Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEAMi3p1hO0
the most game-changing work that I've ever done is Marie launched a multi-million dollar star of the award-winning marietv an international best-selling author Marie track your time meticulously for seven days you will be shocked at how much time flitters away that don't create a ton of value for you and you'll get an idea of like I would have never thought of that if your face was stuck in Netflix or Tick Tock for you know the seven hours a day that you're not working your book is full of solutions to the most important challenges what are you struggling with is ADHD so I can have a very overactive brain I found myself over performing and over working wanting to control everything so I could have a sense of safety that's where the real cost came in for me I started dreading waking up in the morning like I wish I could just disappear like wow yeah see these were scary thoughts and it almost destroyed my relationship in the book you took about these three rules that underpin this figure outable mindset yes and it's just helped me in every different facet my relationships my mental health my business what are those so rule number one is that rule number two rule number three that's super important Point number three it's the one we don't talk about you have to be willing to just before this conversation starts I've got a favor to ask from you 74 of people that watch this podcast frequently haven't yet hit the Subscribe button and nine percent of people haven't yet hit the Bell to turn notifications on the bigger this platform gets the bigger the guests get so if you could do me one favor if you've ever enjoyed this podcast please hit the Subscribe button and turn notifications on without further Ado I'm Stephen Butler and this is the Diary of a CEO I hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this yourself [Music] Murray [Music] when I was reading your book you talk about how experience is one of the things that ends up shaping the beliefs we have in
the world what were the experiences that you had at the very earliest of Ages that end up shaping the beliefs you've had about the world one of the biggest ones was actually a memory I had when I was about seven or eight years old so my parents had just gotten a divorce and I remember being in the kitchen in my house in New Jersey with my mom and I'm looking at her and she has one of the old school phones with the cord like wrapped around her hand and it was wrapped around so tight that her hand was kind of turning white because she was cutting off the circulation and she was on the phone with her mother who was in Florida at the time and she was crying unconsolably and I'm watching my mom with tears running down her face and her everything looked drawn and she was saying I have nothing I have nothing do you understand I have nothing I don't know what I'm going to do and so you know there's tears coming down and I'm just Frozen in fear he hangs up the phone and she bends down and I just see like her makeup running down her face and the tears running down her face and she puts her hands on my shoulders and she puts her face right next to mine up to my nose and she shakes me and she says do you see what I'm going through right now I have nothing do not be stupid like I was don't ever let a man don't ever let anyone control your money I need you to grow up I need you to be your own woman I need you to be independent don't be stupid like me and Stephen I was just like you know as a seven or eight year old like in shock of course I love my dad my dad's an amazing man and I love my mom and that experience like in a few seconds I made all of these equations in my mind and I made all these decisions and I made all these promises to myself and I'll tell you what those were one of the decisions was that the lack of having enough money equaled the loss of love the destruction of family and so much pain and suffering like seeing my mom in pain knowing my dad wasn't there knowing my family using unit wasn't okay and I just everything felt unsafe and I made
this promise in this decision I said okay when I grow up I'm gonna somehow make so much money that I am going to take care of the people I love and if anyone around me needs money to to handle the pain I'm going to be able to take care of them now looking back I'm in my 40s now I can see how much that fear and how much that desire to have love be healed has driven almost every part of my career to have love be healed yes what do you mean by that because I had this notion that because there wasn't enough money that my parents love was broken when we are driven by insecurities it can be it can get a little bit out of hand yeah you know when something like that like money becomes your North Star um it almost means that the other stars are dimmed the other things that form our very human needs what was the cost then of prioritizing that of having money as a motivator in some ways it was wonderful because it was there was a rooting in solid work ethic that was fabulous and at the same time a self-punishment I'm never doing enough it's not quite enough this is not good enough it can be better I can be better and you know for many years especially early in my career I didn't really have an off button you know it was working seven days a week morning until night um you know missing out on whether it was friends getting married or this one or that one and some of that you know it's complicated it's multi-layered right A lot of times if friends were going on let's say a bachelorette party to Vegas or whatever I legitimately didn't have the money to go and I found myself working all the time just to kind of climb out of debt in the early days of my business for example so there's a little bit of give and take there you know there's the cost and I think eventually as I started to get into my 40s I started recognizing just this pattern of over performance of overdoing of over pushing sometimes I would say to my partner Josh we've been together for like 20 years and I would say God you know I really want to take a break right now but I've got X Y and Z to do and I said I don't I just I feel so lazy if I
take a break I can't take a break like there's so much and he's like Marie you were one of the most productive non-lazy people I have ever met in my life no matter how many times he said that to me Stephen for so long I didn't believe him I was like he's lying he he's not as productive as I am he has lower standards than I do which is all not true um and it was uh it was tough it was it was just I wasn't very kind to me how do you how do you balance that because on one end you know the feeling of being not satisfied yeah is motivating absolutely it means that you're always striving you're pushing people you're you know there's always more work to be done you're always at the one percent in your pro in your projects but on the other hand um it's also for many a deferral of their happiness and contentment off into the future somewhere that will keep moving as they move yeah off into the distance yep how where is The Sweet Spot between knowing there's more work to be done but also being content at the moment yes I love this a I think for me it is this ever evolving daily practice that I never quite get right but I'm always playing with these days it's about recognizing that you know what I have created so much I'm so proud of what I have and I'm a human that is entrepreneurial and multi-passionate and creative so there's all these things it's the joy of going like oh my goodness I'm so grateful for what I have and here are the things that I am so excited to create and for me it becomes this really beautiful Dynamic sense of being where I am fully joyful and grateful for exactly what's happening and super excited for what I'm creating next so in the past it was like oh well this isn't good enough I'm not good enough I don't have you know it was coming from a place of lack where these days I'm coming from a place of contentment and then an additional place of curiosity and excitement about what's unfolding next does that make sense yeah of course it does yeah how many people do you think you've coached over the last oh my goodness I think that would depend on your definition of coached so we've we've had over 100 million people
interact with our our videos and given advice you've heard your advice or your words was there a moment when you realized that this is what you wanted to do with your life yes because I know you went to Wall Street longer than you oh my goodness I failed at so many jobs so um I remember when I was on Wall Street on the New York Stock Exchange I was really excited about it because it was this place where there was tremendous potential for income right and I was around people that were making millions of dollars a year which is so far beyond anything I could have imagined in my life at that time and I was I kept hearing this little voice inside Stephen I was like this isn't who you are this isn't what you're meant to do this isn't who you're supposed to be and that little voice kept getting louder and louder but the little voice didn't tell me what else I was supposed to do and one day I was crying my eyes out because I felt like such a failure my parents had busted their buns to help me get through college first in my family to go to school and I knew that I was so lucky to have that job just any job right Healthcare a steady paycheck and here I was miserable I wanted to quit so bad and I just felt trapped because I didn't want to bring shame upon my family I felt like a total failure and the little voice then said call your dad so I took out my flip phone at the time which gives you an idea it was like the lay late 90s and I was crying to my dad and I said Dad I'm so sorry like you and Mom worked so hard to get me through school and and I just I can't stand this job I want to quit and he broke in all my sniffly snotty crying and he's like Ray he's like calm down he's like if this job is getting you this sick and you hate it you have to quit I said but Dad I don't know what I'm supposed to do like this isn't like me and he said look you're going to work for the next 40 or 50 years of your life you have got to find something you love and if this job isn't it then start bartending do whatever you need to do again but don't stop looking until you find something that you really really want to go to do every single day so the only things I knew about myself were that I loved business but I was also highly creative and the only com
combination that felt like it could work in an industry was magazine publishing at the time that was still a thing and I went to a temp agency I got a job at Gourmet magazine but about six months into that job which was interesting I started hearing that same voice against Stephen I was like Ugh this isn't who you are this isn't what you're supposed to do this isn't what you're supposed to be so I'm on the internet one day at work probably when I shouldn't have been and I stumbled upon this new profession at the time called coaching when I read this article it was as though something in my soul lit up like a Christmas tree it was like the clouds parted and little angels came out and I was like oh like this is what you're supposed to do and I said I'm gonna do this life coaching business and I went back to bartending and waiting tables and just devoted myself to figuring out how to build a business during the day okay so let's go back through so the voice inside yes what is that voice to me I believe it is my intuition it is my when I say higher self I believe the part of me that is timeless that's probably been here before and that will be here Beyond this particular incarnation and if anyone out there I certainly do believes in a higher power that there are other levels of intelligence that are actually supportive of us that's who I think that voice is does everyone have that voice I absolutely believe so that's my personal belief everyone has that voice they may not have been trained to articulate and understand and discern it but I believe it's there what does it feel and sound like soft spoken it feels as though you're having an inner nudge towards something that may not make sense to the outside world it may be counter to all of the social conditioning the familial conditioning that you've been brought up with but it is gentle it is encouraging and it is persistent I thought you were going to say persistent that's the last word I was like because I I can I can relate um why is it that and it's funny because I also agree that everyone has that voice um because when I have conversations with people they will often tell me who
