0:00 the most game-changing work that I've ever done is Marie launched a multi-million dollar star of the award-winning marietv an international best-selling author Marie track your time meticulously for seven days you will be shocked at how much time flitters away that don't create a ton of value for you and you'll get an idea of like I would have never thought of that if your face was stuck in Netflix or Tick Tock for you know the seven hours a day that you're not working your book is full of solutions to the most important challenges what are you struggling with is ADHD so I can have a very overactive brain I found myself over performing and over working wanting to control
0:46 everything so I could have a sense of safety that's where the real cost came in for me I started dreading waking up in the morning like I wish I could just disappear like wow yeah see these were scary thoughts and it almost destroyed my relationship in the book you took about these three rules that underpin this figure outable mindset yes and it's just helped me in every different facet my relationships my mental health my business what are those so rule number one is that rule number two rule number three that's super important Point number three it's the one we don't talk about you have to be willing to just before this conversation starts I've got
1:33 a favor to ask from you 74 of people that watch this podcast frequently haven't yet hit the Subscribe button and nine percent of people haven't yet hit the Bell to turn notifications on the bigger this platform gets the bigger the guests get so if you could do me one favor if you've ever enjoyed this podcast please hit the Subscribe button and turn notifications on without further Ado I'm Stephen Butler and this is the Diary of a CEO I hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this yourself [Music] Murray [Music] when I was reading your book you talk about how experience is one of the things that ends up shaping the beliefs we have in the world
2:19 what were the experiences that you had at the very earliest of Ages that end up shaping the beliefs you've had about the world one of the biggest ones was actually a memory I had when I was about seven or eight years old so my parents had just gotten a divorce and I remember being in the kitchen in my house in New Jersey with my mom and I'm looking at her and she has one of the old school phones with the cord like wrapped around her hand and it was wrapped around so tight that her hand was kind of turning white because she was cutting off the circulation and she was on the phone with her mother who was in Florida at the time and she was crying unconsolably and I'm watching my mom with tears
3:05 running down her face and her everything looked drawn and she was saying I have nothing I have nothing do you understand I have nothing I don't know what I'm going to do and so you know there's tears coming down and I'm just Frozen in fear he hangs up the phone and she bends down and I just see like her makeup running down her face and the tears running down her face and she puts her hands on my shoulders and she puts her face right next to mine up to my nose and she shakes me and she says do you see what I'm going through right now I have nothing do not be stupid like I was don't ever let a man don't ever let anyone control your money I need you to grow up I need you to be your own woman
3:52 I need you to be independent don't be stupid like me and Stephen I was just like you know as a seven or eight year old like in shock of course I love my dad my dad's an amazing man and I love my mom and that experience like in a few seconds I made all of these equations in my mind and I made all these decisions and I made all these promises to myself and I'll tell you what those were one of the decisions was that the lack of having enough money equaled the loss of love the destruction of family and so much pain and suffering like seeing my mom in pain knowing my dad wasn't there knowing
4:37 my family using unit wasn't okay and I just everything felt unsafe and I made this promise in this decision I said okay when I grow up I'm gonna somehow make so much money that I am going to take care of the people I love and if anyone around me needs money to to handle the pain I'm going to be able to take care of them now looking back I'm in my 40s now I can see how much that fear and how much that desire to have love be healed has driven almost every part of my career to have love be healed yes what do you mean by that because I had this notion that because there wasn't enough money that
5:23 my parents love was broken when we are driven by insecurities it can be it can get a little bit out of hand yeah you know when something like that like money becomes your North Star um it almost means that the other stars are dimmed the other things that form our very human needs what was the cost then of prioritizing that of having money as a motivator in some ways it was wonderful because it was there was a rooting in solid work ethic that was fabulous and at the same time a self-punishment I'm never doing enough
6:09 it's not quite enough this is not good enough it can be better I can be better and you know for many years especially early in my career I didn't really have an off button you know it was working seven days a week morning until night um you know missing out on whether it was friends getting married or this one or that one and some of that you know it's complicated it's multi-layered right A lot of times if friends were going on let's say a bachelorette party to Vegas or whatever I legitimately didn't have the money to go and I found myself working all the time just to kind of climb out of debt in the early days of my business for example so there's a little bit of give and take there you know there's the cost and I think eventually as I started to get into my 40s I started recognizing just this
6:54 pattern of over performance of overdoing of over pushing sometimes I would say to my partner Josh we've been together for like 20 years and I would say God you know I really want to take a break right now but I've got X Y and Z to do and I said I don't I just I feel so lazy if I take a break I can't take a break like there's so much and he's like Marie you were one of the most productive non-lazy people I have ever met in my life no matter how many times he said that to me Stephen for so long I didn't believe him I was like he's lying he he's not as productive as I am he has lower standards than I do which is all not true um and it was uh it was tough it was it was just I wasn't very kind to me how do you how do you balance that because on one end you know the feeling
7:40 of being not satisfied yeah is motivating absolutely it means that you're always striving you're pushing people you're you know there's always more work to be done you're always at the one percent in your pro in your projects but on the other hand um it's also for many a deferral of their happiness and contentment off into the future somewhere that will keep moving as they move yeah off into the distance yep how where is The Sweet Spot between knowing there's more work to be done but also being content at the moment yes I love this a I think for me it is this ever evolving daily practice that I never quite get right but I'm always playing with these days it's about recognizing that you know what I have created so much I'm
