EntreLeadership - #187: Marie Forleo—The Value of Investing in Yourself

Episode Date: February 20, 2017

Marketing and lifestyle expert Marie Forleo joins us for a fascinating conversation on how to fight fear, be more productive, and make the most of your life. Also on tap, we’re sharing a special audio clip from best-selling business author Patrick Lencioni’s amazing keynote speech from EntreLeadership Summit 2016. entreleadership.com/podcast Summit Registration DISC Cheat Sheet Infusionsoft's 2017 Marketing Trends Report Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are broadcasting from the Music City, and this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you for joining the conversation. Here's what's coming up. We're going to go in the vault from Summit, 2016, our premier event,

and give you just a portion of Pat Lincione's amazing keynote. Marie Forleo is our feature. conversation this episode. If you don't know who Marie is, you should. She hangs out with the likes of Tony Robbins and is an amazing lady with a great story helping people with productivity and making the most of their life. And that is a big topic that you have requested. It's going to be a lot of fun. And after the conversation with Marie, stick around, I've got one big question that relates to the conversation that I want all of you to consider. I think it'll really challenge you. And of course, we're bringing you our free February resources from the Entree Leadership Team.

and Infusion Soft. So, hey, let's get right to this. We have so much to give you. Pat Lincione, one of our most popular speakers at any event we've ever done. When we survey it, the guy's so popular. One of the things the guy does, I think it really is a differentiator. And it's a lot of fun. He stands up at the start of his talking.

He says, no, look, I'm going to be talking for the next so odd minutes, whatever it is. And I want you know this. I'm going through this. If you want to interrupt me, you just interrupt me. Now, that drives some people nuts, I'm sure. I'm sure there's got to be like a personality that goes, I don't know. I love it and our audience loves it. The guy is unbelievable. So Will the engineer and Eric

the producer went back in that Entree Leadership Summit vault, pulled an amazing section of his talk. Nobody else has heard this outside of that room. This is a special treat. You're going to love it. Here's Pat Lindsay speaking at our Entree Leadership Summit. Well, I love being here. Today I'm given two talks, one that I've only given once before and the other one that I don't do very often, although it's one of my favorites. But to help me as an ENFP, what you can really do is ask questions during my talk. Like throwing up a hand in the middle of my talk to say, hey, I didn't understand that last pointer.

What about this? I love that. So Jim Collins, I loved, Jim influenced me a lot. We talked about that yesterday. One of my favorite things that he talks about is getting the right people on the bus. He talked about that yesterday. I got in after that, but I know he talked about that. And it's so important.

And what we're going to talk about today is getting the right people on the bus. then we're going to talk about once you got them on the bus, how do you keep them there and make them really happy and the best bus riders you ever had? How do you make them fulfilled being on that bus? And when it comes to the right people, when I ask most of the companies I work with, what are the right people on your bus?

Most of them say, well, teamwork. I want team players. And some of them aren't sincere. They're like, well, I'm supposed to say that, but I really don't care. And those people would be better off not talking about it. You know, it'd be better to say, hey we don't really care about teamwork here because teamwork is not a religion it's a

choice we make I think it's a great choice but it's actually better to say I'm not into that we're not going to do that and be upfront about it and set people's expectations than to say teamwork teamwork teamwork and then not run your organization that way but for those that are interested in it and most of my clients I think are genuinely interested in most people are we say it but then we got to do it the real question is how do you get the right people on the bus who are good at it who can do it a little easier. Now, anybody can do it just about.

But what are the kind of people that they're good at it? Because if we're serious about this teamwork thing, and when you talk to most CEOs and most leaders, most hiring managers, you say, do you want to hire team players? Where would you put that on your list of priorities? And they say, at the top. I mean, that would be the most important thing.

And yet, it turns into a crapshoot, and so often they wait a month later and they look at it and go, how many of these people are team players? I don't know, a couple of them, it's random, I don't know. How did we miss that? And the reason why is because we have to know what a team player actually is. And unfortunately, we just can't go into interview. I think they're pretty good. What do you think? You know, we've got to actually define what that means, and then we've got to use that in how we go about running our organizations and bringing people into them. Now, here's the

thing, why don't we do that? What do we do when we're bringing people into an organization and we say teamwork, teamwork, teamwork, but then what do we actually default to? Technical skills, experience, resume items, right? And the key that what I'm about to explain to you is not just understanding the three virtues of a team player, but it's the combination of them all. Because you've got one of the three virtues, you've got zero. If you got two, okay, one plus one is two. I'll give you two on that.

If you have all three, one plus one plus one is nine, folks. I mean, it's the combination of all three that gives you exponential ability. And if you can fill your company with people that have all three virtues, boy, it's going to be easy. It's going to be really clearer sailing. So let's go through and look at these. What's the first virtue of a team player? The ideal team player is a humble person. Okay, gosh, you're like, no duh, you know.

But when I talk about humility on a team, it seems pretty straightforward. It's like, we need to hire people that are others-centered, not self-centered. That's a wonderful definition. It's not about me. It's about others. Humble people are so important on a team. This is, if pride is the root of all sin, and I believe it is, humility is the antidote for that. God bless you.

Is the antidote for that. You hiccoughed. I'm sorry. You don't bless people on a hiccup, do you? We can, but God bless you. Yeah, bless people on hiccough. I'm sorry about that. Oh, look a bird.

I was thinking, I shouldn't say that. You ever do that? They're like, hey, I just coughed. It wasn't a sneeze. Okay, focus. So humble people are critical on a team. And that means we have to avoid hiring overtly arrogant people. Okay, braggie arrogant people are not good team players.