they are and what they do yeah and then this the second thing is they'll like whip out their phone and be like and I've got this art Instagram account and I'm like all the other voices like infiltrated the the Asylum and it's like taking over a little bit like I love doing I work in the city I work in finance but check out my art over here it's kind of like the whisper that yes I'm like that is the voice that's the thing inside you that's been persistently working away at you it made you at 2AM launched that Instagram account um but most people because of the there's another voice at play which is the external voice Society your mother your parents your immigrant parents telling you what work is Instagram telling you what you should and shouldn't be an R um that other voice that external Voice is so much stronger yeah it's so much stronger and it's everywhere it's in all of our friends it's in our parents it's up down left right yes how does one go about taking the perceived quote-unquote risk of tuning into the that voice that's just Whispering yes oh I love this question and I also love talking about this because I think it is one of the most powerful sources of wisdom that we all have but there are so many things that we can talk about I want to talk about a few one is if you start to pay attention to the small things so I'll give you an example I've actually been practicing this is going to sound extremely superficial but stick with me intuitive shopping I don't like to own a lot of things I'm just not a person who likes a lot of clutter and I just don't want to have a bunch of crap lying around and so I realize that sometimes I'm like oh well so and so if I try on an outfit or whatever I'm like oh I think this looks pretty good and I've been paying attention to like nope you're never gonna wear it it sounds so silly but when I quiet down and I listen I'm like okay I have this little guidance for these little moments of my day on the best path to take I want people to pay attention to the small moments what you should order on a menu whether or not you should make a move with your partner if people actually look back in time and start to look in
their past you'll see places where you heard that little voice and you overrode it and you got yourself into trouble do you know those times of course so everyone has usually if you start to filter through your mind it could have been a financial decision it could have been a business decision it could have been about someone to hire it could have about saying yes to a job a relationship but there were times when something in you was piping up and your ego or an external voice was like no you got to go for this this is a great deal this is going to get you X Y and Z you should say yes to this and you overwrote that little voice and it cost you big time so I think to answer the question how do people start to kind of hone into that discernment I think look in your past to where you ignored it before and you'll have examples of like oh that's what it sounds like that's what it feels like that's one and then I think number two this works for me I'm someone who has ADHD so I can have a very overactive brain I need to meditate and I need to exercise those are two things that help me dial down the noise so much of the static and create enough space for that inner voice to not only feel like for me to be able to detect it more but for it to speak louder and for me to hear it one of the things that sometimes encourages us or wins in US overriding The Voice that small Whispering inside you telling you who you are what you should be doing where you should be what you're capable of is our own like fear insecurities and Trauma so like I can think of multiple times where I've made bad decisions because I've been LED too much by my insecurities you know whether it's money decisions whether it's love decisions typically anything that's like psycho psychological in its root so money food these kinds of things so you might know and even in the context of a professional career having the upbringing that you've had where you made that Association super early that money results in a loss of Love or the lack of money results in a loss of Love or a loss of control or whatever that can orientate you to go to Wall Street yes as opposed to listening to The Voice yep how much do we have to like heal in order to to kind of turn up the volume of that voice inside and to
try and turn down the external voice you know it's a great question I think we're all on a healing Journey constantly because I think all of us you know we've kind of collected little hurts disappointments um things from our childhood things from our adult experiences that kind of get lodged in there I don't necessarily know that intuition requires like hearing your intuition requires you to heal anything because I think that voice is always trying to talk to you and I think one of the best ways to understand it's your intuition and not fear and we should maybe talk about that a little bit that's a I can give people a very simple exercise about how to know is this my intuition speaking up saying no you know like you shouldn't go in this direction or is this just fear because I want to stay safe and I don't want to put my ass on the line here's how I tell it so let's say I'm thinking about saying yes to a particular opportunity it could be a business deal it could be you know speaking at a particular event anything like that When I close my eyes and just feel in my body and say does the idea of saying yes to this make me feel expansive or contracted and Stephen when I ask that question in a nanosecond I say okay does saying yes to the speaking engagement feel expansive or contracted I guarantee in your body you feel something it is so subtle but either there is a lightness there is like your body starts to expand like this you lean forward there could be a little bit of Joy even if you're scared shitless even if saying yes to this is like oh my goodness it's the biggest opportunity ever or your ego wants to say yes but inside there's a part of you that says no it closes down you feel heavy you feel a sense of dread that's your intuition trying to lead you in the right direction question yes do you ever do things that are contractive in feeling oh my gosh not as much anymore but I did it so often earlier on my journey because I was so desperate for approval people and I was so desperate to be successful and I had these ideas if I partner with this person if I say yes to this particular activity if I show up here then I'm gonna have some kind of more stature
right or I'm gonna be noticed more so these days it happens much less frequently and I feel like that just comes from having skinned my knees enough and tortured myself enough and created enough pain and Chaos that I'm like I don't need to do that anymore yeah because a lot of the time the reason I asked that particular question is a lot of time a lot of the time there's a short term carrot I think that's the analogy for yes it's a short-term carrot which goes listen we'll give you this if you come and do this thing you don't know if I can do it but the short-term carrot can be tempting sometimes the long-term effects of taking a short-term carrot are dangerous the other question I had which was thinking about this expansive contractive thing is there has been times where something has made me feel contractive yep but when then I've gone and done it oh my God you're so glad that you did so glad I did it I'm curious when you felt contracted and then you overrode that can you tell me more about whether it was the voice like what made you override that feeling um money interesting you're going to get paid loads of money to go and do this thing I think oh [ __ ] I don't want to travel yeah I don't want to go there and do it but then you go there and you have a great conversation for example if I'm speaking somewhere sure and I and it lights me up that's what lights me up yes so I walk away from it feeling unbelievable thanks I'm so happy I did that that's really you know it's changed my mood It's Made Me connect with people I'm so happy I did that yeah um but ahead of time you know it's funny because it's the story I'm telling myself ahead of time that's making me feel contractive it's I'm telling myself about travel about time Wasted by having to go to another country or city or place I'm thinking about all the time wasted okay and the money for me Isn't a real big motivator but it almost for me it's like it's still hard to turn down a big number sure because the money doesn't come to me it supports the team it supports this podcast it supports our show we have we this in my personal team we have 25 20 people now yeah so a lot of livelihoods I think of it as a response ability yes so let's play here
for a moment because I think that's so interesting what you shared a lot of what you felt dread about was thoughts I wonder and this would be fun maybe you can text me and let me know in the future I'm curious more of a body sensation right right so like you I can be like oh boy got some travel coming up and my thoughts can generate a sense of tiredness let's say but what I'm when I'm talking about expansive and contracted I'm actually talking more about a physical sensation in your body almost like either in your solar plexus or in your gut so it's less of a thought generated feeling and more of a visceral full body notion does that distinction yeah yeah just I'm I'm super curious because I agree with what you've said in terms of there's been times where I'm like oh I don't know about this and I was so and I got over myself I was like you know what there's X Y and Z people I like them there I'm gonna go see them and I was so happy that that I wasn't a stick in the mud and stayed home so I had that experience too I'm I want to dive a little deeper with you on that body sensation because in my experience that's usually where the intuitive feeling kind of really lives less thought generated more body more body truth the body holds the school yeah yeah so let's go back through then so we're talking about this journey that led you to leave the publishing industry yes and decide to go back to being a waitress but also pursuing the career of being a coach yes a couple of key things there that are that we kind of glossed over that are I know people are sat at home thinking they're in jobs they hate they're in situations they hate they hear the voice they get it the next part I guess there's two parts there the next part is how do I how do I tune into the voice and and like how do I um you were lucky in the sense that you read that article yes I say lucky but maybe that's not the best use of words you have you read that article that came to you at that time that's right maybe the universe sent it to you the Journey's out right if I know I'm in the wrong place and the voice is saying [ __ ] Steve this magazine publishing is not right yeah but I don't
