Lessons

Lesson Info

Marie Forleo

Hey everybody, how's it goin? I'm Chase Jarvis, welcome to another episode of Chase Jarvis Live, here on CreativeLive. You're tuned in to the 30 Days of Genius series. 30 Days of Genius is where I sit down with the world's top creatives, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, and extract really meaningful actionable stuff that you can apply to yourself and help you live your dreams in career, hobby, and life. If you're new to the series, go to CreativeLive.com/30DaysOfGenius, the number three, zero, days of genius. All you gotta do is press that little blue button and then one of these badass interviews will end up in your inbox every morning for 30 days, very inspirational and actionable. My guest today, ooh, you are in for a treat, she is an author and her book has been translated into 16 different languages. Forbes.com cited her website as one of the Top 100 Websites for Entrepreneurs and she's pals with Oprah. Oprah called her a thought leader for the next generation. My guest is Mari...

e Forleo. Yay! Hello! (rock guitar music) ♫ Ho (audience applauding and cheering) They love you! Hi. Thank you so much for being on the show. Oh, it's my pleasure to be here, thank you. This is our first, like, we've been in the same circle for years, but this is our first time in the same room together. And you know what happened? Uh oh, I don't. We got the memo We did? to dress alike. Check it. (both squeaking) There's no question that she wore it better, though. (Marie laughing) For real, like I'm sort of, we took a picture earlier together, and I was like, oh man, she's got the leather pants, she's got the cutoff sleeves. I got nothing; I got no game. Yeah, no, next time. Next time, we'll show up with high-tops, leather pants, and matching gray. Happy to do it. Yeah. Thank you very much again for being on the show, though. I confessed, earlier, the reason I wanted you on the show is because you have literally lived the trajectory of so many of the people who pay attention to what I'm doing and there's not many of us out there, but it's increasing, the number of people who are realizing that they can truly live their dreams, they don't have to live the life that somebody else scripted for them. You live that, manifest it, teach it, share it, better than, I think almost anybody on the planet. Thank you. And so it was a requirement that you were on the show, so thank you for saying yes. But, how in the hell did you do it? What's the, give the folks at home some context about your trajectory from the wee wee little Marie, back in the day, to the one that's sitting on the couch right here. Yeah, so I grew up in Jersey and I remember whenever any adult, including my parents, would ask me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I always listed at least seven things. And, I would, like, count them off on my fingers, and sometimes they would change out, but from the time I was tiny, tiny, all the way up through a teenager, I could never choose one thing that I wanted to be and it was slightly alarming, yet it was always interesting. And, I've always been one of those people who's been fascinated with human potential. I was a cheerleader in college, so I have this personality that's just like, I want to cheer people on, I want to see them win and I'm always interested in a lot of things. When I was in college, I was introduced to the world of spirituality and personal development through yoga and meditation and that was kind of my first entree into that whole universe, and I was like, whoa, There's a lot here. there's so many cool things. And, one of my ambitions, quite honestly, I knew I wanted to do something in the world that was both meaningful and I wanted to have financial freedom. You know, my parents got divorced when I was about seven or eight years old and I remember my Mom going through this kind of emotional breakdown, Understandably. of feeling trapped and feeling like she didn't kind of do her life right and I remember her shaking me really hard and saying, "Don't ever let a man control all the money. Like, "You need to be independent. "You need to be your own woman. "You can do this on your own. "Don't make the mistakes that I did." So, I had all of these different things swirling around, and by the way, my parents wound up only being divorced for like six months; they wound up getting back together. They've been together for 40-something-odd years. Oh my gosh. But still, that lesson and that whole experience Still present, yeah. of seeing so many fights around money and there not being enough, for me, I made a sacred promise to myself that I wanted to earn enough money as an adult where I could take care of the people that I loved, I could give it away to others and I associated having a good amount of money with healing pain. So, when I got into college and I was trying to figure out what I supposed to do with my life, I first studied Psychology, because, again, I loved human potential and I wanted to support people and help people, but very quickly I realized the lens through which that class was being taught, it was like, "Okay, your parents have screwed you up," and ba ba bah, and I was like, "Whoa, I need to change majors immediately." And, the next thing I was interested in, I loved business and I loved finance. My dad was a small business owner, so I had grown up being a part of his small business. Oh, that's cool. And, I, just business for me was something that was very intriguing 'cause it felt like there was this creative aspect to it. One thing I didn't tell you about, when I was young, art and painting and drawing, like one of those kind of seven things I always said I wanted to be was either an animator for Disney or a fashion designer or just a fine artist. Ooh. So I had these different It's all there. pieces of my creativity, this ambition around business, but also this kind of humanistic side. When I graduated from school, my first job was on Wall Street on the New York Stock Exchange and I loved it because I'm a human being That's crazy. that has a lot of energy and there's literally no seats, so you don't sit down. Right. You're, like, in the pit, you're running around like a crazy person, and while it was an exciting environment, and I was so grateful to have a job and I was all of 21, very quickly I saw that while everyone around me was making bajillions, spiritually, they were bankrupt. The lifestyle it was like going out to strip clubs at four o'clock in the afternoon, lines of coke, and I'm like, this is not my life. Like, I do not see myself here forever and I remember calling my parents, actually, one day, taking a break from the floor and sitting out on the church steps and feeling like a failure because I remember how hard they worked to put me through school. I worked very hard and I was like, "I feel like I need to quit this job, this sucks. Yeah. "This isn't me. "I don't know what I'm meant to do, but this is not it." And, they were really cool and really supportive and they said, my Dad, he's like, "You have to find something you love. "If you don't want this, quit. "You're a hard worker." I've worked since I was like nine years old, I've babysat, sold glow sticks, Carvel ice cream girl, worked at the beach. Ice cream girl! Yes, I mean-- Nice, high quality. I did not know that, that's rad. Always I, I love it. from the moment I could earn my own money, it was something really important to me, so my parents were like, "Look, you're a hard worker. "Quit this job if you don't want it, "but you have to find "what's gonna light you up in this world, "otherwise nothing is worth it." So, I went on an odyssey after quitting Wall Street, not knowing what I was supposed to do with my life, and I took some art classes in Boston, went back to bartending and waiting tables and was really trying to figure out, how do I blend this desire and passion for business with my creative side? And, I thought perhaps magazine publishing would be a good industry. That was kind of like the first thought that came to my mind, worked in ad sales for Gourmet magazine Got it. and was like, "Okay, there's commerce. "There's creativity." I happened to have a seat right next to the test kitchen and I'm a girl who likes to eat and I love snacks, I'm Italian, so it was like I was always getting this kind of, "Here, Marie, there's the test kitchen. "We're trying out this recipe." I'm like, this is an awesome job, but about six months into my job, I realized I did not want to become my boss. I looked ahead. The woman who was the publisher of the magazine, she was great, I respected her, but I could not see myself staying on that path. All right, yeah. and I kept, I had this feeling like, oh my gosh, I quit Wall Street, now I want to quit this. Like, am I broken? What's wrong with me? I'm ambitious, but I can't seem to hold down a job because I don't like them and I had a conversation between me and me and I said, "Okay, maybe you've just been "a little bit too heavy on the business side. "You need to go more towards the creative," so I got a job at Mademoiselle which is fashion magazine at Conde Nast, Yes. Fashion department, going okay, I got this. Now, I'm gonna be doing Yeah, now, I'm at home. like layouts and editorials and, you know, all this creative stuff. And, I gotta tell you, Chase, it was like six months in, I started having that same feeling, looked ahead at the Editor in Chief, lovely human being, but, quite frankly, I was like, I kind of knew their salary range and I'm like, mm-mm (laughs). Not gonna make it. Not gonna make it, not enough for me and it didn't feel soul-fulfilling. I felt pretty empty and it was at that time when I was on the internet, when I probably shouldn't have been, and I stumbled upon an article about a new new profession at the time, this is back in the late '90s, Okay. called life coaching. I'm 23, I read this article. Something in my entire body like lights up and vibrates like nothing has ever done before. Ooh, ooh, ooh! Yeah. Completely. And, the logical part of my brain said, are you fricking nuts? Like, who the heck is gonna hire a 23 year