Authenticity: The Portal to Personal Power – An Interview with Grace Mosgeller

Discover how shedding the masks we wear can lead to increased happiness and deeper relationships!

Sparked by a life-changing experience at a Tony Robbins event, Grace Mosgeller shares her shift from living with a victim mentality to increased self-awareness and tremendous personal growth. As she continued her healing journey, Grace discovered a system for healing relationships through soul-to-soul communication, ultimately tapping into the importance of authenticity in order to create meaningful change in our lives. 

In this conversation, we dive into how her life has been deeply impacted by Danzan Ryu Jujitsu and the connection between redirecting energy in martial arts to strategies for business growth and development. Grace reveals how internal power and authenticity cultivate effectiveness in all aspects of our lives. We also discuss her book, “The Freedom to Flourish: Stop Hustling and Become Profitable” where she helps you become profitable and make the impact you want with your business. Let’s dive in to the conversation!

One of the ways you describe yourself is a “Authenticity and Personal Power Pro.” To get us started, I want to hear about this idea of authenticity. We use that term a lot in our culture and, of course, in the world of spirituality. What does authenticity mean to you, and why is it so important to you? 

Grace Mosgeller: Authenticity to me is really about being true to your essence, true to yourself, and true to your soul. A lot of times, we don’t even realize when we’re being inauthentic because we’re wearing these masks—masks of perfection, masks of competence—when deep inside, we’re shaking. It shows up in job interviews and on first dates, right? We always want to put our best foot forward.

So, it becomes an interesting dance. How do you put your best foot forward without lying, but still feel congruent and in integrity with yourself on the inside?

Same thing is true with social media a lot of times, right? We’re putting our best foot forward, and then you have others who just let it all fly. 

Grace Mosgeller: Well, it’s not about the “let it all fly” stuff. For me, that was a really great defining question because on the internet and social media, there are so many talking heads. I was struck one day while scrolling through my LinkedIn feed when I came across a woman who wasn’t saying anything. She was just walking, with soothing music and some words of wisdom. That was such a calming balm, so I stopped and paused, whereas the talking heads were just talking at you, yep, yep yeping trying to capture your attention.

So, to define it more deeply, to me, authenticity is about coming from your heart, coming from your soul, and being true—speaking truth. 

Why is it so important to be an authentic person? 

Grace Mosgeller: If you want to make an impact, if you want true connection, if you want true happiness, false advertising won’t give you that outcome. When you’re authentic and true to yourself, even if it means saying, “I really don’t like that,” and there’s a hot guy wanting to take you on a date, you risk that rejection.

Sure, maybe you risk rejection in the moment, but if you continue pretending and then get into a relationship, maybe even get married, those differences will show up. No one will be happy because one person is falsely advertising, and the other is tolerating something. They’re not being themselves, and they don’t know why they’re unhappy. 

Take me back to your story of awakening to spirituality, consciousness, and mindfulness. Did you grow up with some sort of spirituality in your home, or was that something new for you later in life? 

Grace Mosgeller: Well, of course, I went to church, but that felt more like a duty. My mom didn’t go to church with us—she had a different religion, so she listened to it on the radio. I got some of what she had from the radio and some from church. But spirituality for me really happened when I was 40.

I walked on fire at a Tony Robbins event on my 40th birthday, and my husband and I entered his 18-month training program. It wasn’t until the last day, the last hour, of the last seminar that I realized everything wrong in my marriage wasn’t his fault. There were things I needed help with too. To make it worse, I had been micromanaging him so much that I wasn’t getting a lot out of the relationship.

So what did I do? As I was leaving the auditorium, an invisible set of hands on my shoulders turned me towards the leadership table. I pulled out a paid-off credit card and entered the program.

That was my initiation into NLP, spirituality, and Tony’s life mastery techniques. It worked well for a while because, back then, I was very brain-dominant and results-oriented. I would pull myself up, find a goal, and go for it. Like when you walk on fire—you get the job done. Because you’re numb, you don’t feel much, because you are just focused on getting the outcome, and that’s a double-edged sword. It’s not an easy path to navigate; you have to be really aware.

How many years were you really focused on a Tony Robbins’ approach to life?

Grace Mosgeller: I’d say probably four, five, maybe ten years. During that time, almost immediately, I enrolled in another life mastery program at Coach University. It was one of the first life coach trainings online with Thomas Leonard. He passed away, but along the way, I started realizing I had a lot of victim mentality that I didn’t know about.