know where the right place is how does one go about finding that right place okay I love this question so here's a mantra and I live my life by Montrose they help keep me on track and here's one that really works Clarity comes from engagement not thought Clarity comes from engagement not thought what does that mean in this context it means that every single person listening right now let's say they have a job and they're like I am done with this job but I don't know what else I should be doing there's something in them that has an interest it could be an interest in art it could be an interest in baking it could be an interest in music find a way to go take action in that direction no matter what it is it could be interning for someone working for them for free picking up a book taking a class finding some way to get involved in that area will give you not only Insight but it'll start to open up creative channels you'll start to meet people you'll start are to say oh this is great as a hobby but I would never want to do this as a career I think that all of the Insight Clarity comes from engagement not thought you're not going to figure it out sitting on your couch you're not going to figure it out necessarily scrolling on Instagram or your phone you're gonna figure it out by getting into some kind of action and giving yourself permission to experiment right giving yourself permission to try things and it might not work and that's okay but you're going to learn something you're going to discover something you're going to have a conversation you'll stumble upon your own article where your own body lights up like a Christmas tree and you'll be like oh my goodness this is the thing but it's not going to come if you sit at your desk every day know that your work isn't right but you don't do anything active to actually go find out what is but you know I'm busy I've got four kids I've got a job I just don't have the time right oh that's uh not having the time is probably one of the biggest excuses that we can all use from time to time and it really is an excuse because all of us know when it's important enough we make the time if not we make an excuse we know this if you're spending any amount of time on Instagram or tick tock on social if you listen to podcasts if you do anything outside of your actual
job and just feeding yourself and doing what you knew what you need to do to stay alive you have time you really do you have to do some basic math I would recommend we talk about this in the book is track your time meticulously for seven days you will be shocked at how much time flitters away doing things that don't really create a ton of value for you that don't give you an opportunity to even have open time where you're not looking you're not consuming anything where you're not having other people's thoughts ideas or agendas inject into your head where you're just giving yourself time to walk around the outside and take a walk in the block and in nature and actually let your mind think or wonder or rest or exercise or do any of these other things that can open creative channels where you'll get a download and you'll get an idea of like oh my God I would have never thought of that if your face was stuck in Netflix or Hulu or Tick Tock for you know the seven hours a day that you're not working fine I'm quitting my job I'm quitting quitting is difficult yeah what's scary why is it so how do we become better quitters I was on stage this morning I sat on stage and I said it all the time so it's like I sound like a broken record but you know we glamorized starting it's like oh my God they started this thing but quitting is the equally important thing you have to do before you start yes and so quitting is just as much of a skill as starting anything how do I become a better quitter I look at your journey continue quitting yeah throughout and it's funny because that almost sounds like an insult doesn't it no yeah but it does on the surface because quitting is for losers yes well if you believe that that's the that's the slogan right but if you hadn't quit imagine the the misery I would have been so miserable and so I think there's a couple of things to it one I think understanding your risk averseness as a human being is very important and let me tell you what that means for me financially speaking I'm fairly risk averse so because of my upbringing because of this kind of Perpetual Financial scarcity that there was I'm not the kind of person who's just going to burn the ships behind me and say okay I'm quitting my job you
know at the magazines and let me just start this coaching business and figure it out it was like no I went back to bartending and waiting tables pretty much seven days a week because that's what it took to keep the roof over my head and eating food while I figured out this life coaching business so I would say for anyone listening right now if you're thinking about quitting take a look inside what's your risk averseness you know there's a study that was done in the United States they tracked about 14 000 entrepreneurs and they found that those who kept their day job as they started their business were 33 percent less likely to fail and so I think for anyone listening it's like okay well you may quit this job but is there any other circumstance whether you take another type of job you go part-time like what is going to be the kind of financial Runway or situation that you need to give yourself an ability to see if this business could work if starting a business is what you want to do and and so after you quit um seven years doing side work yes and growing and figuring out the business when you quit what was your aspirations for your coaching business if I'd ask you on that day I'm going to say you know how long ago was that so that was two thousand like 2000 2001. right so that's 20 odd years ago if I'd asked you on that day where are you going to end up oh my goodness I had no freaking clue I at that moment I was just entrenched in my coach training and I wanted to be a great coach so badly meaning I didn't really have a huge Vision because everything was so new and I think there was so much uncertainty and quite frankly as a 23 24 year old I didn't really have the ability to have Vision like I read so many success books Stephen that were like you know and this was like kind of a line in many of the networking talks I'd go to it's like well what's your five-year Vision right I was like I have no idea I'm literally trying to just get the next three paying clients like I will Coach your dog if you let me I will Coach that's where I was because I was so committed to trying to be the best coach I could be and I knew that I needed experience I needed
to work with as many people as possible so I had no vision for where this thing would go I just kept taking the next step and the next step and the next step and kind doing this it's not talked about enough what you've just said because perfectionism is one of the things that causes procrastination and especially as we set out to quit and start the new thing you hear it all the time I know you do which is well I haven't got enough of this and I haven't figured out this and I need to find a mentor and an investor and this and a website name and this and that whereas in reality in everything I've ever done it's this like horrifically messy stumbling forward in into the darkness like and even with this podcast like I'll tell you how it came to be was I enjoyed doing it that was it that was the thesis didn't know how we'd make money didn't know how big it would get didn't know if other people would like it actually still blown away that anyone listens because it's like it's been one of the most amazing like life-affirming things that people care about the types of conversations we have here yes but I think that's such an important message because perfectionism as you write about in the book you talk about progress and perfectionism and which one to choose it's such a it's such an imprisoning notion that is so pumped up by like fake life coaches and fake entrepreneurs that want to try and sell you something to make them by making themselves seem like they are super special and God gifted yes we're all just messy little unorganized scared um 100 and so human and so this is the other thing like so start before you're ready so Stephen I have to tell like as a young life coach I knew how ridiculous it all sounded it sounded cheesy to me again can I tell you my first Workshop there was five people in it I was 24. that's a lot my parents my yoga instructor from college and um one of her neighbors actually two of her neighbors that she pulled in off of the street and I had created a whole little workbook I had done it with like Microsoft clip art I stapled the little workbooks together and I stood in front of five people in my yoga teachers basement in New Jersey and I delivered like a day-long workshop and like I
think back to that cringy Marie but she was also awesome because she started before she was ready she didn't know what the hell was going on but she did it and it was like the worst thing I probably ever did but I did it and then it gave me a little bit of experience to then like go do something else and then go do something else so to your point it's like everything for me has been messy I'm like I don't know if this is gonna work this sounds like a lot of fun I have energy towards it I want to make a difference let's try it and what about today as you sit here now yeah um today it's still messy I've talked about this all the time I'm like you know 99 of what any of us need to do to grow our business we've never done before so we don't know what the hell we're doing that's why for me everything is figureoutable this phrase is so useful like I use it every day still it's not like there's some blueprint or some road map to guaranteed success out there like that's not how it works and if you're someone who's Innovative or creative or you're trying to do something outside of the box there certainly ain't no Playbook so you have to be willing to just try things and experiment and flop around and laugh at yourself and then get up the next day and do it again in the book you talk about these the three points of philosophy that oh the three rules the three rules yeah the underpin this figure outable mindset yes what are those so rule number one is that all problems or dreams are figureoutable rule number two if a problem or a dream isn't figure outable it's a law of nature right so death maybe taxes rule number three you may not care enough to solve a particular dream or reach a particular goal and that's okay find something that you do care deeply about and go back to rule number one and what that does is it creates a container a container for us as human beings to be honest about what we care enough about to go figure it out because in in my life there hasn't been one thing yet that I have truly wanted to either understand achieve transform do you know what I have some different relationship with that when it was true in my heart that I haven't been able to figure it