8:26 so proud of what I have and I'm a human that is entrepreneurial and multi-passionate and creative so there's all these things it's the joy of going like oh my goodness I'm so grateful for what I have and here are the things that I am so excited to create and for me it becomes this really beautiful Dynamic sense of being where I am fully joyful and grateful for exactly what's happening and super excited for what I'm creating next so in the past it was like oh well this isn't good enough I'm not good enough I don't have you know it was coming from a place of lack where these days I'm coming from a place of contentment and then an additional place of curiosity and excitement about what's
9:13 unfolding next does that make sense yeah of course it does yeah how many people do you think you've coached over the last oh my goodness I think that would depend on your definition of coached so we've we've had over 100 million people interact with our our videos and given advice you've heard your advice or your words was there a moment when you realized that this is what you wanted to do with your life yes because I know you went to Wall Street longer than you oh my goodness I failed at so many jobs so um I remember when I was on Wall Street on the New York Stock Exchange I was really excited about it because it was this place where there was tremendous potential for income right and I was around people that were making millions of dollars a year which is so far beyond
9:58 anything I could have imagined in my life at that time and I was I kept hearing this little voice inside Stephen I was like this isn't who you are this isn't what you're meant to do this isn't who you're supposed to be and that little voice kept getting louder and louder but the little voice didn't tell me what else I was supposed to do and one day I was crying my eyes out because I felt like such a failure my parents had busted their buns to help me get through college first in my family to go to school and I knew that I was so lucky to have that job just any job right Healthcare a steady paycheck and here I was miserable I wanted to quit so bad and I just felt trapped because I didn't want to bring shame upon my family I felt like a total failure and the little voice then said call your dad so I took out my flip phone at the time which
10:44 gives you an idea it was like the lay late 90s and I was crying to my dad and I said Dad I'm so sorry like you and Mom worked so hard to get me through school and and I just I can't stand this job I want to quit and he broke in all my sniffly snotty crying and he's like Ray he's like calm down he's like if this job is getting you this sick and you hate it you have to quit I said but Dad I don't know what I'm supposed to do like this isn't like me and he said look you're going to work for the next 40 or 50 years of your life you have got to find something you love and if this job isn't it then start bartending do whatever you need to do again but don't stop looking until you find something that you really really want to go to do every single day so the only things I knew about myself were that I loved business but I was also highly creative and the only com
11:31 combination that felt like it could work in an industry was magazine publishing at the time that was still a thing and I went to a temp agency I got a job at Gourmet magazine but about six months into that job which was interesting I started hearing that same voice against Stephen I was like Ugh this isn't who you are this isn't what you're supposed to do this isn't what you're supposed to be so I'm on the internet one day at work probably when I shouldn't have been and I stumbled upon this new profession at the time called coaching when I read this article it was as though something in my soul lit up like a Christmas tree it was like the clouds parted and little angels came out and I was like oh like this is what you're supposed to do and I said I'm gonna do this life coaching business and I went back to bartending and waiting tables
12:16 and just devoted myself to figuring out how to build a business during the day okay so let's go back through so the voice inside yes what is that voice to me I believe it is my intuition it is my when I say higher self I believe the part of me that is timeless that's probably been here before and that will be here Beyond this particular incarnation and if anyone out there I certainly do believes in a higher power that there are other levels of intelligence that are actually supportive of us that's who I think that voice is does everyone have that voice I absolutely believe so that's my personal belief everyone has
13:01 that voice they may not have been trained to articulate and understand and discern it but I believe it's there what does it feel and sound like soft spoken it feels as though you're having an inner nudge towards something that may not make sense to the outside world it may be counter to all of the social conditioning the familial conditioning that you've been brought up with but it is gentle it is encouraging and it is persistent I thought you were going to say persistent that's the last word I was like because I I can I can relate um why is it that and it's funny because I also agree that everyone has that voice um because when I have conversations
13:46 with people they will often tell me who they are and what they do yeah and then this the second thing is they'll like whip out their phone and be like and I've got this art Instagram account and I'm like all the other voices like infiltrated the the Asylum and it's like taking over a little bit like I love doing I work in the city I work in finance but check out my art over here it's kind of like the whisper that yes I'm like that is the voice that's the thing inside you that's been persistently working away at you it made you at 2AM launched that Instagram account um but most people because of the there's another voice at play which is the external voice Society your mother your parents your immigrant parents telling you what work is Instagram telling you what you should and shouldn't be an R um that other voice that external Voice
14:32 is so much stronger yeah it's so much stronger and it's everywhere it's in all of our friends it's in our parents it's up down left right yes how does one go about taking the perceived quote-unquote risk of tuning into the that voice that's just Whispering yes oh I love this question and I also love talking about this because I think it is one of the most powerful sources of wisdom that we all have but there are so many things that we can talk about I want to talk about a few one is if you start to pay attention to the small things so I'll give you an example I've actually been practicing this is going to sound extremely superficial but stick with me intuitive shopping I don't like to own a lot of things I'm just not a person who likes a lot of clutter and I just don't want to have a bunch of
15:17 crap lying around and so I realize that sometimes I'm like oh well so and so if I try on an outfit or whatever I'm like oh I think this looks pretty good and I've been paying attention to like nope you're never gonna wear it it sounds so silly but when I quiet down and I listen I'm like okay I have this little guidance for these little moments of my day on the best path to take I want people to pay attention to the small moments what you should order on a menu whether or not you should make a move with your partner if people actually look back in time and start to look in their past you'll see places where you heard that little voice and you overrode it and you got yourself into trouble do you know those times of course so everyone has usually if you start to filter through your mind it could have been a financial decision it could have
