This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 7 Questions For Living A Meaningful Life with Marni Battista | 322

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

What does it really mean to live a meaningful life—and how do you know if you're doing it? In this episode, we're cutting through the noise, pressure, and Pinterest-perfection to get to the heart of it. Because purpose doesn’t have to be loud to be life-changing. It doesn’t have to trend to be true. Meaning is found in the relationships we build, the values we live, and the courage it takes to make choices that align with who we actually are—not who the world told us to be. So let’s talk about how we build a life that, at the end of it—whenever that may be—we know it mattered. Our guest today is Marni Battista—entrepreneur, author, and transformational coach who helps women, especially in midlife, stop chasing the “have it all” myth and start living with radical alignment. Her new book, Your Radical Living Challenge: 7 Questions for a Meaningful Life, offers a framework to help you stop performing and start mattering, on your own terms. Whether your life’s impact is massive or modest, visible or quiet, it still counts. And it’s never too late to ask better questions—and start living more meaningful answers. Connect with Marni:  Website: marnibattista.com  Book:  radicallivingchallenge.com  Quiz: decodeyourdestinyquiz.com  Related Podcast Episodes: Your Guide to a More Organized & Intentional Life with Shira Gill | 304 How To Have A Good Death with Suzanne B. O’Brien, RN | 292 How Is Your Spiritual Health? with Dr. Lisa Miller | 287 Abundance: Secrets to Prosperity and Ease with Cathy Heller | 260 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Nicole Kalil, your host of the This Is Women's Work podcast, and today we're diving into how you can live a more meaningful life. Listen, most of us have been sold a version of life that looks great on paper. Perfect job, perfect house, perfect family, perfect Instagram feed. But somehow, even if we check all the boxes, we still feel like something's missing. Maybe it's because the so-called good life

that we've been chasing is actually just an endless treadmill of expectations. And no matter how fast we run, we never actually get anywhere that we want to be. So what if we stopped running? What if we got off the other people's expectations' hamster wheel and started building a life that actually feels meaningful to us? And what if doing that didn't require blowing up everything you've already built?

That's the conversation we're having today because here's the thing. Just like woman's work, you are the decider of what a meaningful life means to you. My version may look different than yours, and that's exactly how it should be. A meaningful life isn't just about doing something big and world-changing, though it can be. Some people live and breathe their purpose in ways that make history, like Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King Jr. But for most of us, meaning happens on a much smaller, more personal scale. It's in the quiet moments, in the relationships we build,

in the ways that we choose to show up every single day. And that is just as meaningful. So let's talk about how we build a life that at the end of it, whenever that may be, we know that it mattered. And there's no better person to help us do that than our guest today, Marni Battista. Marni is an entrepreneur, author, transformational coach, and podcast host who helps women in midlife ditch the have-it-all myth and start living on their own terms. Her new book, Your Radical Living Challenge, Seven Questions for a Meaningful Life, is

all about breaking free from the life you are told to live so that you can create the life you actually want. She's been featured in the LA Times, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and even survived an appearance on Dr. Phil. Oh, by the way, she's sold everything to live in an RV for a year. So she's got some wild stories and some real hard-won wisdom. So, Marnie, thank you for being our guest. You say that most people are asking themselves the wrong questions about their own lives.

So I want to start by asking, what are some of those wrong questions? What are some of the questions that people are asking that they think will lead them to happiness and meaning, but actually keeps them stuck or doesn't create that at all? Yeah. So I was thinking when you were asking me the question, I was thinking, oh gosh, there's so many. But the one that popped up this morning, so loud and clear is I think people really ask what will everyone

else think? What will someone else think if I say no to this thing? What will someone else think if I say yes? What will they think if I wear this? What will they think? It's like never ending set of comparison to spare questions that always revolve around what if I do it wrong? What if I'm not good enough?

And I think that that question alone keeps so many women paralyzed in fear because it's like the, I think of the movie Alien, like that alien thing that like birthed all the, all the other aliens, right? Like then that creates fear of success, fear of failure. It creates the questions of like, what does it mean when, why is this happening to me?

