Marie Forleo on The Mindset Every Entrepreneur Needs to Succeed in Life and Business | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic

Since she was a young girl, Marie Forleo has been a “multi-passionate entrepreneur.” She never wanted to settle and had a multitude of interests, from hip-hop to spirituality to psychology. After attempting to find happiness at a string of corporate jobs, Marie realized that her combination of interests and skills was a strength, not a liability. She gave up the security of her 9-5 to become a life coach. Now, she has a digital empire that touches millions. In this episode, Marie will share why “everything is figureoutable”, how we can overcome self-limiting beliefs, and how we can live a more productive and stress-free life! In this episode, Hala and Marie will discuss: (01:30) Introduction (02:43) Marie's Childhood and Early Ambitions (03:48) First Job on Wall Street (04:26) Mindset Shifts for Career Success (07:07) Transition to Magazine Publishing (09:31) Discovering Life Coaching (11:51) Building a Coaching Practice (14:31) The 10-Year Test and Dance Career (27:44) Personality Traits and Success (29:50) The Dark Side of Perfectionism (30:12) Career Tipping Points and Role Models (31:00) Consistency and the Long Game (37:57) The Origin of 'Everything is Figureoutable' (44:06) Financial Independence and Early Lessons (48:09) Burnout and the Turning Point (55:35) Time Management and Productivity Tips Marie Forleo is named by Oprah as a thought leader for the next generation, and she is the owner of one of Inc.’s 500 fastest-growing companies. Marie has created a socially conscious digital empire that inspires millions. She’s the star of the award-winning show MarieTV, with over 75 million views, and host of The Marie Forleo Podcast, with nearly 26 million downloads. Marie has taught entrepreneurs, artists, and multi-passionate go-getters from all walks of life how to dream big and back it up with daily action to create results. She runs the acclaimed business training program B-School, the writing program The Copy Cure, and the joyful productivity program Time Genius. Her #1 New York Times bestselling book, Everything is Figureoutable is available now. Sponsored By: Shopify - youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - airbnb.com/host Rocket Money - rocketmoney.com/profiting Indeed - indeed.com/profiting RobinHood - robinhood.com/gold Factor - factormeals.com/factorpodcast Rakuten - rakuten.com NordVPN - nordvpn.com/PROFITING Microsoft Teams - aka.ms/profiting Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services - yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing,Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health

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

• 0:00Hala Taha?

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• 0:45Hala Taha?

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• 1:35Hala Taha?

  Yap Gang! In today's Yap Classic episode, we're diving deep with a powerhouse who's about to turn your "I can't" into "I absolutely can." The one and only Marie Forleo. Imagine transforming your deepest fears into your greatest fuel. Well, that's exactly what Marie has done throughout her remarkable journey, from bartending to building a multimillion-dollar media company. Named by Oprah as a thought leader for the next generation, Marie isn't just another motivational speaker or podcaster. She's a living, breathing testament to the power of believing. And as she puts it, that everything is figure out. Marie and I spoke back in 2023 about being a multi-passionate entrepreneur, embracing your good fears, how to hone and trust your intuition, and so much more.

• 2:19Hala Taha?

  So get ready to learn how you can turn obstacles into opportunities, and why Marie's philosophy isn't just a catchy phrase. It's a powerful, actionable approach to life. So what are you waiting for? Let's go figure some ish out with Marie Forleo.

• 2:37Hala Taha?

  So Marie, I'd love to take it back to your childhood. I like to do that on my podcast. And from my research, I found out that you've essentially always been a Jill of all trades since you were a little girl. So can you tell us more about that little girl who later became what you call a multi-passionate entrepreneur?

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I grew up in New Jersey, like you did. I remember distinctly as a kid, you know, when adults would say, hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? I never had one answer. I always had like 17. I want to be a teacher. I want to be a dancer. I want to be a writer. I want to be a businesswoman. I want to be a model. I want to be an artist. It was just like on and on and on. And as the years went on, some of those answers would change, but there was never just one answer. And I didn't realize that that was even odd or different until really my college years. I remember a lot of people seemed to have a very distinct definitive vision for what they wanted to do. You know, I want to be a doctor, or I want to be a lawyer, or I want to be whatever it was.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  And I still had like 15 things that sounded really intriguing to me. And when I started my career after graduating, I went to Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. My first job was actually on Wall Street on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. And I was pumped. I was so excited because it's like the financial mecca of the universe. Back in those days, this is like the late 90s. There were actually no chairs on the floor. And I'm a person who has a lot of energy. So I was like, oh, this is so cool. I'm going to be running around all day. This is amazing. And after about six months into that job, I was super grateful for the work because I'm the first in my family to go to college. And my parents, they just busted their buns to be able to even give me an Education and I took that very, very seriously.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  But after about six months, I started hearing this voice inside that said, you know, this isn't who you are. This isn't what you're meant to do. This isn't what you're supposed to be. And I was like, that's strange, you know, like, ugh. And I tried to kind of push that voice away, but it kept getting louder and louder and louder. Until one day, I remember being at work and starting to feel sick, like physically ill. Started to feel dizzy, like I couldn't really breathe. And I said to my boss, I said, Hey, can I just run out and get a coffee real fast? It was at a kind of slower time during the day. He's like, yeah, no problem. So I left and I didn't go to get coffee. I made a beeline to the nearest church and I sat on the steps and I cried. I cried my eyes out because I felt like such a loser because I knew logically and intellectually that I was so.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  I was so grateful to have work, which included a steady paycheck. It included health benefits. I felt like I was doing good by my family. But at the same time, the truth was I was miserable and I felt like I was dying a slow death. And I didn't know how to reconcile those two things. The first signal I got from above was actually, it said, call your dad. And back in those days, Hala, I still had, it was like flip phone days. So I took the flip phone out of my like dark green jacket. That's what all the traders had. And I called my dad and I was crying. I was like crying the ugly cry where like there's snots coming out of your nose and you just can't breathe. And I was like, dad, I'm so sorry. I'm a mad. And when I finally shut up and took a breath, he's like, Ree, stop.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  He's like, you've been working since you were nine years old. I'm not worried about you figuring out how to keep a roof over your head. But he's like, here's the secret to life. You're going to be working for at least the next 40 or 50 years. You have got to find something you love. And if going to work every day at this place makes you this sick that you ran out and you're crying in the middle of the day at the church? Like you can quit. You'll do what you did. You'll bartend. You'll figure it out. But you need to find something you love. And Hala, that was like such a huge permission slip for me because I realized in that moment, while my dad didn't tell me how to find something I loved, he gave me permission to do so and really reinforced the fact that. Childhood needs to not fully, but finding something that genuinely aligns with your strengths

