The Queen of Pitch Speaks: Dr. Forbes Riley on Sales, Success & Never Shrinking in the Boardroom

20:16Dr. Forbes Riley:I don't, Mara, what is your middle name? Susan. Yeah, that's a nice normal name. Mara, Susan, you know, Bobby Joe and - No, it's not. That's not nice. Well, you know, when you're older, you see things differently than when you're a kid and you get bullied. Yeah. And so I was living my life. I was acting. I was, you know, I will share something with you. I didn't grow up with any friends. And I know that sounds really crazy and lonely and awkward and weird. But because of that, I was my best friend my whole life. Yeah. So you always had confidence, like you knew you. I were comfortable with you.

20:53Dr. Forbes Riley:I always traveled with me. I always had conversations with me because I was the only one at some point that I could rely on. And I met a man in Los Angeles in my early 30s that would become the father of my children. And I had a really bad ski accident. I broke my knee. He lost an election. And we kind of huddled in my friend's house. Now, by the way, my idea of being homeless is squatting in my friend's multimillion dollar mansion for six months. Let's get real about my idea of homeless. And so we were both very unhappy at the time, but we're living large. And I went to an image consultant. And for the first time in my life, I was 31 years old.

21:34Dr. Forbes Riley:A couple of things had to change. I always knew I had potential. I always knew I had some sort of talent, but I didn't know back then communication wasn't a talent. If you sang, it was a talent. If you danced or played a musical instrument, but I could talk. And I know that you appreciate that because talking turns into pitching, turns into selling, turns into multi-million dollars. I just didn't know it. And so I meet this man for one hour. I am wearing all white, like a white t-shirt and white shorts. I haven't put on makeup in about a year. I had a knee operation and it was so painful for an entire year.

22:10Dr. Forbes Riley:I couldn't walk well. I was always unhappy. I don't remember being 31. That's how unpainful it was. He sat me down and he said, he said, number one, when I showed up to his house, I'd send him some photos and video that he asked for. He said, you should never show up without makeup on. I'm like, excuse me? He says, yeah, I get that you're pretty like Sharon Stone pretty, but you're not natural like Julia Roberts. And I'm like, oh, fuck you too. I mean, I really, I'm sorry. That's a terrible word, but dude, I'm already kind of a broken person. And you're telling me that I need makeup to look pretty.

22:43Dr. Forbes Riley:Thank you. He said, no, no. He said, it's not a bad thing. He said, I get that you're a star. He said, but you don't get it. And that was like, what? And then he had me do these things. And maybe you've had them, but most women have never had them. He had me go get my hair cut and color for the first time. It was big and black and bushy. He had somebody professionally do my makeup. He told me that I needed to get my clothes done. I needed to understand my colors. And for the first time, I started to look at me as a bit of a commodity. I didn't have the mom who had the style. In fact, one of my jobs at a college was I went to live with a billionaire and his wife because I knew I wanted to learn.

23:20Dr. Forbes Riley:I didn't know what style in class was. We had the same plastic couch, you know, the plastic cover on my couch. That's what they knew, right? That's all they could afford. And God bless them. They loved me, but they couldn't. I watched movies and TV. Somebody out there was rich and famous. Somebody out there was living this amazing life. Why not me? And so he, I did all of those things. And then the craziest thing and the most insulting thing, because like you said, I don't think you like middle name Susan. He said to me, I don't like your name. And at this point, I'm already feeling like, dude, you don't seem to like anything about me.

23:52Dr. Forbes Riley:I've got no class, no style. Oh, by the way, when I went to work for the billionaire, I'm in her car one day. And this is very pre Instagram, very pre social media. And she says, you need to get Louis Vuitton out of the trunk. And I looked at her and said, I'm sorry, who's in the trunk. And she looked at me and said, you'll learn. And I said, you're right, I will, I will learn. and that's been a that was in my early 30s and then he said I don't like your name and I'm like dude okay I get it I'm not anything he said no no he said Francine which was my first god-given name he said is a very old style name he said what what's the name of your first dog what street did you grow up on I said Snoopy Arrow that makes a very bad porn name right Snoopy what is that and then I said I was living with a guy named Riley he said that's it Forbes Riley and I said you're out of your freaking mind.