And that is just takes you down this like little Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole going to nowhere. So it's almost like the ladder, climbing the ladder up to nowhere. And then what will other people think is the rabbit hole down. And then you're just like, like I just imagine treading water for like, you know, 100 years.

Yeah. So as you were talking, it brought to mind an episode we recorded a few months back. And it's sort of this idea that something that is important and true and real has been distorted. And so like this idea of what will other people think, that's the distortion of, in my opinion, this fundamental desire to belong. And that is true and real and important when it comes to having a meaningful life. We want to create a sense of belonging for ourselves. And yet it's been distorted so much that we're asking ourselves the question that actually does the inverse of what we're looking for.

We're not gonna feel like we belong if we're turning ourselves inside out for other people's approval, yes? Yeah, and I think, so then I think with women at work, I think this is such a huge problem because I see it translating into what I call proving energy. So if I go into what does everyone else think,

then what I've learned is from early on, like I have to prove my worth through my accomplishments, my achievements, through any kind of validation that's external. And then that almost becomes like an addiction, right? And a huge distraction from what's going on even inside of us is we just set these like goalposts, you know, just so far out of our reach. And then we're like, I'm gonna prove it to them this time. And I was thinking about this myself the other day about when I first left corporate in my 20s and started my own copywriting business.

And I was in my 20s and I was living in Chicago at the time and I was selling marketing services to trade associations and I was young, right? And I literally remember it was the 90s Melrose Place was a really big show and Heather Locklear played this played this character on Melrose Place. It was this big corporate badass, right? And I literally remember going out and shopping for like these power suit things. And I and that was my thing is like, what will people think, right? Like I have to prove that I'm old enough that I'm capable enough. And those patterns are just so deeply ingrained in us

that it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And it starts to control our lives until that proving energy starts to cause dis-ease inside of us with all the cortisol and adrenaline and hypervigilance and dysregulation of our nervous system that were like in our 30s and 40s and were like, I don't know how much longer I can do this. Yeah. Well, I can attest to that. Personally, all of my 20s and most of my early 30s, I

was basically a walking billboard or a poster child for proving energy. Right. And it took a long time to sort of unravel that. And you're right, it still impacts me today. Okay, so I know your book is based on seven questions, seven ancient questions that hold the key to a meaningful life. Let's talk about some of those questions. What should we be asking ourselves? Yeah, so I think the one that I want, there's seven and they're so varied and deep

and that's why there's a whole book on them. But I think that I wanna start today with this one around honesty. So what's interesting in these questions did come from this ancient Talmudic text in order to make them relevant today, I changed the order of them and I modernized them. So at the original, at the origin story, right,

of these questions, the one that they asked was, were you honest in business? And when I was first doing research for this book, I was like, of all the questions you could ask, why that one? And the thinking behind it was that, you know, business equals money. And if you're honest about money, then you're probably going to be honest in your life. And I thought, okay, I buy that. But let me take it to the next level. Because I think what is underneath that that's even more impactful is, are you honest with yourself? Because what happens is that we get so good at covering up and coping with,

and there's so many numbing behaviors and avoidance behaviors that we think are going to make us feel better. I was just talking to someone who had like a hell day at work, right? And the old way was like, come home, big plans to go to the gym, gonna make a healthy dinner, you know, literally ended up having two glasses of wine, didn't go to the gym, binge watched Love is Blind, ate a bunch of crap, never even actually ate a meal, right? And so what happens is, and we say like, it's so hard, my boss is a jerk, times are terrible, the job market's horrible.

We find all these external things to blame, which cover up like this idea of like, am I honest with myself? And so that looks like asking deeper questions. Like, what's the problem I'm pretending not to have so I can have the problem that I complain about? What is it that I'm actually really afraid of? And so when we get into radical honesty,

instead of pointing the finger out, there's those three fingers that point back, and then we're able to ask questions that we are able to actually do something about because they're ones we have control over. And that is how we start to make our life meaningful. So I have a list in the book of about 30 to 40 avoidance behaviors.