out and if I don't want to figure something out like I can get real at myself like I don't care enough about this to go figure it out right now that's super important yes number three it's the one we don't talk about yeah because we'll all have goals in our life that we we think are important we think we want to do I want to you know I want to become a DJ I want to start working out and get a six-pack I want to be an artist they they often don't happen and we we end up thinking that they haven't happened because we are an unmotivated person so we say you know we start being ourselves up I'm not motivate I'm a failure I'll just keep trying at it we very rarely pause and go do I actually want to and there's this weird thing that I that I noticed which I won't name the person but they know who they are because I know they're listening there's this weird thing that I observed which taught me a really important lesson is sometimes like we want to want something and the way we're just laughing the way that I describe that is like we want to want something we want to have the motivation to do the thing we want to want it yeah we want to want it we think we should want it yes so we so we go around saying we want it so like I wanna I really want to go and lift weights I might say Stephen I really want you know I I'm saying to the world you know I really want to go and lift weights but it's because I want to be the type of person that wants to be that that wants that yes so I go around saying it but I don't actually want it I just want to want it yes I had this same conversation with my best friend and we were laughing about this because I have put so much pressure on myself at so many different points of my career because I think I should want something yeah and I'm like but if I okay for example I think you'll appreciate this because I think you and I share a similar philosophy perhaps um about social media for example so I suck at social media right I'm never on it I don't put any attention and I actually had a colleague of mine say to me like Marie you're so good at what you do like why aren't your numbers bigger and it was like one of these you know like when someone makes a comment
you're like oh that kind of feels like a punch in the gut and you're just like oh oh I I don't know and anyone who knows me my friends and even my audience they know I'm like very transparent like I don't spend a lot of time on my phone like I'd prefer to write books I create programs like there's other things and then I I just want to live my life like I feel like I'm like oh there's like oh if I was really committed to being a change maker then I would be making videos I was like what the hell is that philosophy like I remember torturing myself I should want to want that exactly but the truth is I don't exactly and that's the hard part to admit yes yes it's a really hard part to admit that we just don't care enough we just don't want it it's someone else's it's someone else's and I think that just having this conversation because I would imagine there's folks listening to us right right now that think that they should want to want something and they don't and then what happens so you know I failed to go to the gym to get that six-pack that I I tell myself I want or I failed to start that business because I don't really want to but I want to want to start it yeah and then I use excuses I and the the number one excuse is I just don't I don't have the time because that's a cloaking of as you said earlier that's a cloaking of your true priorities yep it's a way of saying so it's not my fault it's just a lack of uh time in the day there's only 24 hours but really as you've said it's actually that the how you use your time as one of the clearest demonstrations of your actual priorities of your values yeah 100 100 the the way that I always like to keep myself honest about like what I want and to call myself out on my own excuses this is the the two-word distinction that has helped me the most understanding the difference between can't versus won't so any time that I'm about to say oh I can't do that I can't do this I can't get up earlier to work out to get those six packs I can't can't write my next book I just don't have the time for me learning Italian I can't learn Italian I have so much on my plate right now with my business so 99 not 100 99 of the time when we human beings say can't it's a euphemism firm won't and what does won't mean won't means we really don't want to we're not willing
to make the sacrifice it's not that important to us right now and so I always encourage myself and other people to play with this like any time you're about to say the word can't try on won't or try on that's not a priority for me right now and see how your body feels going back to this body truth something of me goes you know what I actually don't want to learn Italian right now you know why because in my free time I'm watching the house of dragons I do you know what I mean I'm watching this show or that show or I'm hanging out with my friends or I'm doing this I'm doing something else where I could be dedicating that to my Italian Studies but I'm not you know why because that is not my priority right now that is so so much more honest and it's so much more freeing and then all of a sudden I'm not a bad person I'm not not ambitious enough I'm just me it's so it's so such a small important change in like words and and thinking just that swap swap from I can't do something which says it's not possible right or I'm not in control which is even the worst one I can't it's not not possible to I won't which empowers you in such an important way it says actually these are decisions that I'm making I'm not the puppet I'm the puppet master of my life that's right and I get to call the shots around here that's right and it says I and I think just like that's not my priority right now I choose not to that's not my choice at this it's not much better you can try on any one of those but all of a sudden like something in you I think feels the honesty you feel the alignment all of us you feel more alive and you have more energy and I'll tell you you do that enough you tell yourself the truth about you enough and all of a sudden you start falling in love with the real you not the you that you think you're supposed to be to get everyone else to like you not the you that Society has told you that you have to be or all the people that you compare yourself to who are probably faking it anyway but you fall in love with the real you and that's in my experience where real happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment comes from the other part of that that switching from I can't to I won't is in the external
relationships we have with others because I made the mistake with my partner once upon a time of when she suggested something to me and I did not want to do it I would say I can't right what I'm doing is I'm absolutely lying to her because she you know she she wants to go and do this thing at this place and I guess I can't because I pointed my schedule I guess you know what I'm doing is I'm is I'm telling her I want to so ask me again in the future because I'm interested but I can't right now because of an external Factor so my girlfriend keeps asking me if I want to do this thing and I'm continuing to continue to say I can't and it's building a really inauthentic relationship well that's fundamentally built on a set of Lies there was a point and I think it was because one of my podcast guests where I just tried being honest yeah and it was the best thing I've ever done yeah and you know what she really appreciated it because I don't want to do that it's so important even you know in business and in relationships and all of those things someone being honest with you is very rare that it's so effective when they are I actually took a phone call as I was coming down the stairs to start this conversation from someone and they called me and said hi Stephen just so you know this is a cold call so if you if you um don't want to do the chord just hang up now but if you've got 20 seconds let me know and I was shocked absolutely shocked the guy probably I think he told me he listened and I said to him what a [ __ ] that's brilliant because usually I'm like I spend 10 seconds trying to figure out if they're trying to sell me something so I can just crack on with my day but for him to be so honest with me by the way he literally this is a cold call I'm going to tell you about a product if you don't want to take the call feel free to hang up now and I was like this is amazing what is it he told me I went on their website I looked it up I said we use a different tool called brandwatch so but I said like this has been so inspiring your honesty with me that it was so disarming yeah and I think people are smarter than we give them credit for so what's what's happened on every cold call that I've ever received is that you
know they call Mingo hi Steve is it Stephen Bartlett I go who is it I think it was the Stephen Butler I go who is it the game just want to check is it Stephen Bartlett I go yeah they go so what are you doing with your data infrastructure things at the moment because we've got an offering and it's like and then I'm like [ __ ] get out of there but it's but the honesty was so disarming and people are smarter than we give them credit for so when you go around telling your friends or your loved ones whatever or your work colleagues that you can they know yes they know yeah but you don't want to totally so something I want to think you talked about we talked about relationships though a topic we haven't touched on completely it's funny I know you wrote a book in 2000 and I'm gonna say eight that's when it was published yeah the earliest version was actually like 2002 it was a eBook that was full of hot pink and a lot of exclamation points that tells me everything about how you feel about the book today yeah I a I still stand behind the book today but I was just it's also an explanation of how things evolve yeah right what's your journey been like with romantic love oh my goodness so um challenging like most people one of my biggest challenges was actually I've known from a very very young age that I basically never wanted to be married or have children so that was just like it was this inner knowing you know many young girls at least my friends they would fantasize about like my wedding day and you know there was lots of dolls and okay this is my baby and all that stuff and I just never had any of those desires or inklings and as I became a teenager like why do you think do you know I don't know besides I know it's my truth and I have never wavered on it could it be related to your parents relationship at all it could it very well could prior to Josh I would meet folks and and and be in relationship and they'd be like okay so we're gonna get married then we're gonna have kids and I'm like are you actually listening because that's not what this thing wants so that's that is not the path I'm on so it was actually really really challenging
um until I until Josh and I got together back in 2003 and I felt like I had found my soul mate how much have you thought about how your early experiences have like impacted your attachment style when I look at some of my friends and the relationships they have they often seem to mirror the model they learn in their household yeah so I've actually gone so a couple things this has been an area of Fascination for me mostly because a I just want to be a really good partner and a good human and especially with Josh like we've had so many ups and downs oh my God Stephen we've done so much therapy and and I'm gonna share something I don't know if you have interviewed these this couple yet or you're familiar with their work but these folks in my opinion they were the game changers and it does relate to kind of early childhood Impressions and how we were brought up and how that impacts how you interact in your adult relationships so um the most game-changing work that I've ever done when it comes to having a healthy relationship is from Harvel Hendricks and Helen lekelly Hunt so there's a book called getting the love you want it was like huge I think in the 90s and then maybe the early 2000s I had never heard of it but Josh and I stumbled upon it when honestly we were on that we were in a really really tough place and I didn't know if we were going to make it through and um Josh had been talking with someone who was like oh you guys should try Imago therapy which is the kind of therapy that they have developed this whole body of work there's International therapists they're friggin fantastic I was like we must study with these people so they kind of talk about the fact that every single person um you learn things in your family unit so for me there was a lot of kind of smothering that happened at certain points so I need to be free I need to be free and for Josh one of his kind of core and they use this language and you know it like a childhood wound for him it was abandonment so he wants to be close so oftentimes we will pick the person that has the exact opposite childhood wound so for me someone that wants freedom of course is going to choose a partner that wants