old life, you haven't even lived. Yeah, right (laughs). You're crazy. Right. But, I couldn't deny that there was something in this and I've always been a person who lives my life by intuition and by what feels right, not necessarily what is logically right Yeah. and so I signed up for a three-year coach training program and started studying at night. It was all virtual. It was like one of the first coach training institutes here in the States and I worked at the magazine during the day and I was just going along until, one day, I got a call from HR at Conde Nast about a job opening at Vogue and that was my fork in the road. It was go work for the top fashion magazine in the world in their Accessories department or quit and do this like weird life coaching thing and you're 23 and you have absolutely no experience. And, no life experience. You're thousands of dollars in debt. This sounds weird and kind of cheesy to your brain, but something about it's awesome. So, I quit and I went back to bartending and waiting tables which was how I helped put myself through college and I worked my tail off at night and tried to figure out how to start a digital business during the day. And, I used, Ah. really, the internet. I remember, 'cause I was in New York City, and there's always people willing to take your head shot, Yeah (laughs) do all that stuff. And so, I remember getting head shots done that made me look about 15 years older than what I was at that time and I just completely used the internet to mask my age. I never lied to anyone, Right. but I gave the appearance that I was a bit older than I was and I started creating content and publishing an email newsletter and like getting every bar patron, when I was bartending, on my newsletter. I actually had a yellow legal pad (Chase imitating pen scribbling) that I would, if someone would ask me, "well, what else do you do?" I'd say, "Actually, I publish this amazing newsletter," and I'd get their name and, again, this is all before opt-ins and that whole world. Yeah, for sure, I remember. Yeah, I remember. So, that's how I got into it and that's how I started to do, eventually, you know, what I do now. There are so many things, I'm trying to hold on to like 25 different things that you just said. Sorry (laughs). No, I love it. I asked you, though, like the open-ended question. That's really what I wanted to do so that the folks at home who are on the other side of these cameras, right now, hello people, so they could, A, be grounded in you. I'm sure a lot of people are very familiar with your work and for the folks that are at home that are new, I thought that was helpful. However, there are like 10 things I want to talk about. One is the quitting thing, Yes. so I will share with you, that I also am a driven Type A person who was in, on that same sort of journey. For me, I dropped, I had an opportunity at professional soccer. I bailed in medical school, dropped out of a PhD in Philosophy, so like quit, quit, quit, quit and quitting all of the things that so many people in my world at the time are like, "Are you crazy?" Like this is, like who wouldn't want to go to Europe and play professional soccer? Who wouldn't want to, whatever the thing was and there was also a script that was a cultural script, a society script that I was listening to. There was a soundtrack in my brain that says, if you want to be successful, successful people in our culture are doctors, lawyers, well, you know. And, those two things were very, very hard for me to overcome, but you said something strong which is what I want to land on first, here, which is intuition. So, how much of your directional path would you attribute to intuition? Was there this psychology of, were you doing, calculating salaries and all that stuff, or was it very much about what was in here and any variation therein? I would say at least 90 to 95, if not 98% intuition. You know, there's the part of my brain and, again, living in Manhattan and understanding that I was in debt after college and that kind of stuff, so of course my brain was thinking, okay, salaries and numbers and money and some dreams, but it was all about intuition and my Mom gave me one of the greatest gifts ever, as a little girl. She always taught me to listen to that little voice inside. I mean, since I was tiny, she's like, "What does that little voice say?" And so, I had this training, all growing up. That's an amazing gift, by the way. You should, you know, that's a very powerful gift. She's incredible and she always taught me. She's like, "That little voice is gonna tell you things "all throughout your life "and it speaks quietly, but, it always is right "and the more you listen to it, the louder it gets "and the this more you're gonna trust it." And she said, "Never, never betray that little voice." And so, hearing that throughout-- That's like the best advice ever. Yes. Wow. Well, she, you know, I was raised Catholic and she tried to have me for like six years and she was in the bathtub, one night, and she, in her recollection, heard like the Virgin Mary tell her, "You're gonna have a baby," like, finally, now is the time and she felt like, my Mom's not kooky. My Mom's an amazing human being and this was like, she was a little embarrassed to even say this, but she said, "I made a promise, "if you let me have a little girl, "I will name her after you," and she didn't want to, Mary just didn't sound right and she's like, "Marie is gonna be after you," so she's like, "I know that little voice. "There's something larger." There's a thread, kind of. Yes, at play, so, to answer your question, Yes? mostly intuition and that has been true my entire life and it is true to this day in business where I say no to opportunities or take things off the market or kind of walk away from things that people are like-- How could you possibly walk away from that? Yeah. It's so powerful. There's also, there's this double-edged sword that I find and, again, I'm hoping to extract this from you, mesh it with my story so that maybe we can break through because there's so many people on the other side of these cameras that are, that have that intuition and then there's that cultural voice that says either, "I'm not good enough," or, "Now's not the time," or, "I'm not worthy," or, "I could never," or, "This is crazy," or, "I'd be so foolish, I have a mortgage, "my spouse would kill me, my" Yes. all, there's a million sort of excuses and I feel very strongly that your path may change, clearly your path has changed, but if you're always sort of striving toward the thing that that little voice is telling you, Yes. then it's the sort of happiness and joy, joyful existence at the root of that. So, again, I'm super happy that you're on the show because like you've literally lived it. And, when you are in that place, did you, were you challenged in those decisions that you made? Did you have-- Oh, terrified. Talk to me about the haters is, you know, that's your classic internet term, but talk to me, because there's people who aren't haters that are just your friends, that are like, "Ooh, geez," Yeah. and people you like and respect I mean, I had my, and, so, how do you fight through that? my own version of that. Yeah, we all do. Like, wanting to become a life coach, it sounded ridiculous to a certain part of my brain. It sounded cheesy, it sounded like, not real. Like, there were all these things that I was saying to myself. And then, of course, my friends who were lawyers and who were accountants and people that I loved and admired, highly educated, doing great things, were like, "Well, what are you doing?" Like, "What does this mean?" Oh, you're gonna make hundreds. Yeah (laughs), like, "Who needs a, like what? "That's just weird." And so, yeah, and I still, I'll be honest with you, one of the things that I think is probably my least favorite question to be asked is, "What do you do?" because I'm like, "How long do you have?" Yeah. Like, there's a lot of different things that I do, so I think it's really normal to experience that and I think especially if you're creating things in this current modern time, and you're putting out your art, your photography, your writing, your product if it's a business or a service, you do have to be able to contend with people that don't get it, don't understand it, don't like it, think you're weird, think you're crazy, have judgments against you and you have to be able to learn to navigate that stuff. Brene Brown is one of my favorite humans. She has this list that she keeps and she says it's like this big. I've never actually, I think I have seen it, it's very small. She folds it in half and it's in her wallet. It's the list of people that she cares what these people think of her and it's so small. Yes (laughing). And then, there's this other level for her of people who are in the arena, I would say you and I are in the public eye, in the arena, Yes. and then there's a respect, there, like, ooh, like if Marie tells me, "Chase, you're sort of, "you're going off the deep end, a little kooky. "You should check yourself," I will listen to your criticisms because you're, you are in the arena, so to speak. You've sort of been there and you're doing that and out of a professional respect, unless you and I didn't respect one another, which is not the case, but, and then there's everybody else Yes. and 99.9% of the criticism comes from that everybody else pile and you have to make a decision who to listen to. Do you listen to anyone in that pile, or? And, there are so many people in there, people that you like and trust and people that, what it, have known you for 25 years and, yeah, it's powerful vehicle to listen to your inside. I found that, especially though, speaking to that bit about the other people in the arena, in like near 17 years of doing what I'm doing, you know, I ask my friends for feedback, but I never had anyone come and like come down on me. Yeah. Do you know what? It's like I find For sure. that other people that have the courage and the bravery to do something, even if they don't agree with what I'm doing or they don't like it, they're like, "Good for you, They're