24:45Dr. Forbes Riley:That's like a law firm. I don't know what a Forbes Riley is. I've never heard of that. And I went home to my 26 year old boyfriend at the time, who's six foot six. He's a really tall, all blonde Notre Dame football player. And I said, I just wasted a whole bunch of money and I'm really sorry. I said, this guy wants me to cut my hair, do my makeup. And he said, well, you know, your hair is a little bushy. I'm like, okay, how about my makeup? He said, well, I keep telling you that your eyes are too dark and your lips are too red. I'm like, who the where did you come from like and then I said okay asshole and I meant this in all love this guy we're not married wants me to take your last name and he wants to call me Forbes Riley and he looked at me his name is Tom and he said God bless him he was 26 at the time and he said that's exactly who you are there you go and for 33 years I have been becoming a vision of myself that I think is designed to help other people and is way bigger than the little girl who used to cry herself to sleep every night.

25:46That's an incredible story. And I love, I don't know if you realize, but in there, you know, you reinvent yourself several times in there. You realize like at a young age. And I love that. I mean, is it, do you think there's ever gonna be, somebody just asked me this the other day. I went on a podcast and they asked me, Mara, do you ever think it's ever gonna be enough for you? What's your answer to that?

26:06Dr. Forbes Riley:No, there's always another mountain to climb. It's never, what is it? That's how I. Enough is bullshit. What does enough look like? Well, I wouldn't know what it looked like. Enough is that I've gotten 18 Academy Awards, 44 children, 18 ,000. But what is enough? Enough is that the world is not hungry. No. In fact, I don't need to work and I'm working harder than ever because how old are your kids? I have one that's 18, one that's 15, and one that's eight. You'll appreciate this part of the reinvention story. It's COVID 2020. my beautiful husband has been in a really bad automobile accident shattered his ankle spent six months in a wheelchair loses everything physical and that's what he's all about obviously the world is ending and my daughter comes downstairs my twins they're 23 boy girl are upstairs doing their homework and my daughter walks down at 17 and she looks at me said mom what are you doing and I said nothing she said my mother is doing nothing the woman that's I've traveled around the world with who's done you know built mountains wouldn't do nothing she said to me how about we start a business?

27:05Dr. Forbes Riley:And I said, I love you, my little 17 year old. Why don't you just get a C in English and I'll be happy. And she said, no, mom, you don't understand. I already build businesses. I'm like, I don't, I think she's just telling me a story. She said, you know, I've been on the internet since I was 12. I'm like, yeah, I know you fiddle around, you do some coding. She's like, I do more than that. She said, I've taken all your celebrity friends like Les Brown and Joe Theismann, and I built them YouTube pages and landing pages and websites. I'm like, you have? She's like, yeah, mom, you're the only one who doesn't believe in me.

27:36Dr. Forbes Riley:And then she showed me a six figure bank account. She was 17. And I'm like, where did you get that money? She's like, I can do this for you if you'll let me. In fact, she said to me, mom, if you let me, I'll make you a million dollars in a year or you don't have to work with me. And I'm literally thinking I've got nothing to lose right now. I'm not doing anything anyway. And she said, but you have to choose. She said, your biggest, your biggest problem is a couple of things. One mom, you don't focus, You do fitness and you do pitching. Pick one. And I'm like, that's like picking one of my twins.

28:06Dr. Forbes Riley:She said, you can't do both. And during COVID, since we manufacture in China, let's not do your fitness. Let's just focus on pitching. And then I said, but I can't teach anybody what I do. I'm a genius. She said, yes, you're a genius, but I've been listening to your infomercials. I've been dissecting what you do and you have a formula. I'm going to tell you, mom, you may not realize it, but you do the same thing every time. And I'm like, excuse me? So we sat in a room for three weeks. Now, I know you probably use something like a ClickFunnel or GoHighlight, whatever you've used. I had Funnel System for three years.