• 6:36Speaker 01

  and your skills is vital for all of us. And so the only clues I had really was that I was always a super creative child. So one of those 17 things that I always wanted to be was an artist. So I had this, I used to paint, I used to draw, I thought maybe I wanted to be an animator for Disney. But I also had a real passion around small business. My dad was a small business owner. And so I was fascinated with business and money and that kind of aspect of life, too. And so I said to myself, okay, I have these two sides of me, what do I do with them? And the first idea that came to mind was actually the world of magazine publishing. There's the ad side, which is around money and sales. And then there's the editorial side, which is very creative. And so I went to a temp agency in New York City and I said, I want to work in magazines. I don't care which magazine, I don't care where it is, just get me any position.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  I'll be like the lowly assistant. I don't care. And so they placed me as an ad assistant at Gourmet Magazine as a part of Conde Nast Publications back in the day. And I remember I was like, oh, this is awesome. My old environment, 99.9% men, this new environment, it was a lot more mixed and balanced. I was like, this is really cool. My boss was a woman and then also my big boss, the publisher was also this like incredible woman. I was like, oh, this is great. I've never seen this before. And after about six months in that job, the same voice came back. It started small, like Marie, this isn't who you are. This isn't what you're supposed to do. This isn't what you're supposed to be. And I was like, what is going on? Like, what's wrong with me? Where's this voice coming from? Like, I really want to work. I really want to earn money. I really want

• 8:01Speaker 01

  to contribute, but I couldn't stand going to an office every day. And so logically, I was like, okay, let me just step back here and try and look at my situation objectively. Wall Street, money, money, money, ad sales, more money, like numbers, maybe I've like leaned too heavy into the business side. Maybe I've really been starving my creative self. So I said, okay, went to HR and said, look, if you have any position at any magazine on the editorial side, I'll take it. I don't care if I'll take a pay cut. It's a lateral move. It's a down move. Just any opportunity, I'll take it. So they found me a position at a Mademoiselle, which was a women's fashion magazine, editorial side, fashion department. I was like, Oh my God, this has gotta be it. I'm gonna be working with designers. I'm gonna be seeing new products and be helping with layouts, photo shoots.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  This is amazing. And for the first couple of months, it was really cool. It was novel. I learned all kinds of new things, different environment, amazing. Of course, within, I don't know, four or five months, the voices came back again. Hala, this time, I was like, there is something wrong with me. Like, I feel broken. Do I have some kind of cognitive dysfunction where I can't commit to anything? All of my friends are getting raises, getting married, starting to like build their whole lives. And here I am, years after graduation, just wanting to quit my next job. Like, nothing was making sense. And I felt so terrified. I felt like such a loser. It was awful. And there was one day at work when I was on the internet

• 9:28Speaker 01

  and I discovered this article, and it was about a new profession at the time. It's about 1999. The new profession was called coaching. You have to get that in the late 90s, nobody had heard of coaching. Like, this was like groundbreaking, right? And I remember reading that article, and it was as though a Christmas tree lit up inside of me. It was as though the clouds parted and little angels came out. And it was like, oh, like, this is what you're supposed to do. But at the same time, you know, I was 23 years old, and the mean voice in my head said, what are you? Are you kidding me? You're 23. Who the heck's gonna hire a 23-year-old life coach? You haven't even lived life yet. You're in piles and piles of debt. You can't seem to hold down a job. This is gonna be one more thing you fail at.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  So I had that going on. But I couldn't deny that in my body and my intuition told me that there was something there that I was meant to follow. And I signed up on the spot for a three-year coach training program. I was doing that at night, on the weekends, kept my magazine job during the day. And then I get a call from the HR department, and they had a promotion for me to go move up, bigger paycheck, better position, to be a part of Vogue magazine, arguably one of the top fashion magazines in the world. And that was my fork in the road. Do I stay on the safe path with the paycheck and the health benefits? And like a career that people actually understand what the hell it is? Or do I quit and do this weird-ass life coaching thing that no one has ever heard of?

• 10:53Speaker 01

  I have no idea how to even turn it into a business, and it sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud. So I chose that path. I gave up my job and I went back to bartending and waiting tables, which I did all throughout college. And I figured out how to build a coaching practice during the day. So that's kind of the through line of being a multi-passionate kid, not knowing what that was to kind of getting me to the place where, you know, and I'll pause because I'm sure you have other questions, but we can kind of take it all the way through.