like, "You go." Hell, yeah, yeah. You go do it, you go do it. I think that's, to me, that's a huge challenge. There are people, we talked about, a little bit about this before the cameras started rolling, there's people that I talk about going from zero to one, Yeah. who haven't yet started this path or their path. Yeah. And then, there are people who are on the path, but want to get better and then it's very, very rough, obviously, two piles of people, but this particular part of the discussion is so pertinent, so relevant to the people who haven't started because you have a job, you are, you probably have a mortgage or rent or you have your own aspirations, but there's this, there are so many people not, I don't even think they wish bad, but they are trying to give you good advice, but it's the advice of following sort of safe. Yeah. Talk to me about safe versus unsafe career path. Well, I think there's another mantra, like my Mom, I'm such my Mom's daughter, that has driven me my whole life and she taught me this very simple idea by me watching her. She grew up in poverty and without a lot of money, so watching her, as a young child, always figure out ways to fix things and to do things, and she had no more than a high school education, from like putting the roof together, you know, if we were, they're having a leak, retiling the bathroom, like fixing things that she had no business. This is the '80s. Yeah. This is like pre-internet, pre-Google, pre-YouTube, She just figured it out. Figured it out. And so, this phrase is, everything is figure-outable. And so, when people talk to themselves, like, "Well, I can't have a mortgage," or, "I can't have this," it's like, wait, all of this is honestly figure-outable. It really truly is. You just have to be willing to use your creativity and to think outside the box. I was talking with, I run this program called B-School which is an online business school for modern entrepreneurs and we had coaching calls today, where I love getting to interact and answer questions. And, someone was bringing up this very issue of like, "Gosh, I'm working a full-time job, right now, "and I really want to start this other thing, "but I don't have enough time "and, you know, should I quit the thing "and devote 100% of my time to my new business? "Or, if I don't do that," and I'm like, "You know what, I can't answer that for you, "but you gotta start pushing yourself "to think outside the box." I've had other students who said, you know, "I live in New York and it's expensive "and I have this rent," or, "I have this mortgage." and, you know what they did? The sold all of their stuff and they moved to another country that was a fraction of what the living expenses were in Brooklyn, so that they're like spending $400 a month to live so they could have all this freedom to go for their idea. And, I'm not saying that everyone can or should do that, but that's a possibility. So, I feel like when we want to take a step in a new direction, number one, everything is figure-outable and we have to challenge ourselves. Like, you can't have it all. You can't be comfortable and start this brave new idea and have it be easy and know it's gonna work and know it's gonna make a ton of money. It's like, dude, stop crying, go do it. You're gonna stumble a little bit. You're gonna get, you know, some scrapes on your knees. It's okay, but that joy and fulfillment that comes from taking that leap and then from getting a little bit of progress and then a little bit of confidence and you get a little scruffy and you're like, "I can handle this. "This wasn't so bad." Yeah. You know, obviously you have to be wise and intelligent and prudent. You don't want to make financial decisions that can put, if you have kids, or, you know, that could put your family in ruin. Yeah, put others at risk. But, you can have conversations with your family to say, "I really want to do this. "what can we do as a family? "What can we cut back on?" It's so powerful, inviting the conversation, inviting other people to be a part of your dream. To be a part of your dream and to get enlisted and to share with them, this is who I am as a human and I want to live this. How do we do this together? What are ideas? Let's brainstorm, rather than feeling like it's you against your family or you against the world. How important is community? To me, I have often, I know how it is for me, but as a life coach yourself, Yeah. you hear all sorts of stories, way more stories than I do. And then, again, where as both sort of online, readily available personalities, there's a lot, I get a lot of inbound, I'm sure you get 10X that, given that that's your sort of title, how important does the role of community and friends and peers and sort of a team, how does that, how often does that come into play? I think it's vital and it doesn't have to take a particular form, but I remember when I was first starting my business and nobody got, my parents for like years still didn't understand what I did. I had a side career in health and fitness and I've taught for Nike as a Nike Elite Dance Athlete and I taught hip hop around the world and I have four fitness videos. Like, if you ever walk into a Walmart or a Target, you will see my cheesy ass like, Bam. on a video, or a few, and they could point to that and say, "Oh, we get what she does," but everything else was kind of like, "We don't really know what she does." So, for me, it was vital to find some folks who get it, who like understand this is a website and this is my presence and this is what I'm trying to sell and this is a conversion rate and this is an opt-in and like all of the different things that I was doing. I want to write this book, publisher, ba ba ba ba bah. So, I think it's huge. You have to find, Huge? even if it's just three of four people. You don't have to have this enormous community. Right. If you do, that's great, but you have to have people that you can connect with because, here's the other thing, especially in relationship, in terms of couples, I think we much too often look to our significant other and want them to be everything. We want them to be our lover, we want them to be our best friend, we want them to be our shopping buddy, we want them to be our business advisor. It's like, you can't go to one person for everything Yeah. and expect them to get it. And, the same is true with your family, too. It's like, you need to spend quality time with them and then kind of have all these creative fun things off with your posse who, like, digs it. Yes, oh, I love this. All right, so we're gonna stay in the zero to one group, people who are really like, they're stuck and they want to do something instead of doing nothing. Yeah. So, you go back to you as a life coach, I'm just throwing out a couple of hurdles that I've heard of, I've personally experienced, as in, like, I had to deal with that and also that I get beat down with from people who are trying to unlock their potential. You have 10X the inbound on that kind of stuff. What are some of the major hurdles? And then, give us a couple of solutions to like, as you said, like, "Buck up, lil' camper." Yes (laughing). You had a great (laughs), you had a great phrase. Well, I won't try and mimic it. No, but you do, you have to stop crying and stop whining and just do it. Like, nothing is really that, like, nothing you can do, honestly, most of us, the things that we want to do, if we fail, like BFD. Yeah, yeah. So, who cares? Like, and with our tools at our fingertips, we can create things for almost nothing. We don't have to invest a ton of money. You don't need some $10,000 website. You can create amazing videos on your iPhone. You can publish things for free. Try it! Try it? Try it (laughs)! What are some other blockers? Fear. Fear is a big blocker. I think the fear of being judged, the fear of people not liking it, the fear of being criticized, this is probably, I think, one of the biggest blocks that stops people, especially folks who, I've always called myself a multi-passionate entrepreneur because I like so many different things and I'm like, well, I'm not just about business. I'm not just about life. I'm not just about spirituality. It's like a lot of different things, that's who I am. Whenever anyone has heard that term, multi-passionate entrepreneur, they're like, "Me! Yes. "I am one, too," but what stops them up is going, wait, which one should I choose? How am I supposed to know for sure which passion or idea or business idea or creative possibility should I just go whole hog at? And, if I have five and a full-time job, how am I supposed to whittle this down You reconcile it, yeah. and vet this? So, I think that's probably one of the other things that stops people from moving ahead is a lack of clarity. One of the biggest solutions for people, this is really easy, and it helps so many folks, what I tell people to do, you have to lean into your future and do, it's this exercise actually inspired by a gentleman, Cameron Herold, who wrote a book called Double Double-- Ooh. Yeah, a great book. I like, I get most every guest who says, "I got this book," I've read the book and not only have I not read that book, I've not heard of it. Noted, we've got to note this. Yeah. Okay. It's this exercise, I just want to credit Cameron because he was the first person that articulated it in such a way. I'd done versions of that exercise before, but I loved the way that he framed it. And, he calls it something different, now, but in this particular version, it was called the painted picture exercise and it's about leaning into your future, three years, three years into the future. Like whatever this date is, you write it down and you start to describe in painstaking detail, with emotion and clarity, like everything that you want to see come to life. What does your life feel like? What does it look like? What are you doing on a daily basis? What does your business look like? How are you making money? What are the kinds of products and services that you sell? What's your team look like? How much time are you taking off? I mean, you just go to town. Wow. And, it's a really