BILFPOD - The Queen of Pitch Speaks: Dr. Forbes Riley on Sales, Success & Never Shrinking in the Boardroom

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

In this episode of The BilFPod, Mara sits down with the legendary Dr. Forbes Riley—a woman who has generated over $2.5 BILLION in sales, graced Broadway stages, hosted ESPN games, delivered 2 TED Talks, and authored 3 bestselling books. This conversation is raw, real, and absolutely packed with value for every woman who has ever been told to shrink herself in a room. 🔥 In This Episode We Cover: -How Dr. Forbes Riley mastered the art of the pitch and turned it into $2.5 billion in sales -Why women shrink themselves in boardrooms and how to STOP doing it -The truth about being a woman in corporate America and navigating the boys' club -How authenticity is your greatest weapon in sales and in life -Why your appearance, confidence and energy govern everything in business -The double standard women face every single day and how to flip it into power -How to gain respect without changing who you are -The importance of controlling your emotions without losing your authenticity -Why the internet and your voice are the most powerful tools women have today 📲 Connect with Dr. Forbes Riley: Instagram: @forbes_riley 📌 If this episode fired you up, LIKE, SUBSCRIBE and hit the 🔔 so you never miss an episode of The BilFPod—where authenticity trumps authority.

This woman has sold over $2.5 billion in sales better than me. I thought I was the goat in sales. No, I have met my match. I always knew I had potential. I always knew I had some sort of talent. I can ask people to raise their hand. 90% of every room. Who has a fear of failure?

They'll raise their hand. Who has a fear of success? They'll raise their hand. I said, you know what? Congratulations. You will never be successful if you raise your hand. You got this big lesson that things will happen. People you love will leave you.

And if you don't set yourself up in this world to win, you lose. Welcome to the Bill of Pod. We're authenticity, Trump's authority, while you are in for a treat today, because $2.5 million, I mean, that's not $2.5 billion. $2.5 billion. Sorry, let me start again, $2.5. If someone says million in me, I'm like, no, no, no, no, $2.5 billion, not just raised, not borrowed, not in debt.

This woman has sold over $2.5 billion in sales. Better than me. I thought I was the goat in sales. No, I've met my match, ladies and gentlemen. She is absolutely amazing. Ted Talks hosted ESPN Games, right? Let me just make sure. Soap opera, been on Broadway, TEDx Talk.

I don't think there's creative fitness products. I don't think there is anything that this woman hasn't done. I am so excited to welcome you to the show. Dr. Forbes Riley. Woo, girl. Yes. She is a bill. I think you did.

I know if someone said to me, oh, you did $1.2 million. I'm like, billion, billion, no, it's a big deal. Yeah, no. That's incredible.

I sold a million dollars in one day of my fitness product. So yeah, I left that at the station a long time ago. I know. Just saying, just saying, just saying over there. Well, I am so,

I really think I met my match right now. I'm pretty sure I did, but I am so excited to talk to you, just reading through, the cards and just kind of getting, I kind of stalked you on social media a little bit. I wanted to see, you know, what you were doing. And you have an incredible portfolio. Absolutely incredible. You know, I've been doing this my entire life. And unlike you, I just, I'm turning 66 this next month. What? I'm turning, yeah. There's no way.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. It's an interesting thing on. Well, but it's also, that's the only way you can justify all that I've done because I've lived about 22 different lives. And you know, it's funny, we were going to meet in your studio in Orlando. But, Since we're not, I have a treat for you and your audience. I'm in my television studio. I own an entire building that I dedicated to all the things that I'm doing. And I will share with you in just a few minutes. We'll talk for a little bit.

But then I'll walk you down the hallway and I'll show you things that you'll never see anywhere else. I'm so excited. Can we just, should we just dive in? Are you cool with diving in? Anything off limits? Are you kidding me? No. By the way, have you seen my husband as well?

Speaking of off limits? No. Oh, baby girl. You're missing out on something even better than my studio. you have your phone with you? I do. All right. Go to Instagram.

Let me see how I can, can I share my screen. Wait, if I can share my screen, I'm going to make your audience, and I'm not quite sure, you know, let's look at your audience, is anything like you. I have a feeling that you're just going to go, wait, what? On top of all those things that she's done, because I'm a big manifester, and I have a sense that you are as well, yes? Oh, did I? Yes, of course I am.

I manifest everything. And I have to visualize it. Big into visualization. So I'm going to share you something. because on top of everything I've ever done, I think that's part of it. And when people talk about success, how we define success defines who we are. But I always have a little joke when I play. And I say people always like, Forbes, can I see your husband?

Right? Because that would be like, you know, you're 66. How cute could your husband be? And so if you don't say, wow, I'll give you $100. Deal? Okay, a deal. Okay. That's my husband.

That's your husband? Yeah. Wow. On top of everything else that I figured out, I got a man. man who is just, I mean, yeah. In fact, that's one of my favorite photos of him. And dude, you look like you came with the, with the television screen. So I'll just show that with you because I thought you'd get, you'd smile and you'd laugh a little bit. I definitely am smiling and laughing for sure. I don't want my husband to see it. He might get

a little jealous. I'm trying to get my husband to look like that. He just said forget he used to look good like that with the abs, but I think he was just like forget it. You can take it all on. Well, I will tell you because of him, I also ended up in the bodybuilding competition two years ago. I really do feel like things like things I've just I've lived the most extraordinary life. How old are you my girl? Can you tell? Oh, I can't believe you asked me. I am 43 years young. Well, let me show something. Did you guys, did you see my school of Hod Knox episode? No, I did not see you. James just interviewed me. I have 18 million views on an interview in TikTok and 12 million on Instagram for a video he and I did. And that little 22 year old scored at the

end of the interview, he asked me how old I am. And at first I was thinking, man, you don't do that to a woman. And I said, I didn't even say 65, which is what I am right now. I said 66. And he said to me, it's like, oh, you look like you're 35. And I'm like, oh, you're a really good picture. And I will tell you that it's been a life well led, but I have some massive secrets that I cannot wait to share. And to your point, you said, you know what I did? I put them all in a book. I love that. Well, it's funny. I have lots of books. My old book is what have you. I saw that one. What have you Forbes lately? And that's about manifesting anything, especially when no one else believes it's possible.

