Coach Travia

I’m pretty sure that for a theatre person, the correct answer to, “what is your favorite movie?” should be some deep masterpiece that the mainstream public has never heard of. But not for me. I love a good sports movie with a strong and inspiring coach. My favorite? Remember the Titans. What is better than Denzel Washington as the football coach of a newly integrated high school in 1971? Nothing. And for TV? Friday Night Lights. Do not even get me started on Coach Taylor. All that to say that there is nothing that gets me pumped to go conquer life than an energetic, inspiring coach with seemingly unrealistic expectations.

And that’s why I’d like to introduce you to:

Travia Steward

Transformational Coach. Speaker. Podcast Host.

traviasteward.com

When I met Travia, we worked at a summer theatre camp where I had the great privilege of being her assistant director for a play called, The Angelina Project. She was a state-winning UIL OAP director, so I felt grateful to get a chance to be a part of her process and learn from her. Once we got into rehearsals, I knew right away I was in the presence of a true coach. It was like Denzel was right there in the room making the magic happen. Her process was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Everyone in the room was actively engaged and bringing their best effort. The air was electric. She has such a dynamic presence and expectation that everyone just wanted to rise to her level. Travia made us all believe that she thought we could achieve greatness--even in this two week camp! She believed it so emphatically that we all just wanted to live that truth. And see what would happen. I took that experience with me everyday of my seventeen years of teaching.

Now, she has taken the concepts from her years of coaching acting and applied them to helping her clients reinvent themselves and create the life they really want. I quickly noticed during the time I spent interviewing her, that she still has such a dynamically inspiring effect, even over a computer screen. I had not intended to steal a free life-coaching session from her, but that is kind of what happened. She kept speaking directly to my soul, and I wanted to know where all her fire came from. Where does this desire to help propel others to be their best selves originate? Travia’s answers carried the same message in many ways as I’ve seen from previous interviews. It comes from being put through the fire in a way that demands speaking up and stepping out instead of being silent and hiding away.

Travia’s story begins in the small town of Belle Chasse, Louisiana with an incredibly vivid memory of her 6-year-old self talking with her parents about what she wanted for Christmas. She heard her brother describe the Tonka Truck he wanted, and she listened as he described all the cool things it could do. “Wow!” She thought, so she said, “I want that too!” She can remember the emphatic sound of her mother’s scolding voice telling her, “no! You can’t have a boy’s toy! You’re gonna get a baby doll!” And that was the beginning of Travia hiding who she really was and what her real desires were. At the age of six, y’all.

Let’s fast-forward to her 6th grade year when she began preparing for picture day. She knew she was supposed to dress up, so she told her mother that she wanted to wear some khaki pants and a nice shirt. Again, she heard, “no! Girl, you will wear ruffle socks!” Add to that the memory of being around ten years old and having people--adults-- laugh at her for how she looked in a crop top. These types of cruel responses taught her to hide in shame from who she really was. As she grew up and even became an adult she just kept hiding deeper and deeper, never feeling truly comfortable in her own skin. She got so good at this that even when we met, and she was already a highly successful director in Texas, she was still hiding. She had even come out and met her wonderful wife, Shelley, but she was still hiding parts of herself that kept her from being fully authentic and free.

Y’all know I love to quote Brene Brown, and I have to mention her here. In her book, Daring Greatly, she defines shame as, “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” She goes on in that same book to define something called “shame resilience,” which she says is “the ability to practice authenticity when we experience shame, to move through the experience without sacrificing our values and to come out on the other side of the shame experience with more courage, compassion, and connection than we had going into it.” I can think of no better example of this than Travia. When I think of how she had to live feeling like she had to hide, it breaks my heart. But I am so grateful that she took those experiences, made her way out of hiding, and used that hurt to help and inspire others.

One of the reasons she was able to do that was her 5th grade teacher, Miss Gaudin. Miss Gaudin took interest in Travia, letting her be her authentic self. This was such an empowering interaction because at the time she carried around that shame, believing she was inferior to others and “not enough.” Miss Gaudin’s influence gave her the courage to start believing in herself. Maybe she was smart. And funny. And a good person. And enough. It wasn’t the end of Travia’s hiding, but it was a great beginning.