fun exercise to get you to lean into what you want to create because both from your day-to-day actions, and I do believe that there are, we live in an intelligent and creative an responsive universe, if you don't set the direction, you're just living like by default. Isn't that weird? Yeah. And, so much of that happens, like this is what I was dealt, Yes. so this, yeah. Yes. And so, what this exercise allows people to do, almost like if you're going into a clothing store and you're like, "I'm gonna try on this suit," it's like you look at yourself in the mirror. Do I like myself in this suit? Do I look hot, do I look fine? You're like, "Eh," then put it back and let me try on another one. So, for people that are multi-passionate, or that are having trouble choosing, I'm like, "Do like three of them." Map out three possible painted pictures of you, three years into the future with A idea, B idea and C idea and see what really feels right. People spend so much time up here that they don't give themselves enough license to actually lean out into their future and see. Like, does that sound awesome or not? It goes back to that fear thing, too, right? Yes, and if it sucks, it's like, "Don't do that, dude." It's that simple. And, granted, you know, I've done painted pictures for a few years, now, and it's uncanny how much of it comes true. Like, you go, take a look at it. Cameron and I have a difference. He's like, "You cannot touch your painted picture," like, once you set it, I've heard him talk about this, he's like, "No, no, no, you can't touch it." And, at least that's what I remember him saying and, for me, I've told people, "Look do the painted picture "and if like a year and a half, things have changed, "things have developed and you want to adjust that, "dude, adjust it." For sure, because you're not the same person in a year and a half, right. You're not the same person, but when you were also talking about that second group of people who maybe are established and they're wanting to look to get to that next level, it's an amazing tool for them, as well, because when you have a team around you and you're trying to coalesce people around a mission and you want your team to grow as leaders, you have to make sure everyone's on that same page Yes. and they know the North Star. They know the things that would be cool if you guys can bring to life. They know why you're making the decisions that you're making so they don't feel stunted in their own creativity because they're like, "Why'd they shoot down my projects?" Like, hmm, does that help us, get us to our painted picture? If not, ain't getting on the books. Great, so, wow. So, (laughs) so many things, so you, let's, there's three painted pictures you encourage people to check out that you-- You could do one, if you had one idea. Sure, if you had one passion idea, you, you called yourself multi-something entrepreneur-- Multi-passionate. Okay, multi-passionate, the way I talk about a multi-hyphenated or we're all hyphens these days. Yes. I just was speaking with Jared Leto as part of this series and, I mean, you know, he's sold more than a million albums for his band. He's won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Obviously, he's involved in many, many startups. And, this thing, you were just, if, I could be misspeaking, but, or misunderstanding, that you were saying like lean into one of those things. But, you, yourself describe yourself as a multi, Yes. multi-passionate. Well-- So, how do you do-- How do you do both? How do you figure one thing and then do many things? Sure, sure, sure. So, one of the things I also share when I ever get into this conversation is, for me, there was a time when I was bartending, I was doing side gigs, I had a coaching practice that I was growing, I was writing a book and I was teaching hip hop and fitness, so I had a lot of plates in the air, but it was conscious. Like, I also-- Experimentation and yeah. Experimentation, I knew that each project probably would go a bit slower, like I wouldn't become the top fitness personality in the world because my focus was split. My coaching practice wouldn't grow enormously because I was doing all of these different things, so it was a very conscious decision. I wanted to have a split focus. And, from a practical and pragmatic level, Yeah. I didn't have a mortgage, I didn't have a family to take care of, so I could afford to, at that time, be crazy Yes. and it was awesome. So, I tell folks, now, it's like, if you want to do that, if you want to have a split focus and do a bunch of different things, just go into it with eyes wide open and don't cry about it. Like, don't cry if something isn't going as fast as it can. You know, you mentioned Jared Leto; there are people that will be like, "Well, I want to be him," or, "I want to be her," and it's like-- 'Cause he's crazy freak-of-nature talented? Yes, and they're amazing and they're unicorns and we love them and we admire them. It's great to celebrate that, yeah. It's great to celebrate that, but don't compare yourself to anybody else. Like, do you, do you hard. If you want to pursue a couple of things, awesome, but know that unless you're gonna stay up 24/7, each project is maybe not gonna move as fast, if you had a single focus, just saying. Just saying, love it. So, you've also mentioned bartending. Yes. Bartender, waiter, Yes. I've done, I've done all of those things and I think there's a belief, I've rebutted this question. Rebutted, is that how you say it, re-buted, rebutted? Yeah, rebutted. I ran into this question many times, which is like, "Man, as a, you want to just go out on this limb "and start this new career. "You just gotta go all in." I'm like, "Actually, it's not at all the case." The way that I prescribe it is, you know, you may have heard this, for sure, but what's your nine to five? You gotta keep that or wait tables and the way I talk about it is, what's the thing, how much do you need to live? And, not just like get by by the skin of your teeth, but what do you need to reasonably be healthy and well and safe? And then, how much, what job can you get today that will give you that amount of money while working as little as possible and taking up as little RAM in that big old brain of yours? Yeah. That's why waiting tables, bartending, you know, being a valet for cars, all these things, are so, being an Uber driver, whatever it is, so, so success or so, so great. Perfect. It's perfect. Yeah. What are some other things that, I mean, is that, is the nine to five, you talked about how you would go home and work on this and you were hustling, you had a side hustle, you're putting people's names on your yellow pad of paper, Yes. what are some of the tricks? Because, you, for sure, have all the tricks given that this is your line of work, so. Well, the other thing I just want to recommend to people and I always like to say, especially because one of the other big challenges, how do I know when I can quit my nine to five or how do I know when I can give it all up and just go all in on this new idea? And, I always tell people, "You have to know yourself." Like, you have to know your risk DNA. There are some humans out there, and I've seen them and they've been my friends, who, the way that they thrive, the way that they actually make the business work is to burn the bridges. Like, they have to cut themselves off from any other option but success and that's how those human beings seem to rise up, close the sales, make it happen. That's who they are. That's their DNA. Me, I'm a very different animal. I am probably a little bit like you in the sense where I love to have a cushion and, in my particular industry, what is more sad than a desperate life coach who needs clients? (Chase laughing) Like, that is the most pathetic thing in the-- On Opposite Day, that's the kind of life coach you want. I get it. That's like the most pathetic thing in the universe. So, I was like, I never wanted to need clients which is why I was so happy do any job, to have money coming in so I could figure out how to do it ethically and honestly and truly, where I was really delivering value. Do you know what I mean? Oh, I know exactly what you mean. And, build it on the slow, organic kind of trail. So, my suggestion for everyone is know your DNA. Like, look back in your history. Do you thrive under extreme pressure when you burn the bridges? If so, quit the fricking job. Yeah, go home. Quit it, do it! If not, do not be afraid to go take those jobs, the Uber, the waiting tables, whatever, even if it's a nine to five. And, again, I would challenge people, you don't have to live in this country. You don't have to live in some of the most expensive cities in the world. Like, the gentleman I was talking to today, God bless him, he was like, "Yeah, I live in New York City," and I'm like, "Dude, move the eff out of New York," like it's insane. If you're looking to kind of cut down and create more space and more, you know, freedom and flexibility. It's not the place to do it, yeah. Kind of, you know, there's other ways to do things and I don't think people give themselves enough permission to challenge their own assumptions about what's possible for them. If they really, really want it, like, take to heart that idea, everything is figure-outable and do not rest, do not stop until you figure it out. My thing, speaking of figuring out, my thing is creativity. I think that's the, it underpins everything we do. It's one of the key differentiators between humans and other species on the planet. We believe that, at CreativeLive, that creativity is the new literacy, that, imagine a world where you put the same amount of effort and energy into becoming creative and innovative as we do into becoming literate and what kind of a world could we have? Yes. So, talk to me, if you would, about the role that creativity plays in choosing these things for oneself and in making something that is different from the other things that are out there, listening to that inner voice that you talked about. What role does creativity play in that whole thing knowing that my bias, you can hate on it, but my