And there's so much more beyond like watch TV, scroll online, eat popcorn. And so when readers look at that, it's really a wake up call to look at what are you not dealing with that's in your life? Okay, so let me first say the original question is surprising to me. I wouldn't have thought that would be one.

And as you were talking, I do think we have bought into this idea that we are somehow different in business than we are in life. Like that people can be high integrity in their life, but not in business. I agree completely. How you show up when money and results are at stake is who you are. Money doesn't change you, it reveals you. And so I love that question now that I thought through it. And then the second part, the way you reframed it is how honest are we being with ourselves? I have kind of a follow-up question.

Sometimes we know. I think a lot of times we know when we're lying to ourselves. We feel it, we outright make up a lie, you know, that type of thing. But I think sometimes we're not being honest with ourselves, not that we're lying to ourselves, but we're not checking in with ourselves or we're not being very self aware. Any tips on either how we feel or what to look for to really check in with ourselves if we are being honest with ourselves? You queued that up so perfectly because one of the other questions is, did you make time for a spiritual practice, basically?

And I say that doesn't mean religious, that doesn't mean that higher power God is involved unless you want it to. What it really means is, do you have time? Are you making time to actually get quiet and check in with yourself? And I remember the days, you know, I was a single mom, I got divorced, my kids were like between two and eight. And I just remember very clearly doing 12 things at once. Running around, my mom used to say like

a chicken with your head chopped off. Right? And, right? And if you would have asked me back then, like, do you have time to, you know, check in with yourself? I would have said, hell no. And I would have given you a lot of reasons why I can't. But what I always say to that, especially with professional women is, is there ever a week, let alone a day that you go through your work life

where you don't have some sort of meeting. You're caught you are right. You're like whether it's like a check in meeting or a brainstorming meeting or a thinking meeting. Right. And so I like to frame the stillness practice your spiritual practice and have that moment to be honest, as a meeting that you have with yourself every day. that's at least five minutes long. You do not have to sit cross-legged, you do not have to light a candle, you do not have to play like a meditation app.

It can literally be like writing out in a journal, not Dear Diary, but actually doing like a dialogue. And you can break it down. I teach this in the book, it's a four-way check. And it's really simple. It's checking in with your intellect, the you know, the busy brain part of yourself and just say, Hey, intellect, what's going on? Now, when I do this, it's literally the to do list. And so sometimes

I just am like, Okay, here it is. I can't do anything else or be present until this list is complete. I stop, I write it down. My brain is like, thank you, thank you, thank you. I was so sick of holding all that in. Right. And then I check in with my emotions and I just say, so how am I feeling? And I break it down really simple to four things, sad, mad, glad, scared, or shame. And I just check in. Right. And that requires like a little bit of a pause because you're like, wait, I don't know. How am I feeling? Do I have feelings?

Right? It's like, it takes a minute, right? And so you just, you just pause and you just check in with that. You can even say like, what do I need? Right? What is my, what do I need today? Um, and then you check in with your physical self, which is really important because we're also so disassociated

from our bodies and our busyness. My leg hurts, I need to go for a walk, I haven't been outside for days. People that work at home, I'm like, I never left the house. I need to do this, that, the other, I need a hug, whatever it is. And then finally check in with the version of yourself. I call it your essential self, but like it's your wisdom.

And I just say, you know, wisdom, inner self, you know, however you wanna call it, wise self, do you have a message for me today? That can take less than five minutes. You can do it on your phone, you can do it in a journal, but you would never do anything without a meeting. So have a meeting with yourself. but you would never do anything without a meeting. So have a meeting with yourself.

