Embracing Opportunities and Overcoming Fear with Marjah Simon

Do you want to know the secret to Success? Welcome to rulesforsuccess.com a platform that unites the accomplished and the ambitious. This is where successful entrepreneurs reveal their winning strategies, their profound wisdom, and their practical guidance. Whether you are a pioneering entrepreneur, a determined business leader, or simply someone who craves success, RulesForSuccess.com is the podcast designed for you. We're here to arm you with the invaluable knowledge of individuals who have paved their own path to success. And now let's get into the show with dynamic host Joseph Varghese. All right, we are here. Everyone just vargas here. Rules for Success.com is our podcast. I'm super excited. I get to interview a good friend of mine, Marja Storm Simon. Marja and I go back several years. We connected many years ago through the Tony Robbins community. Community, Tony Robbins ecosystem. We connected again in recent years through another community called Unblinded. And it's been a pleasure to really connect with someone who I respect, I see as a mentor, as a leader in the author speaker space. She's impacted my clients, friends, people in my network, helping them become better authors, better leaders. And we're here. So this is streamed now on different sites also. It'll be accessible on rulesforsuccess.com with a mind map summary of this entire interview that you can download and access there easily as well. Also, Marja, how are you today?

I am outstanding. So excited to be here with you, Joseph and the entire amazing crew of amazing people that will be talking with incredible.

Well, I'm excited to have you. What Rules for Success is, it's an opportunity to dive into Mars's world. Her, her evolution which brought her here. She's also a fellow New Yorker. She's born and raised in New York, as I have as well. Also, she's traversed on this journey, becoming an international like entrepreneur. She's lived in Germany. We'll talk about that as well. Also where she is now and who she's really helping. She's on a mission. She's. I'm often present to people who have this mindset of being generational. Like the things we do, the choices we make impact generations. Our families, our children, our clients, their families too as well. Also. And that's, that's, that's the life that as I see Marja, that's it. She's. She's constantly making choices that impact people on many levels. And I'm just really excited to dive in, into her world. What brought her forward as an entrepreneur and much more Marcia, she grew up. You grew up in New York. You were born in the Bronx, is that right?

Yes, Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. It's a badge of pride, you know, to say, hey, I'm a New Yorker and I've lived all over the world in multiple cities. I left New York actually when I was 17 and went to another state, went to Northern Michigan for college. And I think there's always been something in me where I've just been a lot more adventurous and willing to just branch out. And I moved to Michigan, didn't know anybody anywhere near where I was moving to. And my mom didn't even want me to leave New York. And she said, it's so far away, why don't you just wait? I don't have money to send you. And I said, okay, then I just won't go to school for a year. I'll work, I'll save the money. And then I'm leaving. And she said, oh, go. And she found the money, she borrowed it and sent me to Michigan. I had a plane ticket and that was a one way plane ticket and that was it. And I had to find my way at 17 and figure it out from there. But I think there was something about being brought up in New York City that kind of fostered that. I remember, I think I was 11 when I was first riding the train in New York City subway by myself. And so you have to figure things out very quickly. I was the oldest of four and you're like, okay, how do I navigate? And New Yorkers, I think we also have this very fine tuned sixth sense about safety and danger and navigating and reading people very quickly. So we grew up with all of that.

Absolutely, absolutely. Definitely. The subway system can teach you a lot of that.

Yeah.

My wife and I talk about often her experiences in subway and navigating and, you know, the challenges. Things are of course, improved in subway system from where things were 20, 30 years ago.

Yes.

But yeah, sensory acuity is a word that was used a lot in the Tony Robbins ecosystem.

Yeah.

Kind of embracing this idea of like engaging all our senses to see what's coming and how we can serve and add value and recognize we're where we need to be. Be safer. Perhaps.

Yeah, definitely.

Awesome, awesome. So were you always like in this creative mindset? Did you study the creative arts and writing, authoring?