You don’t realize you’re playing the victim until things stop working. I began peeling things off, one at a time. “Boo-hoo, my dad did this. Boo-hoo, my mom didn’t do that.” It’s painful and harsh because it’s a loss of love and connection, and that hurts. That’s why we put up boundaries and masks that make us inauthentic. Does that make sense?

Did spirituality come into your life more in future years, or how did it evolve? 

Grace Mosgeller: Definitely, diving into other trainings beyond Tony’s work was part of my journey—Barbara De Angelis, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra. I inhaled those teachings and took mini-trainings along the way. I got certified as a Reiki master and picked up other small energy healing methods. I think I learned EFT with Gary Craig back before 2000, maybe 1998 or 1999. But I didn’t give it much credence until about 15 years later.

At that point, I was focused on becoming a better mom, opening my heart to love, and making money working for myself. I could excel jumping through someone else’s hoops, but that’s another part of the mask we wear around authenticity.

When you’re a healer or coach, and your business is based on a heart-centered, soul-calling, that’s a vulnerable place. Self-sabotaging walls come up all over. I struggled with that and had just gone through about 18 months of clearing my lower three chakras—the consciousness in that area. It was harsh. I kept praying for things to be gentler, easier, more like a Cadillac experience. Because if I was having a hard time, being a tough cookie, then not everyone would be able to handle it, and the world would be in trouble.

One night, I was pleading with my guides. I kept hearing, “What do you want? What do you want?” I was frustrated, saying, “I want to make more money, I want to open my heart—how much clearer can I be?” So I went inside myself and asked, “What do I really want?” The moment I said, “I want to let go of the push,” lightning bolts shot through my body, lifting me off the bed in my chest. It felt like being shocked on the ER table.

That was another spiritual awakening. 

What do you sense that was, and what message did you take from it? 

Grace Mosgeller: Well, since they kind of validated letting go of the push—and I was a control freak, always trying to make things happen Tony Robbins style—that’s what I took from Tony Robbins. I’m sure that’s not all of him, but that’s what I took. I learned that I needed to surrender more, drop into my heart, and trust it more. But I didn’t know how to do that.

So I asked for help, of course, and through a series of synchronicities, I ended up in energy healing school. It was another life mastery, energy healing school. The day the teacher played crystal singing bowls, tuned to activate our life purpose energy centers—not chakras, but the Dan Tian, soul, high heart, aha point, discernment point, and of course, pineal, pituitary, and third eye—I had a powerful experience. As each bowl rang, each center opened within me. I saw visions, started laughing out loud, and felt electricity. It wasn’t chest electricity this time; it was more like blue light running through my body. I thought, “Holy cats, you know?”

That was pretty weird for me. Even though I was in energy healing school, I didn’t want to tell anyone. I just felt really, really weird. So I tabled it. I think the universe wanted to get my attention because it happened again, and I had another awakening that put me on an undeniable spiritual journey. I was inundated by negative energies—dark, evil energies. They filled my mind with horrible words about who I was, what they wanted to do to my kids, and how they were going to bring down my house.

That was a very difficult time. I had to keep my mind and spirit centered on love, God, and the light. It took a lot of will, tenacity, and time. By the end of it, I knew my spiritual mission was more important than my life.

What happened after that? At night, during meditation, or when I’d wake up in deep healing meditation, my guides would come to me. They showed me relationship conflicts I needed to heal and started training me with the soul purpose archetype system I’d learned in energy healing school. Rhys Thomas is the one who came up with it. I was shown how to heal relationships quickly, gently, and effectively. It wasn’t overnight—it was every night, but it took about three, four, or five years. From that, I’ve developed a quick, easy way to heal your issues, be authentic, and be proud of it. To make an impact from the heart, from the soul.

And you may ask why that’s important.

Well, soul-to-soul communication is what registers and creates change. Soul-to-soul communication triggers something. Mirror neurons come into play; we recognize feelings. That’s what I’m here to teach. It’s obvious from my journey—you could call it the hero’s journey—that my mission is to teach strong women how to open their hearts, trust love, and be authentic with their soul’s purpose. So they know, without a doubt, that who they are and why they’re here is important, and they’re on a beautiful, purposeful path. 

You described a lot of programs, trainings, and experiences that you went through personally for your own healing. At what point did you start to think, “Okay, I can use these tools to help others, not just myself”? 

Grace Mosgeller: Oh, I’ve been doing it since Tony Robbins. 

So from the very beginning of that personal development journey?

Grace Mosgeller: Yeah, I’ve been helping people for almost—it’ll be 28 years in February. 