But my whole life has really been about this one word. I now teach it. I preach it. I've got over 107,000 students. And I will tell you, when I ask you, what does the word pitch mean? What do you think it means? I mean, pitch is a, there's an elevator pitch. And then I also pitch, like, recruiting pitch.

And then there's pitch your tone. Well, there is. But there's also, you got married, right? I did. He pitched you. He did pitch me. Absolutely. He sold me. He sold me. But that's what we do every day all day. If your husband's ever taken out the trash or your kids have ever done something they didn't want to do, you pretty much pitch them. Yeah, I actually am a pitcher. I definitely get people to do things.

Well, there's no way you can't be as successful as you are without pitching. Everybody in your institution, you pitch my team to bring me on the show. You pitch every day all day. And when your audience and everyone, especially as women, we stop being bitchy and we start pitching. It's a big difference. and that is about strategically getting to a yes. So if I asked you, do you want to see something cool? What are you going to say? Yes. Yeah. How did I know you're going to say yes?

Because I firmly believe you don't ask a question you don't know the answer to. Oh my God, I love you. That's my words every day. I say this every day. I never ask it to my kids too. Like when I want to ask a question of them, I'm like, listen to me. I never ask you a question. So you better tell me the answer because I already know.

Were you always this, spunky? Were you always this positive? Yeah. I mean, as I got older, yes, I've always been like this, but as I've gotten more seasoned, I think I've come more into it, you know, the confidence and really understanding sales. And I've been in sales for almost 20 years, which is like the school of hard knocks for anybody. And that's really where you get the confidence from. Well, I completely agree.

And so for me, I didn't want to do any of this. I hate sales. I hate being sold to. I didn't grow up with any money. And in fact, one of the crazy things that I'll share with you when I give you my tour, but I grew up, I had an issue with my job. When I got to elementary school, I ended up in braces for. eight years of my life. My jaw was so weird. And can you imagine your little kids being embraces

for eight years, what it would do to their self-esteem? And then they screw this thing in my mouth called a tongue thruster. I got a fork in my mouth. And so I didn't talk for two years in my life. And one of the things that I learned during that time, because I believe that life happens for you, not to you, that people waste their words. They communicate badly. And I don't want to listen to most people talk anyway. Because they were gossipy. They were talking about boys or this or that. And this whole concert of communication. So when I finally got the braces off and figured out what I wanted to, again, you know, it's such a struggle. It's not even that simple. Not only did I have braces, but when the braces came off, I was about 12 years old, I got hit in the face of the baseball bat,

and I shattered my nose. So I ended up being this oddly deformed kid with frizzy hair, overweight, broken nose, who talked funny. And the funniest thing happened. My dad got into a bad accident. You know, like Forbes, that's not really funny. Well, it wasn't really funny. He slipped as a printer and he cut off the whole front of his hand when I was in high school. And he spent three years in the hospital. So now what I know it's like to be flat-ass broke, to have no money and to be hungry. But I didn't give up on my dreams. And I know that sounds crazy.

But my mother, who was a second-generation immigrant, turned to me one day in the hospital and said, kiddo, I'm really sorry. We have no money for college. And that was the only dream that made sense to me. Look, you're smart, get a good education, go be a lawyer, save your family. And we're standing in the hospital room that I'd been in for about two and a half years. and she looked at my face and she said, well, you know, the Miss Teenage America pageant is coming to town.

I'm just going to show you a picture of this because this is too cool. And she looked at my face and you know what you look at your kids and she said, well, that won't work for us. She wasn't being mean. She was being protective. I'm going to walk down the hallway. Right. So, guys, I'm in my studio at the moment.

It's a little dark right now. But that is my office down here. I love the pink. I mean, the whole pink. I mean, I just adore pink. I love it. Somebody just send me this. It's a cover of a new book.

They put me in the center of all of their peeps. Very interesting. And when I started doing, I moved out to Florida, I needed a place to work. And my ex and I found this building. And this building was a printing place. It was a very lousy, noisy, not lousy, but noisy printing press. I walked in here. The carpet was this thick.

It had been smoked on for 50 years. And so I gutted it to the walls. And I ended up with the Forbes Valley. Not only that, but all of, I had a place to put all my trophies now and all my awards and all the things that I've won over the years, magazine covers I've been on the cover of. But anyway, so I built this whole building, and my whole thought behind the building was if you build it, they will come. And so I'm going to make it make sense that we're not in your studio. We're in my studio today.

So as I was looking through my scrapbooks, because my parents passed away, they left me all these photos that made no sense to me. So I said, that's a terrible thing to do to your kids. Don't do that. I'm going to close this for a second. Josh, can you send that down for one second? And so I said, I watched the movie Joy. Have you seen it? No, I haven't seen Joy.

Oh, okay. So Joy is about a young woman, not unlike you and me, who was very, really aggressive in some way, wanted to be successful. And she grew up in Long Island. Anyway, it's played by Jennifer Lawrence in the movie worth watching because she took a product to home shopping just like I did. She made $400 million, and they made a movie about it. She ended up at the Academy Awards and Jennifer won a Golden Globe. I'm going to say, you know what, if you build it, they will come. So I built an entire wall, an entire studio. Oh, wow. Oh, wait, no, no, the entire studio. And I put my life up here. And so it's kind of a, I don't get to do this very often because normally I'd be seeing. This is amazing.

I'm so excited. But I started out as a very cute, you know, it's kind of a cute little girl. I had no, you know, for a promise. I was looking at this the other day my mom and dad and I thought, man and dad were so pretty. And what a wonderful, beautiful couple, right? Well, somewhere along the line, though, my mom was a very sad person. When she lost both of her parents, everything just shattered. She became overweight.

And so this is me. Remember I said I was kind of ugly? Can you see that? I mean, I wouldn't say ugly, awkward. I would just say awkward. What happened in one day? So what happened was my mom looked at me, told me about this pageant, said, that's not going to be for us. My father's doctor looked at me and said, you know what, I'm going to fix your daughter's nose.

Now, this is ridiculous. Nobody's doing surgery like that in 1975. But he did. Watch what happened from this picture to that picture. You see that? Turn it to the right. No, I can't see you move to the right a little bit. So here.