Okay, yeah, actually I have. I didn't realize that this was going to be where my life would lead. Four years before I started this company, I was practicing as an attorney and I had been an attorney for many a couple of decades by then, and so well, trenched in that identity and that path, when one day I just decided, you know what? I am miserable. It's physically, emotionally and mentally killing me. And whatever they're paying me, the title, the corner office, the, you know, the, quote, respect, and you've made it. You've gotten the American dream. It just wasn't worth my life and my happiness anymore. And so I walked away, which was harder than a time in the past where I lost everything and had to rebuild my life from scratch. The so as being an attorney for all those years, I didn't realize that my past was always forging the way for my purpose. And it wasn't the past of me being in law school, but it was even further back from when I was a child. Often people are searching for their purpose, searching for why they're here, what they're here to contribute, what their gifts and talents and skills are. But we were born knowing that. And when I was a little girl, I remember I was super inquisitive and I would take apart the radio, yes, radios, and I take apart the radio to see how. What the components inside look like. I take apart the bathroom sink. I would take, you know, I got in trouble all the time, but it never stopped me. And I would always take it apart, studying, and sometimes could put it back together, sometimes couldn't.

You should have been an engineer like me.

I was really curious about why things were, how they were working, not necessarily about wanting to build them. And I do love working with my hands. When I start, I was in the army and in the Air Force. Multiple lives I've lived. And when I started in the army, I was a carpentry and masonry specialist. We were in one of. I was a heavy combat engineer. We were one of the first cycles of females that they allow to be in that specialty. And so throughout my life, I was always taking the road less traveled. But back to your original question. When I was in elementary school, high school, I was an art major and I played volleyball, but I drew and painted and sculpted and did photography. And so I was always looking for ways to make things more beautiful, to capture the essence of something. And I didn't. I was. I loved English, loved writing. I used to write stories. I was the oldest of four. Like I said, we didn't have a lot. I would entertain my siblings by making up skits and voices for my stuffed animals and putting on plays for them. And I would take the Sunday strips from the cartoons and tape them together and put them on sticks and make reels in boxes and. And so that they could watch cartoons in boxes and reels. And I would just do a lot of. And then I started designing my own. And I remember in elementary school, I made my first short film about a little girl who didn't brush her teeth and lost all her teeth.

Wow, that's awesome. In elementary school.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, there was always something about capturing beauty, capturing the essence of the world. Yeah.

It's important to instill that level of creativity and curiosity Right. In children because it becomes part of them and the choices we have. And especially pivoting. You made a lot of pivots in your life, like the army, the Air Force, being a lawyer for decades and then stepping back into that creative mindset, furthering that with the work you do, creating impact as, as a author, coach. Any lessons as far as that goes? There's so much riches in that on that journey growing up New York, to all those pivots you've had. But how does, and usually I ask this question later in the conversation, but how does somebody go by, go through life embracing pivots that effectively.

Right.

Like going through. And a lot of that, you know, I believe personally, is the references. You have references at an earlier stage of life, you did this, you were able to access this creativity and do that. What are some thoughts you have around that?

Okay.

And Marza will be back in momentarily. We're playing with this new place platform now. And. And it's not. It's a little different for Zoom. And here she is right now, back in.

We're so electric. We are affecting the universe, Affecting the recordings.

Exactly, exactly.

Yes. It's. I think when I was a little girl, my grandfather was a pastor over two churches, one in New York, one in South Carolina. And he was a serial entrepreneur. His name was Ransom Green. He had at one point a trucking company. He had one of the first black owned farms in New York. He was a soldier in the army, fought, you know, against Hitler in Germany when he didn't even have rights in the US and he was fighting for the rights of others. Him and my grandmother raised eight children together. And he did all of that with a second grade education and everything against him, especially as a black man at that time in New York. He died during the pandemic. He was, I think, 98 when he passed away. And incredible life.

Long life. Yeah.

Wow. Incredible life. And he had always wore a cowboy hat and cowboy boots and drove a big Cadillac. That was my Grandfather.

Is this Mom's.