Who do you feel most passionate about working with, and what common challenges do they face? What’s the end result you want to achieve with them? 

Grace Mosgeller: Well, there are two sets of women. The first group is super achievers. They’ve made it in the world, but they look back and realize their life feels empty. They might think, “Oh, I left out my kids and family.” They have all these achievements and stuff, but they’re missing something. They’re passionate about fixing that.

Another common issue, especially for high-achieving women, is that their family sometimes blocks them from seeing their children or grandchildren, and they don’t understand why. When I explain it from a soul personality perspective, they fully understand. Compassion for themselves and their family members becomes clear, and forgiveness follows easily.

The cool thing is, when you forgive—maybe you’ve heard this before since you interview a lot of people—but when you forgive, your fourth chakra opens. At the same time, your sixth and seventh chakras open, allowing you to see the relationship through the eyes of the divine. It’s a soul-level up-leveling.

I’m passionate about that, especially for women in power. When they heal, not only do they heal their families, but they also impact their businesses and the people they influence. It’s exponential, and I love that.

The second group of people close to my heart are heart-centered entrepreneurs who struggle to make money working for themselves. I have a whole program to help them. This is how you do it, this is the mindset you need, and here’s the healing so that your nervous system matches your mindset. 

Why is “personal power” such a key part of your message, and why should we be concerned about our own personal power? 

Grace Mosgeller: So, remember we talked about the importance of authenticity in the beginning. Authenticity is hidden by masks, and masks come from compromising yourself to fit in. When you compromise yourself, you lose your power to be yourself. That’s where I’m coming from.

Personal power is also robbed when you’re stuck in anger, blame, or shame, which is just another side of fear. One of my favorite techniques from my Personal Power Incubator program is taking anger from your body and voicing it outside of your body. It becomes outrage, and you express it in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone else.

Once you clear that energy from your nervous system, you realize anger is a life force telling you, “I deserve better.” Then you can set up energetic boundaries around self-worth, self-esteem, and personal value. Forgiveness is part of that process as well.

Personal power gives you the ability to say uncomfortable things in a relationship that you care about. It lets you ask for things you’ve never asked for before. It’s the power to walk boldly toward your goals, even if no one else has done it before. It’s the path of a leader. I can go off on another tangent about that if you’d like.

Go for it, keep going yeah. 

Grace Mosgeller: Okay. Leaders often don’t know they’re leaders. That was me. When I was guided to the leadership table at Tony Robbins, I thought, “I’m not a leader, no one follows me.”

But the truth is, within soul purpose archetypes, one of the main traits of a leader is having a parent who is a leader. Leaders also make everyone around them support them. The stronger the leader, the more they create people-pleasers around them. That’s what happened to me. My mom, dad, and brother were all leaders. And then there was me, the empath. I became a doormat.

When you have the archetype of a leader but feel squished, you know you have power, but you also know you let others take over. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s about learning to embrace that, yes, you are a leader. And how do you lead from love?

When it comes to personal power and anger, a lot of high-achieving leaders have a “my way or the highway” mindset. They micromanage, and being on the receiving end of that makes you put up a mask. You make vows like, “I’ll never be like that” or “I’ll never let that happen to me again.” You put up a big boundary around it.

The healing process involves two things: healing your relationship with that “mean, nasty” leader and reclaiming your personal power. It also involves reclaiming your ability to stand for what you believe in and move forward. 

I want to talk for a minute about your book “The Freedom to Flourish: Stop Hustling & Become Profitable“. You connect your experience with over 20 years in martial arts to business. Early on in the book, you describe that “any entrepreneur who is on a heart and soul-led mission to impact with their unique and amazing gifts has to be aligned with their own heart, soul, and spiritual life purpose if they want to make the impact and the profits that they’ve been called to make.”

We’ve been talking about being authentic and stepping into your power, but in this statement, you use a different phrase, talking about being aligned with your heart. How does being aligned with your heart result in both impact and profits? 

Grace Mosgeller: Spiritually speaking, your heart serves your soul, and your brain serves your heart. Most of us are wired to let our brain ignore our hearts and just push forward. The brain is for survival, but the soul is for thriving.

We live in a time of amazing abundance. It doesn’t feel that way because we’re inundated with fear and scarcity, but even the homeless have access to cell phones. That’s abundance.

We’re entering an age of change, which is why so many people are awakening. Part of that awakening involves being more compassionate and loving toward others, instead of focusing on bottom-line profits.

