Ep. 90 How To Figure Out Your Future With World-Renowned Life Coach Marie Forleo

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1:29marie faleo is one of the world's most renowned life coaches she's a number one new york times best-selling author and has turned her life coaching practice into a broadcast empire coaching over 100 million people hosting her own tv show in the us marie tv and launching three coaching programs online her motto is everything is figureoutable and i personally am certainly ready for some help figuring some things out. So I cannot wait for you to hear this. Also, this episode, kind of accidentally, but based on the fact that we both share the traits that we are the type of people who want to do a lot of things and are not very good at focusing and really want to, you know, be successful and get a lot out of life, but also at the same time and not necessarily the best people at telling ourselves to focus on one thing or that a new thing isn't always the best thing etc etc etc so this is very much an episode for people who like to do too much want to learn how to focus but also want to learn how to harness what you are good at and how you get that energy into things and how important that is in terms of what you can actually build for your life so i hope you really enjoyed this episode if you do enjoy it go to the podcast on spotify and give us a rating you can choose the rating but let's be honest a higher rating really helps us get amazing guests.

2:45I know it's not probably something that you think about following and rating the podcast, but it makes a huge difference to what we're able to do. So thank you so much. And I hope you really enjoy the episode.

2:57Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. This is so fun. Well, it's fun for me to be in New York. Every time I'm here, I get this kind of energy based on the fact that people here have such strong energy. I feel like I've been like pulled into this vortex of like success and opportunity. It is. I mean, I think that's one of the most addicting parts of New York City is like there is this grit in this nonstop current that you just drop into and you're like, I have so many ideas and I want to do all the things. And I think for people like us and ambitious listeners that you have, it's pretty intoxicating.

3:32No, I can imagine. I could very imagine myself like living here. And And I don't think I think that about a lot of places. I think it suits my, like that go, go, go. I'm very, very go, go, go as much as I try not to be some other time. Yes. But I feel like that fits with me. We first like to ask everyone whether you feel like at the moment you are more working hard or hardly working. Oh, at this moment, working hard. I think in the past few years, I've struck a much better balance of hardly working. but my natural bent, my DNA is working hard. And that's something that I feel like is going to be almost like my lifelong journey to keep an eye on that and to dance between the both.

4:15Because for me, hardly working, I get bored. And I'm a person who does naturally have a lot of energy and I have ideas. I mean, they come constantly. It's like, I almost feel like, oh my God, another one? Like, where am I going to put this thing? But I do have to really keep my eye on it because it can go into overdrive. And I have to, so just finding that balance and that dance of what actually feels good, you know, it's not, there's no set formula. I think that's what's so important. It's actually about identifying whether you tend more towards working hard or hardly working and actually knowing that you're probably gonna always have to shift yourself in the direction of the other one a little bit so you can get better balance.

4:53I also think that recently I've had such a, my mom said this thing that like really struck a chord with me, she didn't say it, striking what she said about herself and I was like oh my god this is where I get it from um but she is someone who kind of said to her like you always go go go you're never happy that it's like you know that things are done like you've just finished this now you're onto this thing like just take some time and like settle and she was like oh no I'm happy because I do this like because I go go she was like this is my this is my drug like this is my thrill I love this like and I was Like, oh my God, I spend so much time fighting the fact that I'm go, go, go and fighting the fact that I'm like constantly thinking about the next thing and all of that.

5:32And don't get me wrong. I need to fight some of that. Like I need to get better at like checking in with myself and being able to be like, okay, you've achieved this. Just sit for one second and be happy about it. But also at the same time, like my thrill comes from building, doing new things, thinking of new ideas, seeing if I can execute them. like there's a reason why I've done what I've done and it's purely because I'm just like next next next like I like that yeah I think there's also a part of like not fighting that too much yes it's an interesting dance of being comfortable in your own skin not listening to external voices that tell you like you're not healthy and you should slow down and you're doing too much and you're going to just hit a wall and I think on balance sometimes there's truth in that and I know for me and my journey, a lot as I look back, and oftentimes we only see things in retrospect, right?

6:24It's hard to see things in the moment. That's why we have that wonderful saying that hindsight is 20-20. I can see now, you know, starting things and driving so hard, there was a good portion of it that was driven by fear and driven by scarcity and driven by this deep, deep drive and desire to have stability and security. And so that's super real. And at the same time, it's also super real that I'm like, oh my God, I love this. Like this is amazing. And the same thing, getting such a genuine charge and the thrill out of the act of creation, this incredible ability that every human being is born with, where you have an ability to have an idea, pluck it from the field, higher consciousness, your imagination, however you want to put that in a container and then actually make it a thing for other people to experience and for other people to enjoy.

7:18That is a power that I don't think we can just gloss over, overlook. It is magical. And so to get joy from that and to actually embrace it and flex that muscle to create, there is a lot of pleasure there. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think for so long, I thought I was doing the rest of things so wrong just because I was kind of like constantly looking at a lot of self-care stuff and being like self-care is making sure you have x amount of time off it's making sure you have this it's making sure you have this and i'm like i think for me it's boundaries and it's very strong boundaries and it's knowing where my those boundaries are but it's not necessarily kind of it doesn't look the same for everyone like balance is not 50 50 it's not about this kind of textbook what works for everyone it's just like actually you can, some people recharge by sitting, some people recharge by running, some people recharge by like walking, whatever it might be, and understanding like where that is for you.

8:13I think I fought that a little bit for too long. I'd love to know from you, for anyone who maybe isn't familiar with your work, a little bit of a kind of whistle-stop tour of your career and how you got to where you are now. Yeah. So as we talked about, I have always been a person with a lot of energy. And I remember being an undergrad studying business and just like imagining myself in a job because everyone's like, oh, what's the job you're going to get and what corporation you're going to work for? And that all felt like death to me. I could not imagine sitting behind a desk for like eight, 10 hours a day.

8:47And in college, I bartended a lot to put myself through school. And I was lucky because I was a really good bartender and I made great relationships with the folks that I served. And I happened to get an opportunity to get a job on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, so Wall Street. Now, at that time, we're talking like the late 90s. So we're just putting this into context. There was no seats on the floor, meaning that you had to stand up and run around like a maniac all day long, which I was like, this was fantastic. I was like, this is my dream come true. And so I was thrilled to have this first gig on Wall Street.

9:22But I remember like pretty soon into it, I had this voice that started coming up in my head that was saying, Marie, this isn't who you are. This isn't what you're meant to do. This isn't what you're supposed to be. And I was like, shh, you know, like I'm the first in my family to go to college. My parents worked their buns off to even get me this education. I don't have a trust fund or have any security. Like how could I possibly think of not doing this thing? I have health benefits, all the stuff that we are told that we need in order to have stability as a quote unquote adult. Fast forward six months, that voice just kept getting louder and louder until one day I was running tickets on the floor, which is what one does.