bias is that it's critical? And then, there's C with a, there's creativity with a small C, art, design, photography, all that stuff that we think of traditionally Yes. but art is really a subset of creativity and Creativity with is capital C is boundless. So, given those constraints, talk to me about what Marie's view of creativity is and how it applies to the things that she's thinking about. I think it's everything. I think it's everything in our lives. I think there's an opportunity on a moment to moment basis to be creative, from like how you're setting up your breakfast in the morning, you know? How many beverages you have out (laughs). How many beverages do you give yourself permission to have? I mean, what you choose to wear, how you choose to write something, how you choose to pick up your phone if your beloved calls you. It's like, "Hi, Honey," or it's like, "What's up?" Like, there's so many things that you can do to have fun and express a sense of aliveness and vitality Yeah. And, oh, my God, we're on the planet for a little bit. Dude, let's have a good time. Creativity really informs everything that I do on a moment to moment basis and I feel like it is like the secret sauce of life. When we think about the people we love the most and admire the most and just want to hang out with or talk with or be with, they're usually folks who are not afraid to express their unique gifts. And, that's the other thing that's cool, I-- Hmm, I know where you're going, here, and I love this. Live with the belief, again, another thing I was blessed enough to get from my folks, amazing, awesome human beings, they taught me from a very young age that I had something special, that nobody else in the world had and other people were special, too. And so, all of us come to this Earth with our own unique package of gifts and talents and perspectives and my whole job was to figure out what those things were and to express them. And so, the end MarieTV, one of the lines that people love that I always say at the end of every show is, "Stay on your game. "The world needs that special gift that only you have," and so much of creativity is not necessarily trying to be different, but it's allowing yourself to be you and allowing yourself to really express your viewpoints and your opinions. And, no one has your story, no one has your perspective, no one has that blend of quirks and insights and crazy things that you have, so by you just expressing who you are, by default, you are unique. And so, I don't know if we went exactly into. No, that was, it was exactly what I was hoping we were gonna touch on and the way that I think about it, and comparatively, is that I say things like, "Create something "that no one else in the world could create." That's the way that, A, you can put yourself to your work, that's the way you define your style. Those are the biggest questions that I get. How do you possibly define your style? You have to of you so hard and so often Yes. and relentlessly and then you'll just realize that, oh, this is the work that I create, you can start to see a pattern in it. And, if if you only create one thing or two things, it's very hard to see a pattern. Yeah. It's like, when is a pile of sand a pile? Is it one grain, is it two grain, is it three? No, you just basically have to throw a bunch of stuff in there, and then you'll start to see the piles start to take shape and that's the pile of our own unique gifts, so you have to sort of live that. However, my, I guess the place where I feel that people get stuck is in this, like, "Well, I'm not creative. "I'm a numbers person," or, "Yeah, you know I never really got good grades in art," or, "I don't connect with that side. "How do I?" So, shoot holes in that argument for me, Sure. if you would, and what you're really doing is shooting holes, oh, I like it when our cider gets refilled. I like it when Oh, one more time what's that? our cider gets refilled. Oh, oh (laughs). Wait, I think he, I think you have to go back and get a little more. I think someone just left the room to get us more cider. All right. So, going back, Yeah. so, I think for all of us, play, going back to play. We were all kids once, right? I mean, no one popped out at like and like totally stiff. We were all kids. You have to go back to that sense of play and being like really goofy and really silly. Like, for me, dance and music is huge. I dance so much around the house and make up songs. I have a horrible voice. I sing, I rap, I do all kinds of things and, thankfully, my man is an actor, so he is equally as goofy and expressive, so it's just ridiculousness. Oh (laughs). Our neighbors are like, "What?" They are like-- What's happening in there? They always, they're like, "Wait, do you, "are you guys sports fans? "Why do you scream so much?" We're like, "Nope, we're just making shit up," and just completely, you know, being weird. But, for someone who doesn't feel creative, what is playful for you? Is it dance? Is it Crayons? Is it, another one of my things, going on roller coasters? You know, is it playing with animals? Is it sports? Where-- Cooking? Cooking. Yeah, yeah. There's a million things. Absolutely, and I also think there's something around being present and being really engaged with your senses, because so much of us spend so much of our time up here and it's, "Am I doing this right? "Is this cool? "Does this look good?" It's like, screw all that. Is it fun? Yeah. Can you feel it? Can you smell it? Can you play with it, share it with someone? I think every single human being is creative. We are born creative. We have the ability to create our lives. Yeah, there's this meta layer that you're creating something, but the whole time you're creating, you're literally creating your life, the arc of your life. Absolutely, that's what's so fun. I think about that painted picture exercise, firing up your imagination. There's a lot of science that can back up the power of visualization and our ability in our human brains to use pictures and imagery to think of things and then live into them. I mean, you know, sports are, sports-- Classic. Yeah, I went to college on a soccer scholarship and we had access to sports psychologists. That really helped me get into that and it was one of the most powerful vehicles that-- Can you share a little bit about that, because a lot of people don't know? Yeah, my, I got into a little bit of sports psychology as a child because I had a Greek soccer coach who was like, you know, "You got to see the ball in the back of the net," and so I started like, "Oh wow, I wonder what that would feel like," and I started just doing that in high school and it was incredibly powerful. I did it in football and, once, there was, it's the same year, I did it in football which is the first season and then there's the, in the fall, and then the soccer, guys' soccer in that part of the world was in the spring, so I'd practice this little visualization technique, very casually, but some crazy shit happened. Some was like very powerful stuff, like, happened. Tell us. Well, I, well let's just see. In particular, I said, "Oh, I'm gonna, you know, "lead the conference in interceptions "and I'm gonna be the All-State Defensive Back," or whatever, that happened. And then, this was very casual and I, the way I would do it, I would just sit down once a day and I would think about that for like 5 minutes. And, it was very casual. I literally read a hundred-page book or something like that in, back in the day, in high school. And, I was like, okay, that was powerful. I'm gonna lean into this a little bit more because I got a really important soccer season and I want to be able to go to college on a soccer scholarship, either football or soccer, so I really sunk some energy into that. And, I visualized how many goals that I was going to score in my Senior season and I literally scored exactly that many goals. Now, you can dismiss this stuff as coincidence Of course. and the world works very hard to do that, by the way. We, I don't know why we work so hard to actively dismiss these amazing things that the universe delivers to us. And, that's a part of our brain and neuroscience. Yeah, neuroplasticity and all these things. Yes. And so, when I went to college and it was the top, you know, one of the top soccer schools in the country, San Diego State. We had just lost in the national championship the year before I went there. We had access to sports psychologists because the school has a Psychology Department and they're looking for people to train and we're looking to get better and I found that whole experience just so powerful. And, in fact, as a, maybe 10 years later, when leaning in, it's ridiculous that it took me this long to map that same sort of psychology around what I wanted to make and be and do in the world, Yes. ten years later, I applied that to my life and it's literally the reason I'm sitting here, today. It led me to meditation, led me to, I have a visualization and gratitude practice I do every day and have done for years and years and years and it's the, certainly the most powerful force in my life, maybe outside of love, Yeah. but it's very, very, very powerful. And, I mean, everything that we're talking about here, if someone has the impulse or the desire, you know, they want of be more creative, talking about that painted picture exercise and just-- I love that exercise. It's so powerful. Your mind's ability to go like, well, what would I look like? How would it feel for me to be creative? And, you know, just let your imagination start to fire up. I can think if no better exercise, if you want to increase your creativity, than to fire up your imagination and start dreaming about what's possible. There's one phrase that we use on my team that always leads to amazing results and this is, this is-- Ooh, always? That's a powerful word, too. I love it. It really is. We do good stuff Yes. because I love this content. I love these practices and these ideas and, for me, it's not just about like, "Oh, how do we have a happy great life?" For me, I'm really passionate about the billion and more people in the world