Oh, there you go. Wow. Holy, wow. Right. So in just a couple of days, I went from being butt ugly to like, wow. And I borrowed a hammy-down bridesmaids dress because my mom said, look, she said, The Miss Teenage America Pageant is here. All I know is I got my tap shoes.

I borrowed a hand-me-down bridesmaid's dress. And if you can see any of this, I ended up winning. Holy, look at you. Well, I know. And I was a little chunky, but I was. I'll tell you what, I look kind of cute. I got all the way to the Nationals. Do you know who this?

I don't really do this as a tour. Do you know who? Where am I looking? Not there, but down. Do you know who that is? I can't see clear. Do you know who was that? Oh, here it is.

You know who Bob Hope was? Of course I know Bob Hope. Well, that's me in 1975. It's 1977 with Bob Hope, who was the host of the Miss Teenage America pageant. That's good. And I ended up winning. So there you go. That was the beginning.

this ugly, awkward little girl set out to save her family and ends up with a beauty pageant title. And then I ended up going off to college and doing a lot of things. So see goofy little things. It's a little hard to see. But this is me. I did my first game show when I was 18. I wanted to make money. I was wild and creative. And that is me on the $20,000 pyramid. And then I ended up, like you said, on Broadway with Superman, Christopher Reeve. And I'm done all this. So I can just kind of pull out here. It literally talks about Bob Hope and my relationship with him, movies that I've starred in and a lot of fun things that I managed to do. This was the very first audition I ever had. I landed the lead in a movie called Splatter University. So I went from being this ugly, awkward little girl who said she wanted to be in the TV and movies to being somebody who was in

TV and movies. And I didn't know anybody. I had no relations and no money when I started. In fact, that first audition was an ad in what's called backstage magazine. And then I put all of this stuff on the wall because you would never imagine that one girl could do all of this with no help, no direction. No, are you an only child? Any brothers? I have a younger sister, but I don't really know where she was. Because between the accidents and the way my parents raised us, they raised, my mom raised us both to be her best friend because she was an only child. And I don't really know my sister very well. She's three years younger and she was just doing her own thing. We went through some pretty tough times as kids. Not only was my dad in the hospital, my mother was held up at gunpointed at the

house. And it's very, very long kind of weird crazy story. So I was in survival mode for most of my life. But I was also, I just kept having visions about what I could do. So one of the crazy things that I used to do is I used to work for ClubMed. Have you ever been to a ClubMed? No, but I know exactly what it is. Well, what's unique about ClubMed is it's an all-inclusive resort. And unlike hotels, they have entertainment every night and all day. And I went to one as a guest and I thought, they could do better.

I was 26 years old working on Broadway and I'm sitting looking at this organization thinking, you guys could do better. I go to New York City. I knock on the door of Clubmen. I said, and they said, you know, can we help you? I said, no, I don't think you can help me, but I think I need to help you. And he's like, we're a multi-million dollar corporation around the world. What do you can do for us? I said, your entertainment is not as good as it could be. You're a French-owned country. I was in Mexico, and the Americans there, they were not as happy as they could be. Can I show you some things? And he's like, okay. So the next thing I know, I'm spending three weeks in Mexico redesigning their entertainment. And for the next 10 years, I had carte blanche to go anywhere around

the world that I wanted to. I just dove into this concept. Nobody ever gave me permission to do it. I just ran with my heart. And I don't even know how you would duplicate that. So I come back, because I'm working as an actress in New York City. And as an actress, you can be a waitress if you want, but I'm terrible waitress. So I decided to take charters down to Club Med whenever I wanted to live this exotic life, go scuba diving, play tennis and golf and horseback ride. And then come back to New York City and pound the pavement. And I did, okay, I did lots of soap operas and movies and TV, but I just couldn't sit still. So get this.

And you'll appreciate this. You're probably one million people on the planet who'd appreciate all of this. But I come back and I had this crazy notion that I never went skiing. Skiing was for rich people who were so broke that I wanted to ski. So you had to try it. Well, no, I didn't do that. I just said to the universe, I want to ski. The universe then showed me an ad in a newspaper that,

said wanted a club med type host who's good at skiing now i'd never skied and so i answered the ad and i when i got there the first thing you know they ask you is do you know how to ski and i don't believe in lying i just believe in not saying the entire truth and i said no what i just said i said yes just not yet and i know that sounds crazy but i got the job the job was to do this stand-up comedy thing at ski resorts. I ended up creating this entire world at Sita Ski Resort there. That's us creating an outdoor snow volleyball game for Jose Cuervo Tequila. You can't even quite comprehend. I designed the t-shirt and we would do this whole, I don't even know how, you know, when you ski there's on a ski lift, there's like little billboards that you go past as you're going up the mountain. Well, we decided to

rent out that billboard space for Jose Cuevo Tequila, for Chevrolet automobiles. And I was the host of this entire event, we would go and would take over a mountain for a day. And I would do that 10 weeks every winter. What a bizarre thing that all of a sudden. So what happened was there was one club med in New York State, sorry, in the United States that was at a ski resort in Colorado called Copper Mountain. And as soon as the guy said, I really think that you'd be right for this, I went, I checked myself into the ski resort for two weeks, learned how to ski good enough to do blue diamonds, the next thing, know I did that job for 10 years. And that turned into, and don't even ask how this happened into me hosting the original X games for ESPN.

Wow. I did that and I don't know anything about sports, but I sure didn't talk a lot. Anyway, so if you go down the hallway, you'll see that I ended up hosting an amazing talk show, which was an awful lot of fun, a little ahead of its time. And then infomercials came out and the next thing you know, there's Kim Kardashian, there's Billy Mays, there's Bruce Jenner, there's George Foreman and Mario Lopez and Wolfgang and Jane Fonda. I did the- Incredible.

I just kept going. I had this goofy idea of what I could do with my life. And the entire time, I just wanted to be an actress. And I did star in TV shows. And I did, if you ever seen 24 on Fox. I've been on a lot of these. I just never got to the Julia Roberts level that I wanted. But I ended up launching the whole concert of selling fitness on television with Jacob Body by Jake.