9:57And I started having what I now know is a little bit of a panic attack. Like I had trouble breathing. I felt dizzy. And I said to my boss, like, hey, I need to run out and go grab some coffee. So I ran out, but I didn't go get coffee. I made a beeline to the nearest church. So I had just graduated from a Catholic university and I was kind of trained by my upbringing that in a crisis, you just look up and get some help and some guidance. And I remember sitting on the church steps and I was crying because I felt like such a loser because I wanted to quit this job I didn't know what the hell else I wanted to do and the first message I got was call your dad So I whipped out my flip phone.

10:30Hello And I called my dad and i'm just like doing the ugly cry and like i'm so sorry I don't want to bring shame on the family, but I tried so hard to show up and just work up and I just can't stand it here My dad interrupted and he's like ray Hang on a second. You've been working since you were nine years old I have no doubt you're going to figure out how to keep a roof over your head. But here's something you need to understand. You're going to work for the next 40, if not 50 years. If this job is making you this sick, you have to find something that you love to do. And once you find that thing, you're never going to have this feeling again.

11:03And I remember this experience of just having a huge weight lifted off my shoulders because even though he didn't tell me how to find something that I would quote unquote love to do. It was the permission slip that I needed to step back and go, okay, I need to trust that voice that this isn't it. And even though I don't have the answer, I have to go out and find it. My only two clues were really that I loved business. My dad was a small business owner, but I was also highly creative. And in my mind at that time, those two things were completely separate. I'm like, how do I make them go together?

11:35I went around and did little odd jobs. And then I got myself into a temp agency and I said, can you get me into a magazine? because I felt like that was this world where there was the ad sales side. So it was commerce and selling. And then it was the editorial side. I'm like, this is going to be perfect. So I got a job in the ad sales department at Gourmet Magazine, part of Condé Nast, big storied publishing company. And I was like, this is awesome. First of all, Wall Street was like 99.9 % men. In the magazine, it was like the flip. It was like 99.9 % women, and they were all in power. I'm like, this is cool.

12:10And my desk was near the test kitchen. I'm Italian American. I love to eat. I would get snacks all the time. I'm like, this is awesome. But a few months into that job, that voice came back again. And it was like, Marie, this isn't who you are. This isn't what you're supposed to do. This isn't what you're meant to be. And I'm like, oh, Jesus, not this again. I was watching all of my friends that I graduated with. They were starting to make real strides and some of them were getting raises and looking at houses and here I am like, I want to quit my job again. And I was like, okay, let me step back and really think about this analytically.

12:39Wall Street, all money. Ad sales, more money and more commerce. Maybe my creative side is just starving. So I went to the HR department. I said, I don't care if I have to take a pay cut. Get me on the edit side of any magazine. I'll take it. A couple of months later, they got me a job as a fashion assistant at Mademoiselle. And I was like, okay, this is it. I'm going to fashion shows. I'm going to help Design the layouts photo shoots all kinds of creative stuff. This is going to be my dream And for the first few months, it was awesome because I love novelty. I love to learn I love a new challenge And then what do you know that voice came back again?

13:11Marie? This isn't who you are. This isn't what you're supposed to do. This is too much me. I'm like O-m-g am I broken because I have this really strong work ethic I want to make money and contribute But if i'm honest every one of these jobs feels like i'm dying this slow death I cannot picture myself here. I don't want to climb the corporate ladder. And there was this one day when I was on the internet, probably when I shouldn't have been, that I stumbled upon this article about a new profession at that time called life coaching. And I will be honest with you. When I read this article, something in me lit up like a frigging Christmas tree.

13:49It was like the clouds parted and little angels came out and they were like, ah, like this is what you're supposed to do with your life. But I was 23 years old. So I had the voice in my head and I'm from New Jersey. It was like, what are you doing? This is like the stupidest thing ever. Who's ever heard of a life coach? You're 23 years old. No one's going to hire you. You haven't even lived life yet. You're like tens of thousands of dollars in debt. You can't seem to hold down a job. You keep quitting it. This is one more thing you're going to fail at. As that was going on, I couldn't deny how right it felt.

14:18So I signed up for this three-year coach training program that was all done via quote unquote teleclass again, because this was the late 90s, early 2000s. And I started studying coaching at night and doing all this training and then a few months into the future I got a call from the hr department. They had a promotion for me. They wanted me to go to vogue Top fashion magazine in the world more money more prestige better benefits all the things and that was my fork Do you stay on this path that is understandable that kind of looks shiny and kind of you know Impressive from the outside and that everyone understands what you do Are you going to quit and do this weird ass life coaching thing that no one has ever heard of that you even think sounds cheesy as all hell, but that feels so unbelievably exciting you want to jump out of your skin?

15:05So I said no to the Vogue job. I quit. I went back to bartending and waiting tables in New York City, and I started trying to figure out how to build a life coaching practice during the day. And that was 22 years ago. And so amazing story. I feel like it's so interesting to see the evolution of how everyone gets to where they are now. I feel like that being still 22 years ago, I want to know what's happened between then and now that's put you to this position. Oh my gosh, so much. I think, first of all, when people often ask me, how did you create this whole thing? Such a huge part of it is consistency.

15:50The consistency of showing up no matter what, even though I might not know what the hell I'm doing or how I'm going to get there, but this conviction that I can figure it out, that everything is figureoutable, that I'll learn things, I can train, I can ask questions, and I can just keep putting myself out there. That relentless commitment to moving forward is just the big arc of it We can talk about the underpinnings But I think one of the best things I learned in my coach training and I would recommend this for any entrepreneur This was really pivotal for me They told me they said look You can become the best coach in the world meaning that you understand how to listen how to ask the right questions How to support people to create like really meaningful results in their lives But if you don't also learn the business side of a coaching business.

16:36If you don't learn how to market your services so that other people wanna hire you, you will change no one's life ever. And I just sat there, Grace, and I was like, that makes so much sense. So it was early on in my career that I got that message and realized I have to master my craft and I have to master the business and the marketing side of this if I want everything to thrive. If I wanna have the financial freedom, the lifestyle freedom, and most importantly, the impact in the world that I believe I can make, I need to juggle those two. and really make those my lifelong commitments. And that was, I think, one of the things that really set me on a path to keep going and to keep growing.

17:11No, I think that's incredibly important. And I also think that that's one of the things that's not talked about enough in terms of kind of going self-employed, starting a business, all of these things. You can, like that to me is the true difference between working at somewhere and working for yourself is like you have to know, much like there's the boring stuff of the, I think people think that the boring stuff of a regular job, like working for someone else, doesn't happen when you're self-employed. Which is actually, you know, like it's happening 75 % more of the time. Yes. Because actually, in order to be able to have a business, you need to be able to grow your business.