28:39Dr. Forbes Riley:I made lots of pretty funnels. I never launched one of them. I paid people a lot of money to get online. Everybody kind of screwed me over. I was so gullible. And she sits me down, and I do my very first online training. I train in person. I mean, I love training in my studio. I have$1 ,000 training that I do for four weeks, right, on how to pitch. She has me do my first webinar. There's only 25 people in the room. The next morning I call her and I'm like, McKenna, can you help me understand? My account has said zero for three years. Today it says 25K. What does the K stand for? She's like, mom, you closed a hundred percent of the room last night.

29:17Dr. Forbes Riley:You made$25 ,000. And I'm like, that's incredible. We did that for the next four weeks, Mari. You know what that added up to a six figure business of a hundred thousand dollars. I will show you something. Nine months later, I have the honor of saying, and this is six years ago, that I have a two comma club award because I got my million dollars two times over. Look at you. And this year we're going to get our$10 million one for a funnel. And you're teaching people how to pitch, right? That's like your, that's the, from A to Z. That's it. Well, I know that's the premise of your book, but really teaching, is it focused primarily towards women or anybody can go?

29:54Oh my God. Are You're kidding me.

29:55Dr. Forbes Riley:I don't know the difference between men and women. Try and explain it to me. You're a, you're a, no, I, I, listen, I agree with you. I just didn't know if you like female. I have no idea why women do that to themselves. Does Tony Robbins only teach men? Why? There's no. No, I, I agree with you. I agree with that. Everyone laughs. I didn't, I didn't really understand. I mean, it works for like my shtick to say I was in a female, you know, predominantly male dominated business, but I never knew. I really never saw it like that. So I was just with, you know, peers. That's all I agree. And here's the thing.

30:22Dr. Forbes Riley:I have 60 % men. And as far as I'm concerned, if you've got the ability to communicate. So what this is, and I think it's really important to understand, that pitching is a life skill. Pitching is not - You have to send me a book. I'm sorry? You have to send me a book. I love it. Oh, I will absolutely send you a book. And here's what I do for a living. You're going to love it. Is unlike most people's lives that are black and white, my book is 100 % color because that's how life should be. And so there's amazing lessons in here. But the thing that you'll get a kick out of is I'm the least famous person in my own book.

30:52Dr. Forbes Riley:There's Kim Kardashian. There's Mario Lopez. There's all the people that I've worked with throughout my entire career. There's Serena Williams and there's Tony Horton. And most people are like, I didn't know you did all this. I'm like, I know that. So part of the book is a little bit of a testament to the world's greatest journey of working. But in here, you know, it's 26 letters. What would you make A in your book about pitching, do you think?

31:17About pitching? Yep. Oh, I don't know. You're putting me on the spot. A is for absolute.

31:24Dr. Forbes Riley:Well, A could be authenticity, could be ask. Authenticity, yeah. A is attitude. I'm going to tell you something. Oh, there you go. See, you put me on the spot. Of course I'm going to put you on the spot. That's what I did. I've been absolute. Like, I'm absolutely going to sell you. Yeah. Well, here's the crazy part about this, is that pitching is not a business skill. It's a life skill. Every day you ask someone to do something, they say, yes, you win. and in the book, I think you can teach this to people. You think that people, real question. Do you think that people are born with a natural ability to sell or to pitch?

32:00I like how you call it. I say manipulate, you say pitch.

32:03Dr. Forbes Riley:I think that people are born with a natural kind of charisma. You've seen that little kid who can just get out there and be adorable. Some people have that, but here's the cool thing, whether you have it or not, I'm a very much an introvert. That's why I teach. I have a whole training called Elevator Pitch 2.0, and I use it to get on Grand Cardone's stage and speak in front of 10 ,000 people because the system works better than I do. I used to go to events. I'm wildly introverted, and I've got a good amount of ADHD. I can get more done than most people can in one hour, but I can never find my keys.