16:04 been a business decision it could have been about someone to hire it could have about saying yes to a job a relationship but there were times when something in you was piping up and your ego or an external voice was like no you got to go for this this is a great deal this is going to get you X Y and Z you should say yes to this and you overwrote that little voice and it cost you big time so I think to answer the question how do people start to kind of hone into that discernment I think look in your past to where you ignored it before and you'll have examples of like oh that's what it sounds like that's what it feels like that's one and then I think number two this works for me I'm someone who has ADHD so I can have a very overactive brain I need to meditate and I need to exercise those are two things that help
16:50 me dial down the noise so much of the static and create enough space for that inner voice to not only feel like for me to be able to detect it more but for it to speak louder and for me to hear it one of the things that sometimes encourages us or wins in US overriding The Voice that small Whispering inside you telling you who you are what you should be doing where you should be what you're capable of is our own like fear insecurities and Trauma so like I can think of multiple times where I've made bad decisions because I've been LED too much by my insecurities you know whether it's money decisions whether it's love decisions typically anything that's like psycho psychological in its root so money food
17:37 these kinds of things so you might know and even in the context of a professional career having the upbringing that you've had where you made that Association super early that money results in a loss of Love or the lack of money results in a loss of Love or a loss of control or whatever that can orientate you to go to Wall Street yes as opposed to listening to The Voice yep how much do we have to like heal in order to to kind of turn up the volume of that voice inside and to try and turn down the external voice you know it's a great question I think we're all on a healing Journey constantly because I think all of us you know we've kind of collected little hurts disappointments um things from our childhood things from our adult experiences that kind of get
18:22 lodged in there I don't necessarily know that intuition requires like hearing your intuition requires you to heal anything because I think that voice is always trying to talk to you and I think one of the best ways to understand it's your intuition and not fear and we should maybe talk about that a little bit that's a I can give people a very simple exercise about how to know is this my intuition speaking up saying no you know like you shouldn't go in this direction or is this just fear because I want to stay safe and I don't want to put my ass on the line here's how I tell it so let's say I'm thinking about saying yes to a particular opportunity it could be a business deal it could be you know speaking at a particular event anything like that When I close my eyes and just feel in my
19:07 body and say does the idea of saying yes to this make me feel expansive or contracted and Stephen when I ask that question in a nanosecond I say okay does saying yes to the speaking engagement feel expansive or contracted I guarantee in your body you feel something it is so subtle but either there is a lightness there is like your body starts to expand like this you lean forward there could be a little bit of Joy even if you're scared shitless even if saying yes to this is like oh my goodness it's the biggest opportunity ever or your ego wants to say yes but inside there's a part of you that says no it closes down you feel heavy you feel a sense of dread that's your intuition trying to lead you in the right direction question yes do
19:52 you ever do things that are contractive in feeling oh my gosh not as much anymore but I did it so often earlier on my journey because I was so desperate for approval people and I was so desperate to be successful and I had these ideas if I partner with this person if I say yes to this particular activity if I show up here then I'm gonna have some kind of more stature right or I'm gonna be noticed more so these days it happens much less frequently and I feel like that just comes from having skinned my knees enough and tortured myself enough and created enough pain and Chaos that I'm like I don't need to do that anymore yeah because a lot of the time the
20:38 reason I asked that particular question is a lot of time a lot of the time there's a short term carrot I think that's the analogy for yes it's a short-term carrot which goes listen we'll give you this if you come and do this thing you don't know if I can do it but the short-term carrot can be tempting sometimes the long-term effects of taking a short-term carrot are dangerous the other question I had which was thinking about this expansive contractive thing is there has been times where something has made me feel contractive yep but when then I've gone and done it oh my God you're so glad that you did so glad I did it I'm curious when you felt contracted and then you overrode that can you tell me more about whether it was the voice like what made you override that feeling um money interesting you're going to get
21:24 paid loads of money to go and do this thing I think oh [ __ ] I don't want to travel yeah I don't want to go there and do it but then you go there and you have a great conversation for example if I'm speaking somewhere sure and I and it lights me up that's what lights me up yes so I walk away from it feeling unbelievable thanks I'm so happy I did that that's really you know it's changed my mood It's Made Me connect with people I'm so happy I did that yeah um but ahead of time you know it's funny because it's the story I'm telling myself ahead of time that's making me feel contractive it's I'm telling myself about travel about time Wasted by having to go to another country or city or place I'm thinking about all the time wasted okay and the money for me Isn't a real big motivator but it almost for me it's like it's still hard to turn down a big number sure because the money
22:09 doesn't come to me it supports the team it supports this podcast it supports our show we have we this in my personal team we have 25 20 people now yeah so a lot of livelihoods I think of it as a response ability yes so let's play here for a moment because I think that's so interesting what you shared a lot of what you felt dread about was thoughts I wonder and this would be fun maybe you can text me and let me know in the future I'm curious more of a body sensation right right so like you I can be like oh boy got some travel coming up and my thoughts can generate a sense of tiredness let's say but what I'm when I'm talking about expansive and contracted I'm actually talking more about a physical sensation in your body almost like either in your solar plexus or in your gut so it's less of a thought
22:57 generated feeling and more of a visceral full body notion does that distinction yeah yeah just I'm I'm super curious because I agree with what you've said in terms of there's been times where I'm like oh I don't know about this and I was so and I got over myself I was like you know what there's X Y and Z people I like them there I'm gonna go see them and I was so happy that that I wasn't a stick in the mud and stayed home so I had that experience too I'm I want to dive a little deeper with you on that body sensation because in my experience that's usually where the intuitive feeling kind of really lives less thought generated more body more body truth the body holds the school yeah yeah so let's go back through then so we're talking about this journey that
