Breathe, Believe, Become: Unlocking Your Highest Potential with Online Marketing Expert, International Keynote Speaker, and Certified Life Coach, Mo Salami
What if the version of you you’ve been dreaming of is just one brave decision away?
In this inspiring episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, Becca sits down with high performance coach Mo Salami for a conversation that lights the path from comfort to courage, from uncertainty to unstoppable.
Mo shares his empowering philosophy on what it truly means to “live in technicolor” and how to align your life with what you really want—before the results show up. From embracing discomfort (“bear hug the uncomfortable”) to mastering your own 60-second reset ritual of breathe, believe, become, this episode will help you connect with your higher potential and purpose.
Their conversation allows us to discover how success built on passion not only fuels achievement but also deepens your connection, impact, and joy.
Together, they explore how passion, mindset, and skillset create the foundation for success that feels as good as it looks.
Passion, Mindset, and Skillset
The three pillars that drive lasting success and self-mastery.
Bear Hug the Uncomfortable
How embracing discomfort expands your confidence and compassion.
Breathe, Believe, Become
A powerful three-step practice to reset your energy and access your best self in just 60 seconds.
Purpose Over Perfection
Why aligning with your purpose naturally amplifies your impact and income.
Curate the Life You Want to Create
How to move toward your dreams before they manifest—and enjoy the journey along the way.
Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:
Mo’s story of learning five languages through passion and perseverance.
Becca’s reflection on the beauty of embracing the unknown and how it transforms your inner world.
The power of regulating your nervous system before every performance or decision.
Mo’s insight on how living on purpose leads to exponential growth—in wealth, relationships, and fulfillment.
The science-backed truth about regret and why taking action now matters most.
Empowering Thoughts to Take With You:
“Move in the direction of the result you want before you see the result you want.” – Mo Salami
“You can curate the life you want to create.” – Mo Salami
“Breathe. Believe. Become.” – Mo Salami
“ You have the processes, here's how you do it, here's how you become” - Mo Salami
“Bear hug the uncomfortable—it will hug you back.” – Becca Powers
About Mo Salami
Mo Salami is an Online Marketing Expert, International Keynote Speaker, and Certified Life Coach fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.
He is a former Senior Mentor for world-class peak performance guru Tony Robbins, where he helped generate tens of millions in global event sales as part of the California-based team.
With more than 20,000 hours of one-on-one consulting experience, including work with over 8,000 business owners earning one million dollars or more annually, Mo focuses on driving both business growth and personal fulfillment.
As an online marketing strategist, he helps experts scale their businesses while creating their ideal lifestyle through powerful, results-driven coaching.
Connect with Mo Salami
Want to learn more about Mo’s work and message? Visit mosalami.com and dive deeper into his world of purpose, passion, and impact.
Power Links
Join Becca in her Facebook Community - The Dragonfly Effect, Where High-Performing Professionals Chase Big Dreams: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1C4z83krsn/
Purchase Becca’s Book - A Return to Radiance, The POWER Method to Ignite Your Soul and Unleash Your Potential: https://www.beccapowers.com/a-return-to-radiance
Invite Becca to Speak: https://www.beccapowers.com/keynotes
Grab Becca’s Free EBook, The High Performer’s Path, The 8 Forces of Potential for Mindset Mastery: https://www.beccapowers.com/
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We Want to Hear From You!
What part of Mo’s story inspired you the most? Was it his journey from success to deeper fulfillment, his lessons on purpose, or how he helps others create both impact and joy in their lives?
Share your thoughts with us. Are you ready to build success that feels meaningful and truly yours?
Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour! And this episode, you guys are going to be so empowered — I can just tell. I have an awesome guest for you today, Mo Salami. He is a high performance and results coach. Just in our prep, I was getting so stoked to hear more about his story, which of course I’m going to learn in real time with you guys. His energy, his presence, and his commitment to serving other people — I can tell — are through the roof. So, I’m super stoked. Mo, welcome to the show.
Mo Salami: I’m a fan and I’m a guest all at the same time, in the same body at once. It’s amazing. Love the show, and honored to be on today.
Becca Powers: That’s awesome! I’m so excited to ask you the first question. You’re a high performance coach and a results coach — and if I had to guess, being a coach myself, there’s a reason that you’re a coach. There’s something either that happened that inspired you, or maybe you saw it in someone else and thought, “You know what, I need to tap into this character within myself to help someone else.”
I don’t know what your backstory is or why you’re doing what you’re doing, but I sure want to know. So tell us a little bit about how you got to this role of being passionate about high performance coaching.
