Meet Cynthia Stadd

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cynthia Stadd and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cynthia, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I grew up in Baltimore, but hightailed it out of there right after high school to go to the big city – NYC – to pursue my dreams of being on Broadway.  I got very close to realizing this dream as I became a professional musical theatre performer for almost 10 years. Although the experience was incredible, it also set me up to be in a pressure cooker of perfectionism and body image madness.

As a sensitive, expressive, big-feeling kid, I learned early on how to read a room, how to adapt, and how to succeed in ways that got applause—but often cost me my connection to myself. I was a kid actor and was performing professionally from a young age (first a dancer, always a dancer).  I was living in a body I didn’t fully trust and chasing approval I thought would finally make me feel whole.  Yeah, it didn’t.

But here’s the thing – the early experiences I had from being thrown into the professional world very young gave me a lot of grit and emotional intelligence, although I wouldn’t have called it that then.  I learned how to show up, fully and completely, in all social situations.  How to deliver, to hold a mic, and most importantly, to read individuals – their pain, their truth. I feel these early experiences became the soil for something deeper to grow and learn from: self-leadership rooted not in external validation, but in full-body truth, centered in both emotional and relational intelligence.

So, I’m from trial-by-fire and hard-won healing. And every bit of that background is what makes me the inspirer, the coach, the teacher I am today. I’ve lived both the outward-achieving version of success that gives you something great for your resume, and also leaves you a little empty inside. It’s the embodied, real version that fills me up and pays it forward.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My company is called The Embodiment Advantage™ (EA) – a somatically-based personal growth framework designed for professional breakthrough. It’s not about surface-level mindset tricks or short-term performance boosts. It’s about rewiring how you relate to yourself so that your performance, emotional intelligence, and physical vitality becomes more potent, sustainable, and inspired than ever before.

This isn’t another leadership training that lives in your head. This is full-body intelligence mixed with soul-forward leadership, with a focus on Self-Leadership, first. This is The Anti-Hack. In a world obsessed with “hacking” productivity and self-improvement, the EA dares to take a different path – one that’s wiser, deeper, and effectively sustainable. And, it’s a lot more enjoyable because the results are real.

Through keynotes, talent development programs, and coaching, the EA equips business leaders, service providers, and creatives to build a deeply connected relationship with themselves so strong, it becomes their greatest asset.

I feel incredibly lucky that at this stage in my life and work, I get to weave together everything I’ve ever been—performer, coach, speaker, guide—into one aligned, embodied expression. When I keynote now, I get to use the best of my theatrical performative background, something I honestly shut down for a long time. For years, it never occurred to me that I could merge dance, stage presence, and storytelling with powerful, grounded teachings in emotional intelligence, mental fitness, and soul-forward, embodied leadership. For some ungrounded reason, those worlds felt like they had to stay separate.

I have to say that it took a lot of inner work to get here. And by a lot, I mean years of overcoming rejection, hiding, shape-shifting, and losing my sense of purpose. It’s taken grit, grief, and considerable principles of self-leadership – the exact concepts I teach now – to reclaim the boldness and courage it takes to get on a stage and do what I do, which is teaching through performance.

The best part is that it’s fun AND impactful! I get to light people up from the inside out, not only with inspiration and a serious fire under their seats, but with tools that actually move the needle in their lives and leadership. What I teach now is what I’ve lived through first, and there’s nothing performative about that.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, I just went glamping in Buena Vista and it was absolutely amazing. I seriously want to tell the whole world to go do this! But are you asking just for Denver?

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Marc David, founder of The Institute for the Psychology of Eating and the father of “mind-body” nutrition, was my mentor and great encourager for many years. He shaped many of my beliefs around how humans heal – physically and emotionally – and had a huge influence in my career path. Here’s a shout out to Marc!

Website: https://www.cynthiastadd.com/

Instagram: @theembodimentadvantage

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiastadd/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@embodimentadvantage