• 11:20Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I'm going to dig deep on all of that. This was such a great overview of your story and it's super inspirational. So a question that I have for you, let's stick with you being 23 years old, deciding that you want to be a life coach with basically no life experience. Right. And how did you get the confidence and when did you actually start getting clients? Did you wait until you were done with the program? And how did you know you were good at it and like starting to build your confidence with it?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Okay, signing up for that program felt really significant to me because I just basically, you know, graduated from school just a few years earlier. So I was still in that mode of being like, I am a student. Like when you want a new skill, you go put yourself in an environment to gain those skills and capabilities. And everything that they taught and all of the topics and what we would talk about in terms of communication, in terms of supporting other people, creating frameworks, understanding how to listen and to ask questions. Those things felt like second nature to me. They felt like areas where I was so excited to learn as opposed to things that I went through in college where it was like, oh, you know, I'm rolling my eyes to get through every topic, like there was no resonance there.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  So that was my first clue that I was on to something as I really, really enjoyed learning. Second, part of my coach training was actually that you should not wait to get what we called at that time, practice clients. It was like, hey, just work with people for free. Like that was kind of a part of how they told you that you're going to build a business and build your confidence was not to go out there and like pretend that you're further along than you are. But for me, it looked like reaching out to every single girlfriend that I had. And because I was bartending and waiting tables, people would always ask me like, hey, what else do you do? Are you an actress? I'm like, no, dude, I'm a coach. Like I could actually help you reach a goal or set a strategy or do this. And so I was just absolutely. Shameless about asking people if I could work with them for free.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Like, I just did everything I possibly could. And in that process, was it uncomfortable? Yeah, but I had failed at so many other things. And that was so much more painful than actually trying to do something that I really believed in, that it gave me the motivation to just put myself out there. And then the worst thing that people could say was no. And I was like, that's not that big of a deal.

• 13:35Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  It was through that experience of just continuing to work through my fear and my embarrassment. And then when I started getting people results and how they're like, wow, I feel so much better after our conversations. So that started to kind of fill the well of like, oh, I could do this. Like, this is awesome. And it didn't happen overnight. It took me a very long time, but that's kind of how the process started.

• 13:57Hala Taha?

  Yeah. The other question that I have is in terms of this dream job, like you said, Vogue is like the pinnacle of the fashion world, right? Everybody wants to work in Vogue, especially back then. It was like such a huge deal. And so you were at this fork in the road. You had to make a decision to go after this risky thing that you had no idea how it was going to pan out. Ended up being a great decision. What was your thought process around that? I know that you have a 10 year test that you talk about in terms of making decisions. I'd love to hear how you came about making that decision.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  So I didn't realize the 10 year test until a few years later. And we'll unpack what that concept is and how people can use it. Cause I think it's actually, it's so helpful for any of us, no matter what your age is, no matter what stage of life you're in. That decision in terms of not saying yes to Vogue was a very body led intuition led decision. Here's what I mean by that. Because I had had that experience on Wall Street where going to the same place every single day started making me feel like I was dying a slow death. And then I quit that job and got out of it. And then I went through a similar thing when I was at Gourmet Magazine where it's like, I respected all the people that I worked for. I appreciated them. I was grateful to have a job, but I couldn't deny that every single day it was like, I can't do this for the rest of my life. I don't want to climb this corporate ladder.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Like what's going on? So it was a very visceral feeling. And then to have that a third time when I was at Mademoiselle and then to have this incredible opportunity for a promotion come to me. And everything, every single cell in my body was screaming, no. I don't even feel like it was a decision. It was something I had to do.

• 15:33Hala Taha?

  Yeah, and I'll ask another question that I think will help everybody understand. So there's good fear and bad fear, right? There's the fear and you know, you should like, when I feel fear, I'm like, I gotta do it. I gotta just do it. That means I'm going to grow, I'm going to learn. And that's how I accomplish a lot of the things that I'm scared of. I know if I feel fear, I need to just do it. It means that I'm going to grow and it's good for me. But then sometimes you feel fear and it's like this, like, oh, this is bad for me. And it's more of like an intuition gut, like this must be bad for me. And you shouldn't do that thing, even though you're afraid of it. So how can we tell if we should do something that we're afraid of? Or if we should actually run away from it?

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, fear versus intuition, it's a big thing. My best strategy that I've taught to probably hundreds of thousands of people at this point is a really simple thing that anyone can do. Whenever you're faced with an possibility, an opportunity, something that you're facing, where if you said yes, you're like, wow, this decision could change my life. Or this opportunity could mean the world to me. And I think it's really important for all of us, especially when we're starting in a new journey or when we're on the early part of our career path, to recognize that our intellect and our ego often wants to override our intuition. And so let's say that you got invited to go speak at a certain event, or someone wants to make you their business partner, or you know, they're presenting you

• 16:54Speaker 01

  with this opportunity that on paper, maybe there's a lot of money involved, or there's a lot of prestige, or everyone else would be like, what are you nuts? Like, how are you saying no to this? But yet something inside of you feels like, oh, I don't know. So here's what I do. I always instruct people, whenever you're faced with something like that, and you don't know if it's like good fear, meaning the type of fear that you described, it's not like the fear of walking in front of a bus, we're going to get killed. We're not talking about that. We're talking about creative fear that could keep you small. And how do you know if it's like something you should move through and say yes? Because it's going to be a tremendous opportunity for you to develop skills and move up in the world, or if it's your intuition waving a big neon red flag going like, don't do this, you're going to F it up. It's going to just cost you a million things and it's going to take you on the wrong path.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  You're going to regret it. So when you think about whatever the opportunity is. Your decision is you close your eyes, you get very, very still and you wanna get out of your head and tap into your body. So if it's helpful, make sure you have no technology around. If you need to like shake it out and either go for a walk, go for a run, go for a workout, something so you can disengage from the nonstop chatter of the monkey mind and really start to feel in your body. So you get really quiet and then you ask yourself, does the idea of saying yes to this opportunity, this deal, this possibility, make me feel expansive or contracted? Now here's the deal, in the nanosecond, when you ask yourself that question, right after,