Side, Dad's side, My mother's father, yeah. Six foot two with a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. And. And he always, no matter what, had this positive outlook on life. This can do this determination. And I never realized until I was an adult how much influence he had on me and watching him and how he carried himself. And so a lot of times, it's not even what we're. What we're do, what we're saying to our children, but it's what we're doing and how we're carrying ourselves. And I watched him. No matter what was in his way, he just moved forward. And he always had this cheery, positive attitude, and he spoke with such elegance and authority, and people respected him and listened to him. And I watched, and I didn't realize I was absorbing all of that. And he. Yeah, I still remember the day I went from enlisted as a heavy combat engineer to an officer, JAG officer, once I became an attorney. And I was standing in his kitchen, and I told him, grandpa, I'm a JAG officer in the army now. And he looked at me. I think that was the first time I ever in my life saw him speechless. And he had such pride in his eyes. And finally he was just so choked up. Finally he said, you're an officer, so. Yes, sir. He said, in the JAG Corps? Yes, sir. And he said, wow. And I realized the impact, because all of the segregation, all of the humiliation, all of the fights, he saw in that moment that it was worth it. Yes, that he went through that because he blazed a path for his granddaughter to be able to become a JAG officer, where in his day, that was not even a possibility. Right. It was not even a thought or allowed. And I still feel that energy of how he looked at me in that moment. And I've had so many moments like that with different people in my family. My mom, she struggled and couldn't figure out a way forward, but she would drive my siblings and I, whenever we had a car. She'd drive us through the wealthy neighborhoods, just slowly and just cruise through there, and we would play this game. I didn't realize at the time she was helping us to vision, to have vision of what was possible for ourselves. And we play this game like, oh, that's my house. Well, that's my car. Well, why is your car parked in front of my yard? And, oh. And in the wealthy neighborhoods, the curtains were always open, unlike in the poor neighborhoods where everybody was and hide the little bit that they had. And we Saw the big chandeliers and the hardwood floors and the beautiful furniture and the green lawns and. And so she would do this and just smile and just drive silently and show us. She didn't know how to get us there, but she could show us what's possible. And. And we would dream and we'd vision ourselves in those spaces. My father, he wasn't a nice man, quite honestly. He was very abusive and hard. And however, he was so intelligent. He was very frustrated also. And he didn't know how to get out of the cycle of negativity and pain he was in that he grew up in. But one thing he knew was that education would give us something more. And he would make me read books before I could go out to play. And he would have to select the books so they would be well beyond my grade level. I used to be so angry with him because I could hear friends outside playing and running around and laughing. And I'm sitting there with a book this thick going, I don't even understand these words. And he's like, keep reading. And I read through these books, not realizing this would be what I do for a living and love it.

Incredible.

But I read them. By the time I was in seventh grade, I was reading at a college level. And that was because of that little pivot that he did. Except you and I met in the Tony Robbins world. Tony is always talking about those two millimeter shifts.

Yes.

And throughout my life, the adults in my life, no matter what shortcomings or anything that they had to face or deal with, they were giving me opportunities to make 2 millimeter shifts. And we all have that in our life every single day. I met with my team this morning, and we were talking about just that. What are you going to do today to make a 2 millimeter shift in your life? Even a 1% shift in your life today. Continued on will have exponential effects.

Exactly. Yeah. Our core values and our community success circles make the day better. Make each other better.

Yes.

That's kind of a dialogue.

I love your community. I love what you do. Bringing together entrepreneurs to make those micro shifts and adjustments and having that accountability. So important.

And it takes measuring that over time to make things happen. And I love the nature of how you. How your mom brought you in those neighborhoods, gave you a vision. I think I joked with you recently about. A couple weeks ago about. But we both have pronoia, which is basically the idea that we live in abundant universe. You know, life is happening for you, not against you. And.

Yes.

And a lot of what's taught at a young age, when we embrace that, our kids. My kids, too. I want to ensure that they have a mindset too, as well. Also that, you know, we're not victims. We're. We're. We're resourceful and we can create life on our own terms and know that God's there helping us, like, on this journey toward. Toward achieving it. So it's extraordinary how you're able to pull from all of that, you know, from your. From your mom to your extraordinary grandfather passed away a few years ago at age 98 to your dad and challenges. But being able to embrace all of that. Those references to who you are now.

Yeah.

I'm also present to structure, too. So being in the army, the. The. The armed forces. Air force. Like how. I mean, some of the best entrepreneurs I know out there are ones who embrace structure. Like, the idea of the structure creates freedom. And it's.

Tony taught us that discipline equals freedom.

Yes, exactly.

It's such a counterintuitive phrasing that it makes your mind go, huh?

Yes. Especially when you have a creative mindset. And like, you know, we. Some of us who are creative, we want to be creative. And sometimes that involves a lot of flow and movement, but not necessarily structure. And then when you embrace the structure side of things and you have both, Both, it's extraordinary what comes forward. You're able to design your week, your day accordingly, where you have creative modes, and then you have times where building systems and checklists and, you know, all of that. Yeah. How does that play in your life, and how has that helped you with your clients? Because, you know, of course, you've scaled your business. You've impacted hundreds of people. Like, how does that play forward for you?

