I feel very passionate and very honored to spare their awareness, not just of aerial, but mental health and through body movement. Because there's various ways that you can use your body to move that stagnant energy out, right? And my way is through aerial. Michelle Frank is a resilient, heart-centered founder and the visionary behind AYA, a sanctuary where yoga and aerial arts come together to inspire healing and self-discovery. Through her studio and global training in aerial and yoga, she has created a supportive community where individuals, especially mothers, can reconnect with their strength, heal emotionally and physically, and rediscover their potential. Talk about being an aerialist. What is an aerialist first? There is a really big misconception that I'd like to debunk. It's not just circus, it's not just tumbling, it's not just gymnastics and flexibility. It really is a building trust within yourself to hold yourself up. What started the journey is, like, finding out what I was feeling inside. It's okay. And how am I gonna feel better, and what am I gonna do about it? And that's where aerial came into place, and I really do believe it saved my life. Because it really was life-changing. It spans the globe like a super high is cold into the Elvis Reds. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the fall. It's not over until I win. The Living Your Legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. That's extraordinary. The impossible. Oh, that is sensational. Jordan. Open. Chicago is the lead. You said, Paul, is the fastest man on the planet. You can live your dream. Welcome back to another amazing episode of Living Your Legacy with the Insight Success Network. I am Ray Gutierrez. Joining me today is Michelle Frank. She is the founder and the leader of Aya. What is Aya? It is an aerial studio in Austin, Texas. Oh, gosh. You know, I was in Austin for three years, but it wasn't quite the same Austin. Often I was out in Lakeway, and it was during COVID, so I missed out on the entire party, locked away. That's where I'm at. You're in Lakeway? Nice, dude. Is that 7-Eleven still there? It's probably still in Lakeway. Oh, my God. That's how 11 was a godsend. That was like my home away from home. Hell yeah, Lakeway. Yes, I'm right across the street from the Lakeway dealership. Dude, did you know that the undertaker used to live there? No. He used to be our neighbor. He used to live in the Lakeway before he moved out. Yeah, it's a very like... Quiet. Quiet, little bougie area there. When the zombie apocalypse happens, we won't even hear it. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's why I had a really good time during COVID. How do you like, Quake? That's so funny that you were actually at this... How insane. Alignment. Yeah, here we go. All right, so let's talk about purple. Thank you. Yeah. Purple's my color. It means health, it means well-being. Like, it's, you know... Yes, I'm definitely trying to embrace the masculine and feminine energy, and I feel like purple is it. You know, it's not just, you know, one color or another. I think it's very... It's very... It combines the both masculine and feminine energy. One of my mentors used to use the guy that got me the job at PlayStation. His favorite color was purple, so every time I see purple, I'm like, dude, you're here. So, hi. Hi. Hi, not Jeff. Hi. Hi, Aya. You're literally fresh off the Legacy Mayor's Converry Belt. Yes. You had an amazing session with Lauren. Yes. What was it like for you being interviewed and asked all these very intimate questions? Well, it was very... Um, I feel like it's also part of, like, the breakthrough into sharing my experience. Absolutely. So, I think being in the hot seat, as you guys call it, really does make you, like, breakthrough in a different way. For sure. Especially when you're trying to express your journey and your purpose. Right on. I'm really intrigued about your journey. I cheated a little bit of read your story script. Um, anyone that's a friend of Ayahuasca is a friend of mine. Oh. Thank you. Well, we'll jump on that trip in one second. Um, but let's talk about before your journey and before the discovery of color, before you found and heard your heart and soul. Mm-hmm. What, where do you begin? Where does the pain begin? It begins with the loss of the self, you know, when feeling lost, um, and then the mental awareness of that. I think the awareness is where the key is, is being aware that, hey, I'm not well. How did you make that discovery? Were you on this track of like, I'm unwell, but I can, I can still med us fast. I can still pull off my tricks. Ha, ha, ha, look at me and then you're finally combusted. No, no, no. I was just like, after my last pregnancy, I was going through the post-param depression. Sure. And that's what really started the journey, is after my last pregnancy, I was not feeling good in my own skin. In my own body, like I wanted out of my body. Like I didn't even want to be in my own body, you know? And finding the outlet and understanding, hey, it's something that's going on internally within that I need to explore more. What is going on within, you know? And so, mine was a lot of childhood trauma that I put off that comes back that needed to be addressed and to work through. I completely can relate, but this is your journey. I don't want to get into that. It's funny because you and I share that similar trajectory of being in Austin. I found a lot of lost people in Austin. They were just trying to find a way. I got kind of bizarre. My trajectory was from the Bay Area into Austin. And then back to Miami where I'm from. That journey was a lot of folks lost. And finding their purposes, especially during COVID. Talk