17:51Like, which isn't always what your craft is. Like, your craft might be designing, it might be coaching, it might be whatever it might be. If you cannot grow your business, you cannot do what you actually love. Correct. And, you know, here was the thing that really struck me because, you know, people would ask me, especially when I was bartending, because just to set the stage, I think it was seven full years that I had part-time what I like to call bridge jobs before I felt confident enough both emotionally and financially to go all in on my online business. And the other truth was this, you know, I would bartend and people would always ask me like, oh, so what else do you do?

18:24Are you an actor? And I was like, no, I'm a coach. But I recognized oftentimes when I would just say that it didn't feel true enough. And here's what I mean. There were all these other interests that I had. I loved fitness. I loved dance. I love spirituality. I love the new world of digital business. All those things that kind of fell outside the specter of just quote unquote life coaching. And I did something that I'm so proud of my younger self for doing. You know all of the success books that I read at that time They all talked about focusing down and becoming an expert in one thing And if you can just focus and be so good at something then that is the path to success.

19:03But for me I first of all, I have an adhd brain So I am never able to focus on just one thing And i'm just not built that way and when I threw out that conventional wisdom I remember one day I was at the bar and someone asked me what I did and I didn't think to create this grace but it just came to me. It felt like it was a gift from the career gods or my higher self. And they were like, so what else do you do? And out of my mouth popped this phrase, I'm a multi-passionate entrepreneur. I was like, I don't even know what the hell that means, but it felt so good. And they were like, oh, what is that?

19:33I was like, well, I'm starting teaching dance classes, which I was starting to do, but I felt almost insecure about it because it didn't match a particular criteria of being a professional coach. And then I started talking about my newsletter and I started talking about multiple things that I was both passionate about, interested in, and activated on. And it gave me this whole new context with which to see myself. No longer was I this flaky dilettante running around doing all these different things. All of a sudden, I was a multi-passionate entrepreneur who had a coaching practice. I was starting to teach these fitness workshops, which eventually led to me becoming one of the world's first Nike elite dance athletes.

20:09And I got to train people all over the world, despite the fact that I have no formal dance training whatsoever. So it was this really cool context that I wanted to share with people because I would bet there's some folks listening or watching us right now who might be built like us. You know, focusing on one thing feels like you're cutting off a limb. And if you're built like that, you're not broken. You just need a different context through which to see your gifts and your talents and a way to find convergence so you can share your gifts in a way that makes sense. I think that's really valuable.

20:37And I think that what I think a lot about is the fact that, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago the expectation definitely was and the expectation still is in kind of I think the majority of people's minds that you should be good at one thing and focus on one thing and especially in terms of like corporate like you should spend 30 years doing something you should get really good at it you should keep getting promoted you should just do that and that's what you should use to pay your bills to you know provide for your family etc etc over the past obviously like 20 years or so this idea of the multi-hyphenate has come up and prior to that point it was kind of looked at as this like gig economy of people who couldn't make ends meet based on one thing right so had to do multiple different things obviously there are these like societal narratives around that type of thing and I can imagine we're even stronger when you were starting out doing this absolutely How did you look at that and think, okay, I'm a high achiever.

21:44I'm the first in my family to go to college. And yet I am going to basically refute or refuse to act in accordance with this idea that makes me successful in other people's eyes. Yeah, it was really hard. I remember so many journals filled with like these angry, crying pleas that I was making essentially to God or the universe or whoever was listening. Like, why can't I just focus? Why can't you just help me pick one thing? Because I would have friends and mentors say, well, where do you want to be in five years? I'm like, I don't freaking not. Like, I can't. I'm not even built that way. And so it was really tough.

22:23And my parents, they are awesome people. They didn't know what the hell was going on. And I just felt so much shame for so many years. Because again, friends who are amazing friends, but rising up as an attorney, rising up as an accountant, rising up as a teacher, they had more traditional kind of focused paths. And so I just felt like a freak. I felt like a freak in nature. And nothing made sense. And it wasn't until things really started to gel together and I just kept having to give myself permission to not be like everyone else and to just have this feeling of faith within me that I'm like, look, this little voice inside of me keeps directing me in ways that when I listen, I find myself having more fun, more joy, and little successes are starting to build.

23:13So rather than following what everyone else has told me, I'm going to keep listening to that little inner voice. And then I think once, as I was saying, it hit around like the seven-year mark and stuff started to work. And I was like, how am I one of the world's first Nike athletes ever? and I have not a stitch of formal dance training. I'm making more money than I ever thought I could make. I'm out of debt. I'm changing people. I was like, this shit works. So, but it took a while. It took years of self-doubt and years of honestly feeling terrible about myself. But clearly this like underlying self-confidence to keep pushing forward.

23:44Probably because I kept falling on my face so many times. So the failure led me there, if that makes any kind of sense. You know what I mean? Like it was so painful being on Wall Street that it was one of the gifts that I have and that I'm really grateful for is that my body starts shutting down when I am not in alignment with my truth. So remember I was telling you about that little panic attack? When I'm in a situation, I had this, I remember I was engaged to be married, not to my partner who I've been with for 21 years, but this is previous to that. Grace, I started getting physically ill and he wasn't a bad guy.

24:16He was just not my guy, right wasn't the partner for me but my body starts breaking down so to your point that confidence was almost like an escape hatch for the pain of something not being right so it was less about me going like I know it all I was like I can't deal with that pain I have to go in this other direction yeah that's so funny because I think that people either have like this incredible skill of sticking things out yeah or they have this incredible skill of being like I physically cannot do this. Yes. Stop. And I think that I always admire people so much who are like, like, I'm gritty and I'm resilient.

24:52But at the same time, if I don't believe something is right, I like as an allergic. Yeah. Yeah. Like hives, you can't do it. There's nothing in you, right? That can make you move in that direction. That's the same thing with me. And anytime I'm in those situations where there's not alignment, it's like I'm a caged animal that needs to run in the opposite direction. And even if it's not cute, it's not pretty. No one knows what the hell is going on, but I can breathe. I'm at peace. So how I think I think what the important thing here for anyone listening is how to learn which one of those you are.

25:25I think you probably know which one of those you are. Are you really good at sticking things out or really good at not sticking things out and therefore really good at going for, you know, what is aligned with your kind of future or the type of life you want to build. But on top of that, how if you were talking to someone now who's in that situation where they've maybe graduated, they've had their first few jobs and they just don't like anything. They've been doing something, they maybe liked it for a bit, then they realize they don't like it. They're onto the next thing. They do it for a bit.

25:52They realize they don't like it. What advice would you give to someone to find what they do like and to kind of, as you have, harness the fact that you're not very good at doing things you don't want to do? Yeah, absolutely. So there's two pieces to this and they're nuanced. And I'm really happy that we're digging in. One, I think that level of being honest with yourself about what's working and what's not. So for me, I realized very early, like sitting at a desk, pushing papers around, not happy. Even though I didn't necessarily, quote unquote, love bartending, what I did love was that I was standing all day and I was interacting with people.