23:42 led you to leave the publishing industry yes and decide to go back to being a waitress but also pursuing the career of being a coach yes a couple of key things there that are that we kind of glossed over that are I know people are sat at home thinking they're in jobs they hate they're in situations they hate they hear the voice they get it the next part I guess there's two parts there the next part is how do I how do I tune into the voice and and like how do I um you were lucky in the sense that you read that article yes I say lucky but maybe that's not the best use of words you have you read that article that came to you at that time that's right maybe the universe sent it to you the Journey's out right if I know I'm in the wrong place and the voice is saying [ __ ] Steve this magazine
24:28 publishing is not right yeah but I don't know where the right place is how does one go about finding that right place okay I love this question so here's a mantra and I live my life by Montrose they help keep me on track and here's one that really works Clarity comes from engagement not thought Clarity comes from engagement not thought what does that mean in this context it means that every single person listening right now let's say they have a job and they're like I am done with this job but I don't know what else I should be doing there's something in them that has an interest it could be an interest in art it could be an interest in baking it could be an interest in music find a way to go take action in that direction no matter what it is it could be interning for someone working for them for free picking up a book taking a class finding some way to
25:16 get involved in that area will give you not only Insight but it'll start to open up creative channels you'll start to meet people you'll start are to say oh this is great as a hobby but I would never want to do this as a career I think that all of the Insight Clarity comes from engagement not thought you're not going to figure it out sitting on your couch you're not going to figure it out necessarily scrolling on Instagram or your phone you're gonna figure it out by getting into some kind of action and giving yourself permission to experiment right giving yourself permission to try things and it might not work and that's okay but you're going to learn something you're going to discover something you're going to have a conversation you'll stumble upon your own article where your own body lights up like a Christmas tree and you'll be like oh my goodness this is the thing but it's not
26:02 going to come if you sit at your desk every day know that your work isn't right but you don't do anything active to actually go find out what is but you know I'm busy I've got four kids I've got a job I just don't have the time right oh that's uh not having the time is probably one of the biggest excuses that we can all use from time to time and it really is an excuse because all of us know when it's important enough we make the time if not we make an excuse we know this if you're spending any amount of time on Instagram or tick tock on social if you listen to podcasts if you do anything outside of your actual job and just feeding yourself and doing what you knew what you need to do to stay alive you have time you really do you have to do some basic math I would recommend we talk about this in the book
26:47 is track your time meticulously for seven days you will be shocked at how much time flitters away doing things that don't really create a ton of value for you that don't give you an opportunity to even have open time where you're not looking you're not consuming anything where you're not having other people's thoughts ideas or agendas inject into your head where you're just giving yourself time to walk around the outside and take a walk in the block and in nature and actually let your mind think or wonder or rest or exercise or do any of these other things that can open creative channels where you'll get a download and you'll get an idea of like oh my God I would have never thought of that if your face was stuck in Netflix or Hulu or Tick Tock for you know the seven hours a day that you're not working fine I'm quitting my job I'm
27:34 quitting quitting is difficult yeah what's scary why is it so how do we become better quitters I was on stage this morning I sat on stage and I said it all the time so it's like I sound like a broken record but you know we glamorized starting it's like oh my God they started this thing but quitting is the equally important thing you have to do before you start yes and so quitting is just as much of a skill as starting anything how do I become a better quitter I look at your journey continue quitting yeah throughout and it's funny because that almost sounds like an insult doesn't it no yeah but it does on the surface because quitting is for losers yes well if you believe that that's the that's the slogan right but if you hadn't quit imagine the the misery I would have been so miserable and so I think there's a couple of things to it one I think understanding
28:19 your risk averseness as a human being is very important and let me tell you what that means for me financially speaking I'm fairly risk averse so because of my upbringing because of this kind of Perpetual Financial scarcity that there was I'm not the kind of person who's just going to burn the ships behind me and say okay I'm quitting my job you know at the magazines and let me just start this coaching business and figure it out it was like no I went back to bartending and waiting tables pretty much seven days a week because that's what it took to keep the roof over my head and eating food while I figured out this life coaching business so I would say for anyone listening right now if you're thinking about quitting take a look inside what's your risk averseness you know there's a study that was done in the United States they tracked about 14 000 entrepreneurs and they found that
29:05 those who kept their day job as they started their business were 33 percent less likely to fail and so I think for anyone listening it's like okay well you may quit this job but is there any other circumstance whether you take another type of job you go part-time like what is going to be the kind of financial Runway or situation that you need to give yourself an ability to see if this business could work if starting a business is what you want to do and and so after you quit um seven years doing side work yes and growing and figuring out the business when you quit what was your aspirations for your coaching business if I'd ask you on that day I'm going to say you know how long ago was that so that was two thousand like 2000 2001. right so
29:52 that's 20 odd years ago if I'd asked you on that day where are you going to end up oh my goodness I had no freaking clue I at that moment I was just entrenched in my coach training and I wanted to be a great coach so badly meaning I didn't really have a huge Vision because everything was so new and I think there was so much uncertainty and quite frankly as a 23 24 year old I didn't really have the ability to have Vision like I read so many success books Stephen that were like you know and this was like kind of a line in many of the networking talks I'd go to it's like well what's your five-year Vision right I was like I have no idea I'm literally trying to just get the next three paying clients like I will Coach your dog if you let me I will Coach that's where I
