How to Be Relentless Without Burning Out: The Breathwork, Kettlebells, and Grief That Shaped Soji James
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube
"There's the version of you, and there's the version of you after the world gets its hands on you — and tells you what's good enough, what success should look like. The more confident we can feel in our bodies and in our minds, we really can dictate what that should be, no matter what's going on externally." - Soji James
Soji James is a New York-based strength and kettlebell coach, meditation teacher, breathwork facilitator and the founder of the Metta Club. The Metta Club is a mindfulness-based community built around making that inner work feel practical and human.
His practice is built on a conviction most of the fitness industry ignores: that the body and the inner life are not separate projects, and that the people most in need of stillness are usually the ones moving too fast to notice.
Soji grew up in the Bronx, raised by a mother who told him consistently that the pen was always his to hold - that he had the power to write his own story. He found strength training in college at SUNY New Paltz, where he studied biology and played basketball.
During one of the most challenging seasons of his life, meditation and breathwork became the survival tools that helped him through it. After losing his father unexpectedly to a heart attack at 52, and discovering he had no framework to process the grief. That experience reshaped his understanding of what his clients actually need, and what he had needed long before he knew to ask for it.
All of his experiences are the foundation of everything he teaches. Soji believes most of us were taught how to go hard, but not how to be still. And his whole philosophy is that you don't have to choose. You can be driven and grounded. You can chase big goals and still know how to pause.
He launched his coaching practice 13 years ago. Today, he works with clients across the country, ranging from executives, surgeons, founders, and parents, and he also leads breathwork and meditation sessions inside companies and organizations.
Connect with Soji
Website: www.sojijames.com
Instagram: @soji.james1
Connect with Naomi
Website: www.naomihaile.com
LinkedIn: Naomi Haile
Instagram: @naomiahaile
This episode is for you if:
You're a high-achiever who has the ambition down but needs better tools for the in-between moments
You're curious about what breathwork and meditation actually look like in practice — not the retreat version, the real-life version
You want to understand how physical training and mindfulness can work together instead of competing for your time
You've experienced a loss or a difficult season and you're looking for tools that helped someone else find their footing
You're building a business or career and quietly wondering if the pace you're keeping is sustainable
Looking for a specific gem?
00:00 Welcome and introduction to Soji James
03:14 Growing up in the Bronx
09:40 Being forced into the weight room at 6am, and why it changed his life.
12:18 The complement to awareness is action.
14:43 Becoming a coach (and the manager who told him he'd regret it)
15:33 Betting on himself 13 years ago and building ever since
20:37 The surgeon who deadlifted 315 lbs and redefined who he was
22:05 Soji’s client living with Parkinson's and why it's never too late (started training at over 60)
23:58 Healthspan, not just lifespan, and training for the life you want at 70
29:37 Kettlebells for building muscle, burn fat, mobility, conditioning and endurance
34:05 Losing his father and how that slowed things down and
35:37 Meditating for the first time and learning to sit with grief
35:17 How meditation enhanced his coaching and deepened his parenthood journey
36:50 Breaking cycles, meditating and training in front of his three boys
46:27 The physiological sigh: a breathwork practice you can do anywhere
47:54 The humming breath and the vagus nerve
49:35 Active laziness, silence, and what you find when you stop filling the space
53:10 What is the Metta Club and who is it built for?
Conversation Transcript
Naomi Haile: All right. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of The Power of Why podcast. My name is Naomi Haile, and today I am here with the one and only Soji James. Soji, how are you doing today?
Soji James: I'm doing amazing. I'm extremely grateful to be able to sit here with my girl — her energy is just amazing. I feel like I just need more of that. We all need more of that goodness in our lives. So I'm hyped for this morning. I'm ready to go.
Naomi Haile: I was telling Soji — we went on a run today with the most incredible view. It's beautiful outside, it's kind of chilly, but it's beautiful. And I've just been very grateful to Nadia, my dear friend who introduced us about a month ago. I think Soji has so many incredible life experiences to share, both on the mental health and the physical health side, and he's such a light doing the work that he does.