26:29You know what I mean? And I was moving. There's physical movement. Same thing that showed up in dance. Like, oh gosh, every time I'm moving, my aliveness comes through. Fitness, the same thing. Wall Street, even though I didn't like being on Wall Street, I loved the fact that I was moving. So you can start to look for clues. Like what are the kinds of things that when I'm doing them, I seem to have more energy. I seem to be alive. I seem to be attracted to X, Y, or Z. And that takes a lot of self-awareness and it takes slowing down and being able to step back and start to see some patterns within yourself.

26:59So that's one piece of it. I also want to talk about a big mistake that I made in this time period that once I got this lesson. This has really helped me especially thrive as an entrepreneur because as you know, there's parts of our business where you do need to stick it out. You may not like it. It's super not fun, but you got to get that grit. You got to strap yourself in and be like, I'm in this for the long haul. I'm going to fight through to get to the other side. And I have that piece of me too. Here's what it looked like in bartending. So when I knew I wanted my coaching business to thrive and I knew that that was like a piece of my path, I remember every time I would go to the bar, I frigging hate my job.

27:33I was like, oh, I can't wait to get the shift done. You know, I was just like a cranky little pain in the ass. Didn't really want to talk with my customers, was like writing things down about my ideas of what I would do when my shift was over. And I realized that then once I got home from my shifts, because I was complaining for the last six hours, hating what I was doing, I had no energy when I came home to then work on my business. And I realized and had this epiphany, I was like, oh my God, you know, practice makes permanent. What I was practicing was being whiny, complainy, and dissatisfied.

28:08And I was like, I need to shift this from the inside out and I need to shift it right now because the way I'm going, I'm not going to have the energy to build this business that I know can be something great. And so I started showing up with a new ad. I'm like, I'm going to be the best band bartender that New York City has ever seen. And like, I'm making dirty martinis like nobody's business. I'm putting everything perfect. I'm doing my orange twist. I'm like making this an art form. I'm making people feel like I am literally so happy to serve them. They don't want to do anything else. They want to hang out at the bar.

28:41And Grace, that one practice of training myself to show up, even though I knew it wasn't going to be my career for long, but to practice bringing this joy and this presence and this excellence, that helped me break that pattern of being almost like a whiny little brat. and it started to open up my creative channels, my stamina and my ability to really work on my business outside of my bar shifts. And it changed everything. I think about this so much. I think that we had a recent episode where we had Steve Peters on, who was the person who wrote The Chimp Paradox. And he speaks a lot about this whole episode was about how to rewire your brain for success and for happiness and to make sure you're positioning yourself correctly and all of this.

29:24and since that episode and this is something that I've thought about for a long time but like I think it is so easy especially when you're going through a particularly hard time when you're going through something where your workload is really tough where you're putting in a huge amount of effort and nothing's working out and you just feel like you're kind of like crashing into a wall over and over and over again like I believe so strongly in spending some time at the beginning of the day literally I feel like an absolute lunatic like I will spin I will be in bed and I will literally say this to my fiance I will say like today is going to be fucking amazing yes and it is going to be great and you know what's not going to happen I'm not going to get frustrated I'm going to be excited about the fact that I'm going into the office and I'm with loads of people who I love working with and it is exciting and we've got all of this all of this all of this and I will literally like fake my way into like at least the one I don't have control over anything once I get into that office like I don't it's that's part of having a business you cannot have the good stuff without having the stuff that goes completely wrong which happens literally every single day which is one of the toughest parts of having a business but at the same time the one thing I can have control over is the fact that I'm not going to go with this negative bias of it's going to be another shit day.

30:42And like, I feel a little bit kind of like, you know, doing it. But at the same time, it's like that one thing you have control over that morning. And it makes the approach towards a day that might well be just as bad as yesterday was, it kind of switches it and allows you to for at least five minutes and going into that day to convince yourself that that's going to be, you're going to have a positive bias. It's going to be okay. It's going to be fine. It's going to be a good day. Well, I mean, there's good science to back up what you're doing. And it's just the simple notion that we have these incredible brains and this fact of neuroplasticity that we can actually rewire our brains.

31:24Like that is a scientific fact. And one of the most beautiful aspects of it is that it's underpinned by something simple that we all know how to do, which is repetition. Repetition is really how we rewire, right? So neurons that fire together, wire together. So by you saying that every single morning, these neural pathways, which are more like neural highways, especially for those of us, and again, I have like my cranky side, the frustrated side, where it's like, oh no, it's going to take some effort, like going to the gym every day and doing those incredible bicep curls or your pushups or your squats or your burpees or whatever the hell that you do, but it actually works.

32:03I have a version of that that I do where I have a vision that I've written out and I say it out loud, how grateful I am for all of these things that may not yet be true. And same thing, when I'm saying it out loud, there's a part of me that's like, this is fucking crazy. And then I'm like, but this is awesome. And I wind up just closing my little book and I'm like, dude, we got this. And when the shiitake hits the fan, because it does every day, someone gets sick, someone's quitting, XYZ goes wrong and you're the boss and you've got to deal with it, you've got to keep your head on straight. And your energy, as you know, infects everyone.

32:38And so your ritual that you do in the morning that you feel like, I feel like a lunatic doing it, same thing to me. I'm walking around with my journal, like marching around my house with my coffee saying these things, but I end up feeling fantastic and it works. And it's about understanding which of those things work for you. Like understanding, like, I only picked this up based on the fact that I was like, I cannot have another day like that. Like, I cannot have it. You know, it's a good one that I often like to use. And this has worked for me for so many years. And it's so simple, but it's easy for us to forget it.

33:08I'm like, oh, I'm actually the creator here. I'm the one that whipped up this whole little business. I'm the one that whipped up all of these projects. I'm the one who orchestrated this whole thing. So if I created this Mishigas, I can uncreate it if I want. It's like, I'm actually the boss of this. And that gets me in a really good, humble position. And I think you can do that on all different levels as well, because, you know, not everyone who's listening to this will be an entrepreneur. Not everyone who's listening to this will be self-employed or even have control over how they spend their day.

33:39What we say in my personal team at work is we are the type of team, we take on a lot of things. We like to take on a lot of things. We see opportunities. We go for them. We're really bad at not doing that. so what we have to say to ourselves over and over and over is like everything can be deleted like it can literally be deleted like we don't have to do any of this yeah and obviously we do like obviously we've got it like we know we tend towards that direction so we know we're going to have a business here we know we're going to make some money or whatever we're going to have some opportunities and it's going to be good but we literally sit down there like once a week being like we could just do none of this like having that kind of reality check yeah yeah and sorry No, no, no.

34:17This is so fun though. And I talk about this. We have a program that's called Time Genius that's specifically for people like me and possibly like you and some other people where we take on a lot, right? We're like, oh shit, what did I create? How do I uncreate this in a way where it's sustainable? And there's this one teaching bit about the power of owning your choices. You were mentioning how everyone listening is not necessarily an entrepreneur or self-employed or freelancer. But I remember I pulled this on myself and it worked such wonder. So my partner, Josh, I've always known that I never wanted to be married or have my own biological kid.