• 18:22Speaker 01

  your body has a visceral reaction. This is super subtle. So people I think that are involved in athletics, if you do any type of working out, you're probably gonna be able to detect this a little easier at first, but everybody can do it. And what you're feeling for is either a feeling of expansion and what that can be experienced as is like maybe your body moving forward in space. It's almost like you're leaning into the sun, you feel your chest lifted. There's maybe tingly sensations inside, even though maybe it's scary, you're like, whoa, there's a ton of excitement or maybe little sparks of joy or something that just feels like a visceral experience of expansion. On the other hand, if you ask yourself like, does the idea of saying yes to this opportunity make me feel expansive or contracted?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  You might feel something that we could identify as dread. Maybe there's a pit in your stomach, maybe your physical body starts to pull back in space or your shoulders hunch over or your head starts to very subtly say no. So if you actually ask yourself that question, take a breath and feel into the answer, not from your head, but from your body. That is one of the surest ways that any single person can get aligned with their intuition, not their intellect. Your intellect will often lead you astray because it's tied to your ego, which is tied to status, prestige, wanting to get ahead, climbing, and it's all rooted in fear at the end of the day.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Your intuition is your connection to higher source, guidance, wisdom, natural knowing, like innate powers that all of us have that we're just not taught how to access in school.

• 19:56Hala Taha?

  And I have to say that as you get more successful, these opportunities are going to become sexier and sexier. And it's going to get harder to say no and harder to say no. And you need to get really good at making these decisions. I'd love to understand the 10 year, yeah, 10 year test.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  The 10 year test. So this was interesting. So after I had said no to the magazine world, had gone on this journey to like, okay, let me figure out how to help build a coaching business, bartending waiting tables about seven days a week and was doing my coaching business during the day. And so we all know this, like, one of the things that any one of us needs to do, or we learn that we have to do is kind of have an elevator pitch. Or, you know, when someone asks you about your business or what you do for your career, you're supposed to have like a really good answer. And I remember at the bar, when people would ask me, so like, what else do you do? Oftentimes, when I talked about being a life coach, it would feel really narrow and limiting and like I wasn't telling the full story. Even though I really loved what I did,

• 20:53Speaker 01

  the truth was I had all of these different other passions as well that I was starting to explore. So for example, I love spirituality. I loved writing. I loved what at that time, the early 2000s was the new world of digital business. Again, no one, YouTube didn't exist, podcast didn't exist yet. It was blogs and email and ebooks and like different things that were brand new and mind blowing. And I also loved hip hop and dance and music. And even though I don't have any formal training, it was like something that was such a passion for me. And I would go to classes here in New York City and I would go to a place called Crunch because I had, at first I had a gym membership. They had amazing dance teachers and amazing dance classes and I loved it.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  And I remember just going to classes so often going like, wow, I actually think this should be a part of my path or part of my career, but it doesn't make sense because I'm supposed to be focused on life coaching. I'm already bartending and waiting tables seven nights a week. Like, how am I going to do all these things? And so I remember like having these fantasies about being a dancer and about having a career in this world. But I would always never give myself permission to do it because it was like, oh, I'm supposed to focus. All the success books say you have to niche down and pick one. Thing be the best at in the world so they can't ignore you. But the truth was, I couldn't do that. It wasn't advice that worked for me. And so this opportunity came up to actually audition to teach at Crunch and to kind of take my passion for this thing to the next level.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  And I remember sitting down and thinking to myself, should I do this? Is this like the stupidest thing ever? You know what I mean? Am I gonna just get distracted, slow down my coaching career, spend even more time bartending, waiting tables because I'm not making that much money? That's when I came up with the 10 year test. I was about 25 or 26 at the time. In the dance world, to start out at 25 or 26, you are over the hill.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  You're practically a great grandparent because most people as professional dancers, they start taking class when they're like three or four. And they're in these recitals and everything and they're professional dancers going on tour and music videos. By the time they're like 15, 16, 17, you know, like that's their peak. And then in their mid twenties, they're kind of moving into a different zone or something like that. Anyway, that was my understanding of that world. So to start dancing with no formal training at 26 or 27 sounded crazy. So I sat myself down and I said, okay, look, you love this thing so much. You love music, you love hip hop, you love dance. If you imagine yourself, you're 25 right now, if you imagine yourself 10 years in the future, looking back and realizing you didn't go for this, you didn't actually audition to teach at Crunch.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  You didn't give this any sort of space or attention. Are you gonna regret it? And when I closed my eyes and imagined myself at 35, 10 years into the future, I was like, oh my God, I, it would be one of the biggest regrets of my life. And that leaning into my future and trying on a perspective of future me is the 10 year test and anyone can do it. Now, if I would have gotten the answer like, no, I really wouldn't give a shit, then I probably wouldn't have went on and auditioned. But I did audition and I wound up having this extraordinary career simultaneously to building my coaching practice where I was one of the world's first elite Nike dance athletes. And I got to teach hip hop and salsa and house and all these different dance flavors all around the world.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  And these incredible experiences that would have never happened if I didn't do that 10 year test and get out of a space of fear, thinking that it was like too late at 25. And again, I know how ridiculous that sounds, but in that world, contextually, it made sense.

• 24:29Hala Taha?

  I love that. So as I was researching about your story, there were some things that I realized. So in high school, you tried out for the cheerleading team for many years. When you finally made the team, you became captain, right?

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Hala Taha?

  Then you're the first to go to college. You graduated valedictorian. Then as an adult, you just told the story. You're a dancer, no professional training, started way later than everybody else. Then you become one of the first like elite dancers for Nike, right? So how do you dominate every single random thing that you decide to do? It's really a personality type. I'm very similar, always president of everything, always captain of everything, dabbling in this, this and that, figuring it out. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But I just want to understand like your personality, the personality that it takes for somebody to always want to compete and win and be number one, which sounds like is very much your personality based on what I learned about you. What would you say are the pros and cons of this type of personality?