32:37Dr. Forbes Riley:But I would go to an event, and I'd want to throw up on people. I wanted to just be successful. I saw what not having anything looked like and it didn't feel very nice. And I thought, how do I do this? And by the way, I never found anyone to give me the answers. I went to my first seminar that helped me uncover some personal development when I was 31 years old. And I teach some of that and I highly recommend for everybody watching this. The first thing you want to do in business is clean up your closet, get out of your own way. And what do I mean by that? You can't, you can't build a whole beautiful house on sand.

33:14Dr. Forbes Riley:You just can't because if the foundation is rocky. So a couple of things I used to do, I used to lie to myself. I didn't understand a lot of things, especially coming from my parents. So if I wasn't born that way and I didn't grow up that way, I saw the vision of what I wanted. And here's the cool thing for all of you. You can get anything and everything you want. Now you say, well, Forbes, I really want to be this. Well, you're okay. You're not going to be five foot 11 if you're four foot one. right realistic about things that you do want but anything that's achievable by anybody else is achievable by you your job is to one figure out how did they do it what was their special sauce and if you recreate that you can you can get close you can even exceed your mentors that's the coolest thing but so many of you have such limiting beliefs about who you are mara i host class every week live every sunday and i'm happy to give it to you guys for free if you go to free gift from Forbes Riley every Sunday for the last six years, I do that same webinar.

34:15Dr. Forbes Riley:I don't have 25 people anymore. I have 2 ,500 every single week. I love that for you. I love it. I love that. And I love your beliefs. I teach the same thing here. You know, I say, I always say this, there's nothing different about me than anybody else. Nothing. In fact, like if you're looking at the screen and you know that you're looking at this girl and you think this chick can do it, so can you. The only thing that ever separated me was my will, my want, my why. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not the youngest or hottest anymore. But you know what?

34:45The biggest thing is people's belief. And I do believe 100 % if I wanted to walk on water, I would do it without a doubt. And people have limited belief in themselves. And that is, I mean, all of this stuff I talk about with my, I love that. It's belief. Yeah. Belief. It's full belief in yourself because nobody is going to help you. Nobody's coming to save you.

35:06Dr. Forbes Riley:By the way, C is closed. This is definitely a business book, but it's also business is life for me. What is your why? You know what? It's so cliche that you asked me that it changes. Obviously my why are my children, right? That's, I mean, that's just a give me. My why is my children, but it changes. My why right now is to, and I know this sounds so cheesy, but it's to positively impact every single person that I meet. That is your what. That's what you're doing. So you and I don't really know each other. And if you asked about how do you get to this stage, this state of being that you want to have the ability to impact as many people as you have, really, what is the why?

35:45Dr. Forbes Riley:Go back to you as a kid. Why do you do what you do? You could do anything. Why? Because my honest thing is because I feel like I have a greater purpose than myself. No, go back. Did you have a great mom and dad? I had an incredible mother. Ah, not a dad, though. My dad died when I was little, when I was six. Okay. What decision did you make about life based on the fact that you lost your dad when you were just six? Shit happens. It doesn't matter what happens in life. You put your pants on, your makeup on, and you keep moving. Okay. You have the same impetus that my husband has. His dad died when he was two.

36:19Dr. Forbes Riley:His stepdad was killed when he was 15. So you and he have a different energy and a different reason. The why is, did your mom suffer after he passed away? um yeah mildly yeah but it was like the way that I grew up is that shit happens you got to keep moving yeah she I'm sure she did financially yes but overall in the end yeah I'm sure there was some suffering but she never let me know right but look at the lessons that you learned so no matter how you were born you got this big lesson that things will happen people you love will leave you and if you don't set yourself up in this world to win you lose is that fair yeah absolutely Yeah, absolutely.