more attachment so in their work it's actually like you choose the perfect partner to heal the very things that you need to heal so for me that you are saying okay do you think that has to relate to just the fact that I don't want to get married just the fact that all that stuff does that really it probably does because there was a lot of me wanting to be free in my childhood a lot of me feeling very constricted and held back and so for Joshua was the opposite but I would highly recommend their work if you have not explored it if anyone has not explored it it totally saved us well Josh you talk about the hard times in um around 2017. it was we had several we had um so when my stepson was leaving for college I think this was around maybe 2009 or 10. I might be getting the years wrong forgive me but um I was basically I was such a workaholic I was such a workaholic and he was so just desirous of just more attention and I was so obsessed with my business and so obsessed with trying to be successful and this fear if I slowed down that would all be taken away then this fear that if I didn't continue to work and build that I was going to lose everything and it almost destroyed my relationship it was terrible we had been together I think oh I can probably do the math better now so we'd been together about six or seven years we met in 2003 so it's probably about 2010 and we had never once taken a proper vacation together because I always said that I couldn't because I was too busy working yeah it's so funny um I have a friend who is reminds me of you so much in that way in the sense that she has an immigrant story she came to this country when she was super young she was um bullied in school she found some you know she she found they didn't have any money that was the source of much of the pain in our home she started a business starts to go well she doesn't want to get married she doesn't want to have kids her partner has recently broken up with her because
her partner is not getting any time from her and she just works all the time I watch her and I think you're being dragged by that fear of going back to your childhood you're being dragged by it or like like a being tied to the back of a car that's just flying down the motorway yes and I just don't know what to say to her because she She's suffering the consequences of not having connections or friends or love in her life yes but her ankle is attached to the back of this Lorry and it is flying down the motorway her business is killing it when I say killing it I mean she's probably worth hundreds of millions she's super young she's in a early she's in her 20s um but she's unhappy but she can't get off the [ __ ] Lorry it's dragging her yeah would you say to someone like that I think that it's really important for every person to come to that realization that they may be killing it in certain areas and then to be honest enough to say the areas where it's not working and then I would always come back to if you want this it's kind of like we go back to everything is figure outable if having love in your life friendships in your life Adventure in your life down time in your life is important to you you can absolutely figure it out and what I've seen in my own journey and this is my own personal estimation of myself I've actually become way more successful I've become a better Coach I've become a better teacher I've become a better friend I've become a better partner not being dragged by my drive not allowing the fear of losing any success that I've built be the force that keeps me from the richest parts of my life which are my connections for anyone who's who's in that space right now they have to want to make that choice to change and then be willing to as much as they took the risk to start a business they have to be even more courageous to redefine their own success at a higher different level and it takes courage takes a lot of Courage so how did you redefine your own definition of success at a high level so for me it was around really stepping back and asking myself what matters most
like is it the money in the bank account is it the amount of followers or customers or whatever and I remember sitting in that therapy chair and like thinking about what I've grown and then seeing this beautiful man and going like you know what it's not about choosing either or but like you've got a problem Marie and you got to fix this like this thing meaning the business cannot be your number one priority if you know in your heart that love is the most important thing in life then you need to start demonstrating that you need to start acting that you need to start making time for that God you know in your heart yeah so this is the interesting thing because we all know yeah like objectively no because we've read read that it's true we met you know I see this a lot I see like we know we should goes back to kind of the wanting to want thing yeah I know that people are happier when they have friends and when they have a romantic partner typically in whatever Dynamic that's that relationship is formed I know that to be true but I feel like I need to keep building this [ __ ] business and climbing that ladder and sure it's such an intense strong all-consuming feeling just to keep on going keep throwing coal into the engine of this train yep but I know I should spend time with my friends this is where I'm gonna go back well all this stuff so as it relates and I think those are maybe two different slight nuances so I would go back to the Helen and the Harville work like there's a couple of tools that they teach you one of which is this tool called dialogue it's a very structured form of having a conversation with your loved one Stephen I cannot tell you how healing this particular form of work is you could probably look it up online they do tons of workshops very inexpensively they're actually even taking their workshops into police departments like because it is transformative how it helps people connect how it helps people see each other how it helps people hear each other and how it helps people heal and when Josh and I started practicing these tools that we learned from from Harvel and Helen something in me relaxed and I was able
to see and hear and recognize and understand Josh's needs in a way that did not feel threatening to my own drive for my own success it was as if previously those two things were at odds and then all of a sudden everything was integrated where he felt really heard and seen and I felt really heard and seen and it was as though that battle completely disintegrated and so no longer was it this or that no longer was it will either give me attention or you know what I mean I have to give up this business no it was like oh now I understand what he really needs which is not tons of time it's actually presence and giving him support and love in the way that he can really feel it and while he gets nurtured and it's completely different than how I do but again this is like a practice and it's nothing that we're taught in school so we're all just stumbling around at least I was and Josh and I were and now it feels like Josh is so much more supportive of all the things I do in my business and ironically not it's not that I care less but I'm less driven by fear it's more driven by desire and fun and creativity and wouldn't it be cool if oh let's try that and only saying yes to things that are like a full body yes not saying yes to things because I think it's going to get me somewhere or it's going to you know get that bag so much bigger it's like you know what at some point enough's enough I'm sure you've experienced this it's like when does enough become enough quick word from one of our sponsors I've got a tip for all of you that will make your virtual meeting experiences I think 10 times better as some of you may know by now Blue Jeans by Verizon offers seamless high quality video conferencing but the reason why I use blue jeans versus other video conferencing tools is because of immersion their tools make you feel more connected to the employees or customers you're trying to engage with and now they're launching one of their biggest feature enhancements to impact virtual events so far called Blue Jean Studio I actually used it the other day I did a virtual event using the studio which I think about 700 of you came to TV level production quality all done by one person with very little technical experience on a laptop so if you've got an event coming up and you're
thinking about doing it virtually check out blue jean studio now let me know what you think because I genuinely believe I know this is an advert and I'm supposed to say this but I genuinely believe it's the best tool I've seen for doing really immersive simple but high quality production virtual events quick one it's so crazy that in the last couple of months I've had so many people tag me on Instagram even on Telegram and in my Twitter DMs in a picture of them starting their heal journey and it's one of the most amazing things in my life that I get to do a podcast which of course needs money to to fuel and I have a sponsor like you who I genuinely believe is going to help every single person who starts their heel Journey change their life because this podcast the central intention of this podcast is to help people live better lives and we get to sit here and I get to promote to you a product which has not only helped me change my life but it's going to help millions of people and is helping millions of people live a nutritionally complete life it's so it's such an incredible product and for me the reason why it's incredible is because it gives me my protein it gives me my vitamins minerals it's plant-based it's low in sugar gluten free it does all of that in a small drink that tastes good there are other products there's Foods there's the hot and savory collection many other things but for me this ready to drink is the absolute savior of my diet throughout the week where I'm moving at such Pace look I don't want to labor the point but if you haven't tried he'll give it a try and if you do tag me Instagram wherever you try it give me a tag anyway back to the podcast I did actually want to ask because men don't often including me as a man we don't often appreciate the social battle that and the social stigma and criticism that women who say the things like I want to focus on my career yeah yeah I don't want to have kids I don't want to get married sometimes undergo and I've I've because I have these conversations now I'm continually like cognizant of my own bias in the way that I ask the questions yeah how do you view all of that like how do you view the the pressure that women