Sometimes they can get by being as a leader if they're in a company where they control things. And, you know, anyway. But really, great team players are not arrogant. So we say, well, I've interviewed that guy or I know somebody that she's not arrogant. She's not bragging. So that's good. Don't hire those people.

They'll crush your team. They'll drain it of energy. They'll demoralize everybody else. But here's the thing. Humility is more than that. Because some people don't look like they're arrogant on the outside, but they're still not humble. Okay.

And they're not sneaky even. In fact, they're wonderful people, but they don't qualify as a humble team player because they lack confidence. See, sometimes people thinking, Dave was talking about this last night, that, oh, woe was me, I'm horrible, I'm a worm or whatever else. Truly humble people understand the truth, that God gave them some talents and abilities, and they have those, and they're comfortable with that, and they don't have many, and they're

comfortable with that. And so because they're confident in who they are, they don't deprive their teams of their knowledge and their contribution. People that are overly, that are inappropriately modest, who deny their own strengths and weaknesses, oftentimes we go, well, that's a humble person. It's like, no, no, no. they're a lacking in confidence person, and if they're kind and they celebrate others, that's wonderful,

but they still don't qualify as the humility of an ideal team player. But they're not at all the most dangerous of the long people lacking humility. The most dangerous, even more than the overtly arrogant person, is that person who doesn't celebrate themselves, who doesn't promote themselves, who lacks confidence, but in addition to that,

they're uncomfortable with other people being celebrated or having skills. All right. Humility. Okay. We're going to move on and go through all three and then we'll do some application. Okay, the next quality is you need to hire people who are hungry. Now, this one is probably the most straightforward. Hungry people just love to get things done. They're not easily satisfied. They work very hard. They look around corners. They want to do more. They don't stop. The idea of being perceived as a slacker for a hungry person is so antithetical. It's driving crazy. Boy, hungry people on a team are a wonderful thing. A wonderful thing. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time defining this one

because it's pretty straightforward. But what I will say is this, and Dave mentioned this too. Oh, in fact, he wrote about it in Entry Leadership. I was going through it again last night. One of my favorite business books of all time. Last night, when I closed the book, I went through it all. I read a bunch of stuff. And I was like, I hope none of these people think they need to go get an MBA.

Because you read this book, you got it. Okay? I mean, he just did such a great job. That's the every man's. and woman's MBA. So I love it. And he talks about in there about you want people that work hard, but we're not looking for alcoholic because you don't want a bunch of people with broken families who have destroyed their career. And I've worked with many people who people thought were hungry, but unfortunately what was really true is they just, their whole definition in their life was their work.

And when you're checking email in the delivery room, delivering your first child, as a woman I know you did, And when you're putting everything into just your job and not your family, not your life, not your faith, all those other things, that's a recipe, that's a real problem in an organization. One, it sets a tone that other people shouldn't live up to. So we're not talking about just workaholism, but we're talking about it is that people just have an innate desire to do well,

to work hard, to do more, to ask to do more. So we know what a hungry person is. Interestingly enough, it may be one of the hardest things to teach. I think it gets embodied in people fairly early in their own. careers. The third virtue is what I call smart. Smart. Now it's not, I didn't say intelligent. This is not about IQ. It's not exactly EQ either. It's simpler than that. It's just common sense, especially around people. And I thought about this because when I explain this to people, I sometimes apologize for it. Because people, why did you use the word smart? And I'll tell you, I've

been using this model for 20 years in my own firm, and I'll talk about that later. And the thing is, We should be hiring smart people, not intelligent people. I don't mean unintelligent people. But there's plenty of intelligent people in the world go to most universities and talk to professors who are not smart, but they're intelligent. Okay? So what we need is smart people.

And most of what smarts is is understanding how to sit in a room with other people and understand what they're thinking and say the right things and understand common sense around people. It's just that. Ladies and gentlemen, if you can find people who are humble, hungry, and smart, Let me tell you, the technical skills are not going to be that important. Yeah, if you're hiring a brain surgeon or a pilot to fly a plane,

they've got to have technical skills, no doubt. But these kind of people here learn things fast, fill in the gaps, make your organization better. If you can find people who are truly other-centered, who really want to work hard and get people and have common sense around people, you've got a winner of a combination here. It's a beautiful thing. We're going to apply some of this stuff and see what it looks like in practice.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did and our audience did. And again, I've got to tell you, the Entree Leadership Summit is about three months away right now. Unbelievable. Be here before we know it. May 21 through 24, Sunny Orlando, Florida, Dave Ramsey, Simon Seneca, John Maxwell, Robert Hershivik from Shark Tank, coach Lou Holtz, Chris Hogan and Christy Wright. All the details. Entreeleadership.com slash summit. You can get your ticket there. We've got a special podcast rate, so make sure you mention that. Entreeleadership.com slash summit. All right, folks, it's time for me to remind you of the amazing tools we've got for you that are absolutely free in this month. That is, of course, from our friends at InfusionSoft.

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Infusionsoft.com slash 2017 trends. And then, of course, from our Entree leadership team, we have the disc cheat sheet. And we believe in the disc, the personality profile that allows your individual team to look at themselves in a mirror, if you will. See themselves. Maybe it's how others interact with them and see themselves. So, and it's huge for you as a leader. How do you communicate? How do you place them in the right seat on the bus? This is impressive stuff.