From Science to Success
Mo Salami: I guess the turning point in my story started with a sign. Before we get to the sign, I’ll give some context. I come from a family where the definition of success is education — specifically, science degrees and lots of them. So I did that. I’ve got three different science degrees.
Becca Powers: Nice.
Mo Salami: I got a great job, great career, moved to a great neighborhood, bought a great car. The challenge was, my nice six-figure salary meant I was working not very nice 16-hour days. I had no experiences, no free time, no me-time.
And that brings us nicely to the sign. So, bear in mind, my definition of success was all things science. I got to the pinnacle of that. Then one day, I saw a sign that said “How to Be Successful.” It was an ad for a book called The Success Principles by Jack Canfield. This was a decade and a half ago, and it piqued my curiosity.
I grabbed the book, sat down right there in the store, and started reading. Eventually, I read every single book recommended in the back of The Success Principles.
The turning point I had was: Do I go all in down this path of actual success, or do I stick to my own path of apparent success that I was already on? If you don’t take any risks, you don’t get any rewards. So, I went all in.
I traveled all around the world — Europe, USA, Canada, Asia — to learn from whoever was the best in the world. Soon, I gained expertise in online business, sales and marketing, public speaking, and personal development.
I even went to work for Tony Robbins. I was part of Tony’s team for the best part of a decade. While I was there, I had the opportunity to add value as a mentor and coach for tons of people aiming to get to the next level.
I also did millions of dollars in sales while part of Team Tony — and a particular highlight I’m proud of is doing one million dollars in sales in 90 days.
What I realized on this journey is that apparent success is when somebody else decides for you what success means, whereas actual success includes fulfillment and the freedom to design your ideal lifestyle — the exact way that you want it. And that’s how I got here: helping other people determine whether they’re having apparent success or actual success — and making that switch.
Redefining What Success Really Means
Becca Powers: This is going to be a conversation I’m going to geek out on because you are speaking my language 100%. It’s important for listeners to understand what you’re saying — there’s the apparent success, and then there’s the success by your own design.
That’s important to unpack because a lot of the listeners here are traditionally careered like you. Maybe they’re in science, engineering, or sales — still employed by something in corporate America. We also have a lot of business owners.
I think success has been prescribed to us by society, like you were talking about. Would you talk about that a little bit — how that prescription just doesn’t work long term?
Mo Salami: Absolutely. It’s about your story. We all tend to have this pre-written story — written for us in black pen or blue pen — that says: “Here’s the life you’re going to lead. Here’s the person you’re going to marry. Here’s the profession you’re going to have.”
When you follow that path, you feel successful. But what’s really happening is that you’ve achieved success without fulfillment.
The reality is this — and I’m going to lean into the mic to say this:
You can decide and design your life the way you want it, using the exact pen that you want. It doesn’t have to be a black pen. It doesn’t have to be a blue pen. It can be a red pen, a paintbrush, or any other tool that you want to design your ideal lifestyle.
That feeling you might have — that there’s something else meant for you — is probably because there is something else meant for you.
Becca Powers: I love all of that. And I have never heard “successful” said like that — can you say it again?
Mo Salami: Absolutely. The word is “successful.” It means you feel successful — everyone says you’re successful, everyone cheers you on, and you get all the likes on social media. But inside, your ladder’s leaned against the wrong wall.
Maybe you’re afraid to start again because you’ve climbed high in corporate, you’re earning all this money, and the idea of becoming the painter or writer you dream of just doesn’t fit. But within you — that’s where your true success lies.
Your true success is internal, your true stress is external. Because at the minute, you are successful versus successful.
Becca Powers: I love that. You should turn that into a book — that’s fabulous. One of the coolest terms I’ve ever heard.
There’s so much more to what you’re saying, too, about why being a high performance coach matters — because I think a lot of people in that “success and stress” phase are high performers. They’re driven. They’re trying to make an impact through the path they know, but at some point, they wake up and say, “Wait, I’m stressed and unfulfilled. What now?”
Choosing Purpose Over Pressure
Mo Salami: What I would say is this: make a decision. Decide what success looks like for you — and more importantly, what purpose-driven success looks like.
Once you’ve made that decision, that’s huge. You’re already in the top 2%, because most people vaguely know they want something else, but they put it off — until suddenly they’re 80 years old.
Then, move in the direction of the results you want before you can see the results you want.