who are living on $250, oh, excuse me, $2.50 or less a day, the bottom billion. How do we take these ideas? How do we help heal the planet? How do we get everyone over here, who's kind of doing all right, to start putting our focus, like how do we lift all of us up? So, this phrase that works for us like crazy and any team can use it or any person, "Wouldn't it be cool if?" And, you just start going off. Wouldn't it be cool if I had my own show and we had a live audience? Wouldn't it be cool if we had something called 30 Days of Genius? Wouldn't it be cool if we had this incredible company called CreativeLive and people could take classes from all over the world and access and build their skills? I mean, you can do it with anything. Wouldn't it be cool if, you know, I lived debt-free? Wouldn't it be cool if I could quit my job within six months or eight months? And, you and you start going there and your imagination gets fired up and you start living in the space of creativity and possibility and then you get to parse through. You get, it taps in there and there's some cellular shit that goes on there. You tap into it, you feel-- Deep, you do. Yeah. You do, you feel that. That's what I try and get people to think about it and talk about it. I love that exercise. I'm definitely swiping that. I mean do it with your team. Yeah. Like, so everyone gets to kind of throw in their wouldn't-it-be-cool-if idea about what y'all want to bring to life as a company, as individuals, and then it's so great to cheer each other on and then, you know, for me it's like, comes back to, all right, everything's figure-outable. If we're all into that, dude! Let's start working on it, let's start making it happen. Get the calendars out, get the tasks out and of course there's a bit of magic you have to allow for, as well, but, Sure, a sprinkle. but those are some really simple tools that anyone could use, you know. Thank you for putting a bow on that. That was very great. I want to dive into some specifics about your projects in particular and then you. Yes. We'll do a little speed round a little bit later, but, in the meantime, so, B-School? Yes. What a cool thing. Congratulations. Thank you. It's a powerful vehicle. I've read a lot of testimonials. I've talked to some people who've taken classes. I know some of your affiliates and there's just nothing but goodness out there. Thank you. So, what led you to create it? Tell people a little bit about it so that if they're interested, they can jump in. Sure, so B-School is my online business school for modern entrepreneurs and it really teaches people how to fuel higher profits through their higher purpose, all about marketing and sales online in this digital world, but doing it in a way that's full of integrity and heart and soul and creativity. Isn't it nice to be able to put all of those things together? Yes. Yeah (laughs). Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I am a big believer of that business and whether you consider yourself an entrepreneur or a freelancer or you just got something that you want to share, that you can be a force for good in this world. You know, there, business isn't all bad. Right, do good, right. I mean, there's some people that and done some really-- Make good by doing good or what? There's a better saying than that. There's all bunch of good stuff, but, essentially, you know, for me, when I was trying to figure out how to build my business from the ground up, and they don't really teach you entrepreneur skills in school, Nope. at least for me, I didn't learn them. And, I would go around and I'd go to seminars and conferences and I'm a lifelong learner, so I'm constantly looking for things to help me grow as a human being and as a business person and most of the conferences I went to, at that time, again this was like early 2000s, most of the folks teaching were men. And, unfortunately, Yeah. a lot of them spoke about business and customers and clients, like you have to extract as much profit as possible and like, you know, let's upsell them and cross 'em and ba ba ba ba bah, and I got it, but I said, "This is disgusting," Yeah. Like, I feel like I need to take a shower. The actual presentation of the educational material was shit. There is no design elements. Nothing was pleasing aesthetically. There was kind of no sense of humor beside as really crude sexist sense of humor and I remember finding myself (laughs) just at conferences feeling super, like, "My, God, it's like a sausage party," Like, where-- That's right. Like, I don't have anyone-- Where are the women? None, hardly any. After I went to enough of those and because I was growing my business, I was teaching dance classes, I was doing all these things, I started to kind of amass a female following and lot of the women would ask me, "How are you doing what you're doing? "How do you have this coaching practice "and you teach these cool dance workshops all over? "And, you seem to not be crazy and you're doing great." And, I would tell them, it's because I really have trained myself in sales and marketing. It's viable, it's a must. Viable's not the right word, vital. Vital, yep, the cider (laughs). Cider is getting to us. Yeah. It's fun, though. I'm gonna have another drink in a minute. Good. But, anyway, I really saw a hole in the market. I said, I don't really see small business education out there that is delivered with integrity and soul and style and a sense of humor and done in the way that I wished someone would have kind of instructed me when I was very first starting out as that life coach. And so, I created it. And, I had no idea if it was gonna work and there were only a couple hundred students in our first inaugural class. This is our seventh year doing it. Thank you. Incredible, that's awesome. It's like, I think over 25,000 graduates, or something in that realm, Wow, like an enormous amount, so, so grateful, students in 111 countries around the world, very big community. So, yeah, so that's how it came about and it's grown an evolved every year and so what we teach is really evergreen marketing principles and really helping people understand, like, you know, this is what you're doing, let's get clear in your profit picture. What's your purpose? Like, let's really get clear on your gifts, how you're gonna differentiate yourself strategically and also on a soul level. And then, taking them through, like your website, making sure it sells and it doesn't suck. What's your communication plan? Not a one-size-fits-all thing, but you do have to actually stay in touch with people Yeah. and just taking people through how to do things that I've seen with the most integrity and transparency and that actually is effective and creates results. Hmm, it's awesome. It's really fun. It is awesome. Thank you. So, and is it just your name, dot com, B-School? Oh, marieforleobschool.com or simpler is joinbschool.com and we only open up once a year and before we open the doors, we always share like a free business building workshop so people can get a flavor, they can get a taste for if the find me incredibly annoying or not or they'll see the teaching style and they can see the whole curriculum and if they want to join, they join and if they don't, they've hopefully gotten some great value. Great, and then on the flip side of the B-School, Yeah. MarieTV. MarieTV, yes, so our weekly show, Creating a Business and a Live You Love. It's funny, I didn't realize Chase Jarvis Live was about five years old. Yes, old. Yes, no, MarieTV, same thing. We're gonna start producing our sixth season. So, that really started off, that was another thing that was an intuitive hit. I kept hearing a little voice going, "You should do more video. "You need to do more video. "You should really do more video." I'm like, okay, I got it, I got it. I'll do more video. And, it started off with me looking into my webcam, no lighting, not editing, no scripting, no anything, just like, ♫ Ba ba ba bah ba ba ba bah And then, very quickly, was like, oh, I should probably have other people shoot. Like that could make it more effective. And then, you wouldn't have to walk behind a camera. Exactly, and then it, so it very slowly evolved over the past five years and it's just become this really beautiful, really fun thing. I have a weird, quirky sense of humor, so I've always had these ideas of being able to teach concepts and strategies and tools, but not in a dry way. Yeah, it's like, the best teachers you ever had in your life, they were awesome. Yes! They leaned in, they entertained you and they joked with you. They were serious, but they were heartfelt. They were honest. Yes. That's something that I see totally missing from traditional education, certainly K through 12, I'm not really talking about that, but continuing adult education, there's just so much shit out there. Yes. But, compare that to the people that you listened to when you were growing up who were the best. That is what you, you, I've watched many episodes, that's what you deliver. You do a great job. Thank you. And, that's what we, and we're trying to do the same thing here, right? Yeah. I think, anyway, you get it. Yeah, no, so it's really, really fun, so we're heading into our sixth season and we'll start writing and producing. And, it's my way to make sure that I can share as much of my kooky goodness with as many of the people in the world as I can. It'll always be free, it stays free. We have viewers in like 195 countries slash territories. Yeah. Yay, Google Analytics. I know, the same, right, but like, Chris Guillebeau, who is a friend of mine, says Yes. there's only 193 countries Yes. according to the UN, but then I'm looking at my Google Analytics and it says every country, every month we reach 195, so-- Yes, and we said that too! Yeah. We were like, I think it's all the governments and territories that keeps going like, am I a territory? What am I? So-- And they go back and forth? Yes. So, incredible reach, congratulations, Thank you. that's great. Thank you. And, weekly, that's what that is? It is, it's weekly and actually we just started something new, again, create Coming Back to