To profit in this new energy, new dimension, new age of being—and to thrive with peace, ease, comfort, joy, happiness, and full impact—you need to align with your heart. It’s about soul-to-soul communication, not just logic and “get the job done.”

And how do you align with your heart? That’s the big question. That’s what I teach from day one. 

Talk to me about why you have been drawn to martial arts. What is it about martial arts that’s so attractive to you, and what are the lessons you’ve learned from martial arts, both personally, and how has that played into your professional or business life? 

Grace Mosgeller: So, the style of martial arts I study is Danzan Ryu Jujitsu, and the purpose of the system is “perfection of character.” What that means is, at first, you just learn the techniques, like in life—we learn how to walk, read, and write. But if you really want to have power and presence, to be a winner in a duel or a match, it all comes from being centered and aligned.

The center is about mind, body, and spirit. Martial arts embody that. Your body must be in alignment, your mind empty—without preconceived emotions or masks—and totally present. Your spirit must be connected to heaven and earth, so you can light up that passion inside. Once you do that, that’s mastery. It takes a lifetime to get there, and some people don’t achieve it, even after a lifetime of work. I’m not saying I’m there, but I’m aiming for it. I hang out with men and women who have achieved that mastery, and they are master healers, full of humility.

So, how does that apply to business and life? Well, jujitsu is all about redirecting energy. If someone throws a punch, you step off the line, redirect it, blend with it, and co-create. It’s all done with intention. In coaching, like Tony Robbins teaches, it’s all about, “What’s your outcome? What’s your intention?” In martial arts, when someone threatens you, you respond with intention—breaking a wrist or throwing them to the ground. It’s your whole being—body, mind, and spirit—aligned.

In business, it’s the same. The intention is, “I’m going to make this money with the impact of my heart and soul.” To align that fully—that’s the goal. I could go on, but I need another prompt. 

In Chapter 11, you write, “The right strategy and technique PLUS internal focused power = the power to succeed.” I’m curious how you’re connecting that with martial arts. Can you share more?

Grace Mosgeller: In my style of martial arts, the very first art on the list is an escape from an outside wrist grip, right? It’s very simple, like a big C. The last on the whole list—and there are probably a couple hundred techniques to learn—the last one is munen muso, which means “empty mind, no mind.” When you’re not using your mind, you’re pure spirit. You go through all the techniques, the first time, the second time, the third time, each time more connected to the spirit within. So you’re not thinking—it’s just who you are and what you’re doing.

In the end, it’s not just technique and strategy. Sure, the physics involved are fascinating—just a difference in finger placement can change everything in terms of effectiveness. But it’s also about being centered on the inside. We’ve all heard of the “calm within the storm,” right? Martial artists train their whole lives to be that calm in the storm of life. That’s what I teach in my Personal Power Incubator program: how that looks for you. You don’t have to practice martial arts to do it. You can build it within your heart and soul—it’s a tangible feeling inside.

Now, taking this to business: I struggled for about 10 years, trying all kinds of strategies—marketing, course creation, business strategies. Some said, “You need a funnel,” others said, “No, you don’t.” “You need a call to action.” To be honest, I’m excellent at implementing strategy, but nothing worked. It all fell flat. That’s because my low self-esteem, from being a victim, and the masks I wore to cover up insecurities created a wall between me and others. That, plus issues with deservingness and worthiness—its a laundry list of limitations that are different for everyone.

That’s why I say strategy plus internal focus is what it takes. Think of a jet taking off. It’s traveling along the tarmac, the engines fire up, and when it’s ready to take off, it needs extra horsepower to lift off the ground. Once it’s airborne, it’s cruising. The same applies to people and business, whether it’s breaking through financial ceilings, increasing influence, or overcoming walls that protect against intimacy and connection. That power comes from your heart and soul, because that’s where we thrive. It’s a tangible feeling you build within yourself. It becomes a training tool, and that’s the place where not only do you feel good, but you also self-validate your intuition. You heal from there, and you create from there. To me, it’s everything. 

You recently wrote an article in Awakened Magazine about the need for us to stop fighting ourselves through self-sabotage. What are some clues we might be sabotaging ourselves in relationships, business, or life? And,what can we do to stop? 

Grace Mosgeller: Clues for self-sabotage in business include feeling like you’re stuck in mud, unable to move forward. You have a strategy, you know what to do, but you don’t do it. Or, you have cycles like, “Wow, I made a lot of money this month,” and then the next month you didn’t. Or, there’s a big fear of being on stage, speaking your truth, or asking for the sale.