I created my own fitness product. Ended up in the National Fitness Hall of Fame. Did another talk show. And there's Joy from the movie Joy. Isn't that crazy? That, I mean, so I feel like you kind of always knew that you weren't just going to be, you know, you weren't just going to be Forbes Riley. You were going to be Forbes Riley.

Like, without, like, unapologetically, there was no, you already knew. You kind of, like, I feel like you kind of grow up like that. No, I feel like people are born like this. So here's the crazy thing about that. That's not quite true. And I don't really know how we got here. By the way, I'm in my studio at the moment. This is my television studio or part of it.

It's beautiful. It looks so good. Oh, wait. You know what's really beautiful that you will love? Maybe you need to come over to St. Pete and we'll do an interview because how many can have their own? Tadda! Oh, yes, I do. I need to.

I'm jealous right now. I'm so jealous right now. I need this. I need this in my life. I'll tell you what. We all need a little bit of forms in our lives. So the other thing, too, is when I built the whole studio and I built every piece of this studio, do you see this down here?

This is actually here. Dream it believe and achieve it. In glitter. But let me share something for your audience because I wasn't this person. I grew up very awkward, very lonely, very ugly, but I had a vision that I could be a little bit more than that. So here's the thing. I didn't grow up as Forbes Riley. I grew up as Francine Forbes.

I grew up as Francine-Katish Forbes. That was my mother's maiden name because in my culture, that's what you do. You give, if you're a boy and you're the old, a girl and you're the oldest, the boy. carry on the name. So that was my middle name. And I hated it. I don't, Marr, what is your middle name? Susan. Yeah, that's a nice normal name. Mara Susan, you know, Bobby Joe and... No, it's not. What's not nice? Well, you know, when you're older, you see things differently than when you're a kid and you get bullied. Yeah. And so I was living my life. I was acting. I was, you know, I will share something with you. I didn't grow up with any friends. And I know that sounds really crazy. And I know that sounds really crazy.

lonely and awkward and weird. But because of that, I was my best friend my whole life. Yeah. So you always had confidence, like you knew you. You were comfortable with you. I always traveled with me. I always had conversations with me because I was the only one at some point that I could rely on. And I met a man in Los Angeles in my early 30s that it would become the father of my children. And I had a really bad ski accident. I broke my knee. He lost an election. and we kind of huddled in my friend's house. Now, by the way, my idea of being homeless is squatting in my friend's multi-million dollar mansion for six months.

Let's get real about my idea of homeless. And so we were both very unhappy at the time, but we're living large. And I went to an image consultant. And for the first time in my life, I was 31 years old. A couple of things had to change. I always knew I had potential. I always knew I had some sort of talent. But I didn't know, back then, communication wasn't a talent.

If you sang it was a talent, if you danced or played a musical instrument, but I could talk. And I know that you appreciate that because talking turns into pitching, turns into selling, turns into multi-million dollars. I just didn't know it. And so I meet this man for one hour. I am wearing all white, like a white t-shirt and white shorts. I haven't put on makeup in about a year.

I had a knee operation, and it was so painful for an entire year. walk well. I was always unhappy. I don't remember being 31. That's how un-painful it was. He sat me down and he said, he said, number one, when I showed up to his house, I'd send him some photos and video that he asked for. He said, you should never show up without makeup on. I'm like, excuse me? He says, yeah, I get that you're pretty like Sharon Stone pretty, but you're not natural like Julia Roberts. And I'm like, oh, fuck you two. I mean, I'm sorry, that's a terrible word, but, dude, I'm already kind of a broken person. you're telling me that I need makeup to look pretty? Thank you. He said, no, no. He said, it's not a bad thing.

He said, I get that you're a star. He said, but you don't get it. And that was like, what? And then he had me do these things. And maybe you've had them, but most women have never had them. He had me go get my hair cut and color for the first time. It was big and black and bushy. He had somebody professionally do my makeup. He told me that I needed to get my clothes done. I needed to understand my colors. And for the first time, I started to look at me as a bit of a commodity. What would, what makes, I didn't have the mom who had the style. In fact, one of my jobs at a college was I went to live with a billionaire in his wife because I knew. I wanted to learn. I didn't know what style in class was. We had the same plastic couch, you know, the plastic cover on my couch. The covers, yes.

That's what they knew. That's all they could afford. And God bless them, they loved me. But they couldn't, I watched movies and TV. Somebody out there was rich and famous. Somebody out there was living this amazing life. Why not me? And so he, I did all of those things. things. And then the craziest thing and the most insulting thing, because like you said, I don't think you like middle name of Susan. He said to me, I don't like your name. And at this point, I'm already feeling like, dude, you don't seem to like anything about me. I've got no class, no style. Oh, by the way, when I went to work for the billionaire, I'm in her car one day. And this is very pre-instagram, very pre-social media. And she says, you need to get Louis Vuitton out of the trunk.

And I looked at her and said, I'm sorry, who's in the trunk? And she looked at me and said, learn. And I said, you're right. I will. I will learn. And that's been, that was in my early 30s. And then he said, I don't like your name. And I'm like, dude, okay, I get it. I'm not anything. He said, no, no, he said, Francine, which is my first God-given name. He said, is a very old-style name. He said, what's the name of your first dog? What street did you grow up on? I said, Snoopy Arrow. That makes a very bad porn name, right? Snoopy Arrow. And then I said, I was living with a guy named Riley. He said, that's it. Forbes Riley. And I said, you're out of your freaking mind. That's like a law firm. I don't know what a Forbes Riley is. I've never heard of that. And I went home to my