So I'm a big fan of carving out the time in your schedule to do that. And as a plan B or a backup, if the shit hits the fan and all hell breaks loose is in the shower. Like I think a shower can be such a great reflection time. Do it the way you're talking about the journal, but just for those people who say, Work can be such a great reflection time. Do it the way you're talking about, the journal, but just for those people who say,

oh, I don't have the time or did like brushing your teeth or in the shower. After the 30 seconds you drop your kids off at school and you drive somewhere else. Yeah. You know, I have people who have done this process all over the place, in the bathroom at work. Yeah, yeah. You know, like you go to work and you're like, and then you're like, oh crap, I didn't check in with myself. Go literally sit in a stall, have a moment. Right? Like there,

you can argue for your limitations or you can argue for your possibilities. And so don't tell me you don't have time because we all spend five minutes a day on social media, most of you do. So just substitute one's doom scroll slash for a check-in and that can be your spiritual practice. Yeah, fair and valid point. I know we're not going to have time to go through all seven questions and we want people to get the book, but is there any other question or question or two that you think is either

surprising or super important specifically for women? Yeah. So I just actually gave a talk on this last weekend because of our world is a skosh chaotic right now. And so the other question is, did you count the blessings? And I think that what I hear out in the world right now with people I'm talking to is that how could I dare to want something more when there are so many people suffering? How could I have a bigger dream?

How could I not be satisfied in this job and wanna get another one? How could I wanna have a better relationship with my kids, my parents? Like, how could I even think about like personal development work when, you know, people are literally dying every day? And it's loud and proud in the news. And so one thing that I really want to encourage people to understand is the word and. Most of us overachievers, perfectionists, myself included, is that most of us, the part of our brain

that gets out of binary thinking and can think in an analog way, actually gets stunted early on. And so in our in our brain development, we sort of become a black and white thinker. And then that gets strengthened and validated as we go on. And so we literally forget to hold two things at one time. And so two things at one time. And so how can you actually find the gratitude, the joy, the smallest blessing, and also hold the fact that there is sorrow and chaos in the world? And I did this talk over the weekend and I had people break into little groups and they shared and I loved overhearing beautiful things. Like I listened, I was really quiet and I went outside and I could actually hear the wind, someone said.

Someone went skiing and was like, I felt like the weight shift from one leg to the other. And I was just so grateful that at my age and what's going on that I could actually do that. So, and it's feeling it, just again, take the 10 seconds to not just think it but actually embody it and and say, you know, look, this is happening. And this is happening. Which am I going to lean into just for a moment and

give yourself the grace to honor and appreciate the life you work so hard for. And, and know that your ability to feel joy is probably the most courageous and inspirational thing you can do to other people who are suffering. I couldn't agree more and struggle with this personally, this idea two things can both be true and I'll add to paradoxical things, right? And that's, I think, where we have the greatest disconnect or the hardest time where it's like, these two things seem opposite and yet they are both true.

And I gotta tell you, this leads me into my next question. With everything going on in the world, I've had black and white moments or times where I started thinking insane things like I should quit my job and get into politics. Anybody who knows me knows that that is just a really bad idea across the board. And yet, with everything going on, you can get caught up in it. So the question it's leading me to is how do we lean into creating a meaningful life for ourselves without blowing up the life

we currently have? It doesn't need to be this black or white, all or nothing, let go of one thing and only focus on the next, right? 110%. So here's what's really interesting. I like to make everything. I work with very linear thinkers, neck up thinkers, right? Practical. So again, let's just talk about work, right? Like, usually, if we're going to develop something,

like create a new idea, a new system, a new product, a new whatever, we don't just like, go out and invest resources and time to do that without actually following a process or a system, an SOP, whatever you have in your organization, right? And as humans, we can't actually also predict what is gonna make us happy or what our next thing should be if there is even a right decision. And so in the book, I actually take you through the Stanford Design Thinking Model for product development.

I've actually customized it for humans to develop the product, which is your ideal life and you're the user. And so what happens is you actually really get clear on who are you? What does light you up? Where are you in flow? I think we forget that the person who designed the life that you're living today, if you're in your 30s and 40s, may have been 10, 20, 15 years old. And it may not actually be who you are today. Give yourself permission to understand that

you don't want the same things for your 40th birthday that you did for your 20th. So why would you expect the same jobs make you happy, right? And so we follow this process. And one of the things that happens when you're developing something new is it's an iterative process. So you scale down a big idea to something smaller and then you test it and you get feedback.