36:58Dr. Forbes Riley:That's that memo. Some people with helicopter parents are taught, okay, it's not fair if I don't get a trophy. No, there's no victim mentality in my house. Absolutely not. That is a thing that you are raised with. I talk to so many students every single week. I can ask people to raise their hand. 90 % of every room, who has a fear of failure, they'll raise their hand. Who has a fear of success, they'll raise their hand. I say, you know what? Congratulations. You will never be successful if you raised your hand. It's true. Yeah, it's true. Now, you can learn these behaviors. Because you can hang out with people like you and me.

37:28Dr. Forbes Riley:You can listen to podcasts like this. And you can go, all right, if it's to be, it's up to me. What's the formula? Yeah. It's hard, though. It's hard to change people. I mean, this is a whole mindset reset. And coming from sales, think about it, too. And a male-dominated industry, you know why women fail? Why do you think women fail? They have no belief in themselves. And they keep telling themselves they will fail. Go ahead. Why do you think they fail? That. That's number one. But I also think that they fall victim to their own insecurities. You know, they start putting... And maybe you have a thought about this, but let's get real here.

38:06Dr. Forbes Riley:You know, there's things that you will never change. You cannot change human nature. I was talking about this today about greed. You must expect that greed will always exist from people. It's not that they're not nice, but we as humans are designed for self-preservation first. As an organism, that's what you are doing. Now, it's very sweet. As a mom, you're willing to sacrifice yourself, but you won't sacrifice yourself for pretty much anybody else. So the kids you gave birth to, that's different. And so don't be so surprised if somebody screws you over. That's kind of how that's the nature of humanity.

38:38Dr. Forbes Riley:It's expected. Yeah, it's expected. In fact, the nice ones are the ones that are unusual. So how do you move past that? In a male and female environment, I don't know. I remember that some governor or somebody in Texas made a law or something that said, he said, I'm going to crack down on rape. And I thought, you're such an idiot. Such an idiot. Do you know that rape happens mostly with people that you know in your home? You're not cracking down on anything unless we have spy cameras everywhere. So women are always going to have this thing where we can easily be physically dominated. And men, and I swear to God, I had to teach my daughter this lesson.

39:18Dr. Forbes Riley:My daughter's a 23-year-old, eight-figure earner on her own, blonde hair, young looking. She walks in, or any young woman walks into a boardroom full of men. What do you think the men are thinking? They're not going to think, oh, I should respect her. She's so successful. Right away, no respect. I could bend her over the desk and do her if I wanted to. Yep, that's the first thing. Now, here's the problem. I can't fault somebody for saying that. That's how men are designed. That's what they're on the planet to do. So the question though is as a woman who's smart, who doesn't want to be viewed as aggressive or bitchy, how do you align expectations so that everybody in that room can win?

39:56Dr. Forbes Riley:What do you think? I mean, it's relatability. You have to gain the respect off like right, right from the beginning. And it's something that like coming in so young that I battled with my whole entire life until now, cause I'm seasoned, but you know, at first it was relatability. How do you get relatability and credibility and then not sell yourself short? Because unfortunately the women in my industry, they end up sleeping with the men thinking that that's the way too. So it's really hard. I mean, unfortunately it's just a sad reality, but it's, um, that's what it comes down to. It's re it's relatability.

40:29And once they, it's also respect for yourself, respect, that's exactly the second part of it.

40:35Dr. Forbes Riley:I work with so many women and I don't know where you fall on the spectrum, but everyone, almost everyone I know has been molested to some level, including myself and how it affected my take on men and my attitude and what I want to have life. And I don't know that a lot of men, And men certainly deal with that, but not most of them. Right. Whereas most women do. Absolutely. I think what women need nowadays, and this is different. This is not for men conversation, although it'd be nice if you respected your sisters, wives, daughters more. But as a woman, you've got to, like you said, pull your big pants on and go, okay, you know, if that's how you view me and we want to do business, I've got to tone down all the sexuality.