26-year-old boyfriend at the time, who's six foot six. He's a really tall, all-blonde, Notre Dame football player. And I said, I just wasted a whole bunch of money, and I'm really sorry. I said, this guy wants me to cut my hair, do my makeup. And he said, well, you know, your hair is a little bushy. I'm like, okay. How about my makeup? He said, well, I keep telling you that your eyes are too dark and your lips are too red. I'm like, who the, where did you come from? Like, and then I said, okay, asshole, and I meant this in all love. This guy, we're not married, wants me to take your last name and he wants to call me Forbes Riley. And he looked at me. His name is Tom. And he said, God bless him. He was 26 at the time. And he said, that's exactly who you are. There you go. And for 33 years, I have been,

becoming a vision of myself that I think is designed to help other people and is way bigger than the little girl who used to cry herself to sleep every night. That's an incredible story. And I love, I don't know if you realize, but in there, you know, you reinvent yourself several times in there. You realize, like, at a young age. And I love that. I mean, is it, do you think there's ever going to be, somebody just asked me this the other

day, I went on a podcast and they asked me, Mara, do you ever think it's ever going to be enough for you? What's your answer to it? There's always another mountain to climb. It's never. What is it? That's how I, enough is what is what is shit. What does enough look like? Well, I wouldn't know what it looked like. Enough is that I've gotten 18 Academy Awards, 44 children, 18,000. What is enough? Enough is that the world is not hungry. No. In fact, I don't need to work, and I'm working harder than ever, because how old are your kids? I have one that's 18, one that's 15, and one that's

eight. You'll appreciate this part of the reinvention story. It's COVID. It's COVID. 2020, my beautiful husband has been in a really bad automobile accident, shattered his ankle, spends six months in a wheelchair, loses everything physical, and that's what he's all about. Obviously, the world is ending, and my daughter comes downstairs, my twins, their 23 boy girl, are upstairs doing their homework, and my daughter walks down at 17, and she looks at me, and she said, Mom, what are you doing? And I said, nothing. She said, my mother is doing nothing, the woman that I've traveled around the world with, who's done, you know, built mountains, wouldn't you nothing? She said to me, how about we, we started a business? And I said,

said, I love you, my little 17-year-old. Why don't you just get a C in English and I'll be happy? She said, no, Mom, you don't understand. I already build businesses. I'm like, I think she's just telling me a story. She said, you know I've been on the Internet since I was 12. I'm like, yeah, I know you fiddle around, you do some coding. She's done, I do more than that.

She said, I've taken all your celebrity friends like Les Brown and Joe Thaisman, and I built them YouTube pages and landing pages and websites. I'm like, you have? She's like, yeah, Mom, you're the only one who doesn't believe. in me, and then she showed me a six-figure bank account. She was 17. And I'm like, where did you get that money? She's like, I can do this for you if you'll let me. In fact, she said to me, mom, if you let me, I'll make you a million dollars in a year or you don't have to work with me. And I'm literally thinking, I've got nothing to lose right now. I'm not doing anything anyway. And she said, but you have to choose.

She said, your biggest problem is a couple of things. One, mom, you don't focus. You do fitness and you do pitching. Pick one. And I'm like, that's like picking one of my twins. She said, you can't do both. And during COVID, since we manufacture in China, let's not do your fitness. Let's just focus on pitching. And then I said, but I can't teach anybody what I do. I'm a genius. You said, yes, you're a genius, but I've been listening to your infomercials.

I've been dissecting what you do and you have a formula. I'm going to tell you, Mom, you may not realize it, but you do the same thing every time. And I'm like, excuse me? So we sat in the room for three weeks. Now, I know you probably use something like a click funnel or go highlight, whatever. you've used. I had funnel system for three years. I made lots of pretty funnels. I never launched one of them. I paid people a lot of money to get online. Everybody kind of screwed me over. I was so gullible. And she sits me down and I do my very first online training. I've trained in person.

I mean, I love training in my studio. I have a thousand dollar training that I do for four weeks, right, on how to pitch. She has me do my first webinar. There's only 25 people in the room. The next morning I call her and I'm like, McKenna, can you help me understand? My account has said zero for three years. Today it says 25K. What does the K stand for? She's like, Mom, you closed 100% of the room last night. He made $25,000. And I'm like, that's incredible. We did that for the next four weeks, Mara. You know what that added up to? A six-figure business of $100,000. I will show you something. Nine months later, I have the honor of saying, and this is six years ago, that I have a two comic club award, because I,

got my million dollars two times over. Look at you. And this year, we're going to get our $10 million one for a funnel. And you're teaching people how to pitch, right? That's like you're, that's the from A to Z. Well, I know that's the premise of your book, but really teaching, is it focused primarily towards women or anybody can go? Oh my God. Are you kidding me? I don't know the difference between men and women. Try and explain it to me. You're a, no, I listen, I agree with you. I just didn't know if you were like female. I have no idea why women do that to themselves. Does Tony Robbins only teach men? Why? There's, No, I agree with you. I agree with that. Everyone laughs. I didn't, I didn't really understand.

I mean, it works for like my schick to say I was in a female, you know, predominantly male dominated business, but I never knew. I really never saw it like that, saw it. I was just with, you know, peers. That's what I agree. And here's the thing. I have 60% men. As far as I'm concerned, if you've got the ability to communicate. So what this is, and I think it's really important to understand. I love this. Pitching is a life skill. Pitching is not. You have to send me a book. I'm sorry? You have to send me a book. I love. Oh, I will absolutely send your book. And here's what I do for a day.

You're going to love it is unlike most people's lives that are black and white, my book is 100% color because that's how life should be. And so there's amazing lessons in here. But the thing that you'll get a kick out of is I'm the least famous person in my own book. There's Kim Kardashian. There's Mario Lopez. There's all the people that I've worked with throughout my entire career. There's Serena Williams and there's Tony Horton.

And most people are like, I didn't know you did all this. I'm like, I know that. So part of the book is a little bit of a testament to the world's greatest job. journey of working. But in here, you know, it's 26 letters. What would you make A in your book about pitching, do you think? Um, about pitching? Yep. Oh, I don't know. You're putting me on the spot. A is for, um, absolute. Well, A could be authenticity. Could be asked, but you know authenticity. Authentity. Yeah. A is attitude. I'm going to tell you something. Oh, there you go. See, put me on the spot. And of course I'm going to put you on the spot. That's what I did.

I've been absolute. Like, I'm absolutely going to be asked. I'm absolutely going to. to sell you. Yeah. Well, here's the crazy part about this is that pitching is not a business skill. It's a life skill. Every day you ask someone to do something, they say yes, you win. And in the book, I think you can teach this to Pete, you think that people, real question, do you think that people are born with a natural ability to sell or to pitch? I like how you call it pitch. I say manipulate people who say pitch. I think that people are born with a natural kind of charisma. you've seen that little kid who can just get out there and be adorable. Some people have that, but here's the cool thing.