You cannot think your way into clarity about what works and what makes you happy and what pivots you need to make only through action, right? And so you have to take these small steps and then without thinking that if it doesn't work, it's a fail, you realign the parameters as you were doing an experiment. If I do this, I wonder if this makes me enough money.

I wonder if I did this, if I actually will have more energy during the day. I wonder if I do this if I actually will have more energy during the day. I wonder if I do this if I could actually meet more people that are aligned with what I want in my life. And then you go, Oh, it worked. It didn't work. What did I like about it? And then actually that creates a meaningful life because you're not on autopilot anymore. You're not waiting. The question that is the most fun of the seven is, what did I create? Creation is life-giving, right?

And it doesn't have to mean like an art project, it's a new thought, a new idea, a new friend, a new habit. There's so many ways we can create. And when we get an action of creation, we start to feel empowered and we have agency and that lights us up. Yeah, and the way you're speaking of creation, we start to feel empowered and we have agency and that lights us up. Yeah and the way you're speaking about creation, there's an element of underlying curiosity that I think sometimes gets missed when we talk about creation especially in the business sense

today. And I do think there is the inclination to, and I'm going to put in air quotes, test, but then feel really, really shitty if it doesn't work. Like there's something wrong with me and I'm going to put in air quotes, test, but then feel really, really shitty if it doesn't work. Like there's something wrong with me, I'm bad or whatever. And the way you positioned it, I think, is so important. It's a test. It's a self-discovery process. We don't judge the results and the outcomes. We learn from them.

We use them to help set up the next test. And when you come from that angle, it lets all of the worry about where we started this conversation, what will everyone else think, or I'm a success or a failure, as if it's binary. There's so much of that that I think is so important for us as humans and especially as women. So here's the thing about what you just said is that

if you have the paradigm that I don't know what I don't know until I do it, then there are no failures, right? Like I'm looking at my little iPhone 14, which is now old, right? But when I got my iPhone, you know, four, I didn't go like, well, this sucks, you know, I can't, you know, my photos don't have a search thing

and it doesn't intuitively make me a video. I didn't know I needed that, wanted it, cared about it. Right. And so your life is the same way. You don't know what you don't know until you explore it. When I think about my own life and where I've ended up and what I'm doing now, I did try to think about it. Believe me, this was long before AI.

I was like, who's going to shit out of like, what will make me happy? Where should I live? What should I do if I like these things? It didn't matter. I had to start actually doing this experiment to actually figure out what my escape plan was into the next version of myself. Okay. When it comes to building a meaningful life and testing, I think one of the default responses that many of us have is we don't have the time or we don't have the money.

There's some sort of scarcity that exists that doesn't allow us to create a meaningful life. Now, I do struggle with this a little bit. As a woman with means and privilege, that is absolutely an excuse for somebody like me. And there are people who live today in poverty, and that feels more like a reason than an excuse to me. I have to imagine the vast majority of the people listening to this podcast in this episode

are not in the category where this is out of their hands. Most of us do not have the scarcity of time or money that we claim to. So that is a long-winded way of asking where does time and money play a part or how do we get over the scarcity mentality around that when it comes to creating a meaningful life? I love this question so much. I mean, I could answer like 10,000 ways. But one thing is that there are two things

around scarcity of time that I talk about all the time. One is the idea that I don't have enough time. But it also is held with this thing that I call time denial, which is like, I have plenty of time. I'll do this like 10 years from now. And that is not guaranteed. And so that's the thing, right? Like, so what can you do to create time? So I like to think of it this way. And I recommend put this on a post to know what would I do in my life differently if all time were precious and valuable, meaning there is nothing that's a waste of time and all time is equal. How do I

choose to spend my time and I have worked with a lot of women who their very first session with me, they're so proud to show me their calendar that is totally blocked out in every color of the rainbow, telling me why they don't have time to shower, they don't have time to eat. Usually those are things about like people pleasing proving not setting boundaries. Again, like you can argue for your limitation or you can say like, what can I do when people

