the way we ...

118. When Dancing Feels Expensive

10 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why does ballroom dance have to be so freaking expensive? Just like the cost of everything has been going up, many dancers are finding their studios a...

117. Student-Teacher Communication with Mary Pinizzotto

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes as dancers we have a problem that we want to discuss with our teacher but it's hard to bring it up. We don't want to hurt their feelings or ...

116. Feeling Like You Belong

01 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"I just want to feel like I belong. I don't even have to be the best one, but I want to feel like I look like everyone else and have a right to be the...

115. The Fear of Being Seen

16 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes it seems that no matter how much work you do, you never really get comfortable being in the spotlight. No matter how much you practice, perf...

114. Inner Work and Outer Work

08 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Changing who we are is not easy to do. Becoming a better, stronger dancer takes effort, practice and perhaps another type of work that we don't do ver...

113. Scaling Your Mountain / Comparison

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Comparison is the thief of joy. This is a well known saying, that while it may be trite, it's true. Comparing yourself to others is a quick way to kil...

112. Self-Criticism to Self-Coaching

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most important aspects of yourself that you can address to get the most out of yourself and achieve what you want to achieve is to address ...

111. Optimism

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Humans are very good at identifying what they don't want and how they don't want to feel. As a coach, I try to help my clients point their att...

110. Life Skills: Boundaries

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Boundary work is some of the best work that you can do. It will change your life! Listen in for what a boundary even is. We often get this wrong and i...

109. The Shooter's Mentality

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Are you like most humans, who believe in Murphy's Law? Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong? And anything bad happens in threes? Bad things h...

108. Embarrassment

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why don't you want to mess up? What is so bad about making mistakes? Why do you work so hard for a perfect performance? "I don't want to...

107. Unpacking Vol State

02 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Listen in on the 4 questions you might ask yourself before a comp, and what went down for me at the Volunteer State Dance Challenge 2024.

106. Get the Last Word

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our brain offers up a lot of nonsense. Negative self-talk can be a common experience in the human condition. But it can also undermine our confidence....

105. Glitches

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you have ever been in the middle of a dance performance and suddenly felt your mind go blank, you might know the feeling of utter panic. You might ...

104. Just Play With It

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There is a secret ingredient, that if you add to your dancing, will uplevel it in ways you never imagined. Plus, it's just more fun that way. That...

103. Life Skills: Resistance

29 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you have ever wanted to better yourself or do anything worthwhile, chances are you have felt that unseen force that seems to immediately get in you...

102. Training Mindset vs. Performance Mindset

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most common things dancers complain about is being stuck in their head. They know they do this, and perhaps even their teacher tells them t...

101. What To Do With Setbacks

08 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What if you have prepared, practiced and feel ready, but then your performance goes poorly and you are beset with setbacks and errors? What can we do ...

100. Gameday

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

You've done it. You've gotten yourself here. You are ready. This is my pep talk for you on the big day. It's gameday and it's time to ...

99. Disappointment

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"I don't want to disappoint my teacher." "When this is all done, I don't want to feel disappointed." Disappointment. So ma...

98. Your Backseat Driver

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we talk a little about The Emerald Ball 2024, dancing syllabus routines in open rounds, what judges say about that, and what to do wit...

97. Effort Shock

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Where did you get the idea about how much it would take to accomplish a certain goal? Sometimes we look around and make a guess based on what we see, ...

96. Why You Might Always Feel Behind

24 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There are a lot of reasons that you might feel behind in your dance journey. Most of the time, that feeling is based in fear and scarcity and is large...

95. All or Nothing Thinking

15 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ah, the extremes. Our brains just love the extremes. Good or bad, hot or cold, perfect or a failure. Two options is what a lazy brain likes because th...

94. Life Skills: The 50/50

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

While we all know that life is sometimes not fair and we will all face a certain amount of struggle and negativity, we will act confused when we actua...

93. Contingency Plans

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In episode 92 we imagined situations going perfectly in order to get solid, confidence building mental reps. No mistakes allowed! But we all know mis...

92. Mental Rehearsal

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Some people call it mental rehearsal, some visualization and others envisioning. Whatever you call it, high performers know it is a powerful tool to i...