It's. I've learned to be very patient and loving with myself, and I remind my clients of that as well. Because as entrepreneurs, I think we are probably the hardest on ourselves, harder than anyone else, harder than any employer ever was on us. And we are constantly looking for the pieces that are broken and not working. And let's fix it, let's make it better, let's make it more. And it's how we're designed. We're creators. We're creators created to create. Our creator made us to expand, and so we're ever expanding. We're always looking for more ways to give more, be more, do more, have more. And there's absolutely everything right with that and nothing wrong with that. However, we've been mistaught. I think that we need to beat ourselves up and that we need to feel guilty when we're not in that production mode all the time. And so what I've learned to do over time is to have grace with myself, to allow myself the same love that I. And that I would give to others. And one of the things I intentionally do is I structure my day to put in what's called purpose breaks. And so I used to judge myself whenever I needed a break as being lazy or unproductive or uncreative or wasting time. And fortunately, I had a coach who. She talked me through that. She's like, maybe you want to name that time something different. You are. Of all the words that I could describe, lazy is not one that I would put with you. And I started looking at, well, why is my body and my mind wanting to take a break? And I realized it's because it needs the downtime to rest. It needs to recharge. We need to reset, recharge, refuel. And those purpose breaks are just as important as the time when we are producing. And without those, without both, without that ebb and flow, we lose our rhythm and we cannot produce. And so we'll push and push and push through, but what happens is we're producing, but at a much lower level. We're producing, but at a. A much lower standard. And when we are tuned in to our vibrations into how we're feeling, am I feeling good? Am I taking care of myself? Am I filling myself up first? Am I giving from my best, from my overflow, rather than from my empty and my push? It's a very different vibration, very different energy, and a very different output. And what I found is where we're able to do so much more with so much less effort when we allow ourselves that time to rest and bring our vibrations up intentionally and then go from there. And so it's acting in inspired action versus desperate desperation.

I love that. Absolutely brilliant. So much wisdom in where you said that so concisely in the past, like, three minutes. And a lot of New Yorkers, especially, you know, New York, it's kind of against, like, grain when they think about that idea. The idea of hustle culture, for example. And yes, there's so much more opportunity to scale and grow, and we take those breaks. Maximum engagement demands maximum relaxation.

Yeah.

And even when people have interviewed top athletes, top performers, stage performers, Broadway stars, these people are known to take time off, to disconnect, to recharge, because they know that when they're back in the game, they're back in the court. They're able to perform at a much higher level. So it's brilliant.

Thank you. Thank you. And if you even. Speaking of athletes, if you even look at how I love looking at the physical form to understand how we actually work in the spiritual mental realm, because they're the same. And if you look at a lot of people think, oh, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to build up muscle, I'm going to get stronger in the gym. But that's not actually what we're doing in the gym. What we're doing is we're breaking down our muscle tissue. And so while we're pumping and working out, we're breaking down our muscle fiber and it's ripping apart and tearing apart when we sleep. That's when it regenerates and comes back together and gets stronger. So it's actually in our rest state that our muscles are being built and we're getting stronger. And so if you're working out all the time, never resting, your muscles are just in tear mode, terror mode, tear mode, and never actually getting stronger.