41:11Dr. Forbes Riley:Maybe I have to dress a little different so that I'm not noticed. So that the first that walks into my room is my boobs. because if you, and it's not that we're asking for anything, but that's an important statement. How do you view yourself? How do you neutralize that? If you want to do business, if you want to shut men down, because as a woman, if you're too aggressive, and I know you've seen this, or you're too pushy, they don't want to work with you. They don't, but then it's, you know, it's a double-edged sword. You know, people, men want us to be, you know, be pretty, but don't be too pretty, you know, be, um, be humble, but don't be cocky.

41:45So it's, it's a constant, you know, give and take. But what I did learn being in the boardroom for so long is when you are authentic, look, I'm not changing the way that I dress. I started when I first started in the career, same, same thing happened to me. Guy looked at me, said, you're really cute, but you got to change your look. You have to wear suits. At that point I was young. I was 25. I'm like, I'm not wearing suits. There's no way. So how do you gain, how do you gain respect? So then I start selling. I do really well. They're like, Oh yeah, big boobs. It's because you're sleeping with everyone you did.

42:12No. Could it just be that I was a good salesperson. And then from over, then from doing it over and over, and then really just playing at the same game, not backing down. That's how you gain the respect and also putting those boundaries. Sometimes you have to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Oh, I say it all the time. Oh, I have no shame. And just address it. I have big, I do have big boobs. I am pretty. I can't help it. But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? It doesn't, you know? So it's, it's always been a, but I think what happens with women is that they shrink themselves to sit at that table.

42:44And you absolutely 100 % do not have to shrink yourself. I have a daughter. She watches me all the time. And there is no way on this God's given planet am I ever going to be somebody I'm not. I have fake hair. I have fake boobs. I have spray tan on. I do not care. This is who I am. Take it or leave it. I might not be everybody's cup of tea, but what you see is what you get. And I'm never going to shrink myself in a room for anybody.

43:08Dr. Forbes Riley:So now the goal is that you and I are not shrinking. How do we encourage women on this planet who do shrink, sadly, all the time? It's women have to be honest with themselves first and want to come forward. That's the first part. And then change the generational stigma, which you think we're so progressive, but we're really not that progressive if you think about it. What was in 1978, we still had to be on the mortgage with a man. I mean, it hasn't really gone that, you know, there's still the boys clubs in corporate America. It exists. It's a real thing. But, you know, the internet's powerful.

43:43Our voice is very powerful. So anytime I come across my daughter, her friends, you know, that's a big mission for me. That's why I do this now. This was never, I never was going to podcast. This was never anything I wanted to do ever. You know, I was on my trajectory to law school also, and I lead a pretty lucrative team. But, you know, how we do it is through the voice, you know, the power of voice. And I think more and more women will come start evolving. At least that's my hope.

44:07Dr. Forbes Riley:testament to that is us looking at your daughter and us looking at my daughter, who at 23 has her own TEDx talk. And she got it because of how pitching and she's sat by her mom's feet her whole life. When I when she was about eight years old, I was still traveling a lot to Europe. And I'd gone through the murder of a little boy that I raised. That was part of my personal story. That was very tragic. And I clung on to her and her dad kind of clung on to her, you know, our son. And so when I traveled, I just brought her with me. In fact, I took her out of school one day for 50 years for 50 days out of one year.

44:39Dr. Forbes Riley:And I remember saying to the teacher, look, I'm not going to let school get in the way of a good education. And so she's listened to me be as brash. And by the way, kids not only listen to you, but they watch what you do. Why does that girl work with me and put up with her mom? It's because she watched me get screwed over on the internet. And she said, I'm not going to let that happen to my mom. I can do better for her than anybody. And she's been crazy committed to letting me get my voice out. And so if you're in business, guys, and you're feeling overwhelmed, that's one of the things I experienced a lot with my clients, knock it off.

