How am I navigating my life? Am I doing the right things? Am I confident in where I’m going and how I am using my time, energy and attention?
Many of us spend a lot of time worrying over these questions. And after playing Division 1 basketball, competing among the best in the world at CrossFit, and training to be in the Olympics for track and field, Tyrell Mara found himself asking these questions.
“Through that whole journey, I had some great successes, some terrible, burning failures,” Tyrell says, “And I realized there’s this predictable roadmap that’s bigger than learning how to shoot a basketball.”
From that 20-year journey, Tyrell founded The Human Performance Project and developed The Deep End Roadmap & Toolkit™. In 2022, Tyrell and his wife, Natasha, opened The Wellness Den, a 5-acre holistic wellness sanctuary where aspiring individuals and teams can learn, grow, and build their roadmap and toolkit through one-of-a-kind curated workshops, day-long retreats, and ongoing leadership and optimal performance courses.
Tyrell spoke to the Brands for Better community in December last year and helped the audience connect head with heart through stories, reflection questions and a live guided meditation. He shared the holistic roadmap and toolkit to help leaders, executives, athletes, and parents perform, recover, heal and grow at their best, reaching new peaks by persevering through the valleys. According to Tyrell’s Deep End Roadmap, it all starts with getting out of our comfort zones, climbing the high dive, and diving into a Deep End. He shared all of this through the lens of his personal journey.
Into the Deep
Tyrell developed The Deep End Roadmap & Toolkit™ to equip and empower others to escape their comfort zones, redefine their relationship with fear and the unknown as they climb the high dive, learn to embrace and endure the challenges in the deep end, and then find the learning, growth and expansion with an intentional pause. He believes that as long as you can find yourself on the roadmap, you’ll know what to do next. But there’s more to progression than recognition.
Tyrell says, “The challenge is that up in our thinking brain, everything that The Deep End represents can create feelings, emotions, and an embodied response of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, imposter syndrome, and risk of failure.”
These feelings cause us to feel the need to escape, run, and cower back into the comfort zone. In these moments, we need to move out of our head and into our heart and body using intentional breath. It’s only here, embodied in the present moment, where we realize we’re not in danger, or at risk of life-threatening harm, even though it may feel this way in our heads. Through using the toolkit, we can stay connected to the present moment, climb the high dive and jump headfirst into The Deep End, where the best version of ourselves is waiting to come to life.
The Deep End is where Tyrell says, “We’re driven from an intrinsic passion and fire from within, and we’re up for pursuing something that’s going to be challenging; adversity is a guarantee in The Deep End. We might fail, and actually, it’s okay if we fail, but we’re signing up to dive in headfirst.”
It’s the most important environment in our equation for growth, resilience, self-confidence and fulfillment. But we don’t actually grow in The Deep End.
We grow when we give ourselves the permission to Pause.
With an intentional Pause comes the opportunity for healing, restoration, and reflection. Pausing empowers us to articulate and take ownership of our Foundation; our values, intrinsic motivations and life-long skills. The Wellness Den provides aspiring leaders, individuals and teams with a sanctuary to pause, heal, restore and grow.
Pressing Pause at The Wellness Den
What can you expect when visiting The Wellness Den for a moment of intentional pause?
Tyrell greets everyone personally when they arrive onsite at The Wellness Den. Situated on a 5-acre, 70-year-old family farm, most guests immediately find themselves taking a deep restorative breath and letting their shoulders relax as soon as they step out of their vehicle and onto the land.
“The Wellness Den is a Polyvagal-informed venue and experience,” Tyrell says, “This means that every detail and experience is designed through the lens of making each guest and group feel safe and connected even before they step foot on our farm.”
If you were sitting in the room with Tyrell during his Brands for Better experience, you felt that safety, too. It was shared by each member holding a sacred space to share, connect and grow.
“We believe in the power and importance of ceremony, ritual and intention. We can create meaningful containers of safety and belonging that are filled with rich connection and shared experience when we are intentional with how we are moving into the space and experience. At The Wellness Den, each guest is invited into their experience with intention and purpose and the immersive value of ceremony.”
For individuals and groups who are locked into chronic states of stress, anxiety, depression or feeling like they can never turn their mind off, The Wellness Den becomes a sanctuary where the work to re-establish the mind-body connection can gently begin.
Tyrell says once we re-establish that lost connection, “The intelligence of our heart then turns our brain back online, allowing us to move into states of creativity, flow, and optimal performance. We have this moment to pause, and oftentimes we shift from a depleting, energetic and emotional state into a renewing state.”
It’s from that state where you’ll feel calmer, more peaceful, and ready to meet the moment.
Whether meeting the moment means leading a team in the boardroom, on the field or court, or at home, the underlying principles and tools remain the same. With each visit to The Wellness Den, guests walk away with new insights, approaches, reflection questions, and clearly identified areas of growth to bring back into their day-to-day life.
For individuals who are truly ready to dive in, Tyrell facilitates a 1:1 Mentorship Program where he works daily with each participant to rebuild a lifelong roadmap and toolkit for trajectory-changing growth.
Tyrell hopes that by holding space for people to gain tools, “each individual who comes here gets to go back out into their life a little bit more equipped and a little bit more empowered to go on their own journey.”
Developing the Tools for Your Journey Within
Wherever you are on your journey, we encourage you to connect with Tyrell. Check out The Wellness Den’s Weekly 3-hour Nervous System Reset or join Tyrell’s quarterly full-day Pause to Grow Retreat to not only nourish your mind through workshops and guided experiences, but nourish your body through farm-to-table catered meals and refreshments throughout the day. Or you can gather a group of close friends, family or colleagues for a 3.5-hour private session to relax, unwind and deepen your connections.
Follow The Wellness Den on Instagram, or learn the brief (but powerful) one-minute heart-focused breathing technique alongside Tyrell on Insight Timer. Develop the tools so you can meet your moment.
We look forward to having Tyrell back at one of our Community Meetups in late 2025 or early 2026.
