Here’s How To Set Your Future Up For Success | Marie Forleo EP 794

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:12After I left Wall Street and I was going on my odyssey to figure out what I was supposed to do with my life and I worked in magazine publishing because I thought that that would be a good mix for me because I loved business but I was also really creative as a little girl I would draw and paint all the time and I thought I was either going to be an animator for Disney or a fashion designer. Was that your dream as a child? I was a multi-passionate kid. So when I look back at those kid books, my mom kept like really great records and it says, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I would answer at six with like five or six different professions from like, I wanted to be an artist and a dancer and an actress and a writer and a teacher.

0:50There was always a million things. You've done all those things. It sounds like, right? Yeah. But I even remember as a kid, I was like, gosh, choosing one thing sounds so boring. And I know it's great for some people because that's their truth. But for me, there was always a lot happening. So even in the magazine publishing world, it was awesome. And I'm so grateful for that experience, but I kept having that feeling that I think many of us have, this is not where I'm supposed to be. This is not what I'm meant to do. And I would look ahead at my bosses, you know, the publisher of the magazine, the editor in chief of a magazine, and I would see that path.

1:23And I said, gosh, I don't want to be them. I'm not aspiring to get that job. So if I don't want to climb this ladder, what am I doing here? Like I'm wasting my time and their time. And it started to really gnaw at me. I had so much potential and it felt like time was passing me by. And again, I was all of like 21 years old, but at that point I was like, you know, a racehorse ready to get out of the gate. And I just felt like I couldn't get traction. I felt like a loser to be honest with you, because I knew I was smart. I knew I was driven. I knew I was ready to work hard, but I felt like I couldn't figure out where my place was.

1:57My favorite life mantra that I live by is that clarity comes from engagement, not thought. I remember being in those jobs, trying to think my way into what I was supposed to be doing with my life. And at that time, the internet was again, just kind of new. And one day I was at Mademoiselle and I was searching around online and I stumbled upon this article about a new profession at the time called life coaching. And I say new at the time because now it seems like everybody's a life coach. But I couldn't deny how something in my body and in my soul seemed to light up. And the more I learned about it, the more I got lit up.

2:34And so I researched and I found this place called Coach University. And it was the first online coach training. So they teach you to be a business coach and a life coach. And it was three years. They do it all over tele-seminars. And again, this all sounded brand new back in the late nineties. But my point here is I did something, you know, I got that article and I was like, wow, that inspired me. Let me go call the coach training place and check out what that is. Oh, let me go sign up and see what this is like. And out of the act of doing it, out of engaging, I kept getting the signals that this is, this is for me.

3:09And I think that so many of us can think in our minds, like, okay, I'm dissatisfied. I'm not fulfilled. I don't know what I want to do. But we try and think our way into an answer rather than start getting into action to try different things, to sample them. You can take a class. You can take a physical class. You can read a book. You can start talking to people. There are so many different strategic ways to engage in an idea without quitting your job, without putting yourself at risk, without doing anything that would jeopardize your well-being in the current moment, but set yourself up for success, you know, down the line.

3:41I'm a driven individual. I'm incredibly ambitious. And you know, most people in our day and age, there is that bit of wanting instant gratification, but I think that it sets us up to be unhappy. And so for me, I often wrestled with, okay, well, how do I reconcile the fact that I have big dreams? I'm not where I want to be yet. Yet I don't want to be miserable until I get there because I'm smart enough to know that when I get there, my dreams are actually going to get bigger. So I'm just setting myself up for life with misery. Thank goodness I discovered this whole kind of philosophy of living in the moment.

4:18And it was really a set of practices. And I learned how to get out of my head and really live in the here and now, and not by sitting on some mountaintop or oming all day, but to really engage in the present moment. Like this moment is it. This is it. Whatever is happening in this moment, I'm going to just approach it and attack it like I'm meant to be here. This is my party. No matter what's going on, if I'm bartending and I'm working seven days a week, if I'm scrubbing somebody's floor, which I did, I mean, I was a personal assistant. I cleaned people's toilets. I did whatever I needed to do because I didn't want to be a desperate life coach because I thought that's like the most horrible thing in the world.

4:56Needing paying clients. I said, let me make money bartending and cleaning people's toilets or doing whatever I have to do so that when I'm coaching people, I can coach them out of my skill set and my desire to make a difference, not out of needing their money. So this idea of making isness your business trains you to love this moment, but you're also super pumped about where you're going. So it's not like you lose sight of your dreams. It's not like you lose your ambition, but you strike this really interesting balance of being fully here and now and fully excited about where you're going. And And I think that saved me.

5:32Anywhere you find yourself, it is up to you whether or not you're going to be miserable there or you're going to make it awesome. You know, and I remember so many times going into another bartending shift. And, of course, if I let my mind run wild, my mind would say, what are you still doing here? If you were smarter, you would have, you know, a full business by now. When is this ever going to happen? And I really trained myself to go, whatever. I'm here right now. How can I make the best drink possible? How can I have so much fun with all the people that I'm working with? How can I give these people a great experience so that at the end of my shift, I'm not exhausted from being miserable for six hours?

6:06And I can actually go home, yeah, a little bit tired, but not feeling like I'm wrong in my life. Or I'm worthless. Or I'm not talented enough or I'm not smart enough. And it was a really great training period. You know, people often ask, they're like, are you really always this happy? And I'm like, I'm not always happy. And I have my bad days, but I really think so much of success is about your attitude that you bring to the table. And you've got to bring it to the table every single day, no matter what stage you're at. You take you wherever you go. And if in those moments you're doing a job that you're not really excited about, but you have to be there for eight hours, you have a choice.

6:43You're either going to be miserable for eight hours, or you're going to engage like a champ. And you're going to show up and be amazing.

6:58I am so excited for you to finish the rest of your day strong. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description and it'll take you to the full episode of my other show, The School of Greatness. Make sure to come back tomorrow for another episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

7:24Thank you.