That means improving your mindset and your skillset in that new direction. It’s not supposed to happen instantly — it’s supposed to be a journey.
Always move in the direction of the result you want before you see the result you want. Because along that journey comes the expertise and the freedom to design your ideal lifestyle exactly the way you want it.
Becca Powers: Love that. It’s such a powerful message — it really speaks to the beauty of being on the journey, not just chasing the outcome.
The first step was in May 2020—joining a book writing group because I had never written a book before. You know, now I'm on my third book. I hit USA Today. If I stay on this journey, maybe another five or ten years, I'll see that New York Times bestseller.
But people look at me and ask, “How did you do that?” And then I said, basically what you're saying—I set the goal, and then I started taking steps in that direction. I had no freaking clue what the hell I was doing, but I knew it was the expression that I wanted. That's what my expression of success was—using my passions, my crafts, my uniquenesses that were within me that weren’t being used in my corporate career.
I wanted some stage time, so to speak, right? So I just followed that feeling of passion, and it led to one thing after another. So I don’t know if you see that in your work when you’re working with clients or if you’d like to speak to that—but let’s talk about passion, the role of passion in success.
Living Life in Technicolor
Mo Salami: First of all, if you're listening to this—round of applause, Becca, for the existing bestseller and then the future bestseller to come. That’s really great because you’ve stepped into writing your book, you’ve got your book done, and by pointing in the direction of what you want, all of a sudden you get to live that dream of living life in technicolor.
Remember the black pen? Remember the blue pen? That’s life that’s lived in black and white, and maybe there’s not even sound like that, right? Whereas pointing in the direction of what you want—you get to make all these discoveries, live your life in technicolor. There’s music there, there’s writing there.
And in terms of passion—passion is everything. We are on this mission for success, and success has two parts missing. You have the skillset part, but the other two parts that are so important are mindset and passion.
Mo Salami (continued): One of the things I mentioned in the intro was that I have three degrees—and I do have three university degrees. And in my day-to-day, I don’t even think about that. What comes up more often than not is that I actually taught myself, as an adult, four languages.
What was the ingredient to do that? It wasn’t a miracle—it was passion. So that passion piece needs to be there when you point yourself in the direction of the result that you want.
And I just want to say one other thing—if you’re listening to this, you’re an aspirant. An aspirant is someone that aspires to greater things and wants to grow. What a lot of aspirants tend to think is that to do what they want to do next, they need to be an expert—and to be an expert, that’s going to take 10,000 hours, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.
Well, I’m here to say that I think that’s misunderstood because expertise isn’t a destination—it’s a journey that you do day by day, step by step, by showing up. And all of a sudden, when you get that expertise, you’re in a position where you can achieve becoming that New York Times bestseller one time, then the second time, and then another time. And then it’s just what you do.
It’s scary because your comfort zone is saying, “Don’t do that,” and then the other part of your brain is trying to get you focused on success. Your comfort zone tends to win unless you really prioritize your mindset.
Bear Hugging the Uncomfortable
Becca Powers: Yeah, and I love that you talked about the three pieces—passion, mindset, and skillset—because it is a development of all three. Passion can fuel you. And it does—it’s an incredible gift.
And then you have to have the mindset to—I call it bear hugging uncomfortable. Not in a bad way, but in a good way. It’s like, you know how you would bear hug a friend that you haven’t seen in a long time?
I like to invite people to bear hug uncomfortable because it will hug you back. There’s a gift in pursuing the uncomfortable that, until I started going through my own major stretch assignments, I had no idea how much it would change my life.
I get teary thinking about it, but it changed me as a person. I think I’ve become kinder, more compassionate, more understanding, more patient—which I did not have before. Being a high performer, I was like, go, go, go, go, go.
But when you start to embark on the journey of the unknown, you realize so much more depth of what we’re capable of as human beings. It opens you up to all those characteristics I was saying—like passion—and your mindset just gets stronger.
You start to embrace failure as a learning tool instead of something to be scared of. You start embracing fear as something that’s like, “Hey, that’s gonna be with me on my journey. Get in the backseat, let’s go.” Anxiety might be there too—get in the backseat, let’s go.
Mo Salami: First of all, I love the phrase bear hug uncomfortable, because now we get to high-five uncertainty. And it’s absolutely correct.
We’ve all heard about the comfort zone, and it’s one of those tongue twisters where you almost need to get uncomfortable if you’re comfortable—and if you’re uncomfortable, you know that you’re leaning towards comfort.