For the audience, a little bit of background. Soji James is a strength and kettlebell coach, meditation teacher, and breathwork facilitator. What makes his work distinct is that he holds both of these worlds together on purpose — helping people build strength both mentally and physically. During one of the most challenging seasons of his life, meditation and breathwork became the tools that helped him through it. That experience is now the foundation of everything he teaches.
He believes most of us were taught how to go hard, but not how to be still. His philosophy is that you don't have to choose — you can be driven and you can be grounded. You can chase big goals and still know how to pause. He runs a virtual coaching practice where he coaches clients across the country, leads breathwork sessions inside companies and organizations, and is the founder of the Meta Club, a mindfulness-based community built around making that inner work feel practical and human.
Soji, welcome to The Power of Why podcast. I'm so excited you're here. I'd love for you to start by sharing a little bit about your origin story and how you grew up.
Soji James: Thank you so much, Naomi. Your boy is excited. I need an intro like that every day when I step into the world.
I'm from the Bronx — born and raised in Eastchester Gardens. I come from a place where the narrative is kind of laid out for you in terms of the outcomes you get out of life. I didn't grow up looking to my left and right and seeing people handle their issues by slowing down, going within, breathing. I wasn't taught how to properly process my emotions. I was raised in a household where you bottled things up and moved on — because that's just what you did.
But from an early age, my mother consistently told me that it was my job to take the pen. Wherever I started wouldn't dictate where I ended.
My superhero origin story for fitness and training — I was 10 years old, fifth grade, going on this elementary school trip. I was a little overweight kid, but I guess at the time didn't really realize it. All the boys lined up on one side, girls on the other. I came out with my Pokémon towel draped over my shoulder, took it off, and everyone looked at me. If your boy could have had a Harry Potter invisibility cloak, I would have been in space, colonized Mars. But that moment began my fitness journey — this understanding of stepping back and looking at my body as something I was being judged on as I stepped out into the world.
From there I started following my bigger brother around. He played basketball, so I picked up a ball. That was my first introduction to movement.
Eventually I found myself at SUNY New Paltz, studying biology, playing college basketball. And I was introduced to my strength coach, Keith Kenny. That experience transformed my life in how I saw myself and how I interacted with the world. It was my first time stepping into a weight room — and it was transformative. The confidence I built, the identity I was affirming — if I could show up consistently, look failure in the face, and build toward this goal, there wasn't anything I couldn't do as I stepped out into the world.
Naomi Haile: That's incredible. Before you hit the weight room and really explored what strength looked like — were you always a happy kid? Or did training make it exponential?
Soji James: Genuinely, my mom pumped your boy up from an early age. Even in the environment I grew up in, I was still able to step out and smile, find the gratitude points, find ways to keep moving.
But the weight room was a different beast. It was so cool to set goals — but even more importantly, to keep my word to myself. If I could show up consistently, build the resilience to build this body, there isn't anything else I can't do. It allowed me to take that same gratitude, that joy, that fulfillment, and carry it confidently into the world.
You walk out into the world and there's the version of you — and then there's the version of you after the world gets its hands on you, tells you what's good enough, what success should look like. The more confident we can feel in our bodies and in our minds, we really can dictate what that should be.
Naomi Haile: You mentioned your coach, Keith Kenny. Coaches, teachers, parents — anyone in that developmental phase who really pours into you. How did you end up in the weight room? Was it because of basketball, or was it a personal decision?
Soji James: We were definitely forced to be there. Like study hall — you want to be part of this institution, weight room three times a week, you need to show up.
At first I was like, what is this going to do for me? It's 6am, I wish I could have slept in. But I stepped in, the endorphins would hit, and every session it was just you against you. I think in life, comparison pops up a lot. But this was this fundamental microcosm of: I step in as me, I'm just trying to compete with the individual who stepped in yesterday. It was cool to see myself showing up over time and getting better, and then the camaraderie of doing this with your basketball partners in crime. There was something special about those connections, that community. It took me out of the weight room — it followed me into presentations, around campus, back home as a different individual.