say, I already know how that's going to go. I'm going to tell you that about 98% of the time they were wrong. And when they start actually setting those boundaries at work, I had one client, she was so proud of her calendar. She started talking to her boss setting boundary and her boss literally said, Nancy, I have been trying to get you to be a better delegator for the last two years. And yeah, your life shouldn't look like this. And that's a you that's a leadership problem. She ended up actually getting her an internal coach and allocating more team to her department, because she actually spoke up and asked for what she wanted. She didn't even hear her boss telling her to delegate because she wasn't aware,

because she was so committed to hiding in her busyness. That's just a really good example of, I believe we all have one small shift we can make that can actually make a huge difference in our life. Yeah, and how many of us are hiding behind our calendars and our wallets as opposed to doing what you said earlier, which is being honest with ourselves. And I would just reiterate,

I think time management is a misnomer, it's choice management. We all have the exact same amount of time. Time is fixed and neutral. What we have are the choices that we make with the time that we have. And that's where the real difference is made. Marnie, one last question

I have to ask. You took a huge leap by selling everything to live in an RV for a year. And I know that journey shaped in part your book. What is either the question that you lived by the most or an unexpected lesson that you learned about leading a meaningful life from doing something like that? Yeah. So one of the chapters is about what I call the newfound gap. So I was out hiking and on the Appalachian Trail and no, it wasn't like some Reese Witherspoon movie.

It didn't look like that. But we were just starting out on the trip and it wasn't a trip for say I was working full-time with my husband but we were out there and it was raining and it had rained the whole first month like we were arguing all the time like it was not you know it wasn't it wasn't butterflies and rainbows and I was on this hike my husband was like walking up ahead of me and I was like it it's just be romantic, shared moment. Anyway, and I get to the top of this peak

and it's this point, it's called the Newfound Gap on the trail. And you look over on one side and it's Carolina and on the other side is I believe Tennessee. And it hit me that I was so afraid and comparing what could be to my old life. And I was so afraid of letting go of what wasn't keeping was not making me fully content, but was familiar. And that if I continued to compare everything that was happening right now and be resentful about it.

I wasn't really leaping or stepping into what could be possible. And the messy middle of being in that in-between, that minimal space between what you are becoming and what you were, it's challenging to be a different version of yourself, to think outside the box. But once I realized that I was holding myself back

and that I stopped resisting the messy mental and realized that was where the juice was, like everything changed for me on the trip. And so I just want people to know, like being radical, living a radical life, isn't being a reckless person. You don't have to sell your house or your belongings, live in RV. It's deciding to go to your boss and say, like, this isn't working for me and understand that it might be like uncomfortable to make those changes

and start saying no and let go of the proving energy. It's the messy middle. But if you stop resisting it and you keep taking baby steps and follow through on the proving energy, it's the messy middle. But if you stop resisting it, and you keep taking baby steps and follow through on that design plan, the end is pretty freaking amazing. Yeah. Again, reminds me of those two paradoxical truths, right? In order to live a meaningful life, you have to get uncomfortable. Marnie, thank you for being here and for writing this book. Friends, the book is called Your Radical Living Challenge,

Seven Questions for a Meaningful Life. Go get your hands on it. And you can also go to radicallivingchallenge.com for more resources, including a quiz, if you want to really dig deep into your seven questions. Again, Marni, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. My pleasure.

OK, if today's conversation has taught us anything, it's that a meaningful life isn't something we stumble into. It's something we choose. It's something we create. And the choice isn't about doing more, achieving more, checking off all the so-called right boxes. It's about asking better questions. Not am I successful enough?

But did you count your blessings? Not what should I do, but am I being honest with myself? When we shift our focus from what the world expects to what truly fulfills us, we stop just existing and we start mattering. And whether that impact is loud and visible or quiet and personal, it all counts because your meaningful life isn't measured by others or by society and definitely not by social media. It's measured by you. So whatever this life looks like for you, I hope you walk away from this episode feeling

empowered to live your version of a meaningful life. Because if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that defining our own path, owning our own choices, living a life of significance, that is always woman's work.