Leaning into being uncomfortable—bear hugging the bear, as it were—is the way forward. Ultimately, the more you try to avoid discomfort, the more uncomfortable it turns out. And the more you embrace discomfort, the more comfortable it becomes.
Mo Salami (continued): Case in point, I mentioned languages. I speak five of them, and one of them is Spanish. It’s one of those where you can’t speak it until the day that you can speak it.
When you can’t speak it, it just seems so fast—Spanish speakers speak so fast, right? But is that really true, given that we listen four times faster than anyone could ever speak? So it’s not that they’re speaking too fast—you’re probably listening too slow.
You get to a point where you can’t speak it until you can speak it, and then you become fluent, and it feels like you were speaking it the whole time. Then you realize Spanish is divided into 27 different ways to speak it—Cuba, Mexico, the U.S., Spain itself—all the variations.
And then you lean into speaking all of those. I can speak all of them, by the way. And it all starts from leaning into being uncomfortable, being happy saying the wrong word, and having a Spanglish accent, so to speak.
All of a sudden, that discomfort becomes comfort, and you get to hug the bear and all the other animals in the forest.
Becca Powers: Exactly. Oh, I love that. That was such a great summary. And on that note, I want to ask you next—what is a big lesson or “aha” that’s up for you right now? I think we’ve shared lots of lessons and epiphanies with the listeners, but I always like to ask the question directly.
Stepping Toward the Results You Want
Mo Salami: The big “aha” is this: really decide what it is that you want, and really step in the direction of what you want. Move in the direction of the results you want before you see the results you want.
When you do that, your comfort zone… it resists, especially because you have to constantly perform. You have to constantly tap into the maximum version of yourself—the version of you that won that tennis tournament or had that great result in corporate, for example.
You have to tap into that constantly because you are always required to perform under the cloud of uncertainty. So, what I’d like to share is a three-step process to tap into your maximum resources at any time when it’s that moment to perform.
The 60-Second Reset: Breathe, Believe, Become
Becca Powers: Yeah, let’s go. I love practical. Let’s go.
Mo Salami: I hope you have a pen—black pen, blue pen, crayon, whichever you have for this.
The three-step reset ritual:
Step 1: Breathe. Breathe in through your nose for four seconds, hold for two seconds, then breathe out through your mouth for four seconds. That’s ten seconds in total. When you do that, you calm the mind and tap into your nervous system—so now you’re not nervous.
Step 2: Believe. Say to yourself, “I did well in that tennis tournament when I was X years old,” or “I did so well in corporate with this result.” Everyone has that moment they’re proud of. “I’ve achieved things before; I can achieve this.” Activate that belief system with positive self-talk.
Step 3: Become. Visualize yourself performing at the level you want—how you want it to go. Imagine it goes perfectly and do that for 30 seconds. It quiets the noise and helps you focus on that performance you’re about to do.
So the three steps are: Breathe. Believe. Become. It’s a 60-second ritual to tap into your maximum potential at a moment’s notice.
Becca Powers: I love that. I love that it’s 60 seconds. I love that it’s so easy—Breathe, Believe, Become. Those are all words that I love, and I was practicing it as you were teaching it, and I felt my own nervous system relax and start to tap into that part.
So I really hope the listeners took note, guys. I hope you implement what Mo just shared because I did it in real-time, and I feel it in my nervous system.
And I know from my own work that all three of those are very necessary. You need to regulate your nervous system—state before strategy. You’ve got to set that with your breath.
You’ve got to get into the belief. At the end of the day, we’re going to get the outcomes we believe—and they’re either going to be based in our fear or in our faith. And if it’s going to be one or the other, you might as well choose to believe in yourself.
Then that “becoming” part—that embodiment of really taking a few moments to bring in that version of yourself that you’re wanting to be.
Becca Powers: Your nervous system. I'm glad you brought up the nervous system because I'm kind of a nerd too. I love the nervous system, but the more you embody it, the more you envision it, the more your nervous system wires to believe it. And then if you practice the three steps that Mo just shared, listeners — that’s you programming yourself at the end of the day.
Mo Salami: You know, one of my three science degrees is actually pharmacology, so I've actually drawn out parts of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, but I won't nerd out right now. The passion piece again is so, so, so important because it's possible to be successful but not enjoy the journey. And then not only do you not enjoy the journey, you lose all these people along the way because you're too busy. It’s go, go, go, 24/7. Then you get to the end of the journey and you’re successful — but it’s actually success-full and you think, and you’ve just wasted two, three, even four decades.