34:49So that was just a clear thing from when I popped out of the womb. I'm like, look, this thing is different. She is what she is. And I remember at this early point when my business was still a baby business and myself and Josh were together and he has a son. And this was great because he already had a child. I didn't want to have a child, but I became a stepmom with a nine-year-old. and there was like this certain period that we went through where, you know, they're guys and there's like dirty towels on the floor and the toilet seat's always up and shit's all over the place. And I'm like trying to run a business out of this tiny apartment in New York City.

35:23And I remember just how cranky and complaining I was. And then I had to stop myself and I had to check myself before I wrecked myself. I was like, who chose this man? Who chose this man with a child? Who's in this really, who chose to live in New York City in a small ass apartment because it's really, it was like, oh, this is actually on me. This is on me. And this is on me. And it was so awesome because it got me out of that complaining mode. It got me out of that almost victim-y mindset with myself and made me realize like, oh, I chose this. Do you want to un-choose it? Or do you want to fix your attitude?

35:58And I was like, I'll fix my attitude. I actually really do love them. So, you know, it was good. Yeah. I think about that all the time. And I think about the fact that like, look, it's good to be able to have a point in time where you're like, do you know what I don't love this or do you know what I need to I need to complain for 10 minutes yeah but it's the ability to be able to drag yourself out of this like repetition yes of the fact that it's like you get into this cycle and you're making it worse for yourself or as you say owning your choices where you're kind of like well do I want to quit this job you can quit this job yeah you you know like it might be fucking hard and like all of that but you can like if it you know and And actually, like obviously for everyone, it will be different degrees of possible.

36:38Sure. But actually being able to be like, okay, if I'm complaining about this so much, like do I want to change it? For so long. I think we're hitting upon something here. Is it chronic? You know, and what do I need to do? How do I see my part in this? Because in any circumstance, you can either change the circumstance. And if you can't change that for whatever reason or for whatever time frame, then you got to change yourself. Those are the only two options. and coming back to this notion, which hopefully we'll talk more about, everything is figureoutable. It's like, you can either change this circumstance because honestly, you don't have to do anything.

37:13Like you could refuse to eat. There's a million, like you don't have to do anything. And when people are like, wait a minute. Yeah, of course there's consequences. Of course other things will happen. But if you really break it down, you don't have to. And I think that's what you were kind of talking about. And then if you're like, okay, well, no, I do want the job and it is shitty. It's like, okay, well, then let's make a game plan to get you out of it in six months. It might not happen tomorrow, right? But there are always steps that we can take to either change the circumstance or change our own attitude.

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38:41Learn more at capella.edu. So let's talk about that everything is figurative saying. I know that's something that you talk about a lot. Yeah. I love it as a saying. Could you tell us a little bit more about how that came about and what your kind of philosophy is? Yes. So this beautiful phrase is probably one of the best gifts that I've ever received in my life. And in order to tell you where it came from, I have to tell you about the very special person who created it, which is my mom. And so she's about 5 '6". She looks like June Cleaver. She's got the tenacity of a bulldog and she cusses like a truck driver.

39:17So that's where my saltiness comes from, if you haven't guessed. She grew up the daughter of two alcoholic parents in the projects of Newark, New Jersey, and she really learned by necessity how to stretch a dollar bill around the block like five times. And she would always tell me that when she was little, she rarely felt beautiful or valued, but she made a promise to herself that when she grew up, she would find a way to a better life. One of my favorite memories ever growing up as a kid in New Jersey was sitting around the kitchen table on Sundays with my mom, and we would clip coupons together because she loved teaching me all the different ways that we could save money.

39:52And she also loved showing me that, especially back in those days, if you saved up what were known as proofs of purchase, that brands would send you these really cool things like maybe a cookbook or a set of cooking utensils. And my mom saved up these proofs of purchase and got this tiny little AM FM transistor radio that looked exactly like an orange. It was orange in shape. It had the little dimples. It had a red and white straw sticking out of the side and it was from Tropicana orange juice and she got this thing for free Oh my god, did she love it? So when I was little I never knew where I'd find my mom around the house like or what she would be doing But she's I think like both of our moms.

40:31They're constantly doing stuff But you could always hear this little tinny radio and it was like disco playing or whatever So one day I was coming home from school And I heard music off in the distance and as I got closer to my house It was coming from a weird orientation like way up high and I look up and I see my mom perched on the top of our two-story house. I didn't see a ladder. I just saw her with this little orange next to her butt. And I was like, oh, I was like, mom, are you okay? What's going on? And she's like, Ray, I'm fine. The roof had had a leak. I called the roofer. He said it was gonna be at least 500 bucks.

41:05I said, screw that, I could do it myself. This is my mom. Another day I come home and I push open the door and I hear like music jamming from the background. I was like, I'm every woman. And I go and my mom's in the bathroom and I push open the door and there's like pipes sticking out of the wall. There's dust particle. It looked like a bomb went off. I was like, mom, what's going on? Are you okay? She's like, I'm fine. She's like, some of the tiles had cracks in it. I didn't want the bathroom to get moldy. So I'm retiling the bathroom. Now Grace, you have to understand she's high school educated.

41:35This is the eighties. This is pre-internet. This is pre-Google, pre-TikTok. You couldn't find out stuff like this. One day in the fall I come home this dark out so it's already spooky and I approach my house and it's pitch black and it's silent For an italian american home. This is not good news And I walk in and I had that pit in my stomach. I was like something is wrong here Like where's my mom? Where's the radio? This is all freaky All of a sudden I hear these little clicks and clacks and it was coming from the kitchen and I walk over and I see my mom hunched over the kitchen table, which looked like an operating table.

42:12And it had electrical tape and screwdrivers and drills. And then in like 15 pieces was a completely dismantled Tropicana orange radio. And I was like, mom, what? I was like, are you okay? It's like your favorite thing in the world. What the hell happened? And she's like, Marie, I'm fine. She's like, the antenna was off. The dial was a little funky. And she's like, so I'm fixing it. I stood back and I folded my arms and I said, hey, mom, how do you know how to do so many different things that you've never done before, but nobody's showing you how to do it. And she puts her screwdriver down and she looks at me and she says, Ray, what are you talking about?

42:44Nothing in life is that complicated. If you roll up your sleeves, you get in there and you do it. Everything is figureoutable. And I was like, everything is figureoutable? And I just kept repeating this little phrase. I was like, dude, this is the, yes, everything is figureoutable. And I'm not kidding you. From that moment on, It was like it got implanted in my soul and became my operating system for like every single little thing that I have ever experienced in my life from having this freaking awful abusive relationship. My kind of first love was like a physically abusive relationship in high school.