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Or we have the link in the episode's show notes. So make sure you take advantage of that. Hey, folks, I really enjoyed my conversation with our guest this episode. Marie Forleo. Somebody that I have been aware of, but did not do a lot of research on until recently. And Eric, the producer, brought the idea to me to have a conversation with her. And so I began to do more excavation, if you will, about her story and her career. And I really love what she's doing. Obviously, you'll just hear very quickly, she's an enjoyable person to talk to

tremendous energy. But she's really helping a lot of people. And I think the conversation we go through is going to really encourage a lot of you as it relates to your path, personal productivity, how you handle rejects. There's so many great themes here that we need to be reminded of. And so this is really good stuff. So take a listen and enjoy my conversation with Marie Forleo. Well, Marie, it's a great privilege to have you with us. It's been paying attention to what you've been doing for a while. And an online entrepreneur is just one brief description that doesn't even come close to what you're doing. But I want to go back because we have so many people here who are listening that are in leadership positions, also just straight up entrepreneurs and then a lot of personal growth junkies.

And I think you're in all of those buckets. So I want to have you take us back to the early days of your entrepreneurial career. What was going on in your head and heart when you're thinking, all right, I want to launch into something? What was happening? Yeah, well, I'll tell you, you know, I'm going to take it back even further, Ken, because really where that seed was first planted, you know, when I graduated college, I was very excited just to get out in the world and start making my mark. And my first gig out of college was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. So on Wall Street, in all of the craziness.

And I love that because I'm a person that has a lot of energy, and I was really excited. to just be in the center of the financial universe, you know, at least at that time, that was the perspective. And I just remember being down there and being so ambitious and so excited, but slowly, as time started to go on, I was noticing things that didn't quite sit right with me. For example, you know, while everyone around me was intelligent and they were passionate, and of course they were making an extraordinary amount of money, financially they were doing well, but spiritually they were bankrupt. And I just remember, honestly, this is just keeping it real. Like every day when the clock would strike and it's four o'clock, people would say, okay, well, we're

heading out and we're going a strip club and people are doing drugs and having drinks. And I just remember thinking, this is not the life I want. This is not who I am. This is not where I want to be for the next five, 10, 10, 15 years. And overhearing conversations, people would often just live for these two weeks a year that they would have vacation. Like that was what they were so excited for. And everything else during the day was just, you know, kind of passing time, making money

and then getting out and getting wasted. And I was like, okay, this is not where I'm supposed to be. And my intuition just kept speaking up and speaking up. The challenge was I was terrified because, you know, my parents had worked their tails off to put me through school. I'm the first person in my family to go to college. So I had this tremendous pressure on my shoulders. And I also had that internal pressure of just wanting to be a success and wanting to be out

on my own. And I remember listening to that inner voice saying, this is not where you're supposed to be. You're supposed to do something else. you're supposed to be making a bigger difference. But the frustration came in, Ken, because that voice, even though it said, this isn't it, it didn't tell me what I was supposed to do. Of course. There was no other clear path.

And it got to the point where it just got so uncomfortable for me. And I just felt like day after day I was dying a slow death, like I was just withering like a flower and getting smaller and smaller. One afternoon, I remember it was quite chaotic on the floor. And I asked my boss if I could just take a five-minute coffee break. You know, I head outside. And down there on Wall Street, it's surrounded by a lot of churches. And I ran out to a local church and I sat on the steps and I just dropped my head of my hands and started crying and praying to God because I felt like I was just not only a failure but a loser. And I felt like I was just not doing anything right.

And I called my folks. I had my cell phone on me. I called my parents and I told them that I didn't want to disappoint them. I know how hard they had worked to give me this education. And here I have the steady paycheck. I have benefits. It's a great position on paper, but that I wanted to quit. And I was terrified of what the response could be.

And my dad said something so wonderful. He was so understanding, and he just said, look, and my parents call me R-E-E-E. You know, my name is Marie. He said, Ray, listen, if you don't find something that you absolutely love to do, it doesn't matter how much money you make. You are never going to be happy. You need to leave. You need to do whatever it takes.

You've worked since you were nine years old. We're not worried about you taking care of yourself. you will figure it out. But if this isn't what you want to do, then you need to go ahead and quit and figure it out. And as long as it takes, you know, you'll get there. And so I quit that job and I went on a bit of an odyssey to try and figure out who I was supposed to be in this world and what I was supposed to do. And all I knew was that I had strengths when it came to creativity. And I also had this interest and passion around business. You know, my dad was a small business owner and I would go to work with him on the weekends, and I remember what he would put into taking care of clients and making them happy and making

sure the job got done no matter what. So that was my only two clues. And the next stop I made, I figured, well, magazine publishing might be right for me because, well, there's the artistic part. It's kind of creative. You know, there's the editorial side, and then there's the commerce side with advertising. And I got myself a job at Gourmet Magazine. But my intuition kept speaking up and said, this isn't it either. And I said, okay, well, maybe I've just all been on the wrong side of my brain. Maybe I've just been all business for too long, and I really need to lean more into my creative side. You know, when I was little, I often had dreams of being an animator for Disney or a fashion designer or a fine artist. So I thought, well, maybe I've left those part of my strengths for way too long and I need to really resurrect them and engage them again.

So one afternoon, I was on the internet and probably I shouldn't have been. I should have been working. And I stumbled upon this article about a new profession at the time. Okay, you got to get this like 99, 2000. It was called life coaching. Yes. And Ken, I have got to tell you, even though the logical part of my mind said, are you crazy, who the heck is going to hire a 23-year-old life coach? You haven't even lived life already.

Exactly. But there was a bright light, wasn't there? Yes. And my heart opened up like nothing ever before on every level. And that night, I remember going home. And there was a university called Coach University. It was like the first coach training institute back in the day. And I signed up for it and I started doing my coach training at night while I was working at the magazine during the day.

So, of course, I quit. And I went back to doing what I did to help put myself through college, which was bartending and waiting tables and doing assistant work and whatever honest work I could find so that I could figure out what the heck I was doing and how to build a business during the day. I love that. That's so good. I'm so glad that you shared that because this is great context for us. and a lot of the conversation will have. Now, Marie, I've got to tell you, I'm very passionate about helping people figure out their calling, much like you. So this is fun.