Whether you have it or not, I'm very much an introvert. That's why I teach. I have a whole training called elevator pitch 2.0, and I use it to get on Grand Cardone stage and speak in front of 10,000 people because the system works better than I do, okay? I used to go to events. I'm wildly introverted and I've got a good amount of ADHD. I can get more done than most people can in one hour, but I can never find my keys. But I would go to an event and I'd want to throw up on people. I was so, I wanted to just

be successful. I saw what not having anything look like. And it didn't feel very nice. And I thought, how do I do this? And by the way, I never found anyone to give me the answers. I went to my first seminar that helped me uncover some personal development when I was 31 years old. And I teach some of that. And I highly recommend for everybody watching this, the first thing you want to do in business is clean up your closet. Get out of your own way. And what do I mean by that? You can't build a whole beautiful house on sand.

You just can't because if the foundation is rocky. So a couple things I used to do, I used to lie to myself. I didn't understand a lot of things, especially coming from my parents. So if I wasn't born that way and I didn't grow up that way, I saw the vision of what I wanted. And here's the cool thing for all of you. You can get anything. and everything you want.

Now, you say, well, Forbes, I really want to be this. Well, you're okay, you're not going to be 5 foot 11 if you're 4 foot one. Right. Get realistic about things that you do want. But anything that's achievable by anybody else is achievable by you. Your job is to one figure out how did they do it? What was their special sauce? And if you recreate that, you can get close.

You can even exceed your mentors. That's the coolest thing. but so many of you have such limiting beliefs about who you are. Mara, I host class every week live every Sunday and I'm happy to give it to you guys for free. If you get a free gift from Forbes Riley, every Sunday for the last six years, I do that same webinar. I don't have 25 people anymore. I have 2,500 every single week. I love that for you. I love it. I love that. And I love your beliefs. I teach the same thing here. You know, I say, I always say this. There's nothing different about me than anybody else, nothing. In fact, like if you're looking at the screen and you know

that you're looking at this girl and you think this chick can do it, so can you. The only thing that ever separated me was my will, my want, my why. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not the youngest or hottest anymore. But you know what? The biggest thing is people's belief. And I do believe 100%. If I wanted to walk on water, I would do it without a doubt. And people have limited belief in themselves. And that is, I mean, all of the stuff I talk about with my, I love that. It's belief. Yeah.

Belief. It's full belief in yourself because nobody is going to help you. Nobody's coming to save you. By the way, C is closed. This is definitely a business book, but it's also business is life for me. What is your why? You know what? It's so cliche that you ask me that it changes.

Obviously my why are my children, right? That's, I mean, that's just a give me. My why is my children, but it changes. My why right now is to, and I know this sounds so cheesy, but it's to positively impact every single person that I meet. No, wait, but, that is your what. That's what you're doing. See, you and I don't really know each other.

And if you asked about how do you get to this stage, this state of being that you want to have the ability to impact as many people as you and have, really what is the why? Go back to you as a kid. Why do you do what you do? You could do anything. Why? Because I do, my honest thing is because I feel like I have a greater purpose than myself.

No, go back. Did you have a great mom and dad? I had an incredible mother. Ah, not a dad, though. My dad died when I was little, when I was six. Okay. What decision did you make about life based on the fact that you lost your dad when you were just sick? Shit happens. It doesn't matter what happens in life. You put your pants on, your makeup on, and you keep moving. Okay. You have the same impetus that my husband has. His dad died when he was two. His stepdad was killed when he was 15.

So you and he have a different energy and a different reason. The why is, Did your mom suffer after you passed away? Yeah, mildly, yeah, but it was like the way that I grew up is that shit happens. You got to keep moving. Yeah, I'm sure she did financially, yes, but overall in the end, yeah, I'm sure there was some suffering, but she never let me know. Right, but look at the lessons that you learned. So no matter how you were born, you got this big lesson that things will happen. People you love will leave you.

And if you don't set yourself up in this world to win, you lose. Is that fair? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That's that memo. Some people with helicopter parents are taught, okay, it's not fair if I don't get, you know, if I don't get a trope. No, there's no victim mentality in my house.

Absolutely not. That is a thing that you are raised with. I talk to so many students every single week. I can ask people to raise their hand. 90% of every room, who has a fear of failure? They'll raise their hand. Who has a fear of success? They'll raise their hand.

I said, you know what? Congratulations. You will never be successful if you raised your hand. It's true. Yeah, it's true. Now, you can learn these behaviors. because you can hang out with people like you and me. You can listen to podcasts like this.

And you can go, all right, if it's to be, it's up to me. What's the formula? Yeah. It's hard, though. It's hard to change people. I mean, this is a whole mindset reset. And coming from sales, think about it to a male-dominated industry. You know why women fail?

Why do you think women fail? They have no belief in themselves. And they keep telling themselves they will fail. Go ahead. Why do you think they fail? That. That's number one. but I also think that they fall victim to their own, their own insecurities.

You know, they start putting. And maybe you have a thought about this, but let's get real here. You know, there's things that you will never change. You cannot change human nature. I was talking about this today about greed. You must expect that greed will always exist from people. It's not that they're not nice, but we as humans are designed for self-preservation first. You, that's, as an organism, that's what you are doing.

Now, it's very sweet. As a mom, you're willing to sacrifice yourself, but you won't sacrifice yourself for pretty much anybody else. So the kids you gave birth to, that's different. And so don't be so surprised if somebody screws you over. That's kind of how, that's the nature of humanity. It's expected. Yeah, it's expected. In fact, the nice ones are the ones that are unusual. So how do you move past that? In a male and female environment, I don't know. I remember that some governor or somebody in Texas, made a law or something that said he said, he's going to crack down on rape. And I thought, you're such an idiot. Such an idiot. Do you know that rape happens mostly with people that you know in your home? You're not cracking down on anything unless we have spy cameras everywhere. So that's so women are always going to have this thing where we can easily be physically dominated. And men, and I swear to God, I had to teach my daughter this lesson. My daughter's a 23-year-old, eight-figure earner on her own, blonde hair, young-looking. You, she, walks in or any young woman walks into a boardroom full of men, what do you think the men are thinking?