Creativity. I can't ever do one thing the exact same way for too long. I know. I'm sure you're probably the same way. Oh, it's a curse. It's a curse, but it's actually what makes us great. Yeah, it feels so fun. Yeah, it feels very amazing It is. to do that. So, my subscribers are called MF Insiders and about once a month, we do a subscriber-only dispatch where I let people in on the behind the scenes of my business or some kind of crazy, wacky story that just really wouldn't fit. I've been craving, I love to write and I love to share things and we've turned MarieTV into such an amazing kind of machine where I batch shoot my episodes and sometimes, there's real time stuff that I want to share, and I don't want to clog people's inboxes and I was like, "Oh, I can of like a once a month "like secret dispatch to my subscribers only." So, MarieTV is essentially weekly, but now I've built in this other component that is the, the written. The nugget. Yes. Oh, it's written? Oh, it's not video, ooh, ooh. It's not video, it's written or some, sometimes it's been like a download. Sometimes it's been a secret interview that I've done that I've done on audio. I just told a story, recently, about something that happened on our team, like this kind of creative journey that we went on with these ups and downs and tearing our hair out and, you know, some stuff that just wouldn't make sense in an episode. Let's talk about the ups and downs for a second. Yeah. That was a great, great segue, thank you. The ups and downs of the entrepreneur, Yes. as you know, is a known thing and I think the folks that are sitting at home are, by and large, they are comparing their day-to-day with your highlight reel. Oh, (sighing) don't do it. And it's, yeah, but so we have to remind one another, because, you know, Yes. we may do the same at some times, A, to not do that, but, B, one of the ways that I think we unlock the potential of the people on the other side of the camera is by letting them know and hearing from you in particular, talk about some of your ups and downs, talk about, if you can, Yeah. if you're willing to go there, not just in really general terms, but specifically. What have been some of your hardest challenges? Oh, gosh, well, I'll tell you. This is one that's real right now that we're just getting through. You know, it was challenging as someone who has an online business school, for the past, I would say, I don't know, three years, we've really wanted to make over our website. It was necessary. It wasn't mobile-friendly. Like, there was all these things. We now had this huge library of content and it's really clunky. There's no way to really house it. It's just outdated on every level. And so, we've been working on a new website, like since last year, and we had this initial launch date that was like fall of 2015. And, you have to get, probably like many people in the audience and I'm sure like you and your team, your drivers. Yeah. You hit deadlines. Yes. Everybody is very Type A. They pride themselves on making things happen and were used to making something happen. Yep. Deadline comes, don't reach it. Everyone is like miserable. It throws off the whole calendar, feels completely deflated, feels defeated. Okay, great, fine, we'll get it right at the top of the new year, right, January 2016. Have this huge launch coming up, B-School, which happens in the spring. It's like, okay, good, we're gonna get it done. Whole team is working, working weekends, like just sweating their buns off and that's not typical for us. We're very into making sure that people are okay and have time with their families, but, I mean, people are putting in crazy hours, myself included. January comes, not gonna happen. (Chase exhaling) Tons of money, like tons of time, tons of frustration, everyone's morale, like just morally just like, "Oh my God," and then we have to go into this launch. And then, so now, finally, the new website is gonna launch, but I cannot, and it, but this is like pushed off six, seven months of a delay. Ouch. And, all of the money and the morale and, well, that's not like, oh my God, so devastating, but of any creative team and anyone who's tried Oh, yeah. to just produce something and you have a bunch of people that you believe in, that are hard workers, and to watch them getting disappointed and to keep having something not work That stings. and fall apart and, yes, all of that and if something's wrong, we have to rebuild it from the ground up and you're just like (yelling) like, oh my gosh. It's, so, that's a great example and generalize, now, because, again, you are the coach, you are the life coach Yeah. and people are coming to you all the time with a million problems, a million failures. Give us some common ones and a couple of a panacea or a couple of specific ways to overcome some of these things. Well, I'll, I just want to say something that is related to this, You go. but is slightly different. You know, one of the things that I think, how people really screw themselves up and they do, okay, so in college, went to school in Jersey, like most of us, drank a lot. I remember getting wasted on this stuff called called Goldschlager. Oh, God, that's so brutal (laughs). Do you remember Goldschlager? The shiny, it has little flakes in it. It has gold flakes. Oh, it's oh, yeah-- and it's cinnamon flavor. Right? Oh and yeah, I hate to admit drinking so much of that. Horrible, like horrible. Oh, it was the worst. So, I often talk about when you go on social media, or you just compare yourself to anyone in general, it's like you're taking shots of Compareschlager and Compareschlager is like 100 times more disgusting and more deadly that Goldschlager. Ooh, I like this analogy. Screws you up, your gonna have, you're gonna be off your game for at least like three or four days or maybe a week. You're gonna feel like shit. All you're gonna do is like look at their, you'd gonna get obsessed with their instant and their Facebook and this, and talk to yourself and you're never gonna get there. They all did it before. There's no room for me. Like, it just happens. Yes. I think social media, I'm not bashing on social, it's a suck hole. Yeah. It's a suck hole of time and of energy and what people do 99% of the time is compare themselves to others and come up short. Consume, step back and compare and all of those things are things that are working antithetically towards your, or not working toward your goal. They're antithetical towards your goals. So, one of our mantras is always create before consume. Mm, yes. So, create before you consume. Don't wake up in the morning and go like feed yourself some Compareschlager and go through all your feeds. Like, get your-- It's literally the worst thing to start your day. It's the worse thing to do in the world. It is. And, you know, I was sharing with someone who was talking about, like, "Gosh, I don't know how I'm gonna get all this stuff done "and I don't feel it," 'cause overwhelm is one of the big things where people feel like they're failing 'cause they are stretched to the max, there's never enough time, they're falling behind, they should be so much further ahead by now, and I often say, "Get your ass off of social media, "like off of it completely "'cause it's doing nothing for you." Adele had a great line about this when she was interviewed by Time magazine. She's like, "You want me to create a real album?" And, I'm totally paraphrasing this, here, but she's like, "And, I'm supposed to care "if I'm getting like a million effin' likes on this photo. "I can't create a real album "and pay attention to this bullshit," which is basically what she's saying and there's a lot of people that feel like that. There's a lot of people that aren't in there, like what's my feed gonna look? It's like enough with the perfection bullshit 'cause it's all bullshit. It is. It's curated. It's filtered. Nobody looks like that. Nobody lives like that. It's like, some women are like, "Marie, you know, "you always look so beautiful." I'm like, dude, you should see every day, I wake up, my hairs in a fricking bun, I have no makeup on, I'm, my show, it's a show. It's a show. I get dressed up, I shower. I get dressed up for the show. Yeah, I shower. Combed our hair before we came on here. Yes, and I put makeup and it's a show, but that's just like any other show where you're like, you're getting onstage, you're doing a thing, but I don't walk around in heels every day. I don't walk around with like getting a blowout every day or makeup. And so, in terms of, I know we kind of got away from your question. No, no, no, I love this. This is exactly what we're supposed to do. But it's such a fricking time suck and it makes people feel like shit and it makes them compare themselves and they never do their creative work. They don't get to express the gifts that they are put on this planet to express, not everybody, but a large portion of us to do that. Let's go back, you in particular, Yes. I liked your story of the struggle. I think that's real and I think people could probably extrapolate a handful of others, but in order to save time, I want to be respectful of your time and the length of the show, but talk about you in particular. What are some things that, for example, you say, do not do this in the morning in the morning? Oh. So, do you have some other do-no-dos in the morning? And, do you have some must-dos? Okay, must dos for me, I think, exercise. If you want to be creative, you want to be productive and you actually want to feel good in your life, it's like the most underrated tool for-- Designed for movement, this thing here. This (laughing), this thing. Yeah, this thing here. But, for mental clarity, for feeling good and for releasing all of those happy hormones that we naturally can produce, that's like a must. I can always feel, I can see it in my skin, I can see it just in how I operate, so exercise, yes. Things not to do? I will tell you, if we want to look for just another area where I feel like people kind of fall down a bunch and this is someplace where I have to watch myself is feeling like I'm going too slow, like I write too