I want to go back into this for some people who are sitting there going, okay, I understand where she's at, where she was. I have a parallel journey right now. Here's what's interesting. I want you to tell folks what you learned in this process when the life coach thing popped in your head, and I made a joke about this bright light. You said yes, because you knew exactly what I was saying. Yes. You realized at that point, or shortly thereafter, you realized, wait a second. this is a gig that on the surface at first blush, it is something that I would enjoy doing

and I think it would be something I'm good at because of my natural strength. So even though you were 23 and we all have that inner voice when we're young that kind of says, ah, you're not old enough. You had a sense right off the bat because of how you're wired, passion and strengths. Yes or no? Yes, 100%. And also doing some excavation of my past. And I love helping people. I actually started off in college as a psych major because I thought I potentially wanted to be a therapist. But during my first class, I realized that particular lens and framework, it was, at least at that time, looking back, kind of excavating the past and looking at your childhood. And something about that didn't sit right with me. I was very future-oriented and progress and making things happen.

So that's when life coaching came. You're 100% right. It was this blend of strengths and passion. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And I love that you used the word excavation. This is important for those of you who think it's this big mystery. And you figured this out.

Now you're helping people with this. But this idea of going back and look at that psychology class for you, you love the idea of psychology because it helped people. But the function of it and the trade of it and the space, that was not the right space. Yes. That's what's huge. Yes. That's what you got to figure out. Yes.

So I love that you use excavation there. That's really good. This is good. I want to ask you another question about fear. Yes. Because early in the story, you talked about fear. And I want to go back to the steps. of the church because I thought that was so poignant. So you're sitting on the steps of that church.

You're successful. You're around successful people. Money success. And here you are with your head and your hands and you're in tears. You were in tears because you're fighting this emotional battle with this idea that, okay, I'm terrified to leave this successful area. But at the same time you said you were dying inside becoming smaller and smaller and smaller. And it's almost like the real Marie is going to become extinct if you don't get out of there. And that is this perfect emotional storm that I think so many people face. And I'm going to say this, Marie, I don't mind if you disagree with me. Okay.

I think so many people are sitting there on those steps, head and hands, in tears, and the fear of stepping out to be alive is greater than the gnawing away of their soul. And they choose to just wither away. Do you agree with that? I do agree with that. And I think that if we're lucky, we can turn inward and start to hear the voice of our intuition. Some people call it, you know, the voice of a higher power, your gut, your instinct, whatever you might to name that.

But the more we train ourselves to listen to that voice and really hear it and heed its call, the more aligned our lives become and the more things begin to fall into place. And that doesn't always happen instantly. Right. You know, it took a few years before, actually, it took many years to be quite honest, between the time crying on the church steps to just quit and say, okay, I'm going to start my own business. And I want to say this, Ken, because this is really important. I didn't just jump out as a 23-year-old life coach, and I'm successful. It took me like seven years after that before I had enough

confidence to go completely full time. I bartended, weighted tables. I had so many dark nights of the soul thing. And I'm like the crappiest life coach ever. I suck. Like, you know, there was so many times where I was on the brink of just feeling again, once again, like a failure, but sticking with it and sticking with what felt aligned and what felt true to my soul, that's what eventually gets you over that hill into a whole new universe. Yes, but you also did something else from the steps. You at least left the stock market situation. You did go to someplace else where it was, again, not the right place, but each time you had the courage to face the fear and you moved forward, even though it didn't feel like you were moving forward, those were all forward steps.

Oh, yeah. And I think one of the biggest things, and this can trip all of us up, it's when we hear that voice inside that something's not right. And I know we're talking in the context of career and business right now, but we also feel this sometimes in relationships. We can feel it in all kinds of areas where we know what's happening isn't right, but we're completely uncertain about the path ahead. You know, there's no blueprint. There's no guarantee. We have no idea what's going to happen next. But I think it's in those moments when we choose. to have faith when we draw upon our courage, when we're able to be brave and step into the unknown that real magic and grace starts to happen. So good. All right. So we're going to jump a little bit out of the personal entrepreneurial faith space. And I want to fast forward. So I'm kind of keeping up here, folks.

I think she was 23. So about seven years before this life coaching starts to take off. I want to get to the early days of the business where you're getting some traction. And here you are, Marie. You're the head coach, but you're also the CEO, COO, who knows how many titles you had at the time. Yes. I want you to take us there because there have a lot of entrepreneurs that are listening. And they're in those early days and they feel like they're a professional plate spinner, right?

They can't even identify what a CEO is. And they're it. What worked for you in those very early days to keep yourself, keep that nose just above the water? Because that's so huge for many entrepreneurs to stay the course. Yes. Okay, so my path was interesting. My particular DNA and how I'm set, I didn't want to rely, and by the way, I couldn't. It was impossible because I wasn't earning enough. Rely strictly on my coaching business to basically pay my rent and to eat my mac and cheese and my ramen noodles and, you know, the things that eat when you're kind of scraping it together in the early days. So for me, what I did was I said, okay, I need to keep my side gigs, my day jobs, all of those things. so that I could have money coming in so that I can do and focus when I have time to focus

in my business and focus on the really most important things that matter. And for me, there was really two buckets. How can I be the most effective coach possible, meaning how can I get other people results? How can I really get myself results in my own life and start to get some consistency and really have integrity and congruency? And how can I deal with clients in such a way where they're moving ahead? and so I can really feel good about charging folks and building my reputation and creating content and creating programs knowing that it's from a place of integrity. So the skills I needed to focus on that.