91. Politics

13 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Good grief! Politics in dance! Is there anything in this world that doesn't involve some type of politics? This episode was prompted by a comment ...

90. Word Switches

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Words are powerful. The way you use them can determine how you feel and the energy with with you operate in the world. As one example, when your brai...

89. Holding Yourself Back

02 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we visit some of the ways we hold ourselves back. The primary reason for that is ultimately our brain trying to keep us safe so we ca...

88. Life Skills: Emotional Adulthood

17 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I bring you a life coaching tool called Emotional Adulthood. Listeners love the podcasts that they can apply to the rest of their liv...

87. 4 Steps to Emotional Regulation

07 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is all about how to actually settle yourself down when your nervous system has been triggered. Often when we stop and try to "take s...

86. When You Just Don't Dance Well

01 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It can't be avoided. At some point, you will have a performance that just doesn't go well. You will have days where your dancing is just...off...

85. Are You a Good Dancer?

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many of my clients do what they do with their dancing because, "they just want to be a good dancer." But what does that even mean? Often the...

84. Build Your Confidence Bank

16 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

While we all say we want to feel more confident, we spend a lot of mental energy proving to ourselves why we are lacking and not good enough. We rehea...

83. Plateaus Are Not a Problem

04 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever stopped to realize that nothing is really a problem unless you think it is a problem? This is why some things can really bother someone ...

82. Dressing Your Alter Ego with Irene Wong

28 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Enjoy this interview with Irene Wong: mom of 3, entrepreneur, and 16 year pro-am competitor! She shares her journey on her YouTube channel, "Ever...

81. This Isn't About Dancing At All

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Few people understand what it really means to pursue dancing. We go through a lot of things and it changes us. I can't find the words to describe ...

80. You Are Not Backsliding

17 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Inevitably, when a client has had a lot of change in a short amount of time, they feel like they are "cured." They feel like they have a han...

79. Arrogance, Confidence and Humility

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We want to be confident, right? But not too confident. Not arrogant. Not cocky. But also I want feel powerful and celebrate my success, but also still...

78. Narrowing Your Focus

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This episode outlines one way to narrow your focus. It is a continuation of episode 77 and gives you a 3-part framework to narrow your focus---and WHA...

77. What is Relevant to Your Dancing

23 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

There are some things that are relevant to your dancing and other things that just aren't. We tend to spend a lot of energy, time and attention on...

76. Stop Wishing Away your Nerves

10 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"Ugh! Why am I still so nervous?! Why won't those go away?!" Ummmm, well, because you are human and you care about what you are doing so...

75. Partnerless

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It can be super hard to cope when you are without a ballroom dance partner. After all, this is partner dancing. We don't really want to do it alon...

74. Are You Coachable?

27 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Coachability is probably one of the traits that will 10x your progress. After all, if you hire a teacher or coach to help you and then you push back, ...

73. Why Are We Doing This Again?

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's hard to put a lot of time, effort and money towards our dancing and then have a competition yield poor results and feel like an utter failure...

72. Hook Up Your Future Self

11 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You may not realize that you have a past, present and future self. Your past self makes plans, then your present self carries them out (or not) and th...

71. Your Relationship with your Body

04 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The ballroom industry has a component that is all about aesthetics. Your "look" matters. So if you don't like how you look in general, i...

70. How Snorkeling is Just Like Dancing

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recently in Hawaii for the Hawaii Star Ball, my daughter and I went snorkeling. As I started snorkeling, I felt my nervous system being activated and ...

69. Breaking up a Partnership

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Breaking up is hard to do. Breaking up a dance partnership is no different. While the nature of a teacher/student dance relationship is business relat...

68. Burnout

14 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we discuss 3 kinds of dance burnout that you might be experiencing. They go hand in hand, overlap and influence each other of course,...

67. How to Stop Overthinking so You Can Actually Dance

02 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I get asked this question all the time! All we want to do is just let go and dance, buy why must our brains think so much and get in the way? While I ...

66. We Can Do Hard Things

25 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever had the experience of standing in front of 11 ballroom judges at a ballroom competition and having them hold up paddles with the number ...