43:20Helped me get myself out of that. Get myself into the best classes in college. Figure out how to get work study programs. Finding the job in the New York Stock Exchange. Getting weird gigs at like clubs selling glow sticks. Like every single thing that I've ever wanted to do, including starting the business, including to this day, whenever shit hits the fan and it does often for most of us in life, that phrase gets me off the floor and gets me in motion and gets me asking questions. It gives me a sense of hope. It gives me a sense of possibility. And it keeps me in a place of creation and connection and knowing that something else is possible.

43:59No, I think that's so powerful. And I think that the biggest part about that is that to me, at least one of the worst places to be in and when I feel most anxious and I feel kind of in the worst place is when I feel helpless and hopeless and like feel like there's I just don't know what to do. Yes. And I feel I'm very much the type of person who that is like that will literally send me insane because I am the type of person that if I have a problem, I literally have a problem solving matrix. I have a table that I fill out. I love you. Like I literally have a table. I want to squeeze you right now.

44:41This is amazing. But but that's what I do. And if I ever feel like I well, the only times I feel too overwhelmed are the fact that when I haven't done that yet, like I haven't tried my figuring out. Like I haven't when you allow yourself to ruminate for too long and the fact that something is wrong or something is not going right or you feel like something's about to go wrong or whatever it might be. To me, the calmness from that comes from filling out this table and writing down a number of things that are like potential solutions or even just contextualize it and to make me think afterwards, do you know what?

45:17It's not that bad. Yes. You know, if the worst happens, it's not that bad. And I think that this saying kind of so embodies that and the fact that actually whatever your method might be, whether you use a table or whether you're actually fun, the ability to know that you can figure things out is the most powerful thing that you can have in yourself. Absolutely. I feel like it's this simple belief that can help you do everything from the mundane, from like if your washing machine breaks, to starting a company, to transforming a relationship, to healing your health, to tackling any big thing that you're really, really passionate about.

45:54Now, there are a few things that I want to mention. There's a few caveats because there's nuance to this. And hopefully there's some people listening that could be skeptical. And I'd be like, no, you know, everything is not figureoutable. And I love that. I remember when I was first working on the book and I shared this with a really dear friend of mine who does a lot of work in the addiction space. And he's like, Marie, I love you. I respect you. Your work is amazing. But like, no, everything is not. Like, how do you tell someone who's dealing with a life-threatening diagnosis or some of these horrific circumstances that we human beings find ourselves in?

46:26Like, how does this square off? And I told him this. So the first time I shared this philosophy outside of my own audience was actually on the stage for Oprah. So she had this event called Super Soul Sessions. And I was like, okay, if I'm going to test drive this with a larger audience before putting it in the book, this is the best one. After I did that talk, they put that on their podcast. And so it got wide exposure beyond my own folks. And I got an email one day that really made me feel I was like, yes, I knew this works no matter what. It was from a woman named Jen from New Zealand. And she said to me that her mom had been trying to get her to have the same kind of philosophy and they had watched my talk or listened to my talk together and it really made a difference to them.

47:09And then she said, and then everything changed because my mom got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And my first thought was like, nothing is figureoutable. She said but then when I slowed down and stepped back and really looked deeper Here's what I discovered. I could break the small things down one I could find foods that my mom actually tolerated. I could figure that out Two I could figure out how to get medical equipment to her home and three I could figure out how to set it up so that she was comfortable and that she could spend her last five weeks on this earth exactly where she wanted to be, which was in her own home.

47:46And it brings me to the tears because that letter when she said, thank you for sharing this philosophy because it made an enormous difference to two women who you've never met on the other side of the world. And yes, everything is figureoutable. And I've gotten so many letters like that from people who were dealing with abuse, who are finding themselves in the midst of unthinkable loss and grief, but who found this phrase helpful for themselves in unleashing some power of possibility in their ability to recontextualize, their ability to reach for something different, their ability to reach out for help.

48:24And so I think in that sense, that part is really important. And then there's the last bit. There's three rules that I always like to share with people. They're very fast. That helps give you a mental container because our minds, at least my mind, can go nuts with possibilities. So here are the three rules of the figureoutable framework. Rule number one, all problems or dreams are figureoutable. Rule number two, if a problem isn't figureoutable, it may not be a problem at all. It's either a fact of life or law of nature like gravity or death. Rule number three, you may not care enough to solve a particular problem or reach a particular dream and that's okay.

49:05Find something that you do care deeply about and you go back to rule number one. So I think what that little container does is it keeps us from going off onto fantastical hypotheticals and it keeps our energy focused on something that we really do want to figure out for the long term. And it might not happen in a day, a week, a month, maybe not even years. Some things are lifetimes to figure out. I mean, think about the fact that at one point in human history, we didn't know how to fly. Now we do, right? At one point in human history, I was watching a show on Netflix last night. It was about Ripley.

49:37I don't know if you've seen that show yet. It's really, really fun, but it takes place at least a few scenes in the 60s in Italy, and they were looking in a phone book. And I was like, oh my God, the world before cell phones and computers. So in our contextual collective history, there may be things that aren't figureoutable quite yet, but they're on the way. Right. So it's less about when you come to a problem, as you say, there are certain problems that you're right. They can't be fixed if you're thinking that being fixed is returning back to the way they were. Correct. Or only being fixed in one direction.

50:12Correct. It's about understanding, okay, there are certain things that are out of my control here, but the control I can get back is working out in which direction this is figureoutable and whether that is an acceptable outcome for me. And therefore, whether I should push forward in that direction, whether I should just throw this thing in the bin, or whether I should, whatever it might be, it's about regaining control over what you can control and being able to understand that it might not be figureoutable in the way you originally thought it would be. But that doesn't mean that it's not valid.

50:45That's exactly right. It's no matter what circumstance you find yourself in, you have an ability to unlock your intrinsic innate wisdom and power to move forward in a productive way. And that productive way may not look the way that your mind wants it to look in this moment, but you have the ability, in my opinion, to transform or transcend any challenge that you face, which makes you unstoppable. Not unstoppable in the sense that everything will always go your way because we know it won't. Not unstoppable in the sense that you'll never have disappointment or devastation or grief or loss because we all will, but unstoppable in the most powerful way, meaning that no circumstance, no person, no limitation ever has to hold you back again.

51:28I think that's just like a great framework to have. It's just one that when you get intrinsically in your mind that you can return to again and again, it's the type of thing where you can just calm yourself down a little bit. Well, I want to talk about that for a second because for all of us, we know this, right? So when things go wrong, and again, they do for everyone, I find myself on my knees, I find myself up against a corner in the back going like, you know, like just feeling like, do the hits keep coming? Nobody escapes from this. I don't care who the hell you are. I don't care what your training is.

52:00That's life. When those things happen, most of our amygdala gets fired up, that fight or flight center, right? And that's when we get tense. That's when we can get emotional. That's when we lose our ability to emotionally regulate and have our executive functions on board. And from a neuroscientific perspective, everything is figureoutable. If you say it out loud, even three times, what it does is it actually shifts the activity from your fight or flight, the amygdala, back into your prefrontal cortex. So you get back your executive functioning, which brings you back into a place of you're not gonna fire off that email and create even more problems, right?