face to fall in line with the old school stereotype of kids they're in such a changing world yeah you know it's really interesting so one of the things I do on my show marietv is I answer questions I love just taking questions from our audience and answering them and one of our viewers said hey Marie how did you decide not to have kids and we had never covered the topic before and I was like oh well let me just I want to talk about that and it was one of the most popular episodes that we haven't we've ever had and it was because it sparked this discussion just about choice and about oh wow you just didn't want them and you knew that it like wasn't a struggle and I'm like that's maybe not everyone's journey and that's great but I need to be honest about mine because one of the things and we've had talks with my mom about this it's like her kind of set prescription was so there from society and from it's like you get married and you have kids and that was I think her authentic dream but it was also the conditioning right and um I just think it's interesting I like talking about it because I think it's really important for every woman to know that she has the right to choose her Destiny and whether that Destiny includes a family doesn't include a family includes some semblance of what she believes as a family like I want women to have that choice I can't tell you how many comments were under that video people left comments anonymously who had given birth and absolutely loved their kids and said I would have made a different choice if I knew I had one and it was shocking how many women feel that they must follow this prescription and I think in 2022 when we're recording this I'm like you know my eyes bulge out of my head I'm like no they don't have to and we need everyone's gifts and it's like I just knew from the moment that I could understand I was like that is not my path in this lifetime my path in this lifetime is to help people give birth to their ideas and to possibilities it's not necessarily to give birth to a physical child through my physical body and so um I like to talk about it just because I want women to have as many choices as they possibly can to be as brilliant and as impactful and happy as they possibly can
yeah certainly not setting off a topic we talk about enough yeah because it goes back to these kind of like colliding narratives The Narrative is much stronger that you know you get married at the stage you do this you get a mortgage you get a house you have your kids totally before here if you don't you're a failure that's right we all feel that men feel it too in other ways but I think the the social pressure sometimes is a little bit more intense on women to meet these deadlines in these timelines yeah time genius yes before we started talking I asked you what was front of mind at the moment and you said time genius yes why did you say that so uh probably for I would say almost a year and a half if not two years so much of my own Creative Energy has been pouring into this uh new program this new experience that we created really born out of my own pain I hit a wall at the end of 2020 where I didn't realize how burned out I was I think like many of us and I found myself in this position that I never found myself in my whole career where I started dreading waking up in the morning and so I went on this journey of discovering and putting together like how do we heal the Paradigm of living in time stress and I described that where it's like you don't know what to focus on first when you wake up in the morning because there's so many things to do you feel guilty if you take a rest for five minutes because your brain says I should be doing something more important you have trouble prioritizing you feel like no matter how many hours you put in It's never enough so we put together this program and it has honestly helped me so much and then I shared it with my audience I've never seen anything get results for people it has changed everything for me I went on um what is it it's there's there's really five key parts to it first it's about changing our mindset from the inside out about getting out of time stress and living as a Time genius where you know in your bones and in practice that there is always time for what's most important it's a complete different Paradigm again we can talk more about it it's a little bit too lengthy to get into everything here the second part of it is when you know it's important you can ignore
what's not I found that for me in different parts of my life and I'm pretty good at this one but I can I'm always practicing is if there's too much on my plate if everything's important nothing's important and then all of a sudden I'm working all the time I've got 17 plates in the air but when I have one project one primary project and everything else is kind of secondary my life has spaciousness I have Focus beautiful work gets done like it's just a different way to operate and you have such an easier time saying no to things when you know exactly what's important at this stage and season of your life then there's the third step is really about setting yourself up to win every single day and we're all different in this way so if you think about you know do you like having a messy desk or a clean desk somewhere in the middle well I like having a clean desk but my desk is always messy but so you probably operate pretty well through there like it's comfortable for you I've survived thus far yeah yeah yeah but some people are like I know people that are minimalist and you know it's like I love having my books around me I love having notebooks around me but a lot of people don't make an ecosystem or design their environment to really help them Thrive and then of course there's certain things we can do with technology to make sure we're never interrupted that distractions don't happen different things we can do with our brain um and then it's a lot about kind of setting yourself up for follow-through and not relying on motivation which as you know the silliest thing to rely on on Earth so that's kind of like the brief overview of it but as I've been walking people through this program and seeing how fast they get results it just makes me happy because folks are they're lowering their stress levels they're having time to be with their kids they're taking walks on the beach they're getting more done in less time and they're not feeling exhausted anymore and so it's a really rewarding thing one of the words I wrote down is you're talking multi-passionate yes yes you said you had ADHD yeah is that somewhat linked to your multi-passionate entrepreneurialism
it's it's a great question that I don't know if I have a good answer to um because I'm certainly not a clinical psychologist like I went to um the best ADHD doctor in the country who gave me the diagnosis and he's like you have the gift I'm like thank you I have the gift thank you very much so I don't know if those two things are linked um but what I do know is anytime that I've shared that phrase with many people they're like oh my gosh I think I'm multi-passionate too it's the person that has this beautiful business and has that art Instagram account and is an amazing Chef too and it just gives us again it's a silly little phrase that just kind of gives you a little bit of a playground to talk about your different interests and maybe a way that doesn't make you feel as broken as I did what is focus sit within that because that when people hear that they think of a lack of focus yeah which is the as you say the antithesis of like entrepreneurial advice it's like focus on something do it for 10 is be consistent Focus so I tried that that approach because I read about it so much and I'm like oh my gosh I must follow what everyone says because that's the path to success and Stephen when I tried to just be a coach and just do like the bartending on the side to earn money I felt like I was cutting off a limb there were so many other pieces of me that were screaming to be expressed and I was like what's wrong with me why can't I just be a coach and be happy and then do my bartending like why can't it be that simple but I was probably um 23 or 24 and I love dance I was not a trained dancer it was just something that was in my body and in my soul and I sat down with myself and I did something called the 10-year test this is something that has served me well too I thought I said okay Marie if when you're 34 and you look back and you did not at least try to make dance a part of your career will you regret it and the answer was hell yes so when I was 24 even though I didn't have any dance training and it was just a passion I started taking more dance classes and I started teaching Fitness classes which got me into a whole world of eventually becoming a Nike dance athlete but the point of that is I tried to follow that path of one thing and I just failed
miserably and because I was so unhappy I said all right [ __ ] it I'm gonna pursue Dance I'm gonna pursue coaching I'm gonna do the bartending I'm going to let all of my different interests Thrive knowing that I couldn't do that forever I knew I wouldn't earn as much money as a coach I knew I was going to kind of keep everything a little bit slower because my focus would be split but the joy and the Fulfillment that came from giving myself permission to pursue all these different things far outweighed any slowness of growth or financial gain I think that's the I think that's it I think um I was thinking about it as you're speaking and the Trap there or the typically it will you know we get ourselves in really complicated positions in life because words a single word like find your passion it's a singular word yes so within the fact that there's an S missing on the end of it sends you a message that there should be one it's an Easter egg and you need to go and search for it you can you have to go and find it you know all these words can [ __ ] us up sometimes in life and one of the words that I think [ __ ] people up when they're thinking about what you just said is I think at the start of you said something like I know I wouldn't be as successful yes because of the the definition we're using for success in that case is not happiness you just ended up saying like I was way more fulfilled and way more but I wouldn't make as much money so if you if I'm saying like if you're if your definition of success had always been happiness then and if that was your guiding your North Star then of course you'd become a multi-passionate entrepreneur but if your definition of success which nobody says it's just making shitloads of money and ignoring all the sort of branches of expression that we all have and all of Interest we have then of course you would have probably focused on coaching you might have been a bigger coach as you said like you might have been you know whatever not that you you didn't get there anyway but because you did but you know it might have been faster let's say yeah but I think it would and the my counter to that was this so all of that experience like teaching with Nike and