Naomi Haile: I introduced you to my friend Almeta, who is also on The Power of Why — and both of your entrances into strength training started in such a similar, beautiful way. Both in community. Both where the result bled into every area of life.
For a lot of my audience, so much of their growth work happens in their heads — therapy, journaling, coaching, reading. What does the body have access to that the mind alone doesn't? What did your training unlock for you?
Soji James: I'm a big proponent of journaling, coaching, therapy. The awareness you develop in those disciplines — finding blind spots, seeing doors you didn't even know were there — is massive. But I think the complement to that awareness has to be the action.
The mind develops the awareness. The body — when you do things over and over again — develops the belief. We have to actually step through the door.
The Body Keeps Score talks about how we hold on to trauma. Even now, after years of facilitating workshops, I was in Arkansas this past weekend guiding sessions, and the butterflies still kick in. My mind can understand there's no immediate threat. But the body does otherwise. The fist starts to clench. The muscles tighten. So there has to be this belief through action that reaffirms the identity we're trying to step out into the world and create.
Naomi Haile: When did you come into yourself as a coach? What was that journey of deciding — I want to share this, I want to train other people to find what I found?
Soji James: I'm constantly evolving. The more I've learned, the more I understand there's so much still to learn and grow.
But the big action I took was about 13 years ago. I had been working at a gym — doing personal training, skill sessions after college basketball. New management came in and essentially tried to tell me what my role would be. Once again, someone coming in to write my story for me. I had built up a roster of clients and I said — you know what, I'm going to bet on myself.
I left, started my own business. The manager told me I was making the dumbest decision of my life and I'd be crawling back. I felt like I stepped into my coaching the moment I said to myself: I'm going to figure this thing out. I'm enough. Let's do it.
I've been growing ever since — getting around mentors, getting around other people who are doing what I do, hearing that we all are going through similar struggles. We are more alike than we are different. That's been really empowering.
Naomi Haile: I'm so glad you made that bet. You mentioned your clients are often executives and business owners. Did that happen naturally, or did you actively seek out people who were building something bigger than themselves?
Soji James: A combination of both. I started with whoever was directly in front of me. My number one question was always: how could I best serve them? Eventually it became a word-of-mouth thing. A surgeon told me I saved his career. Someone in media said I changed how they showed up on air. So it started there.
But I'm also a solopreneur. I understand the stress, the mental rollercoaster, the hula hoops you're jumping through on a day-to-day basis. I started asking myself: what do people like me need more of? How could I be the version of myself that maybe I needed back then?
Naomi Haile: The surgeon who said you saved his career — and the media professional who saw the difference in how they showed up — what are some of those transformations you've witnessed up close? I think it gives people a frame for what you can unlock when you start to tap into your body.
Soji James: Neil Botsch — a surgeon at Columbia Presbyterian. I started training with him around 53. He'd never done this kind of physical work. Long hours, hunched over — classic surgeon posture and strain. We worked mobility, power, movement. We were deadlifting 315 pounds — one and a half times his body weight. Running. Snatching heavy bells.
I feel like especially as adults, we stop playing. We're not running on playgrounds anymore. We're at desks, in front of computers, building things. And we get away from what we're actually capable of doing in our bodies. The weight room is a micro playground to see what you're capable of. And I call all my clients athletes. They look at me like I'm crazy. But once I see that light bulb turn on — once I see them redefine themselves — it's incredibly powerful.
And then there's an older client with Parkinson's I work with. A lot of trainers put a ceiling on what someone with a diagnosis can accomplish. This is a guy who started training at 60-plus, and we're slamming medicine balls, doing vertical jumps, working on elasticity. He told me: this is the most fun I've ever moved.
It's never too late. Once you get a little taste of what you can accomplish, it stokes your fire to go all in on yourself.
