Kinndli McCollum is a woman who will ask you what your intentions are, what’s possible, and then cheer for you as you pen the story of your life. She is the co-founder of Power Yoga Canada and along with her business partner Pauline, (check out her book, Pivot) has created a community where you will feel like you are at home, while your mind, body and soul undergo a transformation. She is a mama bear to one little but offers a whole lot of heart to everyone around her.
We were fortunate enough to catch up with Kinndli last month and jam on some questions you won’t find on the www. Prepare to be inspired.
What gets you excited about life?
What gets me out of bed in the morning? It’s looking into the possibility. Living into the world of possibility is what gets me excited. I love being able to hold a container for other people to create the most amazing expression of themselves in their life and then I get to be a witness to it and to see people live into the possibility of whatever it is for them. I just happen to use yoga. But what I actually am up to is empowering people into action in their life, and creating possibility. I even wake up excited for the possibility of the day. Possibility.
I have never been a fan of goal setting; that limited effect that goals have. It’s like my limited little brain trying to set goals can’t even fathom what my actual possibility is. Living into possibility is like a way of being in the world with being where I am. It’s really much more open and in connection and community with my higher power. I never used to pray and I started praying recently. “Please use me today to my highest possibility, my highest potential and how can I serve, how can I be of service?” I ask this instead of having a limited point of view of what I want to achieve. Setting goals closes me off to this huge realm of what could possibly happen. That’s what living into the possibility is for me. That’s what gets me excited about life.
If you could instantly become an expert in one thing What would it be?
Oh! The first thing that came to my mind was that I’d love to be in a musical on Broadway. It’s a bucket list thing.
Okay, let me think of something else, like an actual thing if I could instantly become an expert in. It would be the LIFE work of a yogi like I strive to attain. That way of being that the sages have, if I could have that instantly and know the way of being that the sages have where your presence illuminates others. And you’re just not affected by anything around you, and just so in the flow and so connected to nature, and not reactive at all in a human way. That would be an amazing expertise to have. I want to be zen-like a sage. Even if it’s just for one day or for a glimpse of that feeling. I have had moments of feeling like none of this matters like how irrelevant my life is and how minuscule this all is. I’d love to feel it and breathe it and just to really be in the joy of it. We’re here anyway so we might as well make the best of it, but really embodying it, having the all-knowing that none of this matters and that we’re all connected, we’re all one that would be really neat. An expertise of oneness.
And be on Broadway!
What risk would you take if you knew you could not fail?
What risk would I take if I knew I cannot fail? I like to believe that I live quite courageously. I’m really comfortable taking big risks. But there’s way more for me to do. There’s a risk, I need to take around owning my power and really stepping into it and taking my platform way bigger and having a bigger voice in the world … globally. I have fear around this that keeps me thinking, Oh, maybe I should just stay here with what I have at Power Yoga Canada. Who am I to think that I could have a show like Oprah, or who am I to think that what I have to say, people are going to actually want to hear on a bigger platform. I need to drop that fear and step into my power and just own it like “who am I not to be?” Marianne Williamson’s famous quote, I love where she says “who am I not to be?”
Defining strengths as things that make you feel strong, what are your top three strengths?
One of my top strengths is to make people feel good. I don’t know what I do … actually I do know what I do, I create relatability for people and make them feel like they belong. I’ve always naturally been able to do this and I call it my superhero power. It’s the ability to make people around me feel like they belong and that we’re all connected and less separate.
Another strength is to say yes to things. I’ve been gifted with some really strong intuitive voices inside my body that I just say, “Yes!” to the craziest things that other people would have logical concerns about. I guess it’s trusting my intuition. I used to say, “I’m really lucky!” And I shifted that years ago because it isn’t luck, it’s a choice. I have definitely chosen to say, “Yes!” to things along the way, whereas an old dialogue would have said, “Oh you’re just lucky. Good things just happened to you.” I shifted that dialogue. I chose a path, and I said yes to it. There’s an intuitive strength that I’ve had in my life, where I say yes to things when there was no way of knowing whether I was going to succeed or not. It could actually be a little fearful, or scary but it’s never led me astray. It’s always led me to a new adventure and it’s always worked out.
I would say that my third one, then, is a deep trust. A strength of mine is a deep trust that all will be well, that all is working out and that I don’t need to worry. I know that something way bigger and powerful and omnipresent knows the path and I just need to put my seatbelt on and go for the ride. Providence moves through, the universe provides, and so, when you start to trust that more and more than we’re able to take bigger risks because we know that the universe will provide. We just took a big risk, my business partner and I. We just bought a building in the middle of a pandemic. We have no idea how we’re going to make it work, but we just trust that it will and you know, I don’t lose any sleep over it. I really do believe it’ll work out well and that we’ll figure it out.
I know that something way bigger and powerful and omnipresent knows the path and I just need to put my seatbelt on and go for the ride.
What is one book that you think should be mandatory high school reading.
Art of Possibility for sure, by Zander. He’s a music teacher and a composer. The audiobook is phenomenal. I live by that book, I live by the principles of that book. Every school teacher needs to read it. One of the chapters is called giving yourself an A. He did this with a class. He said to all of the students you already have an A and then he had them write a letter about how they got the A as if they were standing at the end of the school year. They would write Oh, I trained this much, I practiced 1 hr a day… etc. So he created the possibility that they already had the A. He then told them, “All you have to do is now live into what you already know and already have. You’ve already got the A.”
I know that I am inspired to go and write a letter to myself right now! We are so honoured to feature Kinndli this week and thrilled that she could share some of her head and heart with us at canadaloves.ca. You can catch her at Power Yoga Canada and if you’re interested in what’s possible, connect with her. She might point to the sky and remind you that we are all limitless.
If you’d like a copy of the list of questions we have for our guests, and some that might spark some deep-dive conversations, contact us and we’ll be happy to send you the list.
If you know someone who would be a great addition to our Friday Feature Female line up, let know here.