52:33You're not gonna lose your shit and have a meltdown and start raging or doing things that, again, you're gonna create even more problems. You calm yourself down and you put yourself in a space of problem solving that wasn't previously available when you're locked in a nervous system fight or flight function. So it's extremely practical. I often teach people, put your hand on your heart, you breathe five times, you say everything is figureoutable, and all of a sudden you're like, okay, I can look at this differently. I might need to take a nap. I might need to call my friend. I might need to have a glass of water.

53:04I might need to take a walk around the block. But you get yourself back into enough of a strong position where the best of you comes back online and you can sidestep a lot of the problems that at least I, I don't know if you've ever done this, but create it for yourself if you react emotionally. Oh, 100%. And it's about knowing what your regulators are as well. Because like, I think it's really easy for everyone to let themselves stew. It's almost like, it's like the self-flagellating kind of like, you know, I'm so annoyed about this and this didn't go the way it needed to. And that person's stupid for doing that or whatever it might be.

53:35And you literally allow yourself to stew and don't get me wrong. It's important to be able to rant, to be able to be heard, to be able to like vent. Yeah, exactly. Like that's so important. But at the same time, you need to understand what you can do to pull yourself out of that and what things return you to a more kind of level emotional state. Yeah, a more mature perspective and a perspective, I think, that allows you to tap into the best of who you are, not the worst of who you are. Absolutely. So you obviously spend a lot of your time helping other people out with their challenges. I'd really love to know with this in mind, what your current challenges that you're facing.

54:16Yes. I feel like this is maybe one of my lessons in this incarnation on earth, but probably one of my biggest struggles is around, we talked about this earlier, having so many ideas and so many things that I want to create. And it's almost like there's two of me inside where there's like the beastie Marie who's like, I could do it. You know what I mean? And when Josh goes out of town, like I tell my team, I tell my friends, it's like, okay, you know, my team is distributed. So they're on the West Coast and they're on the East Coast. So I'm like, I'm having meetings sometimes at like seven or eight o 'clock, not because I'm punishing myself because I'm like, oh my God, I'm unleashed.

54:54Does that, you know what I mean? So I know exactly what you need to You don't need to tell me. Like, this is crazy. And I'm like, you know, new Google Docs, everything's coming out. And they're like, oh, Josh must be away because she is just forget about it. And then there's this other really real side of me that like right now I'm working on. I have a little side project. My lineage, I can likely get Italian citizenship just based on my ancestral line. And so there's also the fantasy part of like, gosh, do I just want to move away and live in Italy for a few months a year? So there's these two very real parts of me where it's like I just want to take dance class all day and cook meals.

55:33Like I'm a really good cook and I love creating like healthy meals for people. I love creating adventures. Like my friends come over and I'll like host people for the weekend. I'm taking us to like roller skating parks. I'm doing scary movie nights. Like I have all of these things planned. And so there's a very real part of me that like, dude, that could be my whole life if I want to. So I think the thing that I battle with internally is those two sides of me and trying to be as honest as I can about which side needs to come out and play more and being really honest about how much to take on, how much to say yes to and not beat myself up when I'm in one position or the other, if that makes any kind of sense.

56:18That makes a lot of sense. And I think as someone who very much relates, I am the, yeah, my MO is taking on too much, saying yes to too much, the inability to say no to a good opportunity, no matter whether it's going to make me on the verge of death or like whatever it might be. And it also, at the same time, that's something that makes me feel alive and that it makes me feel fulfilled and it makes me feel challenged and it makes me feel incredibly excited. Like you won't see me more excited than when I'm taking on a new opportunity. Yes. But at the same time, I need focus. I need focus to be good at my job.

56:52I have a VC backed company that very much needs to, you know, needs 85 % of my attention. And I'm committed to do that and I want to be committed to do that. And that, you know, it's the type of thing where people who are doing just that don't have much of a life elsewhere. So, you know, I completely, I completely, completely see what you mean. I think what I found comfort in is not necessarily chastising myself for who I am and being able to sometimes follow these lines of kind of, you know, opportunity or new ideas or new businesses or whatever it might be. and at the same time give myself the grace to be able to pursue that in whatever it might be doing a big brain dump on a google doc and doing all of these things and talking to a few people about it as long as I also give myself the grace to be like and just because you've done this you can throw that in the bin and never think about it again yes and that has scratched an itch yeah doesn't necessarily need to be scratched anymore totally and giving myself that like opportunity to back out yeah as someone who is very stubborn and very much does not want to back out of anything that they've said they're gonna do I think that's what's really changed my mindset because it's like okay but clearly some of the joy you get out of this is literally just the brainstorming building stage and that's a very classic ADHD thing as well yeah like the amount of people who will try and start a new business and go all in and then be like two days later like like maybe not so much yeah exactly like I actually don't even like it and allowing myself to almost play like it's it's a version of play and like there are some good ideas and opportunities and there are some new things I'm doing at the moment that I'm so excited about and I have enough frameworks in my brain and enough like yes no things and talk to the right people to know that they're the right opportunities and that it's not going to distract from what else I'm doing yeah but it's allowing myself not to necessarily take away the joy I get from that from exploring those new things, whilst at the same time knowing that doesn't necessarily mean that I need to start up a new fucking business.

59:00Yeah. Oh, 110%. Like my Google Docs, like, oh, gosh, shameful. Like this morning, I was working on creating a little brief for someone that I'm exploring working with. And it surfaced. I was like, holy shit, there's a whole other book there. I forgot about this. And I was like, damn. So it's a struggle because sometimes when I lay down at night, I'm asking myself, and this is the God's honest truth too, last year was probably the worst year of my life. I went through a lot of really hard things with my family, both my parents. I thought we were going to lose them and I almost lost my mom twice.

59:36She was very, very on the edge of being on the other side. And so that always puts things into perspective too. And for me, that particular additional layer of reality check and oh my God, the preciousness of life, which I try and retain that as much as possible, but we all know we had caught up and we're alive and we're here and right now. And so that layer on top of it of going like, I don't want to look back and regret having my face in a screen too much. Or like Josh, who we've been together 21 years and we're, we, I just, I love him so much. We have so much fun together. He's also a creative, he's an actor.

1:00:16And so we're constantly trying to find that dance of like adventure time where we're both offline and we both love making stuff, you know? So it's that I think for us is, and it's a dance hopefully that we'll get to keep doing together. You know, I definitely don't think I'm going to get it perfect or right. But I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful to have the passion and the energy to do it. And yeah, and I want to just be aware and stay aware of the cultural conditioning, especially for me. And I know it might be different for y 'all, but like here in America, like we have some screwed up, effed up.