also being on camera like in some weird targets and and Walmarts in the states like there's actual DVDs of me on Fitness videos back when there was like this and like you know what I mean because but all of that experience set me up to start my own YouTube show set me and it brought all of these different expressions and influences into my brand that lived today that make it very very different than other people you know there's some people that are coaches that are brilliant and they have this beautiful academic background or different things and for me all of that flavor made its way in and it gave me the confidence and and I think a uniqueness that um actually made the business that I have today so much more rich and so much more unique unique and um and joyful to run that's exactly what creativity is isn't it it's having um rare and uh unique points of inspiration and experience and bringing them together to create something new so like you know you're doing Fitness stuff yes one can see how the lessons you learned there are still in the work you do today and the example as I look down at this iPad in front of me that I that I always talk about when I'm talking about how like straight seemingly strange things can end up defining you seemingly strange creative Inspirations can Define you as is the iPad and apple and knowing that Steve Jobs taking that typography class was ultimately the reason much of the reason why apple is they care so much about design and Detail in typography and that set them apart from other brands which I won't name and you'd never think that would make sense and but he cites that in his commencement speech he cites these really obscure classes he took as being the reason why apple is what it is today but in typical narrative we say to like if you want to be a coach go do a course on how to be a coach just that like right don't [ __ ] music right which could be a great [ __ ] breath work or this meditation class you want to do [ __ ] all these other things Focus yeah but the best those that create really unique feeling stuff that the world really has never seen or felt before but needs are those that pulling Inspirations from the most
bizarre Unthinkable places to create a new coaching business that's right what are you struggling with now it's less of a struggle more of uh this is what I'm playing with and I'm I'm I'm excited about getting better at you know I'm here to give a beautiful talk in an event and it's something that I haven't done a lot of because we've been in covid and all this stuff and I can get nervous on stage I can get really nervous like I'm very very comfortable with cameras and having one-on-one conversations but I can get super nervous on stage when it's not like my people that have come to see me so that's something that I've been working on a lot this year what does that mean in a like a detailed a detailed practical sense that you're that's the thing you're struggling with is it so it's an anxiety a fear yeah sometimes it's it's about oh my gosh you know people will ask me to come speak on stage different stages and and I've said no so often because I have so many other things that my attention's on and I'm a person I I like to prepare and I like to deliver as much value as I can I want to take care of a host and Their audience and like putting together I'm like oh gosh what's the talk gonna be like I can feel my mind going into a super swirly place and it's not fun and it was like I need to handle this I'm like I don't need to handle this on my own you know everything is figureoutable but that doesn't mean that I can't ask for help figuring it out so for me it's it's about um working through the anxiety and the nerves around okay well how can I construct the best talk how long should it be the delivery how many stories like a lot of kind of technical things it's it might sound really silly I don't know if it does or not but it's things that like my head just goes like this about and I'm like okay where does that come from in you I don't know I think that um one of the things I've seen about myself is that when I do something enough times I get super comfortable with it and then I can be really creative and playful and so I think it's honestly a lack of having done it a lot recently like when I was on book tour it was just like ah like it was so much fun and it had like a very clear Focus I was like oh we're talking about the book and all the
content was right there but when things are more free form I'm so creative that it can get like wild and crazy so I want to put containers around stuff and give myself more opportunities to do it in a way where it feels really fun what about personally what are you struggling with personally that was a professional example okay personally struggling I don't and this is not I'm probably gonna sound like a total [ __ ] so I'll just say that out loud at this particular moment I don't feel a sense of struggle around something consistently in my personal life like I feel I spent so much time over the past couple of years we're talking about the time genius stuff like really taking care of my mental health and really starting to kind of unprogram and reprogram some of the stuff that I've tortured myself with in the past that I finally feel such a level of peace and acceptance of like who I am and Josh and I have done so much work and I feel so grateful and he's the person I spend the most time with and we have just such a I'm so grateful for our relationship so in the personal realm there's not one that comes up right now that doesn't mean it's not gonna come up with Josh yes if I'd called him this morning and I said Josh what does Marie struggle with personally yeah what would he say he might oh I know what he would say he would probably say um being hard on herself being hard on herself like I like basically before I was coming here and getting I was like you think the Talk's gonna go okay he's like it's gonna go great like you know I can have those like just like is it gonna all be okay like that kind of stuff and um yeah I think he's just like you he's consistently my Champion for being nicer to myself like if he catches me sometimes I won't catch it myself if I'm going into a mode of like really getting focused and you know maybe working a little too long is like have you eaten I'm like thank you because I have not or something like that are you still being dragged you know I don't feel that way that that's the honest to goodness truth we had a there was a couple of opportunities that came up specifically
around this trip and I heard that you should do that right I heard that voice I was and I just politely declined and I didn't feel any guilt about it I was like it that felt new for me to be honest because I've gone on trips and work trips and things like that and like every moment of every day you know what I mean was packed so that you could maximize every opportunity and before I came here to see you like I was with my team and like shopping for a pair of jeans that I really wanted and it was it was lovely in them everything is figure outable in chapter 10. yes the world needs your special gift yes that's what that's the name of the chapter um there's a quote you say most high Achievers struggle with feeling like a fake but never talk about it it's like a dirty little secret everyone's afraid to admit I'll tell you right now I still feel this way at times and I've been doing this work for almost two decades do you feel like a fake sometimes oh yeah I mean what we were just talking about with um the speaking thing like I have the voice in my head Stephen like you've been coaching and working with people for over 20 years like why are you how do you still have anxiety about getting up on a stage I can see emotion in your face oh totally because it's like so much judgment like it's still there even though I do it it's but it's like I talked to my best friend about this all the time and she was like Marie you're doing great but I was like I still have that voice that's like you should be able to just walk up on any stage at a moment's notice and like [ __ ] crush it but it's just not the truth I can't do that and so that voice is still there and when I hear it I continue to practice to be kind to myself and go it's okay you're doing okay do you feel like you're enough I and I'm better at this than I've ever been I'm not nowhere near perfect please no but I am so much less susceptible Than I Used to Be you know like I was telling you about that person that said you're so good at what you do like why aren't your numbers bigger that conversation
I felt like such [ __ ] right and it was just like oh God you know like you have you've been doing it why aren't your numbers bigger like so that if I'm in if I get sucked into that conversation I absolutely do not feel like enough a hundred percent when I have enough perspective or when I can you know what I mean like get sober from that I'm like dude everything is like I'm so happy how do I get sober from that one of the ways that I did I realized that uh for me and this was just me personally being on social was not healthy for me it was not because you know in any given moment you're either like engaged in your life and creating and like just being with people you're making a meal or you know like whatever you do or for me like even just being on there it's like it's almost like a little thought worm gets in and then at two o'clock in the morning you wake up and you're like why am I not doing x and x like so and so is or I should be doing this like it's that whole conversation I should be wanting this or I should be doing this and I found it to be really toxic for me I found it to be really unhealthy for me where I was like wow if I'm on this thing I find that I'm comparing myself and when I'm not on this thing I'm like yeah like I'm so happy I'm CR like I'm really creatively productive I'm more prolific like I'm a better leader I'm a better partner I'm just happy so I actually don't spend hardly any I like don't do it at all there'll be people you know that want to be coaches or that yeah because you careers in creating that yes that feel the same way yeah but they could buy my business yeah how do I how am I going to be successful in my business if I'm not on social media sure sure I think that there are really helpful and useful ways to do so and I think that it doesn't have to take a lot of money it just takes a little bit of creativity and it takes some really strong personal boundaries and standards so for instance at this point in the game you know I have a team you've met some of them today like we'll create content and they'll post it it's not much different than me with my YouTube show or my podcast I'm not necessarily the one going on YouTube to upload things does that make sense
dude oh I have no money well this is something you could probably get an intern this is one of the things that's everything is figure outable you can absolutely figure it out like even if you had to work a little bit extra if you were a bartender like me or waiting tables and one of your shifts was devoted to hiring someone to post things for you you could figure it out or you could set limits for yourself you know Instagram and I don't know because I don't know much about the app because I'm not in there much but um I know that you can turn off or at least mine is you don't have to see the amounts of likes on anything you just actually see an image or whatever and so you can kind of craft the tools so that you keep yourself away from the things that [ __ ] you up yeah and then you go on and I showed this to an artist friend of mine who is absolutely drowning because she was comparing herself to all these other artists and I showed her how to mute things because she loves those human beings but it's just her own ego gets so such right so it's like she wishes all of these people well she's a beautiful person who wants everybody to be successful but like most of us it's built into our neurology it's built into our biology to compare ourselves and if you spend enough time on that you're gonna wind up feeling like [ __ ] it's funny you said something earlier where we were talking about kids and you said the advice you'd like to give to women is just all the The Narrative you'd like to put out there to women is that by the way it is a choice yeah no one ever said that to me about social media that like I could be intentional yes about how I use it we download the app it says put your name in we do as we're told and then it quite clearly because of the comparison psychology we're like okay I need to make this number bigger and these numbers as big as possible that's what I'm doing here the pause I had maybe a couple of years ago was like the harm is done in I'm choosing to follow people and this like a library is now the greatest influence over my world view my view of myself in the world is the me just hitting that follow button I'll follow Kim Kardashian Kylie oh this account's called get rich become a millionaire and it's posting