The other bucket was all about marketing and sales, understanding that in business, nothing happens until a sales happen. So I really spent the other portion of quote unquote my free time learning how to be an effective marketer in the digital age. And again, this is when the Internet was still kind of new, right? We're talking in those early 2000s. So email newsletters were brand new. E-books were like, oh, my God, mind-blowing. Nobody had ever heard of them before.

So I really just focused on the key things I needed to do. And again, I have to say this, Ken, where we are right now in time, I'm actually quite grateful that I started way back in the day because there was no such thing as social media. There wasn't 16 platforms that you needed to be creating content for 24-7 and all these pressures and, you know, a million different bells and whistles that entrepreneurs right now feel like they have to be on everything. So for me, I had a wonderful gift in that sense. For me, it was all about email marketing, getting out and giving talks and doing the best coaching than I possibly do. All right. I want to stay on this path here because you have tweeted a statement that

I'm going to share. And I think it's huge for the entrepreneur out there who's trying to balance, right. You're the chief creative officer, but you're also the chief operating officer. You do so many things. And you've got to find the time to work on the business and work in the business. And you once tweeted, the dividing line between success and failure can be expressed in five words. I did not have time. That is a haunting phrase for all of us that are driven. You share two strategies that will help us get more work done in less time. Take it away. Help us with that. Okay, well, one of the things I will tell you, this is very simple and don't let the simplicity of this deceive you. It's a strategy anyone can do. It takes four minutes at the end of your workday. If people would just sit themselves down, really take a look at everything they have gotten done during the day and what they need to do tomorrow and write down their top tasks for the next morning, including exactly when they're going to wake up. If they have any kind of morning ritual, success ritual, which I highly recommend, you know, if that's working out, if it's prayer, if it's meditation, a little combo of all the above. And then if you go into your day, every single day knowing what is the most important

two to three things that you must get done to move the business ahead, you are setting yourself up so far and beyond most of the rest of the world who does the opposite. They will wake up and grab for their phone. They start scrolling through their email, looking at email, getting distracted, reacting to everyone else's agenda that's coming into their inbox rather than staying focused on what's most important and going to move them ahead. Or they go to their social feeds. You know what they do there, Ken? They get sucked into a comparison sinkhole. They do shots of what I call compare schlager, which just basically gets you just completely drunk, feeling like crap, off your game for days,

miserable, awful. It's terrible. So that one little strategy of at the end of your day, take four minutes to really get clear. Look at your calendar, look at what you have to do, pick two to three major things that if you got those things done, and you got them done first, it would move you, whether it's an inch, a foot, a mile ahead the next day, and don't let anything take you off track. So that's one strategy. I actually don't have my social feeds on the front screen of my phone. You have to swipe two or three times to go get to them. So I have to consciously break my focus and go into the distraction mecca of social media if I want to consciously go down that route. Does that make sense? So you're putting a little

bit of space between the addictive social behaviors and giving yourself even a second or two of pause to say, do I really want to go down this route? Like, it's 1230. Should I be doing shots of compare Schlaugger right now? Is this the wisest use of my time and my talents and my ability to make a difference in this moment? And sometimes just the fact that you have to swipe twice across gives you just enough time to save yourself before. So it's like kind of check yourself before you wreck yourself. Productivity and time, that's probably one of my favorite subjects on the planet. I'd like to not only offer just one thing, but I think I want to offer a few suggestions because each person is different and based on where they are right now, different strategies

might help them more. So for example, I think people grossly underestimate the positive impact of daily exercise when it comes to their productivity abilities, their mental clarity, how emotionally strong they feel. So if anyone listening right now is feeling like, gosh, I just don't have enough time. I can't even think about fitness and exercise in. I can pretty much guarantee you that if you're willing to experiment for even a week of doing 30 minutes of pretty intense exercise, whether it's running or dancing or cycling or whatever your kind of flavor is, I promise you, you will get two to three, if not four times more done. The quality of your work will be higher. You'll make less mistakes, you'll feel more resilient if you fit exercise in. People overestimate the benefits of

exercise when it comes to reshaping your body and underestimate the benefits of exercise when it comes to productivity, mental clarity, and an emotional strength. Okay. So it's just an automatic. We need to get it in our day and it's going to give us juice. I mean, a ton of juice. And then I would say the other thing is this. It's just really bring awareness to how you, you, are spending and investing your time right now. I think most Americans spend, I don't know, five hours a day, I think is the latest stat watching television. You know, most people listening to this audio right now are probably not them. However, if you start really looking non-judgmentally at how you are spending your time, how many times you pick up your phone, how many times you go

to your email, if there's some shows that you watch every single night or every single week, and you start to add up those hours, you can begin to see. see how many of us, most of us, have some unaware habits that are not so productive. And if you're just willing to look again, non-judgmentally and say, you know what, I am not going to pick up my phone and look at email past 6 o'clock at night. I'm just going to write or I'm going to work on my book proposal or I'm going to work on that sales pitch or I'm going to work on that, you know, PR release or whatever it is that's going to move your business ahead. I think there are so many hidden blocks of time that if we take a little awareness and really

get honest with ourselves, we can find them. All right, so we've been talking about time. I want to talk about another T word talents, and I just want you to weigh in on this. I'm a big strengths nut. I've had the privilege of intervened Marcus Buckingham tons of time. He was in my book. I think the guy's just brilliant. I love what Gallup has done and beyond.

As a coach on this issue of strengths, how much more productive are we when we actually begin to get to a place where we can mitigate around our weaknesses? doesn't that offer so much more productivity when we're able to just push some of those things off? They just suck energy from us because we're not good at it. What are your thoughts on that as a coach? I am completely aligned with you. The Strengths finder test was one of the things that so helped me to really further understand and articulate why I love to do what I do.