They're not going to think, oh, I should respect her. She's so successful. Right away, no respect. I could bend her over the desk and do her if I wanted to. Yep, that's the first thing. Now, here's the problem. I can't fault somebody for saying that. That's how men are designed. That's what they're on the planet to do. So the question, though, is as a woman who's smart, who doesn't want to be viewed as aggressive or bitchy, how do you align expectations so that everybody in that room can win? What do you think? I mean, it's relatability. You have to gain the respect off like right, right from the beginning. And it's something that like coming in so young that I battled with my whole entire life until now, because I'm seasoned. But you know, at first it was relatability. How do you get relatability and

credibility and then not sell yourself short? Because unfortunately, the women in my industry, they end up sleeping with the men thinking that that's the way too. So it's really hard. I mean, unfortunately, it's just a sad reality, but that's what it comes down to. It's real it's relatability. And once they. It's also respect for yourself. Respect.

That's exactly the second part of it. I work with so many women and I don't know where you fall in the spectrum, but everyone, almost everyone I know has been molested to some level, including myself. And how it affected my take on men and my attitude and what I want to life. And I don't know that a lot of life. And I don't know that a lot of men, men certainly deal with that, but not most of them. Right. Whereas most women do.

Absolutely. I think what women need nowadays, and this is different. This is not for men conversation. Although it would be nice if you respected your sisters, wives, daughters more. But as a woman, you've got to, like you said, pull your big pants on and go, okay, you know, if that's how you view me and we want to do business, I've got to tone down all the sexuality. Maybe I have to dress a little different so that I'm not noticed so that the first that walks into my room is that my, boobs because if you and it's not that we're asking for anything but that's an important statement. How do you view yourself? How do you neutralize that if you want to do business? If you want to

shut men down because as a woman, if you're too aggressive and I know you've seen this or you're too pushy, they don't want to work with you. They don't. But then it's a double edge short. You know, people, men want us to be, you know, be pretty, but don't be too pretty. You know, be humble, but don't be cocky. So it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, constant, you know, give and take. But what I did learn being in the boardroom for so long is when you are authentic. Look, I'm not changing the way that I dressed. I started. When I first started in the career, same thing happened to me. Guy looked at me, said, you're really cute, but you've got to change your look. You have to wear suits. At that point, I was young. I was 25. I'm like,

I'm not wearing suits. There's no way. So how do you gain respect? So then I start selling, I do really well. They're like, oh, you have big boobs. It's because you're sleeping with everyone. You did, no, could it just be that I was a good salesperson? And then from over, then from doing it over and over and then really just playing at the same game, not backing down, that's how you gain the respect and putting those boundaries. Sometimes you have to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Oh, I say it all the time. Oh, I have no shame.

And just address it. I have big, I do have big boobs. I am pretty. I can't help it. But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? It doesn't, you know? So it's, it's always been, but I think what happens with women is that they shrink themselves to sit at that table.

And you absolutely 100% do not. have to shrink yourself. I have a daughter. She watches me all the time. And there is no way on this God's given planet. Am I ever going to be somebody? I'm not. I have fake hair. I have fake boobs. I have spray tan on. I do not care. This is who I am. Take it or leave it. I might not be everybody's cup of tea, but what you see is what you get. And I'm never going to shrink myself in a room for anybody. So now the goal is that you and I are not shrinking. How do we encourage women on this planet who do shrink sadly all the time? It's women have to be honest with themselves first and want to come forward. That's the first part. And then change the generational stigma, which you think

we're so progressive, but we're really not that progressive if you think about it. What was in 1978, we still had to be on the mortgage with a man. I mean, it hasn't really gone that, you know, there's still the boys clubs in corporate America. It exists. It's a real thing. But, you know, the internet's powerful. Our voice is very powerful. So anytime I come across my daughter, her friends, you know, it's a big mission for me. That's why I do this now. This was never, I never was going to podcast. It's never ever anything I wanted to do ever. You know, I was on my trajectory to law school also and I lead a pretty lucrative team. But, you know, how we do it is through the voice, you know, the power of voice. And I think more and more women will come start evolving. At least that's my

The greatest testament to that is us looking at your daughter and us looking at my daughter, who at 23 has her own TEDx talk. And she got it because of how pitching. And she's sat by her mom's feet her whole life. When she was about eight years old, I was still traveling a lot to Europe. And I'd gone through the murder of a little boy that I raised. That was part of my personal story. That was very tragic.

And I clung on to her and her dad kind of clung on to our son. And so when I traveled, I just brought her with me. In fact, I took her out of school one day for 50 days out of one year. And I remember saying to the teacher, look, I'm not going to let school get in the way of a good education. And so she's listened to me, be as brash. And by the way, kids not only listen to you, but they watch what you do. My daughters, why? Why does that girl work with me and put up with her mom?

It's because she watched me get screwed over on the internet. And she said, I'm not going to let that happen to my mom. I can do better for her than anybody. And she's been crazy committed to letting me get my voice out. And so if you're in business, guys, and you're feeling overwhelmed, this is one of the things I experience a lot with my clients. Knock it off. You cannot do everything. You will not do everything great.

You are not the best at everything. By the way, I'm going to share it. And you probably know this. But if you clean your own house, you're not a millionaire. If you do your own grocery shopping, you're not a millionaire. You know how come I know? Because you never have time to do all of those things. And why would you waste your time doing same repetitive tasks when you can better yet pay someone who maybe doesn't have.

have your education, you make the money, pay for their family, get what you want and still move on your trajectory. So some of those little things make huge differences. And so she watched me do that. The second thing is, you know, we talk about as a business owner, you're a visionary. If you're a visionary, find an implementer. Don't think that you're going to master every AI that's coming out now and do all your bank and taxes. Yes. And go to the gym and have time for your hair and nails. I don't know about you. Hire for your weaknesses. I know that I know that that's just not my schick. I'm not into the, I'm definitely not in the tech stuff, not into it. I just bring the ideas. My husband executes, I bring the ideas. There's no way, I just don't,

that's just not who I am. That's not my brain, nor am I ever going to pretend that that's the way I, I'm wired. I'm not. I just bring the ideas and we, and then that's it. That's all I do. What's another big issue you find in women that you want to share with me? You know, the, keeping the emotions in check, I have the girls that come in here. You will never, ever find me crying, ever in front of anybody. I'll go to the bathroom. I'll go to my car, but I will never, ever cry because the minute, I mean, not that there's nothing wrong with it. Look, you have to be vulnerable sometimes for sure. There's a time and in place. But when you cannot control your emotions and you look emotionally unhinged, and Lord knows I definitely

am emotionally unhinged sometimes, but I am never going to do it in my professional place of work, I will always be put together. My grandma always told me you have to be a lady in public, always. And that's why I live by that. So it's up to us to move your grandma's notion forward that we really, and I do feel a responsibility and I feel a kinship with you about being a strong, powerful woman who is helping other women and men find their authenticity. Also, I mean, I'm a big fan now, though I do let people see my vulnerability word. I never ever let them do that before because that was a kind of a weird word growing up.

