Moment 89 - The MOST Important Skill To Learn: Marie Forleo

Marie Forleo lives her life by mantras. In this moment she shares one of her most powerful; “clarity comes from engagement not thought”. You have interests and aspirations but too often they seem more like impossible dreams than achievable goals, to this Marie says ignore the excuses and “get off the couch”, as you’re never going to figure it out there. Combined with this, Marie believes you have to uproot your fear of quitting and instead give yourself permission to experiment and start before you’re ready, as there will never be a more perfect time than now. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/ebU0K9spWvb Marie: https://www.marieforleo.com https://www.instagram.com/marieforleo/?hl=en Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Here's a mantra, and I live my life by mantras. 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 get involved in that area will give you not only insight,

• 0:47Speaker 00

  but it'll start to open up creative channels. You'll start to meet people. You'll start 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 going to 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 going to come if you sit at your desk every day,

• 1:30Speaker 00

  know that your work isn't right, but you don't do anything active to actually go find out what is.

• 1:36Steven Bartlett?

  But you know, I'm busy. I've got four kids. I've got a job. I just don't have the time, Marie.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Oh, that's a, 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 TikTok 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. 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

• 2:24Speaker 00

  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 Tik Tok for, you know, the seven hours a day that you're not working.

• 2:58Steven Bartlett?

  Fine, I'm quitting my job. I'm quitting. Quitting is difficult.

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's scary.

• 3:04Steven Bartlett?

  Why is it so? How do we become better quitters? I was on stage this morning and I sit on stage and I sit out all the time. So it's like I sound like a broken record, but you know, we glamorize 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.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:17Steven Bartlett?

  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, continual quitting.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:26Steven Bartlett?

  Throughout. And it's funny because that almost sounds like an insult, doesn't it?

• 3:29Speaker 00

  No.

• 3:30Steven Bartlett?

  But it does on the surface because quitting is for losers.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Yes, well, if you believe that.

• 3:34Steven Bartlett?

  That's the, that's the slogan. Quitting is for losers.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 3:37Steven Bartlett?

  But if you hadn't quit, imagine the misery.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  I would have been so miserable. And so I think there's a couple of things to it. One, I think understanding 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?

• 4:24Speaker 00

  You know, there's a study that was done in the United States. They tracked about 14,000 entrepreneurs and they found that those who kept their day job as they started their business were 33% less likely to fail.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  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 gonna 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?

• 4:59Steven Bartlett?

  And so after you quit, seven years doing side work?

• 5:04Speaker 00

  Yes, and growing and figuring out the business.

• 5:08Steven Bartlett?

  When you quit, what was your aspirations for your coaching business?

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness.

• 5:12Steven Bartlett?

  If I'd asked you on that day, I'm gonna say, you know, how long ago was that? So that was 2000 and

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Like 2000, 2001.

• 5:18Steven Bartlett?

  Right, so that's 20 odd years ago. If I'd asked you on that day, where are you gonna end up in 20 years?

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness, I had no friggin 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 a 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 was because I was so committed to trying to be the best

• 6:07Speaker 00

  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 of doing this.

• 6:20Steven Bartlett?

  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. 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 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.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:05Steven Bartlett?

  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.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:27Steven Bartlett?

  Where we're all just messy, little, unorganized, scared frauds.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  100% and so human. And so this is the other 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.

• 7:52Steven Bartlett?

  That's a lot.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  My parents, who were two of them, my yoga instructor from college, and 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 Clipart. I stapled the little workbooks together and I stood in front of five people in my yoga teacher's basement in New Jersey and I delivered like a day-long workshop. And like, I think back to that cringey Marie, but she was also awesome because she started 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. So then like, go do something else and then go do something else. So to

• 8:36Speaker 00

  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.