• 25:24Speaker 01

  One of them is that I'm willing to dive in and not be good at stuff. Like everything I've ever tried, when I start out, I'm not good at all, like terrible. I remember all those times trying out for the cheerleading team and just being like so crestfallen because I was so rejected. It was like, these arms aren't straight and you don't have this, no, no, no. And I was just like, all right, I'm gonna try better next time. And I just put myself on video camera to learn to go, okay, oh, wow, I see how my arms are. Oh, oh, wow. Jesus, I'm a mess. Okay, great. And I think the same thing with coaching. I think the same thing with business. Like I'm not super fast. So a lot of people, I think in the world, sometimes people have these incredible opportunities where they're like, they have, I don't know if it's overnight success, but they're like fast learners.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  And I don't think I'm like that. I think also one of the pros to this type of personality is like, if I really love something, I'm going to just go for it and dive in and trust that it'll all work out. I think one of the cons of having personalities like we do is you can sometimes be your own worst enemy and you can overwork. I think perfectionism is something to really watch out for. Like there's beautiful perfectionism, which means you have high standards and that's awesome because that's where excellence comes from and that is outstanding. And then it can bleed over into some maladaptive forms of it where nothing is ever good enough. You're never good enough. You can push yourself into burnout and you can be really hard on other people too. So I think those are some of the aspects where you have to really keep awareness of yourself.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  And the self punishment and the self torture that can come with this personality type is really something to keep an eye out for.

• 26:59Hala Taha?

  So I want to ask one last question about your career. Have you ever heard of the tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell?

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:05Hala Taha?

  So like basically it's like the boiling point, like you reach critical mass and like everybody knows who you are. So you are one of my role models in this space. When I think of like who I want to be and all these things, I always think of like, you are definitely a name that pops up in my mind. And it was great to have you as a role model before I was able to, you know, be a big podcaster and things like that. So thank you. And I'm curious to know, what point in your career, like now everybody in this space knows your name? You're really recognizable, one of the top females in this business influencer space. What do you think was the tipping point when you're like, everything started, started to really just escalate for you? What was the tipping point?

• 27:45Speaker 01

  It's a great question. Two things about this. One, I don't know if there was one. That's my honest assessment. And I may not be the best person to decide that because I'm so in it. And if you talk to anyone who knows me, any of my friends and colleagues, they'll let you know, even my team. I'm the most heads down person ever. Like my thing is I just show up, I get it done. And then I'm either off, meaning I'm completely unplugged and kind of into another space in my life. And then when I come back, I go heads down again. So because I've been doing this now, and it's been 22 years, right? So it's a really long time. And I think going back to the traits, one of my best traits is my consistency trait.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  So when I first started creating content on a weekly basis, it was through a newsletter, then Cheeziest Title Ever called Magical Moments. It was awesome. That was the best I could do at that time. And I would send out a newsletter every week, nonstop. And then actually, once I got a puppy, it was the first dog I ever had in my life, Kuma, he's 13 now. When I got him, I couldn't blog anymore because raising a puppy and training a puppy takes a lot of time. If anyone listening has ever done it, you know, it's a lot of work. And I was like, oh, I need to just turn on my computer because I remembered from my teaching fitness days. I was like, oh, I can easily look at a camera. And so then it became Marie TV. And I'm saying all this because the consistency and the momentum that has built over time.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  There wasn't one moment. I think it's the long game that has allowed me to create what for me has been a really beautiful experience of business and a beautiful experience of being able to connect with people. There were certainly beautiful moments and I hope that there's many more, but I don't think that there was one that really did it. It was the relentlessness of commitment and consistency that I think has helped me create what we have today.

• 29:37Hala Taha?

  It's totally amazing and it's amazing how you sort of had it as a side hustle, but it was something you were still doing consistently. You had other things that were making you money because that thing wasn't making you money yet, but you kept going at it, getting better at it, learning at it. And it's really, all this stuff is a long game. Same thing with me and this podcast. I've been, I've been working on it for five years. People see me now, but it's like, I've been doing more than five years. I had a blog before this. It's, it's been like a 12 year journey to get here, you know, of all these different experiences in the same sort of path, even though I was doing other things to sustain myself all the while. But it's like sticking on one thing long-term is super important. So let's talk about everything is figure outable. So you have a book that was released in 2019. This is one of my favorite quotes. I actually have it in our, yep, I have a company. I have

• 30:21Hala Taha?

  it in our core values as one of our phrases is everything is figure outable. So what was the genesis of this phrase?

• 30:29Speaker 01

  So this phrase is really, it's the mantra I live my life by. I feel like if my DNA could be words, that would be it. This actually is something beautiful. It was such a gift that was given to me by my mom. So my mom is this really interesting character. She is, she's 75 now. She's still with us. She's awesome. She's super spicy and funny. She is about 5'4". She looks like June Cleaver, which is this character from the 50s, this like Leave It To Beaver show, very, very kind of pure and all-American looking, but she has the tenacity of a bulldog and she curses like a truck driver. She is so spicy. And she actually grew up the daughter of two alcoholic parents in Newark, New Jersey. So

• 31:11Speaker 01

  she really learned by necessity how to stretch a dollar bill around the block like five times, super frugal. And she had made a promise to her. That when she grew up, that somehow she was going to find a way to a better life. And I remember sitting around our house in New Jersey on Sundays and we would clip out coupons together because my mom was like, I'm going to teach you all the different ways that we save money. And the other thing that gave her so much joy was the fact that brands back in the day, I don't even know if they still do this, but back in the day, when you kind of were loyal to a brand, you could cut out what was known as a proof of purchase. So those were on the back of like cereal boxes or milk cartons or orange juice cartons. And if you saved up enough of them, you can mail them in and they would send you something like a free recipe book