You know, my number one strength is woo. Number two strength is positivity. That kind of tells you everything you need to know in a nutshell. But when it comes for all of us, when there are things that we do naturally, we have those neuro pathways, they're well-worn tracks in our mind, and we get so much strength and joy and enthusiasm when we're doing those things. All of a sudden, you know, for me, to put in front of me just a bunch of numbers and spreadsheets, you know, I can force myself through that.

And sometimes we do have to do those things, especially in the beginning because you need to be a responsible business owner. but the more you can start to find people to hire things off and delegate things off to, you get 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 times more productive. And here's what's important, Ken, more joyful. We get so much more energy when we're using our strengths. And coming back to that productivity piece, when you're in your strengths all day, nine times out of 10, you're not nearly as tired at the end of the day.

You can go longer. You can go deeper. You're into this complete zone of genius where your unique ability in this world starts to really expand in such a way that you can get a hundred times more that if you're scattered all throughout the day trying to do things you're just not built to do. That's good. All right. Let's talk to aspiring entrepreneurs as the coach here, Marie. So what would you say to them if you could sit down with this pretty large audience and one-on-one over tea, coffee, lunch? and they said to you, Marie, this is what I want to do.

I think I want to start a business on this. What would you run them through to make sure that as an entrepreneur, we want, you know, entrepreneurs are risk takers. We get that. But at the same time, if we can avoid the wrong start, it will help us grow that much faster. What would you put them through? What would be the test you would ask them? Well, there's a few.

I think first you have to really make sure that you're starting the right business for the right reasons. One of the things I like to tell entrepreneurs is never start a business just to make money, start a business to make a difference. Now, of course, we all know, right? A for-profit business, one of the things that you need to do is you need to be able to make money. Yes, that is a given. However, where I've seen a lot of people make a mistake, especially when they're first time entrepreneurs and they're trying to get out of a situation they can't stand, you know, a job they just, hey, just something's not right. And they look at the world that we're in today and they notice people, you know, having a business online or having something. something like that. And they say, oh, I want to start this online business so I can make some money and then go

do what I really want to do. And that's where all the kind of red alarm bells go off for me. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Start the business that you really want to start. Start something that you believe is going to help improve the world in some shape or form, whether it's a product or a service. It doesn't matter. If you have to really get aligned with this thing, because most businesses take a long time to get off the ground and get profitable. Yes, there's unicorns out there. There are people that are just these magical little beasts that seem to be able to create a business and get profitable and find success very fast. But those are usually the exception and not the rule. And if you start to peel back some of the layers of that story, what you find is those people are actually leveraging strengths,

talking about strengths and skills that they've honed over time in other endeavors and they just plop into a business. But for people that are just starting out, the other thing you've got to ask yourself is what kind of business do you want? I think one of the beauties of the time and space that we're in Ken is there are so many different kinds of businesses. You can have a micro business, you know, where it's just you and maybe a part-time virtual assistant. You can have a small business anywhere between like five and 50 people making millions and

hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Or you might want to start the next Whole Foods or the next Apple or the next Google or whatever it is, like an enormous big business. And I think one thing that's important. for people is to really align their business ambition with their lifestyle vision. You know, are you the person who wants to have 10,000 employees? Does the idea of that sound like entrepreneurial nirvana or does it sound like a death sentence? So I think when you're starting to think about, you know, should I start this business? Can I start this business? You have to make

sure that your heart's in the right place, that you're not just trying to start it just to make money, that you're actually want to be in this business, serve a particular market, make a particular difference in a specific way, then you have to really look at the realities of the day to day in that business. You know, what's it going to take to reach the level of success that feels good for you? What's your vision around that? You know, how much profit, how much revenue, how many staff members can you see yourself having? Maybe not forever, but perhaps within the first one to three years. And when people start to ask themselves those smart questions, what they do is they start to create a vision for success for themselves. So they're not chasing some ambiguous definition of it

or some archaic definition, perhaps from the 80s or the 90s or their parents or just vestiges of old ideas of society of what it means to be a business success and really get their own vision honed. Because when you have that, then all of a sudden you could start reverse engineering, bringing that vision into fruition. And that's when business starts to become fun. Now, don't get me wrong, there's no walk in the park. You are going to struggle. You're going to flop.

You're going to fail. You're going to cry. There is crying in business. And for anyone who's been in long enough, you know many times tears can be shed. But on the other end of it, there is such a tremendous opportunity. And I think in particular what gets me excited, Ken, is I feel that it is about time that people with big hearts, great intentions, the desire to make more than just a profit for themselves, but also make a difference, start taking over the entrepreneurial space and really start showing the world what's possible

when people with integrity and generosity and a desire to take care of everyone start running businesses in this world. Yes, amen to that. And oddly enough, that is a beautiful segue. She did not know I was going to ask her this. but you once wrote brands that lead with humanity capture more than just sales. They capture hearts. That's essentially what you were leading to. And I want you to talk about this for a second.

You know, years ago, long before anybody knew what Tom's shoes was or now in the eyeglass space, you've got Warby Parker, but this one-for-one model. So I had the opportunity to interview Blake McCoskey at a leadership event, about 12,000 people, and he told his story in how he's overseas and he's seen. sees this need where kids and adults need shoes and he tries to figure out a model. He's an entrepreneur and he's like, okay, what if I do a model where every time somebody buys a shoe, we give shoes. And of course, now it's gone on to be somewhat of a darling in the fashion space and kind of a neat model and they're in sunglasses and beyond.