30:37 was because I was so committed to trying to be the best coach I could be and I knew that I needed experience I needed to work with as many people as possible so I had no vision for where this thing would go I just kept taking the next step and the next step and the next step and kind doing this it's not talked about enough what you've just said because perfectionism is one of the things that causes procrastination and especially as we set out to quit and start the new thing you hear it all the time I know you do which is well I haven't got enough of this and I haven't figured out this and I need to find a mentor and an investor and this and a website name and this and that whereas in reality in everything I've ever done it's this like horrifically messy stumbling forward in into the darkness like and even with this podcast like I'll tell you how it came to be was I enjoyed doing it that was it that was
31:25 the thesis didn't know how we'd make money didn't know how big it would get didn't know if other people would like it actually still blown away that anyone listens because it's like it's been one of the most amazing like life-affirming things that people care about the types of conversations we have here yes but I think that's such an important message because perfectionism as you write about in the book you talk about progress and perfectionism and which one to choose it's such a it's such an imprisoning notion that is so pumped up by like fake life coaches and fake entrepreneurs that want to try and sell you something to make them by making themselves seem like they are super special and God gifted yes we're all just messy little unorganized scared um 100 and so human and so this is the other
32:11 thing like so start before you're ready so Stephen I have to tell like as a young life coach I knew how ridiculous it all sounded it sounded cheesy to me again can I tell you my first Workshop there was five people in it I was 24. that's a lot my parents my yoga instructor from college and um one of her neighbors actually two of her neighbors that she pulled in off of the street and I had created a whole little workbook I had done it with like Microsoft clip art I stapled the little workbooks together and I stood in front of five people in my yoga teachers basement in New Jersey and I delivered like a day-long workshop and like I think back to that cringy Marie but she was also awesome because she started
32:57 before she was ready she didn't know what the hell was going on but she did it and it was like the worst thing I probably ever did but I did it and then it gave me a little bit of experience to then like go do something else and then go do something else so to your point it's like everything for me has been messy I'm like I don't know if this is gonna work this sounds like a lot of fun I have energy towards it I want to make a difference let's try it and what about today as you sit here now yeah um today it's still messy I've talked about this all the time I'm like you know 99 of what any of us need to do to grow our business we've never done before so we don't know what the hell we're doing that's why for me everything is figureoutable this phrase is so useful like I use it every day still it's not like there's some blueprint or
33:43 some road map to guaranteed success out there like that's not how it works and if you're someone who's Innovative or creative or you're trying to do something outside of the box there certainly ain't no Playbook so you have to be willing to just try things and experiment and flop around and laugh at yourself and then get up the next day and do it again in the book you talk about these the three points of philosophy that oh the three rules the three rules yeah the underpin this figure outable mindset yes what are those so rule number one is that all problems or dreams are figureoutable rule number two if a problem or a dream isn't figure outable it's a law of nature right so death maybe taxes rule number three you
34:30 may not care enough to solve a particular dream or reach a particular goal and that's okay find something that you do care deeply about and go back to rule number one and what that does is it creates a container a container for us as human beings to be honest about what we care enough about to go figure it out because in in my life there hasn't been one thing yet that I have truly wanted to either understand achieve transform do you know what I have some different relationship with that when it was true in my heart that I haven't been able to figure it out and if I don't want to figure something out like I can get real at myself like I don't care enough about this to go figure it out right now that's super important yes number three
35:17 it's the one we don't talk about yeah because we'll all have goals in our life that we we think are important we think we want to do I want to you know I want to become a DJ I want to start working out and get a six-pack I want to be an artist they they often don't happen and we we end up thinking that they haven't happened because we are an unmotivated person so we say you know we start being ourselves up I'm not motivate I'm a failure I'll just keep trying at it we very rarely pause and go do I actually want to and there's this weird thing that I that I noticed which I won't name the person but they know who they are because I know they're listening there's this weird thing that I observed which taught me a really important lesson is sometimes like we want to want something and the way we're just laughing the way
36:05 that I describe that is like we want to want something we want to have the motivation to do the thing we want to want it yeah we want to want it we think we should want it yes so we so we go around saying we want it so like I wanna I really want to go and lift weights I might say Stephen I really want you know I I'm saying to the world you know I really want to go and lift weights but it's because I want to be the type of person that wants to be that that wants that yes so I go around saying it but I don't actually want it I just want to want it yes I had this same conversation with my best friend and we were laughing about this because I have put so much pressure on myself at so many different points of my career because I think I should want something yeah and I'm like but if I okay for example I think you'll appreciate this
36:51 because I think you and I share a similar philosophy perhaps um about social media for example so I suck at social media right I'm never on it I don't put any attention and I actually had a colleague of mine say to me like Marie you're so good at what you do like why aren't your numbers bigger and it was like one of these you know like when someone makes a comment you're like oh that kind of feels like a punch in the gut and you're just like oh oh I I don't know and anyone who knows me my friends and even my audience they know I'm like very transparent like I don't spend a lot of time on my phone like I'd prefer to write books I create programs like there's other things and then I I just want to live my life like I feel like I'm like oh there's like oh if I was really committed to being a change maker then I would be making videos I was like what the hell is that
37:37 philosophy like I remember torturing myself I should want to want that exactly but the truth is I don't exactly and that's the hard part to admit yes yes it's a really hard part to admit that we just don't care enough we just don't want it it's someone else's it's someone else's and I think that just having this conversation because I would imagine there's folks listening to us right right now that think that they should want to want something and they don't and then what happens so you know I failed to go to the gym to get that six-pack that I I tell myself I want or I failed to start that business because I don't really want to but I want to want to start it yeah and then I use excuses I and the the number one excuse is I just don't I don't have the time because that's a cloaking of as you said earlier that's a cloaking of your true priorities yep it's a way of saying so