Naomi Haile: I love that both examples are people over 50 getting started. For folks who think it might be over for them, who think they're past the window — you're saying no.
Soji James: Healthspan, not just lifespan. We're projected to live longer — but what's the quality going to be? I've got people sprinting, doing power work, jumping, moving heavy weight fast. We're keeping the body's ability to do those things for as long as possible.
I want to be able to play basketball with my boys. I have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a six-month-old. I need to be training now in ways that let my body meet my brain where it wants to be. How do you want to show up for your loved ones when you're older? That backpacking trip you've been putting off because you've been building the business — I want you to be able to take it.
Naomi Haile: What state are people in when they find you?
Soji James: It varies a ton. I'll get the surgeon who poured into their career for years and let themselves fall to the side. The mom of three who gave everything to her kids and put herself on the shelf. The entrepreneur who's so obsessed with growing the business that their health plays second fiddle.
For all of them, the first thing I want to find is what's going to hook them in for one more session. That one self-discovery that keeps them coming back.
I'm also big on identifying core values. If you can get to the root of your why — the real one — that's what powers you to get up early or stay a little late. When someone comes to me burnt out from what life has thrown on their plate, we just talk first. How are you doing? Where have you been? What's happening right now? How do you see yourself — and how can we begin to redefine that?
Naomi Haile: I love that you integrate the full human into your practice. You mentioned kettlebells — how did you find them, and do you use them with all your clients?
Soji James: The pandemic was the catalyst. All the gyms shut down, hard to get access to equipment. I was on Instagram seeing people doing some funky cool stuff, and I was instantly hooked.
I love kettlebells because they're extremely versatile. Whatever your goal — building muscle, burning fat, mobility, endurance — you can do it. And they'll fit in the corner of your apartment.
But more than that, I feel like with fitness, it can be so outcome-based — I need to lose this, change that about myself. With the kettlebell approach, it's more about: I'm developing a skill. I'm building efficacy and confidence. And as a counter result, the weight will shift, I'll get stronger. It's another backdoor approach to getting to the result you want, while leaving you feeling more empowered.
Naomi Haile: At the beginning of the episode, we talked about how you hold both — the mental health and the physical health. How did you discover breathwork and meditation, and how do you integrate that into your practice?
Soji James; 13 years ago, when I left that gym and went out on my own — at that point, my thing was how many clients could I fill the dock with? I had these core values listed, but I was moving so fast I wasn't even realizing I wasn't in alignment with them.
And then the universe slowed me down.
One day I'm leaving work, I'm headed back home, I'm dating a girl who is now my wife. I walk out and I see a bunch of my father's friends. My parents had been divorced since I was 12, so this was foreign. They say: let's go back upstairs, let's talk. And they tell me my father died of a heart attack. He was 52. The doctors in Nigeria were on strike where he was visiting. They sent him to a hospital, got rejected, and he passed en route to the next one.
In that moment, all the color left my face. I was forced to slow down. And even then, I tried to go back to work two days later like nothing happened. I didn't have the tools to process grief. My father and I hadn't had the best relationship — he was an immigrant from Nigeria, his idea of success was doctor or lawyer, and my entrepreneurial spirit clashed with that. I kept ignoring his calls, thinking: when I make it, I'll prove him wrong. And I never had that time.
I broke down crying in front of a client during an intake session two days after his death. They wiped my tears off my face. And that moment said: I need to slow down and sit with this.
I had heard about meditation back in high school. My mom mentioned it. But I looked to my left, looked to my right — nobody in my spaces looked like me doing that. I figured it wasn't my kind of thing.
Until it was. I started with something like Headspace — and it gave me space. It didn't heal everything overnight. But it gave me space to process, to understand that it's okay to feel emotions and not just stifle them. To sit with the guilt of not answering the phone. To ask: how do I want to move and live differently from here?
Soji James: Meditation allowed me to step back and genuinely look at my core values and see: what really matters to me, and how can I live in alignment with these things?