I think we have a lot of people listening to Marie who they resonate with what you just said and the quote I just shared from you. But if they're not doing a one-for-one model like Warby Parker with glasses or Tom's with shoes and sunglasses and beyond. How do they, in their little zip code, take on this model? So they're already in a successful established business, and maybe they can't do it one for one, but how do they do what you just challenge us to do? Oh, I love this question, because there are so many creative ways, Ken, for business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders in every sense to make a difference. And you're right. There's not one model and it doesn't have to be the one-on-one model. So I'll just give a few different opportunities.

We do this in our business. You know, I remember I always wanted to make my business a greater force for good in the world, but there wasn't the one-for-one model. It really didn't quite make sense with a coaching and information and training business. And I'll say this. Any business owner can choose to use a portion of profit. So for example, let's say maybe it's around the holidays or maybe it's around Valentine's Day or it could be around the Fourth of July. You could have a special sale. You could do a month. You can use a portion of your profits at any time of the year, multiple times of the year,

and donate to causes that you really believe in. One of the things that we've done in our company, we've worked alongside Richard Branson and Virgin Unite. And I used to take groups of entrepreneurs, and we would do these sessions where we would go in, we would partner with a nonprofit, and I'd get a bunch of entrepreneurs, and we'd devote our idea capital to helping them move their nonprofit. profit ahead. So we'd give them branding advice and marketing advice and help them rejigger their websites, you know, all the kind of things. So there are so many creative ways that you can use what you do

to make a difference. You can give scholarships. So if you have programs that you offer, you can offer scholarships to folks who perhaps wouldn't be able to partake in what you do. You can offer pro bono services, whether that's consistently holding those slots. You do it once a year. if you have a customer community or you have a platform on social media and let's say you're not able or it's just not your choice to necessarily write a check or give funds. Well, what about raising awareness or having some kind of forum or platform to move issues ahead that are particularly important to you and important to your community? I think there are so many ways for businesses to be a force for good. And then that's not even, that's kind of looking at the external of it. If you look at the internal,

all of us can be introspective and we can take a look at, well, who are we using as vendors? Who are we hiring? What are those practices like? You know, what is our business standing for at every single level down the supply chain? How do we make our decisions? How are we treating our employees? How are we taking care of the very people that make our businesses run? So I think there are just an infinite number of ways, as long as you're willing to be creative,

to use your business as a force for good outside of that, you know, very, very, popular and beautiful one-for-one model. And you're doing it because it's good, but the reality is it helps you with your marketing story. It becomes this organic, positive story out there. As you said, when we capture hearts, not just sales. Oh, absolutely. So for us, we have an initiative called Change Your Life, Change the World.

So anytime someone signs up for one of our training programs, they come to a talk, they buy a book, they buy anything, we take a portion of our profits and we take them back out into the world and do really good things. Building schools, building wells, helping people have dignified work to lift themselves out of poverty, funding girls education. I mean, the list goes on and on. And here's the thing. We love doing that. And we love doing that alongside of our customers. And then all of a sudden, it becomes this incredible cycle of good. You know, I think for most entrepreneurs, again, I love money. I think money is incredible. I think it can be a beautiful tool that can be used for tremendous good in this world. But I particularly am not a person who cares about

having 100 pairs of shoes. It's just not who I am. So at a certain point, it's like, okay, well, yeah, you're doing great. But wouldn't it be exciting if you tied more of your own personal success to helping others? And that's when it gets real good. That's when you start to take a look at, well, how can I make a dent in some challenges that we have in our society that, you know, we're not going to wait for government to take care of. It's like that, that really doesn't work. to that. There's another. We, yes, it's like we have to take care of each other. We have to look around at each other. And especially as entrepreneurs, we're innovators, we're creatives, we're people that take risk and we're people that say, you know what, I am not going to settle for the status quo.

I am going to make things better as a virtue of who I am as a human being. I'm going to use my time on this earth to make things better, not just for myself, but for everyone that I can possibly touch. And I think that businesses have such an opportunity right now to take a stand and to be that force for good in the world and you can do it in any way that you want. There it is, folks. There's a challenge and some practical ways for you to actually begin to do that. I hope you folks will do that. That is a very important word and a great challenge for us. All right, before I let you go, Marie, I want to ask you, I know you're a growth junkie. I've been following you for a while. I am too, so I get it. And our audience knows that I like to nerd out on this stuff.

So let's go behind the scenes with Marie. Give us your personal growth. process. Like what's, and I know you may change up, you know, you may be doing something different, but what is your go-to personal growth? How are you growing personally? What's the process like? How do you mix it up? Absolutely. So for me, I have a couple of rituals that are a part of my life that always seem to foster new levels of growth. So one of them is in the morning. I always liked to journal. I like to journal, especially when I first wake up, because I feel like it taps into my subconscious and things that are right below the surface that I need to work out, whether it's just writing them on the page or questions that I haven't been able to answer. And getting those things

out of my mind onto the page and out into the world, that is a way for me to begin to process what I feel is maybe some next steps for myself, some things that I need to handle in my own life and keep them moving ahead. Exercise for me. When it comes to personal growth, I will say, and there's no coincidence it is I also had as a part of my career, I taught hip hop and was in like the athlete. So physical fitness and movement is a huge part of who I am. But when it comes to the growth process, I tell you, Ken, whenever I'm stuck on something personally or business-wise, if I'm wrestling with something kind of nasty, if I go to a spin class and sweat my face off, I swear to you, I get a download with an answer. Nothing I could have ever predicted. It always is

way smarter than anything I could have come up with, and it never fails. So that's one of the kind of the rituals in my process that always helps me work things out. I love that. Yeah, it's never failed me yet. And for some reason, I can't just dance it out. I have to spin it out. I have to be pushing really hard with those dark lights and that really loud music and getting like right beyond where I think I can go. And that's when it usually happens. My problem, you know, my problem is I'd have to work up to that. I couldn't even have a decent thought without trying not to throw up. You know what I mean? I think I'd be so focused on don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up, Don't throw up in front of these ladies.

