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Isabella McGuire Mayes

Season 6 · Episode 38

What Confident People Focus on Instead of Winning with Ballerina Isabella McGuire Mayes

November 10, 2026 52 min

Be honest: the high of a big win never lasts as long as you’d like. You nail the presentation, land the promotion, post something that takes off… and a week later, you’re already chasing the next one.

Ballerina Isabella McGuire Mayes has found a steadier kind of confidence. And she found it in ballet, where perfection is always the goal, and every class ends the same way: imperfect.

Isabella is a coach, a podcast host and the founder of ISABELLA, an online ballet platform for dancers of every age and level. After auditioning three times, she was accepted to Russia’s legendary Vaganova Academy at 15, the same school that produced Nureyev and Baryshnikov. She graduated top of her class and danced with two major Russian ballet companies before a string of serious injuries brought her home. 

Teaching, however, is what brought her back to ballet. Today, through ISABELLA, her podcast “A Dancer’s Mindset,” and intensives that sell out in minutes, she’s working to change the culture of ballet itself.

In this conversation, Isabella shows me why ballet, an extreme example of perfectionism, might be the best place to learn where real confidence comes from. And her lessons reach far beyond the studio, into how we lead, coach, prioritize, and give feedback.

In this episode you’ll learn:
➡️ Why confidence from winning comes in peaks and valleys (+ where the steady kind comes from)

➡️ The 75/25 rule for process vs. performance

➡️ How to give honest feedback that people can actually hear

➡️ Why confidence has to come before feedback can land
➡️ Why great coaches show you how (+ why most leaders stop at what)

➡️ What a 12-year-old Instagram star taught Isabella about our obsession with winning

➡️ Why Isabella took the prizes out of her ballet labs (+ what happened next)
➡️ What we lose when we prioritize outcomes over process 

➡️ The one question Isabella asks every student who’s lost sight of what matters

Isabella may teach ballet, but her lessons are for all of us, on stage or off. Because confidence is built in first position, long before first place.

This… is A Bit of Optimism.

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To train with Isabella on her online ballet platform ISABELLA, head to: https://balletwithisabella.com  

Want to hear more from Isabella? Check out her podcast "A Dancer's Mindset": https://balletwithisabella.com/podcasts 

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Chapters

Chapters

  • 00:00:00 The 12-Year-Old Ballerina Who Feared Posting Her Failure
  • 00:02:47 From Screaming Under the Piano to Russia's Most Prestigious Ballet Academy
  • 00:09:35 The Athletic Brutality Behind Ballet's Effortless Beauty
  • 00:18:53 Teaching Differently: The Coach, Not the Boss
  • 00:20:17 "Are You Stupid?" Learning to Handle Criticism
  • 00:21:50 The Teammate Approach: Teaching Process Over Perfection
  • 00:25:13 The Problem With Outcome Obsession and Social Media
  • 00:30:43 The Ballet Lab: Creating a Safe Space for Experimentation
  • 00:32:47 Why Confident People Focus 75% on Process, Not Winning
  • 00:39:58 The Competition Trap: Training One Variation While Forgetting Basic Technique
  • 00:41:33 The Student Who Finally Understood What Inspiration Means
  • 00:45:36 What Perfectionists Can Learn From Ballet
  • 00:49:05 The John Wooden Philosophy: Train to Improve, Play to Win

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Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together.

Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do.

Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game.

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Website: http://simonsinek.com/
Leaderful: https://simonsinek.com/leaderful
Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek
Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/
Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/
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