38:23 it's not my fault it's just a lack of uh time in the day there's only 24 hours but really as you've said it's actually that the how you use your time as one of the clearest demonstrations of your actual priorities of your values yeah 100 100 the the way that I always like to keep myself honest about like what I want and to call myself out on my own excuses this is the the two-word distinction that has helped me the most understanding the difference between can't versus won't so any time that I'm about to say oh I can't do that I can't do this I can't get up earlier to work out to get those six packs I can't can't write my next book I just don't have the time for me learning Italian I can't learn Italian I have so much on my plate right now with my business so 99 not 100
39:09 99 of the time when we human beings say can't it's a euphemism firm won't and what does won't mean won't means we really don't want to we're not willing to make the sacrifice it's not that important to us right now and so I always encourage myself and other people to play with this like any time you're about to say the word can't try on won't or try on that's not a priority for me right now and see how your body feels going back to this body truth something of me goes you know what I actually don't want to learn Italian right now you know why because in my free time I'm watching the house of dragons I do you know what I mean I'm watching this show or that show or I'm hanging out with my friends or I'm doing this I'm doing something else where I could be dedicating that to my Italian Studies but I'm not you know why because that is
39:54 not my priority right now that is so so much more honest and it's so much more freeing and then all of a sudden I'm not a bad person I'm not not ambitious enough I'm just me it's so it's so such a small important change in like words and and thinking just that swap swap from I can't do something which says it's not possible right or I'm not in control which is even the worst one I can't it's not not possible to I won't which empowers you in such an important way it says actually these are decisions that I'm making I'm not the puppet I'm the puppet master of my life that's right and I get to call the shots around here that's right and it says I and I think just like that's not my priority right now I choose not to that's not my choice at this it's not much better you can try on any one of those but all of a
40:39 sudden like something in you I think feels the honesty you feel the alignment all of us you feel more alive and you have more energy and I'll tell you you do that enough you tell yourself the truth about you enough and all of a sudden you start falling in love with the real you not the you that you think you're supposed to be to get everyone else to like you not the you that Society has told you that you have to be or all the people that you compare yourself to who are probably faking it anyway but you fall in love with the real you and that's in my experience where real happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment comes from the other part of that that switching from I can't to I won't is in the external relationships we have with others because I made the mistake with my
41:24 partner once upon a time of when she suggested something to me and I did not want to do it I would say I can't right what I'm doing is I'm absolutely lying to her because she you know she she wants to go and do this thing at this place and I guess I can't because I pointed my schedule I guess you know what I'm doing is I'm is I'm telling her I want to so ask me again in the future because I'm interested but I can't right now because of an external Factor so my girlfriend keeps asking me if I want to do this thing and I'm continuing to continue to say I can't and it's building a really inauthentic relationship well that's fundamentally built on a set of Lies there was a point and I think it was because one of my podcast guests where I just tried being honest yeah and it was the best thing I've ever done yeah and you know what she really appreciated it because I don't want to do that it's so
42:11 important even you know in business and in relationships and all of those things someone being honest with you is very rare that it's so effective when they are I actually took a phone call as I was coming down the stairs to start this conversation from someone and they called me and said hi Stephen just so you know this is a cold call so if you if you um don't want to do the chord just hang up now but if you've got 20 seconds let me know and I was shocked absolutely shocked the guy probably I think he told me he listened and I said to him what a [ __ ] that's brilliant because usually I'm like I spend 10 seconds trying to figure out if they're trying to sell me something so I can just crack on with my day but for him to be so honest with me by the way he literally this is a cold call I'm going to tell you about a product if you don't want to take the call feel free to hang up now and I was like this is amazing
42:59 what is it he told me I went on their website I looked it up I said we use a different tool called brandwatch so but I said like this has been so inspiring your honesty with me that it was so disarming yeah and I think people are smarter than we give them credit for so what's what's happened on every cold call that I've ever received is that you know they call Mingo hi Steve is it Stephen Bartlett I go who is it I think it was the Stephen Butler I go who is it the game just want to check is it Stephen Bartlett I go yeah they go so what are you doing with your data infrastructure things at the moment because we've got an offering and it's like and then I'm like [ __ ] get out of there but it's but the honesty was so disarming and people are smarter than we give them credit for so when you go around telling your friends or your loved ones whatever or your work colleagues that you can they know yes they know yeah but you don't want to totally so something I want to think you
43:45 talked about we talked about relationships though a topic we haven't touched on completely it's funny I know you wrote a book in 2000 and I'm gonna say eight that's when it was published yeah the earliest version was actually like 2002 it was a eBook that was full of hot pink and a lot of exclamation points that tells me everything about how you feel about the book today yeah I a I still stand behind the book today but I was just it's also an explanation of how things evolve yeah right what's your journey been like with romantic love oh my goodness so um challenging like most people one of my biggest challenges was actually I've known from a very very young age that I basically never wanted to be married or
44:31 have children so that was just like it was this inner knowing you know many young girls at least my friends they would fantasize about like my wedding day and you know there was lots of dolls and okay this is my baby and all that stuff and I just never had any of those desires or inklings and as I became a teenager like why do you think do you know I don't know besides I know it's my truth and I have never wavered on it could it be related to your parents relationship at all it could it very well could prior to Josh I would meet folks and and and be in relationship and they'd be like okay so we're gonna get married then we're gonna