In high school, Travia toyed with acting, but it wasn’t really anything serious. Since she grew up in a small town with a small school, she was involved in every activity. She played every sport, so the counsel she got from the adults in the school was mostly about where she would play softball and how she could get scholarships and such. Not terrible advice. This led her to Northwestern University, where she played softball and majored in Communications and then a few other things before she landed on Theatre. That’s when she finally realized this is what she would do. She would be a coach in Theatre. She would empower students the way Miss Gaudin empowered her. That became her driving force and overall life objective.

So, for twenty-four years, she killed it as a high school theatre director and acting coach! She was so well respected by the theatre community, and she got some phenomenal acting performances out of her students. She built relationships with them and truly made an incredible impact. Those years of teaching theatre and coaching actors showed her that “theatre is transformation.” Travia would require her actors to become the characters they played. They weren’t just acting like someone else, they were truly walking in someone else’s shoes and breathing their air. And she watched the transformations take place--not just the great acting onstage, but how that kind of work changes the actors themselves. When you walk in someone else’s shoes, you learn empathy. You begin to feel what that person feels, want what they want and see life through their eyes. All of this dig-deep acting process work shows up big-time in the work she does today.

That brings us to 2017, when Travia lost her mom. She went to her mom near the end and said, “You’ve lived 85 years! What are you proud of?” Her mother paused and said, “Nothin’.” And then proceeded to list all of her regrets. Travia was obviously profoundly affected by her mother’s response, so she reflected and thought, “Okay, what have I done with my life that I’m proud of?” She was proud of her teaching career and such, but she started to realize she wanted more, and with Shelley’s help and insight, she decided to go get it. By 2019, Travia had become a certified life coach, but she kept thinking she needed to keep teaching just one more year “for the kids.” She could pursue her own goals and teach and direct all the things. Of course she could.

And then…2020. On March 11, 2020 she had a double mastectomy. On March 12, 2020 the world shut down. COVID and Cancer. Those were the defining words of the crisis that led to Travia’s new life. She had fully planned on going back after her surgery--she was right in the middle of directing a show, and she wasn’t going to let anyone down. But COVID and Cancer happened. And suddenly her perspective changed. Instead of thinking, “I could never leave the kids; I couldn’t do that to them,” she decided that for once, she was going to do something for herself. When it was time for reconstructive surgery, the “here’s what you should do” voices came back in full force, offering her C-cup breast options and not much else. The truth? She didn’t want breasts at all, and now maybe she could come out of hiding for real and listen to Shelley, who said “this was her silver lining.” So, she told those “should” voices to be quiet, and gave herself the body she wanted, and decided she could live the kind of life she dreamed of.

Since then, she has never looked back. She’s loving it, by the way. Her mission statement isn’t really that different from when she was teaching: “To empower and inspire as many people as she can to live a life they love without settling.” This is really what she did for her students, but now she works on her terms and with adults who are ready to embrace this kind of power for their lives.

A couple of quotes that stuck out in my free coaching session with Travia (sorry, not sorry):

“Become the person your goals require.”

I literally thought about this when I almost skipped my workout at the gym this morning. And I thought about it yesterday morning when I felt like taking a nap instead of working on my play. I think I have a lot more thinking to do about this--it’s truly a mindset that I want to live and embrace.

“I am who I think other people think I am.”

Yikes. This is the reason for so many of my bad choices and the terrible ways I often treat myself. I think I am so many negative and frankly untrue things because I invent stories or just live in other people’s truths. I want freedom from that. When we talked about this, I told Travia this is a big mountain for me to overcome, and she said, “Yeah, but the mountain becomes flat when you decide.” I have no words here--just mostly my mouth hangs open as I try to really process.

“Get a glimpse of what life could be instead of just waiting to die.”

Doesn’t that just make you want to go out and GET your life? Just, no excuses! Just do it!

When you start seeing Travia Steward’s TED talk, or when you see her name next to Tony Robbins or Brene Brown--just remember, you heard it here first! She is the next big thing, y’all! If you’ve read my other posts about the heat that comes from women who can no longer stay silent, you’ll know that’s a theme here. Travia is absolutely on fire. She really has been as long as I’ve known her, but now that she’s walked fully into herself, and began this journey as a life coach--the fire is blazing! And she can help you light yours up as well. Give her a shout, and you can thank me later!