Lamborghinis follow and what you're doing is you're populating your library with junk values and then you're going to pay the price you're going to pay the price for that so this idea that I could just mute everyone came to me maybe three years ago and honestly if you're listening to this and I follow you there's a reason why I'm not in your story views because 95 percent of people are muted the people that really matter have my WhatsApp they send me like inappropriate gifts and completely memes and stuff like you know where I'm at yep so yeah and I'd never post anything personal in terms of what I'm doing in my life where I go on holiday what I drive whatever on there anyway I don't want to play those games I post ideas yeah and um I actually don't post myself either because I'm fortunate enough to have a team but yeah that that point about being really intentional about the tools and that is you know that's really the key point because all the rest of it and and there is to you know it's not like I haven't I have posted and if I was starting over again and I felt like that was actually a good tool for my message to get out and I said okay this is great for me how can I batch yeah how can I do this and get great I'm going to schedule this up they're scheduling there's all kinds of different tools and to your point I loved the word that you used how can I be intentional about this how can I use this medium in a way that's going to help me serve and connect with people that I really want to connect with and absolutely minimize or eliminate the downsides and you can and you can and I think that's what's really really important and I think there's too many people who think that you have to be on it all the time and for some people if they enjoy it I'll meet like go on with your bad self I just realized that's not me we don't realize the role that media is having on our values and our psyche and our mental health and our well-being um I read this wonderful study he basically exposed them to certain media um to an advert with a toy in it the children that watch the advert with the toy in it versus the children that didn't watch the advert with a toy in it were then asked who do you want to play with a really nasty person a really mean person that's holding the toy or a
really wonderful human being A really lovely kid that didn't have the toy those that had seen the advert the kids that had seen the advert always chose to go and hang around with and play with the nasty kid with the toy and what that shows is how the media that influence the glamorization of that toy shifted your values at a really fundamental level and if you think about that you zoom out on an adult's life and how something they see consume in this Digital Library can make them skew their orientation towards junk values and how that will lead them to like unfulfillment a burnout ad connections bad relationships you've got to be intentional yes about that Library I'll say one thing too that I've shared with my audience that maybe some folks in yours will find useful especially if you are a person who consumes social media or other media content when you first wake up in the morning I think 85 percent of folks who own cell phones do create before you consume create before you consume whether it's creating a stronger mindset a stronger body spending time in nature being with your partner writing that song creating that piece of art just create before you consume and it's like a really fun Mantra that you can use anytime during the day like if you're going to pick up your phone because you're insecure you're uncertain you're uncomfortable you're fearful you don't know what to do next so you're like well let me go for my little you know addict thing create before you consume let it be a pause and ask yourself what do I really want to create right now do I want to consume other people's ideas do I want to get sucked into this hole or is there something I want to create is there a meal I want to make is there a walk I want to take is there a friend I want to reach out to do I want to take a picture and send it to my best friend and say oh my God I'm thinking of you you know whatever it is but this notion of just creating before we consume again that's just been another one that's helped me it's so powerful it's so simple and I definitely need to heed that advice because I wake up and I look at my what's happening and say oh [ __ ] especially when you've got like Global like businesses in different time zones sure waking up to a crisis every day is
not the best place but listen Marie um we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest asks a question in the Diary of a CEO which is on the table here this is the official Diary of a CEO this is the one of one um where they ask a question for the next guest they don't know who they're asking it for and I don't get to see it until I open the book so here we go handwriting is interesting so give me a second um what lesson have you learned from your lowest point and is there anything about it that you're grateful for um I don't know if there's one specific lowest point but I'll just I'll I'll choose one the lesson that I learned from a low point was to always trust my instincts and to not Outsource wisdom to not Outsource what I should do to not look to other people to find the wisdom that already is within me and I think that trusting of that little voice and to never ever ever ever doubt it that was probably um that's the lesson I I keep getting in my life and I I keep adhering to and learning on different levels and am I grateful for it 100 because I feel like every time I have a low point and struggle and go within rather than go without I develop an intimate relationship even deeper with myself and I have a greater level of trust and faith that not only is everything figure outable but that there is a a higher intelligence there is a greater wisdom that is absolutely on my side and that it has nothing to do with external tools or external people or external expectations and then if I'm quiet enough and courageous enough to be still the answers Within when was that lowest point the one I was thinking of uh was actually when Josh and I were sitting on the couch and he told me I don't think I love you anymore I think this is done and I was in such shock this was remember we
were talking about how there was like a we've had many ups and downs but this was one where we were sitting and I was looking at him and I felt that his heart was like so not available it wasn't just a normal fight and Stephen my gut dropped and I felt it was like all the oxygen got sucked out of the room and I felt like I had [ __ ] up the best relationship that I had ever had with my work addiction and I remember it was a moment of either like feeling fearful like okay this is done and I need a defense mechanism which would be some version of screw you get out you know what I mean like fine it's over and then I said I remember saying he said I don't I don't think I love you anymore and I said that's not true it's like this is not over and but it did not come from like it sounds super aggressive I know that that sounds really scary but there was and I'm not kidding you there was this inner voice that I was like he's hurt you're hurt fight for this fight for this relationship do not let this go so that in her voice you know it's easy especially for someone like me when when I can get hurt like there's a somewhat of a natural or at least back at that time to be defensive right and say you know I don't love you I'm this is done I'm walking out I don't need you and I was like you [ __ ] be humble and you fight for this relationship and I remember sitting there and telling him that this wasn't over I understand that he believes he doesn't love me anymore I said I still love you more than anything and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to see if this can be repaired and I asked him I said I'm willing to do anything we can go to therapy we whatever but are you willing to at least take a step to see if it's possible because I think this is the greatest love of my life and I don't want to lose you and I saw something in him crack meaning that I could see he was hurt and he didn't know I cared that much and I think it took me being so a little bit aggressive but also really loving in that moment and saying I am willing to fight for this and I don't want to lose you and yeah I've probably been an
[ __ ] but I'm willing to work on it and I want to fix it and so it was that inner voice that there was like [ __ ] him like you know it was like leave whatever but the deeper voice said fight for this and I'm so grateful that I listened to that rather than the whiny egoic voice that was just you know hurt and felt rejected Mary thank you thank you for um I mean it's so much I mean I could sit here and talk to you for five hours around all of these topics because I learned so much you've got such a [ __ ] free um experience based wise unique perspective on challenges that so many people are solving and these are all the most important challenges that your book everything is figureoutable is full of solutions to the most important challenges that I get every day that's why I said to you before we started recording it was so hard to try and condense my notes on this conversation because these are all the questions that I'm being asked and you've answered them in an original a thoughtful and inexperienced based way from your own truth um not from something you've read somewhere or from cliche that is so important and also time genius I mean your description of that uh I mean it rings true to so many people in my life I think maybe too many people in my life so it's wonderful that you've got a resource out there that everyone can access that I have no no doubt in my mind that they will that will really go to serve people and help them go on that journey of finding out their true fulfilled self and aligning themselves a little bit better against that external voice um and a little bit closer to that internal voice thank you for your time thank you for your wisdom your honesty your vulnerability and everything you're doing for so many people because it's really important and you know I think a lot about the coaching space and it's heavily dominated especially at the top by men um Tony Robbins you know you think you think about all these individuals um and they don't have the same experience they don't have the same insight into um what it is to be a woman as well that
is um go struggling with an external narrative from from society that people like me as a man would never really understand but your work your work appeals to both and that's um that's special so thank you thank you for giving me your time thank you so much for having me on it was an absolute joy and an honor quick one as you might know crafted are one of the sponsors of this podcast and crafted are a jewelry brand and they make really meaningful pieces of jewelry I think I've worn this piece for almost a year it hasn't broken hasn't changed color because it's really really good quality and it costs roughly 50 Quid I'm not the type of person that has Rolexes or jewelry that cost tens of thousands of pounds I want pieces that are reliable that look beautiful and that holds meaning and significance for me and that's exactly why I've worn crafted for so long and when we have the conversation about them sponsoring this podcast I was so unbelievably Keen for them to do so check it out if you're a guy crafted london.com and yeah if you get any pieces of crafted tag man let me know what you think foreign [Music] [Music]