about finding your purpose and killing off that ego and going purple. Let's put it that way. So it's really the discovery of the South and what started the journey is like finding out what I was feeling inside. It's okay. And how am I going to feel better? What am I going to do about it? And that's where Ariel came into place. And I really do believe it saved my life because it really was life-changing. So Lola tells me you got very emotional in the interview. And that's okay. I get very emotional as well. Emotions, it's such a year of feeling something. The frequency is different in the room. And the way you respond is crying. That's okay. Can you tell folks what you feel when you're... One of our legacy makers and also my mentor is Kira. Very emotional person, very transparent. Talk about that energy, that frequency you feel. So I really feel like it has to do with... Some people have more... Sensitive... Like are more sensitive than others. I think it's called high sensitivity. And I happen to be one of those people that just feel everything. And it reflects. So what people are feeling sometimes reflects on me. And I take it very personally. And then sometimes the way I feel is also very... Can go the opposite way as well. So it's just I feel like... It's like also triggering to people the work that you do or the work that you don't do that's a reflection within to one another. So you see in me what I see in you. Right? And that's why we're like, like, way. I can't see you. I see you. Yeah. What up, how are you? I think that is really bringing the awareness of what you're feeling and the emotions and the way you can express it. Right on. Talk about being an aerialist. What is an aerialist first? Yes. This is a great question because there was a really big misconception that I like to debunk. It's not just circus. It's not just tumbling. It's not just gymnastics and flexibility. It really is building trust within yourself to hold yourself up. So essentially you're building trust within yourself to be able to push through the tricks, the moves, and everything that comes with the practice is also very mental and emotional because you can't be like, oh, I cannot do this because you can't think about anything when you're in the midst of trying to do a new trick or pose. Because if you get caught up in the thought, then you lose your train of physical being basically. That's where the mind of a matter comes. Super important in an aerial. Right where the Jedi part comes in. It's like, do or not, there is no try. Take a shot every time I've said that on this podcast. That'll be 300 shots so far. Anyways, but you're literally just letting go. You're essentially transposing. You're removing the body and the self, and now you're just in this state of flux. Talk about getting into that energy. And a lot of singers and dancers get into this area of flux where it's like, I don't even remember doing X, Y, and Z, because my heart was there and my brain was this way. And when I triangulated all that, it just became music. Exactly, exactly. It's like you don't know where the source is coming from. You just know that you're channeling it. Because when I was going in 10 months postpartum to my first training, and she's like, we're gonna do and learn this today. I'm like, hmm, I don't think, no, there's no way I can do that. And she's like, oh, no, you're gonna do all this and more. And so she was pushed me, challenged me to break through and really empowered me and inspired me to be where I'm at today, my first aerialist teacher. Lydia Michaels, thank you. Right on. Well, shout out to Lydia. So now you're sharing your journey, your story through your episode of Legacy Makers, but you have a brick and mortar, a location where folks can come and you share your story in brand. Talk about that experience onboarding. What do I see when I knock on your door? A sanctuary. So my studio in Lakeway, it's Bali themed. And I brought it during my last yoga teacher training, my 300 hours, I completed in Bali, and I brought back Bali with me. So that's where the inspiration came from. I had already rented the space before I had the theme for it. So I leased it, went to my yoga teacher training, and then it came back with the theme of my studio, which is Bali themed. So I really want my students to come in and not feel like they're in the city, not feel like you're in Lakeway, not feel anything that you're feeling. I want you to come and escape from it all. So that's why I really think of it as a sanctuary, as a temple. And in Bali, everybody in Bali, in their homes, have temples. Like this is in their homes, in their backyards, everybody has a temple, a sacred space where they can pray, meditate, whatever your way of releasing is. But being intuitive to that practice, to release and have that safe space to do it. Correct. It's something I coached during COVID where I was coaching entrepreneurs. I'm like, we're entering an age of like, you no longer have the eye contact and a handshake, you just have this zoom box. Oh, my God. So you need to build your sanctuary at home where it's like, that's where I get to be that person and sell. Exactly. The camera, the lighting is right at the right moment, and then you can get even like more ethereal. It's like, well, at 6 a.m., it's right when the sunlight hits me and I get so inspired and I drink my tea and I get to charge whatever the hell I want to charge. Exactly. And then that's when the entrepreneur hustle begins. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? It's just like, I have been given the divine, the spiritual wealth, now let me, let us all ascend together. Especially in Lake Way. Very powerful area of Lake Way. You can feel the change. You go to Austin on 6th Street, you're like, oh. And then you're out on Lake Way. It's like, whew, free. Exactly. So that's what I'm trying to actually focus on is, you know, at first I thought, oh, I'm not doing good because I'm not in the city. Oh, I'm not doing good because, you know, nobody knows of Lake Way. But then now I'm thinking about it. I was like, maybe I should use this as a selling point. Like get out of the city, let's make a day out of it. Go to, you know, Lake Travis, come do yoga, then go get a massage, have Mexican food. There's, you know, like, there's so many other things that you can escape from even from the city just for like an hour or two to calm the mind and just even the drive is nice and scenic, you know? So it's like the hills of Texas. That's exactly what I say. I'm like, where did you live? Like I lived in the hills of Texas. Like what is it? I'm like, it's Lake Way. So I'm glad you just- That's where all the Californians are hiding it. Yes. That's exactly where I was hiding. And all my friends were either in Lake Way or out in Brickle here in Miami. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so now there's been another grand exodus where like, at Brickle has grown 10 times as large the last three years. Wow. And now they're all here. All the San Francisco nerds that built all the apps that we're obsessed with now are hiding in Brickle. That's funny. And it's making it impossible to live in Miami. Thanks for that. Oh my God, the Californians everywhere. Actually, no, thank you for maturing Miami. It needed to grow up. That's something I felt in Austin. I'm like, that energy from the Bay is coming to Austin. That energy from New York is coming to Austin. When is it going to come to Miami? And it's finally arriving, like folks like yourself, this show, folks like Lauren, your crew, which by the way, that's an amazing camera. They're doing the real thing. So like welcome aboard. Like it's Star Trek meets Star Wars. Yeah, it actually tells me of the me since day one, since the beginning of my journey, and there's nobody else that I would have had with me. Yeah, man, it's a drive. It is, it is. It's like everybody that's been with me since I opened the studio is still with me now. And it's like the tight-knit community that the ones that are going to be your supporters and they're for you. So how do you feel like you had all these cameras on you? You've had your own cameras. You got very vulnerable. And now you're sitting in this random podcast with me. How does it feel to be an entrepreneur? I feel... Excited. Very excited. Very excited. Very excited. But yeah, I feel like... I feel very passionate and very honored to spare their awareness, not just of aerial but mental health and through body movement, right? Because there's various ways that you can use your body to move that stagnant energy out, right? And it doesn't have to be through aerial. Whatever your thing is, as long as you're making time to move the energy of your body out, I think is the key. And my way is through aerial, right? So aerial is just a very infinite way that you can utilize to let that energy out because you can use the silk in various ways. It's not just one. You can never know it all. So that's my favorite part is the endless learning of the journey with aerial. Who is your common customer? Who's your common client? So we have right now our number one regulars and members are our stay-at-home moms. During the day, we have our little community of stay-at-home moms that come and take classes back to back. So they'll stay there for two or three aerial classes and then go do a yoga class upstairs since I do have a separate yoga studio. And then we have our kids' classes in the evening that has been just expanding. And we have a wait list right now going on with the kids' classes. We're developing a kid's semester and adding more kids' program in the evenings because it's been such a big turnout with the kids' classes. Right on. So what's next for you? Are you ever getting it out of Lakeway? Are you going to go international? What's next for you? Yeah, I'm trying to... Definitely the goal is to franchise the aerial studio part of it to the city. Eventually. Yeah, eventually. And then, yeah, of course, I would love to see Aya Nationwide have a little franchise everywhere where we can heal people through the art of aerial. As I was telling Lauren, I feel like under the aerial arts, there is an umbrella, right? There's the aerial silks, there's the aerial hammock, aerial lira, aerial straps, and aerial pole. So there's a whole, like, I feel category that's missing, that needs recognition in the aerial arts as also putting it in the health and wellness category. Right on. I gotta do this plug. I have a good friend of mine. She was the lighting director for all the Naughty Dog games, like The Last of Us and Uncharted. And she was an aerialist. So, like, she was the lighting director. She doesn't even play video games. Yeah, yeah. She was an aerialist and she's downloading that energy and she's like, well, I just like design games that I don't even play. I'm like, what? So, like, I completely get it. So that's quite an honor to have you. And I hope the Legacy Maker's journey has been profound and affirms your existence. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And as a bit of Mary's, it's an amazing experience. I'm honored to be here and a part of it. Right on. Well, thank you so much. That concludes yet another episode of Living Your Legacy. Anything you want to plug before we call cut? No, I think that's it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Rock and roll, yeah. Thanks again and for Insight Success, I am Ray Gutears.