45:16 have kids and I'm like are you actually listening because that's not what this thing wants so that's that is not the path I'm on so it was actually really really challenging um until I until Josh and I got together back in 2003 and I felt like I had found my soul mate how much have you thought about how your early experiences have like impacted your attachment style when I look at some of my friends and the relationships they have they often seem to mirror the model they learn in their household yeah so I've actually gone so a couple things this has been an area of Fascination for me mostly because a I just want to be a really good partner and a good human and especially with Josh like we've had so many ups and downs oh my God Stephen we've done so much therapy and and I'm gonna share
46:02 something I don't know if you have interviewed these this couple yet or you're familiar with their work but these folks in my opinion they were the game changers and it does relate to kind of early childhood Impressions and how we were brought up and how that impacts how you interact in your adult relationships so um the most game-changing work that I've ever done when it comes to having a healthy relationship is from Harvel Hendricks and Helen lekelly Hunt so there's a book called getting the love you want it was like huge I think in the 90s and then maybe the early 2000s I had never heard of it but Josh and I stumbled upon it when honestly we were on that we were in a really really tough place and I didn't know if we were going to make it through and um
46:48 Josh had been talking with someone who was like oh you guys should try Imago therapy which is the kind of therapy that they have developed this whole body of work there's International therapists they're friggin fantastic I was like we must study with these people so they kind of talk about the fact that every single person um you learn things in your family unit so for me there was a lot of kind of smothering that happened at certain points so I need to be free I need to be free and for Josh one of his kind of core and they use this language and you know it like a childhood wound for him it was abandonment so he wants to be close so oftentimes we will pick the person that has the exact opposite childhood wound so for me
47:35 someone that wants freedom of course is going to choose a partner that wants more attachment so in their work it's actually like you choose the perfect partner to heal the very things that you need to heal so for me that you are saying okay do you think that has to relate to just the fact that I don't want to get married just the fact that all that stuff does that really it probably does because there was a lot of me wanting to be free in my childhood a lot of me feeling very constricted and held back and so for Joshua was the opposite but I would highly recommend their work if you have not explored it if anyone has not explored it it totally saved us well Josh you talk about the hard times in um around 2017. it was we had several we
48:21 had um so when my stepson was leaving for college I think this was around maybe 2009 or 10. I might be getting the years wrong forgive me but um I was basically I was such a workaholic I was such a workaholic and he was so just desirous of just more attention and I was so obsessed with my business and so obsessed with trying to be successful and this fear if I slowed down that would all be taken away then this fear that if I didn't continue to work and build that I was going to lose everything and it almost destroyed my relationship it was terrible we had been together I think oh I can probably do the math better now so we'd been together about six or seven years we met in 2003 so it's probably about 2010 and
49:07 we had never once taken a proper vacation together because I always said that I couldn't because I was too busy working yeah it's so funny um I have a friend who is reminds me of you so much in that way in the sense that she has an immigrant story she came to this country when she was super young she was um bullied in school she found some you know she she found they didn't have any money that was the source of much of the pain in our home she started a business starts to go well she doesn't want to get married she doesn't want to have kids her partner has recently broken up with her because her partner is not getting any time from her and she just works all the time
49:54 I watch her and I think you're being dragged by that fear of going back to your childhood you're being dragged by it or like like a being tied to the back of a car that's just flying down the motorway yes and I just don't know what to say to her because she She's suffering the consequences of not having connections or friends or love in her life yes but her ankle is attached to the back of this Lorry and it is flying down the motorway her business is killing it when I say killing it I mean she's probably worth hundreds of millions she's super young she's in a early she's in her 20s um but she's unhappy but she can't get off the [ __ ] Lorry it's dragging her yeah would you say to someone like that
50:40 I think that it's really important for every person to come to that realization that they may be killing it in certain areas and then to be honest enough to say the areas where it's not working and then I would always come back to if you want this it's kind of like we go back to everything is figure outable if having love in your life friendships in your life Adventure in your life down time in your life is important to you you can absolutely figure it out and what I've seen in my own journey and this is my own personal estimation of myself I've actually become way more successful I've become a better Coach I've become a better teacher I've become a better friend I've become a better partner
51:27 not being dragged by my drive not allowing the fear of losing any success that I've built be the force that keeps me from the richest parts of my life which are my connections for anyone who's who's in that space right now they have to want to make that choice to change and then be willing to as much as they took the risk to start a business they have to be even more courageous to redefine their own success at a higher different level and it takes courage takes a lot of Courage so how did you redefine your own definition of success at a high level so for me it was around really stepping back and asking myself what matters most
52:12 like is it the money in the bank account is it the amount of followers or customers or whatever and I remember sitting in that therapy chair and like thinking about what I've grown and then seeing this beautiful man and going like you know what it's not about choosing either or but like you've got a problem Marie and you got to fix this like this thing meaning the business cannot be your number one priority if you know in your heart that love is the most important thing in life then you need to start demonstrating that you need to start acting that you need to start making time for that God you know in your heart yeah so this is the interesting thing because we all know yeah like objectively no because we've read read that it's true we met you know I see this a lot I see like we know we should
52:58 goes back to kind of the wanting to want thing yeah I know that people are happier when they have friends and when they have a romantic partner typically in whatever Dynamic that's that relationship is formed I know that to be true but I feel like I need to keep building this [ __ ] business and climbing that ladder and sure it's such an intense strong all-consuming feeling just to keep on going keep throwing coal into the engine of this train yep but I know I should spend time with my friends this is where I'm gonna go back well all this stuff so as it relates and I think those are maybe two different slight nuances so I would go back to the Helen and the Harville work like there's a couple of tools that they teach you one of which is this tool called dialogue it's a very structured form of having a conversation with your