45:12Dr. Forbes Riley:You cannot do everything. You will not do everything great. You are not the best at everything. By the way, I'm going to share, and you probably know this, but if you clean your own house, you're not a millionaire. If you do your own grocery shopping, you're not a millionaire. You know how come I know? Because you never have time to do all of those things. And why would you waste your time doing same repetitive tasks when you can better yet pay someone who maybe doesn't have your education. You make the money, pay for their family, get what you want and still move on your trajectory. So some of those little things make huge differences.

45:44Dr. Forbes Riley:And so she watched me do that. The second thing is, you know, we talk about as a business owner, you're a visionary. If you're a visionary, find an implementer. Don't think that you're going to master every AI that's coming out now and do all your bank and taxes to the gym and have time for your hair and nails. I don't know about you. Have you hired for your weaknesses? I know that I'm not, I know that that's just not my shtick. I'm not into the, I'm definitely not in the tech stuff, not into it. I just bring the ideas. My husband executes. I bring the ideas. There's no way. I just don't, that's just not who I am.

46:15That's not my brain, nor am I ever going to pretend that that's the way I I'm wired. I'm not, I just bring the ideas and we, and then that's it. That's all I do.

46:22Dr. Forbes Riley:So what's another big issue you find in women that you want to share with me? You know, keeping the emotions in check. I have the girls that come in here. You will never, ever find me crying ever in front of anybody. I'll go to the bathroom. I'll go to my car. But I will never, ever cry. Because the minute, I mean, not that there's nothing wrong with it. Look, you have to be vulnerable sometimes, for sure. There's a time and a place. But when you cannot control your emotions and you look emotionally unhinged, and Lord knows I definitely am emotionally unhinged sometimes, but I am never going to do it in my professional place of work.

47:00I will always be put together. My grandma always told me you have to be a lady in public, always. And that's why I live by that.

47:06Dr. Forbes Riley:So it's up to us to move your grandma's notion forward that we really, and I do feel a responsibility and I feel a kinship with you about being a strong, powerful woman who is helping other women and men find their authenticity. also I mean I'm a big fan now though I do let people see my vulnerability when I never ever let them do that before because that was a kind of a weird word growing up and I agree just not to an extent so the same thing I I do let my guards down but I'm not crying in front that's not how I conduct business I'm not crying not doing this there's no crying I love that no crying in insurance we're not crying hey you're not going to see your competitors crying I know that's really not your men.

47:47No, no, no, no. And, and there is, there's nothing wrong with crying, but when you become emotionally unhinged and I think that, or, you know, the other big problem I have is I have my period. I can't come to work.

47:59Dr. Forbes Riley:What, what, what do you mean? You have your period. You can't come to work. Like, wait, what? Like what? I'm really confused about this. I've had three kids and had to go to work. Like, what are we doing here? Like this is just an excuse. I will tell you though, by the way, I don't have to deal with that anymore. When you get to a certain age, oh, can I tell you, life is a little better. But these are the things, it's sad though, you know, and I think these are stigmas that we just tell ourselves. It's not real. There's nobody out there supporting, I promise you, it is not in anybody's best interest to have strong, powerful women.

48:32Dr. Forbes Riley:Men don't really want it. They say they do, but they don't. Women seem to be catty and silly and I don't know why, what we do to each other. So it takes the few of us who can see this for everyone else and go, look, I'm going to take a stand. I want you to be powerful. I want you to have it together. I want you to make money. I want you to go on vacation. I want you to raise great kids and live an awesome life. And it's available for all of us. It is. They're not, just not one person has to eat. There's a whole table. There's tables ready for women to take a stance and really build a future that they want.

49:03That is unapologetically them. They don't have to shrink anymore.