• 31:55Speaker 01

  or a whole set of utensils or something like that. And one of my mom's favorite possessions in the whole world was this little AM FM transistor radio that she got from Tropicana orange juice for free. So this little radio looked like an orange. It had this cute red and white straw sticking out of the side. That's the antenna and my mom loves music too. And so I remember as a kid, anytime that I needed to find my mom, like somewhere around our yard or somewhere around the house, all I had to do was listen for the sound of this tinny little radio of her like music blaring out of it. And one day I remember walking home from school and I'm approaching the house and I hear her tunes. It was like a Donna Summer or something.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  I get closer and the music is like coming from a strange orientation. It was actually coming from way up high. I was caught off guard and I look up and I see my mom perched precariously on the roof of our two story house. I don't see a ladder. I don't see, I just see her like perched up there with this little orange sitting next to her butt. And I'm like, Mom, are you okay? What are you, what are you doing? Why do you do it on the roof up there? And she's like, Ray, I'm fine. Don't worry about it. She's like, the roof had a leak. I called the roofer. He said it was going to be at least 500 bucks. I said, screw that. There's some extra asphalt in the garage. I'm doing it myself. Super frugal. I was like, okay, cool. So another day I come home, I remember walking through the door

• 33:19Speaker 01

  and like I hear like, I'm every woman, like in the back and my mom's in the bathroom. I push open the door and there's like dust particles all over and there's pipes sticking out of the wall. Like it looked like a bomb went off. It was crazy. And I was like, Mom, are you okay? What's going on? She's like, oh, you know, the caulking was off and the tiles were cracked. I didn't want the bathroom to get moldy, so I'm re-tiling everything. Now you have to get that my mom is just high school educated, right? And this is the 1980s. So we don't have Google. We don't have YouTube. We don't have TikTok. Like we don't have any of the things that you could look up how to do stuff. And so one day, it was the fall, it was getting dark early and I came home from school and it was already like kind

• 34:00Speaker 01

  of creepy. And as I approached my house, something was different. No lights on and it was totally silent. And for an Italian American home, if it's quiet and dark, this is not a good sign. So I walk in and I had this pit in my stomach because I knew something was off. And I'm like, where the hell is my mom? Where's the radio? Like it's, it's too silent here. And then all of a sudden I hear these clicks and clacks like coming out of the kitchen. I follow the sound and I see my mom hunched over the kitchen table, looked like an operating room. There were screwdrivers and like electrical tape and then in about a dozen pieces, a completely dismantled Tropicana Orange radio. I was like, Mom, what happened? Is it broke? That's like your favorite thing in the world. She

• 34:43Speaker 01

  says to me, she's like, oh, no, everything's fine. She's like, the antenna was off and the dial wasn't working right. So I'm just putting it back together. And I finally thought to ask the question I should have always asked, which was this. I said, Hey, Mom, how do you know how to do so many things that you have never done before? And there's nobody showing you how to do it. And she put down her screwdriver and she cocked her head to the side. She said, Marie, what are you talking about? She's like, nothing in life is that complicated. If you roll up your sleeves, you get in there and you do it. Everything is figureoutable. And I kid you not, I was just like, everything is figureoutable? What? Everything is figureoutable. It's like that phrase washed over me and

• 35:24Speaker 01

  It lodged into my heart so deep that it became the operating system through which I lived honestly, the rest of my life. It got me through high school and abusive relationships and all the BS that most of us go through, getting college and education and rejection, you know, like all the things. And there is not a day that goes by that I still do not use that phrase, or that we don't use it in our team, in our company, or in some aspect, that it doesn't help me when the shiitake hits the fan in life, because it does for all of us, get myself back into a space of going like, let's problem solve, let's get creative, who can I call? I may not have all the answers. I'm not saying that I know how to necessarily figure everything out, but that it is figure outable.

• 36:06Hala Taha?

  I love that. And I know that your mom, she gave you this everything figure outable mantra, which seemed to be work really positive for you. She also had a lot to do with your money beliefs in general. Like you said, she was frugal. And I know that one time you, I heard you tell a story when you were eight years old, you saw your mother sobbing on the phone. And basically, she told you something that was advice that you took heed to, which was a real big benefit in your life, but also led to some overdoing it in some ways. So tell us about that.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it was, I was around eight when my parents got divorced. And so essentially, it was never about like drugs, or infidelity, or you know, anything like that. It was, it was always, my parents fighting was always about money, and there not being enough of it. And so when the divorce finally came final, one day when like the papers were done, I remember watching my mom in the kitchen. And my mom's a little woman, and she had probably lost, I don't know, 15 to 20 pounds, to be perfectly honest with you, like a skeleton. And she, this is back when there was landlines. So she had the phone like wrapped around her hand and blood was drained out of it. And she's on the phone crying to her mother,

• 37:20Speaker 01

  my grandmother, who was in Florida. And she's like, I have nothing. I have nothing. Do you understand that? I have nothing. And then she hung up the phone, and she leaned down, bent down, because I was small. And she put her hands on my shoulders and her forehead was Next to mine and she shook me. She said, Marie, don't be stupid like I was. Do you see what I'm going through right now? Don't ever let a man control your money. Don't ever let anyone control your destiny. Don't be stupid like me. I need you to grow up. I need you to be independent. I need you to take care of yourself. Don't be stupid like I was. And I'm not kidding you, Holla. Like at eight, first of all, I was terrified because I had never seen my mom that distraught.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Second of all, my dad's an amazing person. So I was heartbroken because every kid, most of us, right? We just want our families to be together. And so I formed this little understanding, this little equation, which was this, was that not having enough money means that you're going to lose love. Not having enough money means that families are going to get broken up and not having enough money is a thing that I never want. And I promised myself that I was going to grow up and somehow figure out how to make so much money that it would never take away love again. And I remember even as a kid, hearing other stories from other kids I knew because their families were getting divorced too. And so I had these fantasies of like,

• 38:41Speaker 01

  oh, well, I'm going to earn so much that I can help other people with enough money as well. And so that was kind of a weird, but strange and amazing thing that got planted in me that grew into a desire, a hunger, a commitment to be financially free. It definitely was not a straight line because like I was sharing earlier in this conversation, I got myself in piles and piles of debt after school. So I was certainly not good at it. I think for most of us, there's a lot of mixed messages that we absorb around money, whether that is from our family, from society, our friends, the media, a lot of mixed signals about whether we should want it. Is it okay to want it?