65. Don't Fear your Feelings

12 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this quickie of an episode, I encourage you to believe in your ability to feel negative emotion. Our society has made it easy to escape your feelin...

64. Shifting into New Gears

07 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you are dancing and practicing and feeling like you suck, congratulations! This means that you are living at your leading edge. If you were only wi...

63. What You Make Results Mean

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dancers can really struggle with results. I certainly know dancers who have told me they quit because they simply couldn't mentally handle poor re...

62. Coping with an Injury

15 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Being physically injured is hard enough without also having all the emotional fallout. In this episode we give voice to some of what we might experien...

61. Insecurity

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ugh! Insecurity! It feels terrible. How can we make it go away?! In this episode, I talk about what it's about, how to loosen it up for you and fi...

60. Why Compete if You Don't Win?

25 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Some people are really uncomfortable with competition. It seems divisive and creates a hierarchy where someone has to end up feeling bad about themsel...

59. Are You a Player or a Victim?

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we ask the question, "Are you a player or a victim?" We talk about what that means, why you might be stuck in victim mode, a...

58. Watching Yourself on Video

03 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Watching yourself dance on video can be excruciating! But it's a skill I think you should develop. In this podcast, I offer the reasons I think we...

57: How to Stop Being So Negative

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"Why am I so negative all the time?!" Ever noticed how you are being negative about your negativity? This episode addresses negativity so y...

56. What I Love about Small Competitions

15 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A small competition might seem like a waste of time and/or money because you might not have a lot of competitors to compete against. But not so fast! ...

55. Self One and Self Two

06 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the book The Inner Game of Tennis, we learn about the concept of Self One and Self Two. Anyone who has tried to get themselves to do anything can r...

54. The River of Misery

29 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The River of Misery is what I call that transition place between where you are now and where you want to get to in your life. Becoming a new version o...

53. Overcoming Perfectionism

23 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We talked about the darkside of perfectionism in podcast #51 recently, and so now it's time to talk about how to overcome it. 1. Watch yourself. P...

52. Dance Chat with Forrest Vance

14 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

My first interview! Yay! I'm thrilled to bring you this chat with Forrest Vance, an icon in the Ballroom Dancesport industry. Forrest Vance is a ...

51. The Dark Side of Perfectionism

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Perfectionism seems so useful. It seems good. It's all about excellence and being the best we can be at something, right? Kind of. There are good ...

50. Cheating on Yourself with Your Own Potential

29 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Saying you have so much potential seems like such a nice thing to say. But have you noticed how it can also mean that you aren't good enough now? ...

49. The Ways We Train

19 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When dancers are thinking about how to train, I think it's pretty obvious what the standard methods are. Take lessons, practice on your own, parti...

48. Your Alter Ego

11 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I introduce the tool known as the Alter Ego. This concept came from the book The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman. This is a useful to...

47. Confidence

25 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone wants more confidence. What is confidence anyway? Everyone likely has their own definition of what that looks like and what it means. I recom...

46. Dealing with Your Emotions

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes when you have been working on your mindset, you can find yourself in a time when it doesn't seem to be working. You can be trying all the to...

45. When you Get Tough Feedback

08 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Schedule a free Dance Strategy Call HERE How many of you have had the experience where you have just finished a performance of some kind, and you run ...

44. Subtractive Thinking

04 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Subtractive thinking is one of the simplest things that you can change to have a big impact on your mental toughness. Subtractive thinking are just th...

43. Learn to Love the Process

28 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The person who loves walking will walk further than the man who loves the destination. Everyone loves a good result. Everyone loves the fulfillment of...

42. 4 Stages of Mastery

11 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Book a Dance Strategy Call HERE How do you dance freely and expressively and also think about all the things you are supposed to be doing with your bo...

41. Powerful Self-talk

05 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Book a Dance Strategy call HERE Don't roll your eyes at the subject of self-talk.  Your self-talk is a large part of your everyday experience and...

40. Task vs Ego

30 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Book a Dance Strategy Call here Sometimes I call it MATH and DRAMA In this podcast I am calling it TASK vs EGO. These are two mindset states that we a...