Stacy Fritz shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Stacy, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
Hands down, our three sons.
My husband and I poured everything into raising them…on purpose. We made our family our top priority, not because it was easy (it wasn’t), but because we believed the foundation we laid in those early years would shape the kind of men they’d become.
And now, I look at them and they are thoughtful, kind, strong, servant-hearted, and I’m in awe. They lead with integrity. They care deeply. They show up for others in quiet and powerful ways. That’s what we hoped for…not perfection, but presence, purpose, and heart.
Nobody saw the long nights, the hard conversations, the constant adjusting, the praying, the showing up even when you’re tired. But all of it? Worth it.
It’s the most important thing I’ll ever help build and the most sacred legacy I could leave behind.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Sure. I’m Stacy Fritz, speaker, health strategist, and creator of the vidaBALL®, a tiny tool with a big message: we don’t just need to work better, we need to breathe better.
I help leaders and teams reconnect to something we’ve all lost in the rush: rhythm, in our workdays, our culture, our lives.
My work started in education, grew into corporate wellness, and deepened after I lost my brother to cancer. That loss cracked me open and called me higher. I didn’t just want to help people avoid burnout, I wanted to help them remember what it feels like to be well. To lead with clarity. To move with intention. To stop gasping through life.
It’s part of the reason I created the vidaBALL®, a palm-sized breath-training device designed for real people in real moments of stress. It teaches simple breathing patterns that calm the nervous system in under five minutes. No screen, no app, no judgment.
Just space to come back to yourself.
But the vidaBALL is a metaphor for what I believe is possible inside today’s workplace.
I call it the Regenerative Office.
A work culture that doesn’t just extract energy, but gives it back.
Where leadership follows the rhythm of the breath: inhale (input), exhale (output), pause (rest and reflection).
Where stress doesn’t define the day, cadence does.
Through FIT2order, I deliver talks, workshops, and tools that challenge how we think about productivity, leadership, and health.
My mission? To help people lead and live in a way that sustains them for the long game.
I’m building a movement around that mission with the breath at the center. Because when we reconnect to our breath, we reconnect to ourselves. And when leaders do that? Workplaces become something entirely new: regenerative, resilient, and ready to thrive.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
Losing my younger brother Brad changed me in ways I’m still uncovering.
He was a pilot, a father, and the kind of person who brought joy without trying. Watching him face cancer was devastating. But what struck me most wasn’t the pain, it was the grace. The presence. The way he stayed grounded, even as everything was being taken from him.
Near the end, I started guiding him through simple breathing exercises to help settle his body. It was something we could still do together. A small act of calm during a time that felt anything but calm. That’s where the seed for the vidaBALL® was planted though I didn’t know it at the time. I just wanted to help him feel safe in his body again.
After he passed, I couldn’t let that go. I kept thinking: What if more people had something simple to hold onto during hard moments? Something that reminded them to come back to their breath when life feels like too much?
That became my mission. The vidaBALL® was born from that quiet, sacred space of love and loss.
Brad was younger than me, but in many ways, he taught me how to live. How to pause. How to stay soft when things get hard. His legacy lives in every breathwork session I teach, every keynote I give, every person I see gripping the vidaBALL and slowly… letting go.
He is still my why.
And our family will always be his forever flight crew.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering taught me to slow down and stay.
To stay present when it’s easier to numb.
To stay tender when it hurts like hell.
To stay connected to what matters most even when everything around me is breaking.
Success never taught me that. Success loves momentum. It rewards forward motion, plans, proof, polish. But suffering? Suffering sits you down and strips everything away that isn’t essential.
When my brother was sick, I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t hustle my way through it. I could only show up. Be there. Breathe with him. Cry with him. Let go with him.
That experience rewired me.
It taught me that presence is more powerful than productivity. That love is more healing than any plan. And that just breathing…staying with the hard stuff, the uncomfortable stuff is strength.
That’s the foundation of everything I build now. My product. My talks. My work with leaders and teams. Suffering gave me what success never could: a deep reverence for the pause, the breath, the stillness before the next step.
I believe that in the quiet space, real transformation begins.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
I think a lot of smart people are forgetting how much control we actually have over our health.
We’ve been conditioned to wait for symptoms, wait for diagnoses, wait for someone else to fix it. We hand over the keys and hope the system knows the way. But the truth is, you are the pilot of your health journey. Not your doctor. Not your insurance company. You.
And that’s not an anti-medicine statement. I’m grateful for modern medicine. But it doesn’t have all the answers. Most of what we’re struggling with-chronic stress, inflammation, burnout, preventable disease is directly tied to lifestyle. To daily habits. To the way we move, breathe, sleep, eat, and cope.
And that part? That part is on us.
It’s easy to outsource it. To ignore it. To tell ourselves we’re too busy. But your health is everything. It deserves to be protected like the most valuable thing you own, because it is.
I believe we need a culture shift. From reactive to proactive. From symptom-chasing to self-awareness. From surviving to regenerating.
Because when you remember that your choices matter… that your breath, your food, your movement, your boundaries, all of it adds up…you stop waiting for a diagnosis to wake you up.
And you start showing up now.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope they say I loved well.
That I lived a life anchored in faith, family, and purpose and I didn’t just talk about my values, I built my life around them.
I want people to remember how deeply I love my husband. Thirty-one years of marriage, not because it was always easy, but because we kept showing up side by side, hand in hand, building a family, a life, and a partnership rooted in respect, laughter, and the quiet, everyday kind of love that holds everything together.
I want my sons to say, she gave us her best. That raising them wasn’t something I squeezed in, it was the most important work of my life. I hope they carry forward the things we tried to teach them: how to serve with humility, lead with integrity, and love with their whole hearts.
And for those I’ve worked with, coached, or spoken to… I hope they say, she made it easier to breathe. That I used my story and even my pain to offer calm. That I helped them remember what matters most, and how to return to it, one breath at a time.
If people tell the story of a woman who lived and loved fully, who stayed true to what mattered, and who quietly helped others come back to themselves, then I’ll have done what I came here to do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.stacyfritz.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stacyfritzcommunity/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacykfritz/
- Twitter: https://x.com/StacyCommunity
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576196262150
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@StacyFritzCommunity
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thevidaball
Image Credits
Lauren Daue
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