In relationships, it’s being afraid to say, “I don’t like that,” or “I want this,” or calling someone out on inappropriate behavior. Overall, it’s about wake-up calls—your health, wealth, or relationships. If you’re in toxic relationships, maybe the other person is presenting all the wrong behaviors, but you’re still in the relationship. That’s your end of it, and once you heal that, you no longer need to attract that kind of relationship. Did I answer that? 

What’s the solution? Is it about heading back to my authenticity and embracing my personal power? 

Grace Mosgeller: What I do in my program is called a mindset makeover. I used to offer it for free, but now I charge because it’s fantastic. Basically, you look at where you’re sabotaging yourself and ask, “What would I have to believe to be doing this?” Then, you stack up all the reasons—how you feel, what’s going on. On the opposite side of the page, you write down, “What am I really trying to achieve instead? What do I really want?” These become your soul-aligned affirmations.

Remember, nothing is more powerful than who you are inside—your essence, your soul, and your heart. That’s stronger than these self-sabotaging things, which are based on fear. In the article, I wrote that self-sabotage protects the tender part of you, the light within, from being threatened or attacked. But it’s outdated programming. It feels real, seems real, but it isn’t—it’s false evidence appearing real.

You can do this work alone, but it’s easier with a coach or healer to help let go. You can use tapping or energy healing techniques to release the self-sabotaging behaviors. You realize, “I don’t need this anymore. I did it because of X, Y, and Z.” Maybe there’s some forgiveness needed. Then, you flourish. You have the freedom to flourish with soul-aligned affirmations and intentions. You know they’re real because you feel it, just like you know when you’re hungry or sleepy. You know when you’re soul-aligned.

Earlier, you mentioned your Personal Power Incubator program. What is it? Who is it for? Is it one-on-one, group-based? How many weeks? Tell us all about it. 

Grace Mosgeller: My Personal Power Incubator program can be done one-on-one, in small groups of three, or in a larger group setting, depending on your entry price point and need. I also offer VIP days—actually, more like VIP months. The goal is to pick an area of your life that feels like you’re crawling through mud, something that’s not working. Then, step by step, we go through the consciousness of each chakra system to clear the issues and  let go of fear and anger then rechanneling them into self respecting boundaries.

You change your identity, becoming a different person, and align your mindset with what works. The strategy is aligned with spiritual principles. A big one for heart-centered entrepreneurs is the difficulty in asking for the sale. You might think, “I can’t charge $10,000 for my six-month program,” when that’s actually cheap for the transformation they get. The mindset shift is: sales are service. If I’m not selling, they’re not in my program, and they’re not getting the help they need—the help I know I can provide.

It costs this much because when they’re done, I know I can get them there, and their lives can be changed in so many ways. The value is a thousand times more than what they pay. What I do in the program is help you integrate that belief into your nervous system, so it becomes conscious competence.

The same applies to relationships: “I am lovable.” I mix business, money, and relationships together because, after 30 years of doing this, I’ve realized it comes down to your relationship with love, money, and power. If you’ve ever done algebra, think of them as equal to each other. Love can be the exchange of money, power can be the exchange of love, and so on. When you align love, money, and power, you create an upward spiral of co-creation and abundance. That’s what I teach.

You’re also a speaker! What sets you apart as a speaker who someone would want to invite you to their summit, online training, in-person event, or retreat?

Grace Mosgeller: I’ve been trained to speak from stage in a storytelling capacity, sharing my hero’s journey—from victim, to victimizer, to victorious. I end with practical teachings, and I really enjoy doing this as a keynote speech in business settings. It’s entertainment plus practical spirituality.

One of the main tools I use is teaching how to use namaste to make your spiritual purpose more powerful than your fears. It’s simple, easy to grasp, and very effective. It’s impactful and wonderful.

If someone wants to book you as a speaker, work with you in your Personal Power Incubator program, or just follow you on social media, what’s the best way to connect? 

Grace Mosgeller: The best place to connect with me is at callgracemosgeller.com. There, you can schedule an appointment with me. I’ll get to know you and direct you wherever you need. If you want to book me as a speaker, I have a portfolio page at gracemosgeller.com.

Before we wrap up, one thing about my book –  inside are links to bonus resources, including a couple of guided meditations to help you align with that inner soul feeling. I also just updated the soul purpose relationships section, so you can start to understand the differences in relationships and why people act horribly when they’re unconscious, and what their higher purpose really is. It’s very, very useful.