• 39:24Speaker 01

  You shouldn't have it. Are you spiritual? Are you a good person? It like so much stuff that most of us need to work through. And, uh, but that was the genesis for me of having that seed planted of going like, nope, I don't know how, but I'm going to figure out how to earn so much. It's not going to be a problem.

• 39:39Hala Taha?

  And eventually you figure that out. You started becoming really successful, making money. And I heard you on Dear Gabby and other podcasts where you were talking to her about the fact that at one point you were just sort of overdoing it. You were a stress ball all the time, running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Nothing was ever enough. You would always say like, oh, rest in two weeks. I'll rest in two weeks. I have to say, I feel like I'm in that now, running a team of 60 people. And I feel like I'm just three times a week working till midnight still and all these things. I know it's not good for me, but I want to understand what point was the turning point for you when you're like, I need to make a change?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, a couple of things. One, should you be interested? And again, this is only an invitation, but if you're ever like, you know what, I'm kind of done with this. Like I still want to be wildly successful, but I don't want to drive myself into the ground. You need to consider coming to do Time Genius. It's amazing. It'll, it'll keep all of your best qualities and kind of let go, at least for me, of some of the, some of the ones that have grown to be destructive. So for me, probably one of the biggest wake up calls was actually in 2020 because I had been really going at it hard for a while. And it was like a fish in water. It's like, I don't know any different. This is just me. This is what I do. This is how I do it. And there was never a problem with it. It certainly wasn't a burden because I love my work. And it showed up a few times in,

• 41:03Speaker 01

  in my relationship where with Josh, my partner, we've been together 20 years where, you know, he's like, hey, working a lot. And I'm like, yeah, this is what it takes, dude. Like this is what it's about. And so we've definitely had sparring issues over time. And I think I dialed it down a little bit because the truth is my relationship needed more space and needed more attention and if it was going to thrive. But in 2020, I started having all of these weird and unusual pains in my body, which I had never had before. And I, you know, had always taken really good care of my health and as conscious as I can be as a dancer and as a fitness person, you know, movement is part of my life, but things just started to fall apart. And I remember getting all of my

• 41:45Speaker 01

  blood work done and a doctor said to me after she reviewed my blood She's like, Marie, it is a miracle. You're able to get up every day like your adrenals are shot. Then we discovered all of these tumors inside of me, including one the size of a grapefruit growing outside of my uterus, pushing all of the other organs out of place. And it turns out I had to have an urgent hysterectomy to make the pain stop. And so after that surgery, the recovery is like you're, you can't really do much for like six to eight weeks. It's just like your body needs to heal. It's a major surgery. You cannot work out. You can walk and you walk gently, but you just have to really chill. And I'm not kidding you. I have

• 42:28Speaker 01

  never taken six weeks off in my life. I started babysitting when I was nine and I was like, even just the prospect, I remember even when I heard like, no, no, you're not going to be able to do anything for six weeks. I was like, like, it was like such a record scratch moment. But what was so cool about that was in the stillness and in the requirement to just be, I was able to see how much my patterning of drivenness had exceeded what was necessary. And it was as though this drive was driving me rather than me being in control. And there was just layers of it that I was like, this is not even productive. And I am like really about efficiency and productivity.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  And I'm like overdoing it in certain areas and it's causing my body to break down, which is like my sacred vessel in this lifetime. Like this is nuts, Marie. You know, and you can't see things or learn the lessons until they're ready for you. But there was something in that stillness that gave me a perspective that quite frankly, I just didn't have before because I was so, it was such a habit to go so fast and so hard that I didn't know there was even another option.

• 43:39Hala Taha?

  Yeah. And you love your job so much. When you love what you're doing, it's so easy to just keep going, keep going, keep going and not even pay attention to how your body is reacting or feeling. So like you said, you've got this new course, newish course called Time Genius. I definitely want to take it.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  You gotta come take it. You'll love it.

• 43:55Hala Taha?

  Yeah. And you talk about rejecting the time stress trap. Can you explain what that is?

• 44:01Speaker 01

  In my six weeks and so like I had, I've always been obsessed with productivity because again, I love what I do. And I'm always like, well, how do we maximize our time on earth? Like, how do you get the most out of being here, the things that you want to create, the impact you want to make, the different adventures that you want to have? So it's always been a place of interest for me, a place of study. And I love studying neuroscience and I love studying efficiency and effectiveness and all those beautiful things. And when I really started to understand that I was so addicted to like overwhelm and had put myself in a place of burnout, I started to recognize, I was like, wait a minute, this is like two different worlds, two different paradigms where we're so inculcated to believe that if we're not on our phones 24/7, if we're not constantly engaging and creating content

• 44:46Speaker 01

  and trying to reach for more, more, more and bigger and bigger and bigger, that somehow we're not hungry enough, or we're not driven enough. So I started understanding, I was like, it basically came to me, this concept of like, there's the world of time stress, which most of the world is caught in. Here's a stat that might blow your mind. Did you know that on average, right now, these days, the average American will now spend the equivalent of 44 years of their life staring at screens?

• 45:10Hala Taha?

  No, I didn't know that.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Forty-four years of our life. I don't know about you.

• 45:14Hala Taha?