I agree. Just not to an extent. The same thing. I do let my guards down, but I'm not crying in front. That's not how I conduct business. I'm not crying. Not crying. We're not crying.

I love that. I'm so cool about you. There's no crying in insurance. We're not crying. Hey, you're not going to see your competitors crying. I know that. Certainly not your men.

No. No, no, no. And there is nothing wrong with crying. But when you become emotionally unhinged and I think that, or, you know, the other big problem I have is, I have my period. I can't come to work. What do you mean you have your period? You can't come to work.

Like, wait, what? It's like what I'm really confused about this. I've had three kids and how to go to work. Like what are we doing here? Like this is just an excuse. I will tell you though, by the way, I don't have to deal with that anymore

when you get to a certain age. Oh, can I tell you life is a little better. But these are the things. It's sad though, you know, and I think these are stigmas that we just tell ourselves. It's not real. I know. There's nobody out there supporting,

I promise you. It is not in anybody's best interest to have strong, powerful women. Men don't really want it. They say they do, but they don't. Women seem to be catty and, silly and I don't know what we do to each other. So it takes the few of us who can see this for everyone else and go look. I'm going to take a stand. I want you to be powerful. I want you to

have it together. I want you to make money. I want you to go on vacation. I want you to raise great kids and live an awesome life. And it's available for all of us. It is. They're not just not one person has to eat. There's a whole table. There's tables ready for women to take a stance and really build a future that they want. That is unapologetically them. They don't have to shrink anymore. I love meeting you. This is so wonderful. Thank you. Yes. I love. I just love how you completely took over. It was great. I love it. I was going to go into your life and every, but you said everything for me. I love it. You did such an incredible job. You know what? You inspired me. I don't normally do that. I normally answer questions and very nice, but you have a great

energy about you. And I think the audience that must be attracted to you is of a similar. And I, like I said, the book is to me the tip of the iceberg. It's allowing me to go out on tour. I love it. I'm going to start going, I'll be in Orlando, I'll be in New York. I'm having a big signing at the biggest bookstore in New York called Bookends. Very excited on May 16th. Doing a huge live event. And I'm also going to go back and talk to a lot of my old infomercial superstars just to get some insight. Because they're now calling me the godmother of TikTok.

No, it's a godmother of TikTok shock. Because I've literally sold billions. There's not a TV camera. I've never gone on that has, you have to sell between $2,000 and $5,000 a minute every minute you're on. the air. So a cool thing about not only the book guys, by the way, which is wonderful, and I love books, but I also love all the little Easter eggs that I created for here. And so you go and you find the little QR codes and you unlock a whole video world. I've given away thousands of dollars of free stuff, insights, formula, other things, because within this are so many actionable items

that I take them for granted. So I'm giving them away. And I will tell you, everything from the kind of gold journal that you do to how you shake somebody's hands. It's all in this book. And it's designed for you, the listener, the reader, the person who says, it's my time to give you some nuggets. Like, you're a big fan of belief. I got to tell you, it's in the book. You're also a big fan of D, of C for closing. I have a feeling a lot of these letters. You know, what does it mean to be an open door? How do you know when to talk to somebody and when not to, even if you got a great pitch? How do you respond to the question? What do you do? So I could go on and on. But Josh, How about the way you look?

Though I say the way you look governs everything. Don't kid yourself. This is my honey. Here's Joshua. Say hi tomorrow. Hi. Hi. I love your wife.

I love her. She's incredible. He's not only the most wonderful man, but he's also like you work with your honey. He's my videographer. I do. I definitely do. I work with him every day day and day out. I don't know how we put up with them, but we do.

He's calling me because we'll start shooting some more stuff. I'm excited to meet you. We're going to have to try. I'm going to come out. We have to. When you're in Orlando, when you're in Orlando, I'll come out to see you at the bookstore. I'll come there and support you for sure. Anything that I could do to support you, let me know. Well, you know what we could do is that you've got a very large organization of people who if they knew how to pitch, some of them would do better. What do I mean by that? Pitching starts the moment you shake somebody's hand. Well, the moment before, how you look, how you present yourself. You intuitively know that. But I don't have time to go into it today, but part two of our conversation is when you shake someone's hand, and they say, what do you do, that moment is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and most people avoid. It opens the door because people love to talk about themselves.

That's the best. That's the key to everything. I love it. We have to do something together. We have to do something together. If anybody wants to find you, though, before you go, anyone wants to find you, where would they find you everywhere? You know, which unusual name, type in Forbes Riley.

You'll see my, oh, my Instagram is blowing up in the last three weeks. I added 100,000 Instagram followers because I am finally. with the help of my team putting out awesome content. So every social media out there. And like I said, you guys, if you want to come listen to me live, no cost to you guys, free gift from Forbes Riley. I spent almost two hours working on the pitch basics. I call it pitch secrets masterclass. It's interactive. You're going to see people's pitches get flipped like you've never seen anything in your life. So please join me on a Sunday or next time I'm doing Mara Part 2. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. Thank you.

did not get a million nuggets from today's episode. I don't know what you were doing. This was such a privilege. I enjoyed it so much. Tune in, subscribe, like, tell a friend unsubscribe. I don't know, do something. If you love this conversation, there's so many more. Join us next time on Bill. Thank you so much, Forbes Riley. You are incredible. Oh, back at you. Yeah.