1:00:50We're so like work, work, work. And that's my familial conditioning too, because we don't come from money. So it's like you work your buns off seven days a week. You don't rest. So that's kind of in my system as well. And so I'm always challenging myself to see like, okay, what is my programming versus what is natural joy? What is my natural drive? And how do I keep finding that balance? And how do you generally differentiate between that programming and natural joy? I think when I find myself at the computer and if it's rooted in a sense of like, I have to do this, oh God, I got to get this done.

1:01:27And it feels like it's almost as though it feels like there's an energetic overlay of punishment versus, you know, like if you're in the gym and I love working out and I love lifting weights. And sometimes if I'm going for like a whole heavy set, I'm like, oh, this is going to be hard, but it's good. It's exciting. I want to see if I can do it. And I don't give a shit if I do a drop set. I'm just like, how many times can I get this 45 pound weight up? If I'm in that place with creation where it feels dirty and gritty and exciting, I'm like, this isn't programming. This is an act of birthing. This is me creating something new and joyful.

1:02:06I also find that I can distinguish it between how the project itself feels. So actually right now before I came to have this conversation with you, which i'm so loving by the way Uh, we're working on a new program that it's one of those things that i've had this idea Literally grace for years. I was looking back in journals. I was like, holy shit I've been talking about this for years and now it's finally being born And when i'm writing copy and the images are coming together I am exploding with energy and excitement Versus when there's other things it's almost like the version of eating your broccoli in your business.

1:02:39We're like gotta do this again And I can feel when it's like, oh, got to do this again. I have to keep an eye on where I'm being dutiful out of that programming, that obligation that I need to be a good businesswoman and I need to show up and never disappoint. Or you know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. And I'm interested as well as someone who's so passionate about a number of different things and gives that kind of energy to, you know, different projects or whatever new businesses, whatever it might be. how do you also make sure that you're doing the things that you don't necessarily want to do but are incredibly important for your life for your progression for like because I think that especially if you're wired this way yes you're kind of you want to go in the direction of more more more good good good and you don't get that thrill and that rush from the things that are either boring or just energy zapping.

1:03:39And of course, we all want to keep those things to a minimum, but we can't keep all of them to a minimum. You've got to do chores. You've got to do things that you don't want to do. And that's important too. That's being an adult. Yeah, exactly. Like how do you make sure and what is your approach to doing those aspects of things that you don't enjoy, you don't get this kind of energy from? So I have a little rule. We play games. I love playing games. Play is a really important aspect of my life. So a little saying that I say to myself, only say yes to things that you're willing to do joyfully.

1:04:10And that gives me a nice little framework and a container to go, okay, if you said yes to this, Marie, do you know what I mean? Like, are you going to be cranky pants and show up and do it? Or are you actually going to turn on some music? And like, even if it's almost a little manic weird, like, okay, I'm going to have fun, even though it's a little bit sarcastic. It's kind of like what we were talking about before. Even me playing that role somehow gets me to crack a smile and to, oh, screw it. I got to do all this stupid insurance paperwork. Nobody else is going to do it. I have all my numbers.

1:04:40You know what I mean? Like I need to do this thing. Music is a great avenue for play for me. And then again, kind of making fun of myself is another great avenue for like, dude, you're either going to do this and endure it or enjoy it. You choose. Every moment of your life, Marie, is a moment of your life. And I go back to the old bartending days. Like, am I training myself to be miserable and mediocre or like this joyful ball of life that's having a damn good time, even if I'm like stuck in traffic, which I can do like now. And it doesn't always happen. You know what I mean? Sometimes I'm cranky pants USA and that's just dude, that is what it is.

1:05:17But when I can catch it and go, is this really the choice you want to make, girl? Like, is this really how you want to be spending your energy right now? Those are the few things that that can get me out of my funk. Yeah, no, I think that's really important and it's understanding like where those like understanding that you have the full right to do everything in a terrible mood yes and you're gonna choose not to yes you're gonna choose to and that's fine and that's today and tomorrow might be different but like you are gonna choose to do that chore and you are gonna be seething and like breathing heavily and like hating it yeah exactly and then usually like oh but I'll tell you one of the things that has helped me tremendously, I'd say probably in the past five, six years, was a number of just tests in terms of understanding more what was happening under the hood of my health.

1:06:05And so let me put context to that. So I've always been a really fairly healthy, resilient AF kind of person where it's like, I don't really get sick. Do you know what I mean? Always feel strong physically, energetically. And I'd say, yeah, five or six years, just started digging under the hood and going, well, what's happening underneath there? Like, what do my numbers look like? What do my hormones look like? What do my stress numbers look like? And I started uncovering some pretty good data that told me stress for me, and it is for most people, but I have to personalize this in order for my mind to get on board, is basically kryptonite.

1:06:39Throws all of my hormones off, makes my microbiome go in the shitter, which makes everything terrible from the moods, the mind, everything goes offline. So I associate now being cranky pants with stress. And I know that that destroys my health. And I am vain. I don't want to make myself look older or have more gray. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, who needs that? We put on all this makeup. We make our hair look cute. You're going out to get the clothes. like why am I going to destroy all this work and money that I'm putting in to trying to keep it cute with stress from the inside out does that make sense it makes sense it's just like dude girl what you doing why are you gonna if you're gonna do that it's like all that money you're spending at the derm is going away it's like giving yourself different motivations like sometimes the motivation is just because I don't want to do this in a bad mood sometimes the motivation is because I don't want to make myself prematurely age for no reason but inside too Like stress destroys your internal systems.

1:07:43And for me, one of the other things I learned is like when it comes to – so my brain, I love my brain and I love my ability to think and create. And I have a particular genetic set where I'm at the moderate risk, genetically speaking, for Alzheimer's. So not the one who's got like the lowest and definitely not the one who has the highest, but I'm right in the middle. So that woke me up. And it was like stress is one of the things that contributes to, among other things, of course, nutrition and what you eat and sugar and alcohol and processed food and carbohydrates and all those things. But stress is a contributor when it comes to how your brain health is and how your brain functions.

1:08:15And that keeps me out of stressy, cranky pants USA when I'm doing my insurance forms because I'm like, nope, want to preserve this thing. I like that. I'm going to think that's enough to motivate me in the right direction. Vanity and brain. We'll put them together. So important. Before we end, I'd love to know, other than everything is figureoutable, what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? The best piece of advice was that my heart is the strongest part of me, like the strongest and the wisest. I can tend to be headstrong. My mind slash ego can want to be like, oh, you know, it's all here and it's all the brilliance and blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:08:58And really the heart every time in my life, whether it's for my business or for my creativity or for my relationships, it's like, dude, that's the money right there. I love that. And how do you know when you're, it's your heart speaking rather than like your head or your stubbornness? It feels so different. Like my body feels really, for lack of a better word, and not trying to get too woo-woo, but it feels really alive and connected and open and vibrant and buoyant. And just like this experience of an unconditional love and playfulness and lightness that I don't always experience if I'm all up here.

1:09:36No, I get that. I completely get that. Well, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.

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