slow, I don't create enough stuff fast enough, somehow I'm not producing fast enough and like Josh, my man, and some of your friends are like, "Marie, you're like an animal," but in my own mind I can beat myself up Oh, yeah. and be really, do you identify with that? I'm my own worst critic. I, when I sit across from people and they say, "Oh my God, like how are you even alive? "You're just pushing out so much stuff "and you've got 10 projects going on," and I'm like, "That's so weird," 'cause the whole time, what's going on in my head is like, not good enough, not fast enough, not, you know, powerful enough, not strong enough, not all the, like all these things and I, to be crystal, I consider myself a very confident person on the scale of confidence. Yes, yes. And so, you know, over the last, I'd say, certainly two years, but really five years, working on that, that voice. I used to encourage that voice, because I think, I thought that that voice was the voice that got me to where I was. And then, a very wise person told me that, is it possible that you think that actually that voice could be an anchor? So, what if you change that voice. This is sort of when I embraced meditation. So, I stated meditating and started, I found some techniques to kind of quiet that voice that I thought had created my success for me. And, you know what happened? I just accelerated. Yes! It's so weird. You think the thing that got you there was what you need to hold on to preserve that 3:00 a.m. gremlin voice or what Arianna Huffington calls her, that, what roommate, the, (fingers snapping) Obnoxious? obnoxious roommate voice. (laughs) Yes. Like, you think that's what got you there and if you can quiet that, Yes. it is like a, you are shot out of a cannon and most powerful. The kinder I am to myself and, actually, for me, we don't probably don't have time to slip into this too much, maybe another conversation, another time, but also as a woman, for me, it's very easily for me to be in my masculine driving mode and I have to really pay attention to staying in a feminine energy which produces a ton more for me, but my mind doesn't like it, my mind doesn't like it, so that's another interesting thing. So, you were saying, like, not looking at my phone? Yes. Actually, staying joyful and staying in a very, when I say sensual, I just mean like really in my body and playful, those are the things that help me accelerate the fastest. Play. Yeah. What do you do to play? Dance. Dance, sing, goof off? Sing really dumb songs that I make up, but they're like jingles, but they don't go anywhere ever, they're you repeating. Roller coasters, I love amusement parks, like, I can go on roller coasters Wow, no way. I love this about you. all day long and I'm always looking for friends. I don't know if you like roller coasters or not? I would go to Disneyland with you. Awesome, because I don't have many people, a lot of people have vertigo or they that get motion sickness and I'm like, "Let's go again!" And, also, more fun, let's see. Those are all fun things. Yeah, and then I love food and I love eating and I love like wine and really tasty food and hanging out and having fun conversations that leads to dance parties. Speed round. Yes. What would people be surprised to find out that they don't know about you, right now, but would be surprised if they knew? Hmm, that, let's see, surprised to know about me? I mean, and I realize this can be tough for people who are reasonably public like you are or like I am. Yeah, I was just gonna say, I'm like, hmm, Yeah, that's fair. I tell people. Well, there's gotta be something, that's the basis of the question. Surprised to know, oh, this, it's kind of weird. But, that's why; I want to know weird. What's happening? I love tweezing, like tweezing hairs Ooh. and like friends, if I ever see a friend come over and they have a weird hair sticking out of anywhere, I stop them, I go get my tweezers and I like manicure, Let me, here, let me help you out, here. Yeah, totally loving, and they're like thank you because no one else does that. Right, you like, you've gotta, it's, It's a little weird, it's just starting to come through here, you gotta get it. Usually it's hairs, Got it. Usually it's just like rogue, when all of us get to a certain age, hairs start coming out of places that they're just, you're like-- That's not supposed to come out of there. They're not supposed to come out of those places, so I'm the first one to go-- Ooh, I love that. Yeah. What did you learn yesterday? What did I learn yesterday? So, yesterday, today is Wednesday, yesterday was Tuesday. We are in the city of Los Angeles. We are in the city of Los Angeles. Oh, goodness gracious, great balls of Chase Jarvis, I learned that I love looking at, I make this thing called a Buddha bowl, all vegetables, and I loved how it looked. This is like kind of dumb. Yeah, that, no, no, it's great. It looks amazing when there's hemp seeds and pumpkin seeds on top and I just kind of want to hang out and not eat it. It's just this perfect gorgeous display of food that is like art. Morning or night? Both. Wow, ah... Think about that for a minute. Meat of vegetable? Both. (laughing) Okay. It's horrible, right? It is, I know, it's horrid. But, it's the truth. All right. But, as long as the meat is grass-fed, not that often, mostly veggie, but there's times when Mama needs a burger. Something you do to get unblocked, unstuck, un, like you're jammed up, (hands slapping) what does Marie do? Oh my God, I do like the silliest dances, like really geeky dances and, to Josh, my man, like I just turn the music up really loud and make like baby noises and do these ridiculous dances and get him laughing and then I start laughing and then-- That's blocked on a small scale; what about blocked on a big scale? Oh, blocked on a big scale? You're stuck. Cry, super stuck, I cry and then I call like one or two friends that totally get me and that I can just like wail on about how much I suck and cry. And then, we kind of talk through it and then I'm like, "Okay, I can go back." Music? Hip hop. Awesome. I mean, I love all music, but if it's like, you know, if I'm cooking, it's Frank Sinatra, if, sometimes it's Latin Jazz. If I'm driving to a fitness class, it's pop music 'cause I just want to get in there, but all other times it's hip hop. And, what did I not ask you that I should have, that you have a piece of information that I have not uncovered in this hour and 15 minutes? Ask me about my favorite genre of movies. Ooh, man, okay, let's go books and movies; go ahead. Okay, zombie movies, horror films, Wow. not slasher, not slasher. Not slasher? Not slasher, no, not overly violent, Crystal, got it. supernatural, like The Conjuring, one of my favorite recent movies. Anything with zombies, I am in and I will watch it like five or six times. Wow. Yeah. Books? Favorite book of all time is the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Incredible book, isn't it? I read it, like it's always near me or with me. I never get tired of it. I adore him, I interviewed him a few times, like I love him so much. Oh, you, oh! Oh my gosh, I haven't met Steven. I need to. I love him so much. Like, if I could have a grand, if he could be, you know, like part of my family or an uncle or something, Yeah. like, I love him. I know exactly where that book is sitting in my house, on my bookshelf, right now. I pick it up, hmm, weekly might be a stretch, but certainly monthly. Yes. Yeah, it's seductive. And, Turning Pro, and Do the Work, but War of Art is just, it's classic, can't touch this. ♫ Da na na na (hands clapping) ♫ Da na, duh, can't touch this (both laughing) I am so thankful that you were on the show and, this is the first, Thank you. this is not a last, this is a beginning, not an end, and, ah-- Pinky swear? Yes, thank you, pinky swear. (clucking tongue) Coordinates on the internet, marieforleo.com. Yes. You already gave the B-School, just B-School that was? Join B-School. Join, join B-School? Yeah, but marieforleo.com has all the good stuff and, actually, by the time Yeah. this little puppy is live in the world, we have an amazing new free audio that's called How to Get Anything You Want and it's some of like my core basic ideas to help people get unstuck. So, if they're in that place Sweet, yeah. where they're kind of grappling with wanting clarity, it's like an hour-long, free, totally free audio training, that they can just download and, if they've enjoyed this, they'll kind of get some good stories and some good inspiration. That's sweet. You sort of dis, mildly or lightly disavowed social, but most of the people who are listening, they want to come find you, so where do they go? (gasping) Oh, totally, I don't, it's not that I hate it, but, actually, one of the things that people don't know about me, for running a digital company, I spend the majority of my time off-line, like I am not one of those people who's constantly in this unless I have to get something done with my team, but it's always @MarieForleo, so Snapchat, Insta, Twitter and Facebook, it's, and YouTube, it's just all @MarieForleo and come say hi. Like, of you don't hear from me, don't think I'm a butt hole, Yeah, right (laughs). I'm just literally off-line, like living life. I'm sure your inbox looks like mine, too. It's a pile of hangers. It's so ugly. How fun is Snapchat? I love it, I'm having so much fun with it. Yeah, I'm like playing only like internally with my friends and doing really dumb, silly things, but it's cool. I love it, it's so lightweight and it's easy to create and it's fast and it's cool. Yeah, I like the things where my eyeballs pop out. Like, I like doing the weird-- Open your mouth, rainbow tongue, kind of? Yes, yes. Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. The world is gonna find out more about you when they go there. I'm super grateful for your time and, folks at home, you know where to find her. Thank you for paying attention to what we do here at CreativeLive, to this show in particular. And, stand by, because there's another one of these interviews dropping tomorrow. Bye, (laughing) gotcha. (quirky pop music)