With clients, I'll sneak breathwork in at the end of a cool down. Some people hear "meditation" and it's too woo-woo — so I blend the disciplines. I may add a box breathing segment at the end of a workout to begin the recovery process, start to down-regulate. Or if someone comes in and says man, I had an extremely stressful day — I set my plan aside. We start the session with five-second inhales, five-second exhales. Talk to me. How do we need to shift here? Because we're trying to win the long game.
It's allowed me to be a much more empathetic, compassionate human outside of coaching too. As a father of three, as a partner, as a friend. Every morning I wake up, meditate, reflect. It lets me check in: what do I need today? So I've brought this to my life, I've brought this to my clients' lives — and it's made me a better father, a better coach, a better businessman.
Naomi Haile: I love that you described them as tools — ones you've added over time. And I'm really sorry for your loss. The way that news came, and having not had the chance to leave things on good terms — I know that's a particular kind of pain. But I also know that you found tools through it that you're now giving to other people. That's powerful.
Soji James: With meditation and breathwork — I was even speaking to my therapist last week, continuing to work on different versions of myself, essentially providing for others what I needed at those moments.
And if you're a busy entrepreneur, stressed out, overwhelmed, feeling paralyzed — sometimes it's not about adding another thing to the to-do list. Sometimes it's about taking a step back, cutting through the noise, and asking: what on my plate is actually taking from me rather than pouring into me? Just slowing down and breathing and checking in — that can help a lot of people.
Naomi Haile: You mentioned a quote from your Arkansas workshop that stopped the room.
Soji James: So I flew out to lead a workshop for 45 coaches at a campus called UHP — they take veterans returning from war and give them the opportunity to learn personal training, wellness coaching, nutrition, and essentially give them a new mission as they reintegrate into society. I'm running breathwork segments, and afterward, a veteran comes up to me and says something that just took me off guard:
You have to train your monk and you have to train your motherfcker.*
That's it. The monk — that's the stillness, the ability to pull the car over and process what's going on. Going slow. But you also need the part of you that can look fear in the eyes and show up anyway. That can see perfection and fight through it. If we're always resting, we're not moving the needle. If we're always go-go-go, we burn out. We need both — not to just exist, but to thrive.
Naomi Haile: How do you personally train both?
Soji James: In the morning, I have rituals I try to check off throughout the day. First: breathe, slow down, ask myself how I'm feeling, what are the three actions I want to knock out today. Gratitude. Set the day with intention.
Then I get to movement. I have a coach who programs for me — that takes stuff off my plate. I'm snatching heavy bells, sprinting in the backyard, cleaning bells, lifting heavy things. That fires me up. It gives me an immediate sense of accomplishment before I even start the hard parts of my day.
So: train the mind, then train the body and shift state. Then — let's go, how do we move the mission forward?
Naomi Haile: How early do you get up? You have three kids, a beautiful wife — how do you protect those mornings?
Soji James: I try to be in the four to 4:30am space. But everyone's different, and with three little ones it's unpredictable. This morning I was meditating around five, and one kid had a nightmare and came downstairs and sat in my lap. So we did an open-awareness meditation together — taking in the sounds of him, taking in the sounds of the environment, doing some slow breaths side by side.
And with movement — I love them seeing me move. That's part of why I work out from home. They have little kettlebells too. They see me deadlift and they come in and deadlift. So not only am I pushing the needle forward for myself, I'm also changing the relationship my next generation has with movement — in real time.
Life is imperfect. I could have all these plans, but then the universe delivers what's in front of you. You make it work. Make it happen.
Naomi Haile: I love how you're flipping the script for your children — not seeing people who looked like them doing meditation or breathwork in their environment, and now they do. It's incredible what we can model.
Soji James: I appreciate that so much. We have these traumas at all different levels and intensities that shape who we are walking through the world — and then we have a choice about how we want them to impact us, and the stories we're going to write from these moments forward.