You know what I'm doing? Because I like to work out, but the spin thing is a whole other level of torture. Oh, Ken, I need to. So I'm going to challenge you, my friend. Well, here's the cool thing about most spin classes. I don't know if where you are, you can get yourself to a soul cycle class. Oh, yeah. We're in Nashville.

We'll do it. I'll do it in Nashville. I'm going to go to it. Guys, Eric the producer, I'm going to go to a spin class. Go to a soul cycle class. If you have one around you. And here's the thing. Get a little C in the back, Ken.

Oh, boy. The lights will be down. Oh, that's good. No one's going to see you. Right. And if you need to sit because you're like, oh my God, I'm going to throw up right now, you can just sit and take it slow. But I promise you, at some point during the class, you are going to feel like such a rockster. You're like, I'm going to crush this.

It's going to be awesome. I just want you to know, if I projectile vomit on somebody, I'm going to blame you and I'm going to give them your website. You can totally blame it. And I'm going to say, look, go follow her on Twitter. She told me to do this, and I'm very sorry. And then I'll skulk out of the room. All right. So sorry.

So you were going somewhere and I got distracted. But go ahead. No, no, no. I love that. I love that. Yeah. So that's one of the things that I do. Meditation is a part of my daily ritual.

Again, that's just kind of another way for me to tap in. I feel like there's so much always happening in our subconscious and there's so much that comes through stillness. And especially as our world gets busier and busier and there's so many things we have to take care of and so much information coming in at us, having those bumpers of stillness and peace are really vital, really vital for the personal growth. And then for me, I'm always in a process of just continuing. to try and release control.

I will raise my hand to be a control freak. You want everything the way that I want it. And, you know, with age comes wisdom, hopefully. And so for me, as we're continuing to grow the business, I'm continuing to coach myself and to say, you know what? You don't have to have your hand in every single little thing. You know what? You can let that go.

You know what? That person's got that. So I'm always working on that within myself so I can have more of an ability to contribute and make more of a difference to folks and really, really enjoy the process. Oh, so good. Talk about enjoying the process. I really enjoyed the conversation, Marie. I've got to go do a radio show.

You've got a million things going on. But I got to tell you, we might have to do part two if you're up for it in the future. I would absolutely love it. I would love it. This is such a pleasure, Ken. Thank you so much for having me on. Well, hey, before I let you go, tell people why they need to come check your website out and how you can help these people grow.

Absolutely. So my whole mission in life is to help people become the person they most want to be. We have over 300 free episodes of Marie TV, which is our online show. We've interviewed some incredible guests, and we have some just accessible, digestible wisdom there. It's at Marie Forleo.com. And really, I just want to let people know this as we sign off. You matter. Your ideas matter.

Your point of view matters. And if you don't express it and work every single day to share your unique gifts, the world has lost something truly irreplaceable. That's so good. Henry David Throat once wrote, Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with their song. still in them, Marie just challenge you to sing your song. Folks, check her out. Marie Forleo on Twitter. It's just like

it sounds. You may have to check it out, marieforleo.com, but I'm telling you, this lady is doing some great stuff. We appreciate you, Marie, for being with us. We're better for it. We'll have you back soon. And if you ever get to Nashville, well, then you've got to come by and see us, and maybe we'll do a spin class and Facebook live it, and everybody will get a big treat out of that. I would love it. Invitation accepted. Hey, to learn more about what she's up to, Marie Forleo.com. That's M-A-R-I-E, as in Marie.

And the last name is spelled, Forleo, F-O-R-L-E-O, Marie-F-R-L-O-R-E-O-M-R-E-O-R-R-O-R-R-R-O-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-E. I like to do this. I think it's a fun exercise, so in light of the conversation we had with Marie, I want to challenge you to ask yourself this question. Here it is. What do I really want to do? or try, but I'm terrified to do it. That's the question. I think that's important.

Ask yourself that question. Be honest about the answer. Then go back, if you will, and reflect on what Marie just shared on that specific area. Because there's so much writing on the fact that you want to do it. There's some belief. There's some desire to try. But you're also terrified. We've got to conquer fear.

I think knowing what it is, and being honest about it, and kind of stepping up, if you will, tiptoeing up to that ledge and looking over. That's what I want you to do here by ask yourself that question. Get it front of mind and maybe top of your heart, hoping that you're going to step out and do it.

Now, for some of you, when you answer that question, I think you need to share it with somebody. So Eric, the producer and I are saying, share it with us. We're not necessarily going to share it publicly. In fact, if you tell us don't share it, that's fine. But I want to give you an outlet. Send us an email, podcast at entreleleadership.com,

with your answer. We will not share it publicly if you say, don't share this. But I want you to have this almost like a confessional. When you sit down with the priest, I'm not a Catholic. But I've always been fascinated by the concept of sitting there in that confessional booth. And you hear somebody, you know somebody's there, but you're not looking at them eye to eye, and you confess. I think this might be good for the soul for some of you. So email us.

And again, hey, I don't want you to share this. Just put that in email. But I want to share it with you and Eric. I want to share it. podcast at entreleadership.com might be really, really good to just say, this is something I want to try. I believe I need to try it, but I'm terrified.

We'd love to hear from you. Podcast at entreleadership.com. There's your question, there's your challenge. Hey, I want to thank Marie Forleo for being with us and as always on behalf of Will the Engineer and Eric the producer and the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll talk with you again very soon.