53:45 loved one Stephen I cannot tell you how healing this particular form of work is you could probably look it up online they do tons of workshops very inexpensively they're actually even taking their workshops into police departments like because it is transformative how it helps people connect how it helps people see each other how it helps people hear each other and how it helps people heal and when Josh and I started practicing these tools that we learned from from Harvel and Helen something in me relaxed and I was able to see and hear and recognize and understand Josh's needs in a way that did not feel threatening to my own drive for my own success it was as if previously those two things were at odds and then all of a sudden everything was integrated where he felt really heard
54:32 and seen and I felt really heard and seen and it was as though that battle completely disintegrated and so no longer was it this or that no longer was it will either give me attention or you know what I mean I have to give up this business no it was like oh now I understand what he really needs which is not tons of time it's actually presence and giving him support and love in the way that he can really feel it and while he gets nurtured and it's completely different than how I do but again this is like a practice and it's nothing that we're taught in school so we're all just stumbling around at least I was and Josh and I were and now it feels like Josh is so much more supportive of all the things I do in my business and ironically not it's not
55:18 that I care less but I'm less driven by fear it's more driven by desire and fun and creativity and wouldn't it be cool if oh let's try that and only saying yes to things that are like a full body yes not saying yes to things because I think it's going to get me somewhere or it's going to you know get that bag so much bigger it's like you know what at some point enough's enough I'm sure you've experienced this it's like when does enough become enough quick word from one of our sponsors I've got a tip for all of you that will make your virtual meeting experiences I think 10 times better as some of you may know by now Blue Jeans by Verizon offers seamless high quality video conferencing but the reason why I use blue jeans versus other video conferencing tools is because of immersion their tools make you feel more connected to the employees or customers you're trying to engage with and now they're launching one of
56:05 their biggest feature enhancements to impact virtual events so far called Blue Jean Studio I actually used it the other day I did a virtual event using the studio which I think about 700 of you came to TV level production quality all done by one person with very little technical experience on a laptop so if you've got an event coming up and you're thinking about doing it virtually check out blue jean studio now let me know what you think because I genuinely believe I know this is an advert and I'm supposed to say this but I genuinely believe it's the best tool I've seen for doing really immersive simple but high quality production virtual events quick one it's so crazy that in the last couple of months I've had so many people tag me on Instagram even on Telegram and in my Twitter DMs in a picture of them starting their heal journey and it's one of the most amazing things in my life
56:52 that I get to do a podcast which of course needs money to to fuel and I have a sponsor like you who I genuinely believe is going to help every single person who starts their heel Journey change their life because this podcast the central intention of this podcast is to help people live better lives and we get to sit here and I get to promote to you a product which has not only helped me change my life but it's going to help millions of people and is helping millions of people live a nutritionally complete life it's so it's such an incredible product and for me the reason why it's incredible is because it gives me my protein it gives me my vitamins minerals it's plant-based it's low in sugar gluten free it does all of that in a small drink that tastes good there are other products there's Foods there's the hot and savory collection many other things but for me this ready to drink is
57:37 the absolute savior of my diet throughout the week where I'm moving at such Pace look I don't want to labor the point but if you haven't tried he'll give it a try and if you do tag me Instagram wherever you try it give me a tag anyway back to the podcast I did actually want to ask because men don't often including me as a man we don't often appreciate the social battle that and the social stigma and criticism that women who say the things like I want to focus on my career yeah yeah I don't want to have kids I don't want to get married sometimes undergo and I've I've because I have these conversations now I'm continually like cognizant of my own bias in the way that I ask the questions yeah
58:22 how do you view all of that like how do you view the the pressure that women face to fall in line with the old school stereotype of kids they're in such a changing world yeah you know it's really interesting so one of the things I do on my show marietv is I answer questions I love just taking questions from our audience and answering them and one of our viewers said hey Marie how did you decide not to have kids and we had never covered the topic before and I was like oh well let me just I want to talk about that and it was one of the most popular episodes that we haven't we've ever had and it was because it sparked this discussion just about choice and about oh wow you just didn't want them and you knew that it like wasn't a struggle and I'm like that's maybe not everyone's journey and that's great but I need to be honest about mine
59:08 because one of the things and we've had talks with my mom about this it's like her kind of set prescription was so there from society and from it's like you get married and you have kids and that was I think her authentic dream but it was also the conditioning right and um I just think it's interesting I like talking about it because I think it's really important for every woman to know that she has the right to choose her Destiny and whether that Destiny includes a family doesn't include a family includes some semblance of what she believes as a family like I want women to have that choice I can't tell you how many comments were under that video people left comments anonymously who had given birth and absolutely loved
59:57 their kids and said I would have made a different choice if I knew I had one and it was shocking how many women feel that they must follow this prescription and I think in 2022 when we're recording this I'm like you know my eyes bulge out of my head I'm like no they don't have to and we need everyone's gifts and it's like I just knew from the moment that I could understand I was like that is not my path in this lifetime my path in this lifetime is to help people give birth to their ideas and to possibilities it's not necessarily to give birth to a physical child through my physical body and so um I like to talk about it just because I want women to have as many choices as they possibly can to be as brilliant and as impactful and happy as
1:00:43 they possibly can yeah certainly not setting off a topic we talk about enough yeah because it goes back to these kind of like colliding narratives The Narrative is much stronger that you know you get married at the stage
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