I didn't see my parents have healthy conversations around money, relationships — a lot of stonewalling. For me, I really want to model what love looks like, what communication looks like. Meditation has really allowed me to do that — it's helped me check my ego, slow down, show up. And that applies not just to a romantic relationship, but to the relationship you have with your business, with the people you coach, with yourself and how you talk to yourself.
Naomi Haile: We're coming up on the end of the episode, but I'd love if you could walk us through one simple breathwork practice someone can use at the beginning of their day or between meetings.
Soji James: You don't need much time at all. I'll start with one of my quick go-tos: the physiological sigh.
Take a sip of oxygen in — then take an extra sip in at the top — and then do a long, slow exhale. You can put a timer for a minute and just run that through.
Here's what's happening: our breath is connected to our nervous system. Long exhales activate a parasympathetic response — essentially signaling to the body: I'm safe, I can relax. Short, shallow breaths do the opposite — they activate the sympathetic response, tighten muscles, increase heart rate.
Most of us, especially entrepreneurs and busy parents, are constantly in a heightened state. The long exhale is the counterweight. It's the key.
The second one I love is the humming breath. Mouth closed — inhale through your nose, then exhale with a hum. Notice the sound of the vibration. Then notice the vibration itself on your tongue. This stimulates the vagus nerve, which calms and relaxes you. And it's a little silly — which I think matters. We can take ourselves too seriously sometimes. I do this one with my kids. Dragon breath, bee hum. It works.
If you don't want to break up the breaths — even a four-second in, seven-second hold, eight-second exhale is powerful. Just tap into that long out breath.
These are pockets of time. Waiting for the elevator. In line. In between meetings. A minute done consistently does more for you than 30 minutes once in a while. That's the research, and it's been my experience.
Naomi Haile: That's so good. And thank you for that reminder that it doesn't need to be a huge ritual — you can find the pockets. My dad actually learned about humming and it produces nitric oxide, which is great for you — so he hums on his walks now. I've started doing the same.
Soji James: Love it. That's exactly it. And I really implore people — be a little more comfortable with silence. When we actually slow down, that's where some of the real important questions pop up: How am I feeling? Is what I'm doing enough? Is this actually aligned with what I want? We try to avoid those moments by pulling out our phones. But Rupert Spira — he has this concept of active laziness — the Western habit of filling every schedule and to-do list with more activity, taking away from moments to actually sit, reflect, and just be. Finding more of those pockets of silence to explore yourself and what you really want — it's a powerful change that could help catapult the rest of your year.
Naomi Haile: Fantastic. Before we go — tell us about the Meta Club. What problem kept showing up that made you want to build something?
Soji James: When I first started meditating, there was this mysticism around it. I felt like I needed to clear all my thoughts, sit a certain way, otherwise I wasn't doing it right. All these feelings of inadequacy would pop up.
What I've learned is: your meditation practice should work for you. It can look like so many different things. I wanted to create a community where we get practical tools, understand that meditation doesn't have to be this serious, formal thing, and make it real-life applicable — and do it together.
Because I also feel like getting better in a wellness silo, just by yourself — it's limited. Leaning into the person to your left and your right who's going through the same things you're going through — that's a liberating feeling. Understanding you're not alone.
The Meta Club is a fun place to explore meditation and mindfulness and make them sustainable. Conversations around gratitude, core values, finding your why — things that open up when you've slowed down enough to actually hear yourself. We're going to grow this thing to the moon.
Naomi Haile: I love it. Thank you so much, Soji. What an incredible episode. Thank you for the stories, the tools, and for showing us what transformation actually looks like from the inside out.
Soji James: Thank you for opening up your platform. What you're doing with The Power of Why — helping people find these gems and new points of reference to improve their lives — is powerful. Getting the right piece of information at the right time is often the necessary impetus to take the next step. The way you're doing it with these conversations — you're freaking amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Naomi Haile: Thank you, Soji. And thank you to everyone for listening to this episode of The Power of Why podcast. We'll catch you in the next one.
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