So the premise is: move in the direction of the result you want before you see the result you want. But on that journey, really enjoy the process — embrace the mistakes, enjoy hugging the bears, and all those other great things. The passion piece makes it so worth it and so enjoyable. At the end of it, you get to have that New York Times bestseller moment because you had passion as you were writing and imagining those people getting value from your work.
Becca Powers: Yeah. It's cool to be in your passion and also be serving people, which is where I want to move into next. We only have about five minutes left, but I know when we started the pre-interview, you mentioned that part of your calling is to serve people.
So let's talk about when you do get on the success journey that’s mapped to the true you — how that ends up in service.
Mo Salami: How it shows up is that passion stacks on top of process. You have the processes — here’s how you do it, here’s how you become — but because passion is stacked on top of it, all of a sudden you're tapping into all your senses because you want it so badly. That passion means you're using every sense you have to really serve the other person.
And of course, the service piece leads to revenue and all that great stuff. But even beyond that, even beyond the people in your pathway, you’re influencing at least eight to ten people every single day. A person you meet in a store, a nephew, a niece, a child, a sibling, a friend — there are people who look to you as their mentor.
That higher state you’re in impacts people just by example — through the way you live and lead. It’s beyond testimonials or case studies. There’s a higher vibration that you move into, one you only discover when you step into, uncomfortably, the version of you that you want to become before you’ve become it.
It’s a beautiful feeling — a beautiful, uncomfortable feeling — until that uncomfortable feeling becomes your brand new comfort zone.
You’ll know that you’re really living if you feel uncomfortable.
If you’re about to step on stage and behind the curtain are 10,000 people waiting for you to speak, or you’re about to make a sales call — that’s when you know.
I had a situation where I was trying to reach a million dollars for the quarter and had to do $80,000 of sales in the next 48 hours to make the target.
You get yourself into all these situations — speaking in French to a French-speaking audience in France. It’s kind of my first language now, I’m so fluent, but it’s not literally my first language.
If you can have these moments and stack these moments of discomfort until they become your brand-new comfort, you are really living.
And if you have that feeling that you are truly on purpose — there’s nothing like it. Not the revenue, not the accolades, not the likes on social media. It’s a completely different vibration.
Because communication is only 8% verbal, your vibration is the other 92% that draws people toward you. They wonder, “Which bear has this person been hugging?” That’s what I would say.
The Miracle of Being on Purpose
Becca Powers: That was so beautifully articulated. My heart center feels so open right now — that was beautiful. And I hope for the listeners too, I would even rewind this and just listen to that answer again because it’s filled with so much Truth with a capital T. Some of your greatest riches come when you are on purpose. When I got on purpose, I started making more money. I didn’t have to try to make more money — it was a result of being on purpose. My relationships got deeper and more connected.
You try so hard to make the money, to work long hours, to chase success — and then somehow you get on purpose, and suddenly, you quadruple your income without forcing it.
Life really does get almost miraculous on the other side of purpose.
Becca Powers: How can embracing this approach to life empower the listener?
Mo Salami: The reason you quadrupled your income is that you probably 40x’d the value you’ve put out there — for yourself, for others, and for those you don’t even know.
Cornell University did a study on the science of regret.
They found that 79% of people regretted the things they didn’t attempt — the risks they didn’t take, the dreams they never pursued.
I hope this empowers you because there’s nothing worse than wondering what if?
Right now, you have the opportunity to go for it. But there comes a moment when time runs out, and all we can do is advise the next generation.
So embrace hugging the bear. Go for your version of purpose-driven success.“You can curate the life that you want to create.” That goes for everyone. You’re talented enough.
Becca Powers: That is the perfect spot to end the interview — so powerful and so true.
Mo, thank you for coming on The EmPOWERed Half Hour and sharing all your wisdom with us. It was a great interview.
Mo Salami: Thank you so much for the invitation. Loved being on the show, and I hope anyone listening got value from it — that was the intention.
Becca Powers: Can you share how the audience can stay in touch with you?
Mo Salami: Yes! Go to mosalami.com/freecall to schedule a call with my team. If you found value in this conversation, perhaps I can help. We have an entire pathway to take you from inaction to expertise — whether it’s your skillset, mindset, or both. It’s a passion-filled journey toward your version of success.
Becca Powers: That’s awesome! You hear that, guys? Go book your free call with Mo. I’m sure it’ll change your life because you just seem like that guy. Thank you again, Mo.
Mo Salami: Thank you so much, Becca. Have an amazing rest of today.