  Mine is like 60 years for sure.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yes. But I don't think the purpose of a human life is to spend 44 years or 66 years staring at screens. And just when I started to really do some research into the stats and I started, I actually asked our audience, I sent out this survey. And I just said, hey, I'm investigating this topic. I'm curious if you have any struggles around productivity or burnout or getting things done, or feeling like, no matter how hard you go, it's never enough. And when you're working, you're like, oh God, I really need to rest, but you feel so guilty for taking rest that you don't take a rest. And then when you take a rest, you're like, oh, I should be working because I have all these other ideas and I need to get ahead. And, oh my God, Hollis, you don't even, the responses, there was like 7,000 in-depth responses in like two days. It was insane. And when I

• 45:59Speaker 01

  started to look at those responses, it became so apparent to me that most of the world was caught, trapped in this awful paradigm that I called time stress, where you feel like, no matter how hard you go, it's not hard enough, that you can't take a break, that you're lazy, if you even want to sit down and rest for like five minutes, that no matter what you do, it's not enough, that you're starting to feel some anxiety, some depression, some burnout, and you feel ashamed about that. And you feel like that if you take a break or slow down, that everything you've worked so hard for is probably going to fall apart. And that's the world a lot of people are living in and they're plastering on smiles and saying, but I got it. I got it together. I got it together. Or they feel like they have to hold it together. They don't realize that there's this whole other possibility, the paradigm I call being a time genius, which is where you can actually get all the things that you

• 46:44Speaker 01

  want to get done and then some and not feel that dread and not run yourself into the ground and not do things that are ineffective and not chase these goals or this cultural mandate for more that honestly is sometimes you don't want everything to grow indefinitely. Think about cancer cells. That's something you don't want more of. And so sometimes actually the secret to getting more out of life of what we really want, which includes abundance and adventure and success, actually requires us doing less. That's not a message we get very often. But anyway, we could keep talking and I want to be quiet because I'm sure you have more questions.

• 47:21Hala Taha?

  Yeah. And I think this is especially, a lot of my audience are small business owners, entrepreneurs. It's especially important for us because as I keep growing my company bigger and bigger, I have more responsibility in terms of payroll and clients and this and that. And sometimes I'm like, what did I do? Like, I could just be rich off my podcast. All right. So in these last couple of minutes, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions at the end in terms of your secret to profiting in life. But first, some actionable tips in terms of time management and productivity. What are your favorite actionable tips that you can share with our listeners?

• 47:51Speaker 01

  I would say one is, I know this sounds really basic, but a lot of people don't do it, is really shift every notification on every electrical device you have to the off position. Default it to off. Do not let yourself be interrupted by other people's ideas, agendas, or notifications. That includes text messages. That includes Slack. That includes email. That includes every social platform. One of the biggest things that crushes our ability to do deep focused work is interruptions and distractions. And when you start setting those notifications to off, like you're going to feel a little uncomfortable at first. You're like, oh, am I not important? No one's reaching out to me? Is it too quiet? But I will tell you, you'll get your core work done so fast and then you'll have so much more space and bandwidth to play and have fun and interact with people and have

• 48:34Speaker 01

  real conversations and not be toast at the end of your day. So that's one thing. The other thing is I always advise people. To make a success plan, not a to do list. So success plan, it's not just semantics. It's actually the framing that's really important is you take four minutes at the end of your day. So before you wrap up for the day and not to wait until five, six, seven, eight o'clock when your brain's frigging toast and you're running on fumes, do it like after lunch at like one or two or something like that. Take four minutes and map out your success plan for the following day. Are there any core meetings that you have to get to? Is there any place you need to show up and be on time? And what are the one to three, not 15, not 27, what are the one to three really

• 49:15Speaker 01

  high value projects, tasks, to do's that you really do need to get done and have those on that list only. And a success plan rather than a to do list, first of all, it frames you up to have a successful day. B, you're able to wake up and hit the ground running because you know exactly how your ideal day should unfold. And when you don't stuff it with 17, 15, 30 things, you have enough margin to be able to be responsive to the oh shiitake moments of life. The internet fails. Technology doesn't work. Something happens with a member of your family. If there's enough white space in there, there's enough margin for you to be able to not only get your most important task done because you've identified what those are in advance, but there's

• 49:59Speaker 01

  enough wiggle room to be able to not let your life get out of control or for you to feel out of control dealing with it.

• 50:04Hala Taha?

  Yeah, guys, this is such simple advice, but it will literally change your life. This is how you make consistent progress day over day and get shit done. When you prioritize your stuff, you know what you're supposed to do that's going to actually move the needle and you don't get distracted with the things that other people have on their agendas in terms of what you should be doing during your day. So I love that advice. Marie, the last two things I ask everybody on my podcast is what is one actionable thing our young and profiteers can do today to become more profiting tomorrow?

• 50:32Speaker 01

  One thing they can do today to become more profiting tomorrow. Well, if you're a business owner, you might want to take a look at expanding either your prices or your offerings to offer something that is either a little more premium or that is catered to an audience who is happy, willing and able to spend more on something that's a little more white glove or a little bit more exclusive.

• 50:56Hala Taha?

  I love that. And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this could be beyond financial.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  You know what? The biggest lesson that I continue to bring myself back to, and I feel like it's like one of my life lessons in this incarnation on earth, is to be in joy as much as humanly possible, even when things are hard, even when things feel uncertain, is to show up and to be in joy because the, the journey's not going to last that long. And it goes faster and faster and faster. And the more that you show up in joy, that vibration, it helps you profit in more ways than one. You have access to greater creativity. You have better connections with the people around you and the journey actually becomes a lot more fun.

• 51:40Hala Taha?

  What a nice way to end the show. And where can our listeners learn more about you and everything that you do?

• 51:44Speaker 01

  So MarieForleo.com, it's M-A-R-I-E-F-O-R-L-E-O.com is kind of the main website. We've got hundreds of episodes of Marie Forleo, of the Marie Forleo Podcast and Marie TV. On all the socials, it's at Marie Forleo. And I think on the website, there's a great free kind of coaching download. It's called How to Get Anything You Want. So it's like a little private coaching session, but you can download it and take it with you anywhere and it's 100% free.

• 52:07Hala Taha?

  Amazing. I will put all those links in the show notes. Marie, thank you so much for your time. It was such a pleasure.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me on.