49:06Dr. Forbes Riley:I love meeting you. This is so wonderful. Thank you. Yes. I love, I just love how you completely took over. It was great. I love it. I was going to go into your life and everything, but you said everything for me. I love it. You did such an incredible job. You know what? You inspired me. I don't normally do that. I normally answer questions and very nice, but you have a great energy about you. And I think the audience that must be attracted to you is of a similar, and like I said, the book is to me, the tip of the iceberg. It's allowing me to go out on tour. I love that. I'm going to start going.

49:35Dr. Forbes Riley:I'll be in Orlando. I'll be in New York. I'm having a big signing at the biggest bookstore in New York called Bookends. Very excited on May 16th. Doing a huge live event. And I'm also going to go back and talk to a lot of my old infomercial superstars just to get some insight. Because they're now calling me the godmother of TikTok. No, the godmother of TikTok shop. Because I've literally sold billions. There's not a TV camera I've never gone on that has. You have to sell between$2 ,000 and$5 ,000 a minute every minute you're on the air. So a cool thing about not only the book, guys, by the way, which is wonderful and I love books, but I also love all the little Easter eggs that I created for here.

50:12Dr. Forbes Riley:And so you go and you find the little QR codes and you unlock a whole video world. I've given away thousands of dollars of free stuff, insights, formula, other things, because within this are so many actionable items that I take them for granted. So I'm giving them away. and I will tell you everything from the kind of gold journal that you do to how you shake somebody's hand it's all in this book and it's designed for for you the listener the reader the person who says it's my time to give you some nuggets like you're a big fan a fan of belief I gotta tell you it's in the book you're also a big fan of d of c for closing I have a feeling a lot of these letters you know what does it mean to be an open door how do you know when to talk to somebody when not to even if you've got a great pitch how do you respond to the question what do you do.

51:00Dr. Forbes Riley:So I could go on and on, but Joshua. How about the way you look though? I say the way you look governs everything. Don't kid yourself. This is my honey. Here's Joshua. Say hi to Mara. Hi. Hi. I love your wife. I love her. I love, she's incredible. He's not only the most wonderful man, but he's also like you work with your honey. He's my videographer. I do. I definitely do. I work with him every day, day in, day out. I don't know how we put up with them, but we do. He's calling me because I'll start shooting some more stuff. I'm excited to meet you. We're going to have to, I'm going to come out and see.

51:32Dr. Forbes Riley:We have to. When you're in Orlando, when you're in Orlando, I'll come out to see you at the bookstore. I'll come there and support you for sure. Anything that I could do to support you, let me know. Well, you know what we could do is that you've got a very large organization of people who, if they knew how to pitch, some of them would do better. What do I mean by that? Pitching starts the moment you shake somebody's hand. Well, the moment before, how you look, how you present yourself. You intuitively know that, but and I don't have time to go into it today but part two of our conversation is when you shake someone's hand and they say what do you do that moment is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and most people yes that it opens the door because people love to talk about themselves that's the best that's the key to everything oh I love it we have to do something together we have to do something together if anybody wants to find you though before you go anyone wants to find you where would they find you?

52:23Dr. Forbes Riley:Unusual name type in Forbes Riley. You'll see my, oh, my Instagram is blowing up in the last three weeks. I added a hundred thousand Instagram followers because I am finally with the help of my team putting out awesome content. So every social media out there. And like I said, you guys, if you want to come listen to me live, no cost to you guys, free gift from Forbes Riley. I spent almost two hours working on the pitch basics. I call it pitch secrets masterclass. It's interactive. You're going to see people's pitches get flipped like you've never seen anything in your life. So please join me on a Sunday or next time I'm doing Mara part two.

52:59Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. Thank you. If you did not get a million nuggets from today's episode, I don't know what you were doing. This was such a privilege. I enjoyed it so much. Tune in, subscribe, like, tell a friend, unsubscribe. I don't know. Do something. If you love this conversations, there's so many more. Join us next time on Bill. Thank you so much, Forbes Riley. You are incredible.

53:20Dr. Forbes Riley:Oh, back at you. Yeah. Huh?