Yes. Yeah, great. Great metaphor. Yeah, great. Well said. Incredible. Marja. And so you've written six books, right? I know one of your books is coming out as well also. I think we. You mentioned before as well also. And it has very similar kind of a statement to what we do with success or steer to play bigger and tell us about that book. And also love to also hear some stories about some of your clients and kind of the legacies you have left. They have left or they're leaving thanks to the books. You're helping them. You know, your process, helping them to kind of complete.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I am so grateful that I made the decision. It's been about four years now. I think time is flying. Could be longer that I decided that I had enough of living the life that I was living at that time. And I walked away from a marriage which had become very unhappy and unsupportive and walked away from a job that was so toxic in its environment that it was. I was suffering from. I didn't realize it, but depression and crying every day. And with. Even with all of my personal development and everything that I had invested, I think it was because of that I was able to persevere as long as I had, because I had the tools to cope and adjust and pivot. But I knew I was not living my optimal life. And I made that decision. And I was scared. And I had. Like you said, I had remade my life again and again and again. And when I tell people about my past, they're like, wait, how many lives have you lived? And I'm like, I have no idea. But a lot of times it was me reacting to life. And what I realized several times though, is that there were times when I intentionally chose a new path. And that was one of them. And since then, I've helped over 100 people, myself and my team to become best selling authors. I have clients who become dear friends. They're all over the world. We've published everything from children's books to poetry books, medical relationship books, business books, you name it, we've done it. And to see the light come on in their eyes, to see my clients be able to expand who they are in the world and why they're here and through their book, share their stories, their mission, their vision, their purpose, and to touch lives, I know that that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I know that's why I'm here. And I love being a conduit for their authentic voice. And so unlike a ghostwriter or AI or anything like that, we're actually capturing the essence of them. And as an attorney, I see the structure and order of the chaos is their stories in their mind and bring that out and put that on and put that together for them and with them. And as an empath, I can also feel their heart and help them open up and tap into who they actually are and the heart of why they're here. And we create that safe, beautiful space for them to want to share that with the world. And so I've heard many times they say it's better than therapy. This is not therapy, but they have this beautiful transformation of who they are, what they're doing so often. And I love being a part of that.

This is through conversations, through dialogues. Basically you or your mentor team connect with them on a call, like we're doing here right now, where it's like a framework where they're able to get their, their, their story out, right? Their, their journey out in a way that's effective, that's impactful, it's conversational in those great books and authors and leaders, they're, they're conversational. Am I right about that?

Yes. And I say, you know, I've heard people talk about, especially in entrepreneurial space, that, you know, you have to have your book, it's a business card. And I'm like, I've never had a business card change my life, but I've had many, many books changed my life from the Ones that my father made me read to finally, when the spark was ignited and I wanted to read on my own. Those books when I was a child, those were my escape, those were my place of refuge. That was a place where I could dream and vision and see what was possible for my life. That helped me to expand into other cultures and other mindsets, to accept other people and other ways of life very easily. I've traveled the world, I've been in multiple countries, like you said. I've lived in Germany for a decade, traveled all through the world, and I feel like everywhere I go, I'm home. And that is because of when I was a child and continuing through my adulthood, reading books and seeing all of the possibilities. As a lawyer in law school, we're taught to argue both sides of a case. And so they're like, okay, this is the issue now go and research and convince us you're correct. And so you're putting everything in your hyper focus and you're like, this is it. And then you're like, okay, switch sides. You're like, wait, but I'm right. Yeah. And now we have to go and argue the exact opposite of what we just convinced ourselves that was the right quote, the right way. And, and now we're convinced, oh wait, this is the right side too. And so suddenly lawyers, we have a strange mind. We're able to see multiple sides of a situation very quickly. And when my clients are sharing who they are in their story, I can see the multiple reasons and the multiple gifts in that. There's a passage in the Bible, God said, count it all as good. Counted all his joy. I'm not sure where that is. I remember reading that as a child and I had, honestly, I had a real problem with that because like I said, I was in a poor neighborhood, not so happy childhood home, and I was like, counted all as good. Really, this is good. But as I matured, I say, well, okay, God is saying, do this, there must be a way to do this. And what I realized as I matured is it's not necessarily that the situation or what you're experiencing it's self is good, but there's good that comes out of everything.

Yes.

If we're willing to see it, if we're willing to look at it, if we're willing to explore it, if we're willing to make it good.

Yes.

Because again, we're creators and we're choosing that actively.

How we see life and how we frame life. And powerful, it really is powerful. And one of the greatest Gifts I've learned over the years doing this work is the ability to reframe challenges as opportunities, like really seeing the goodness in all of it, because that allows us to live in the present. And the present is where we're actually able to create and build new things versus living in the past.

Yeah.

The way you encompass that just now is just brilliant. And I love how just you're able to tap into all these different sources. Right. All these experiences growing up, childhood, military, even being a lawyer, and being able to tap into all the different sides, you know, like, and bring that out with, with your clients. It's, it's pretty, pretty mind blowing. It really. Is there a specific client you want to talk about? Maybe like their, their, their book, like what came out of, like what they put together, what, what that looks like.

And there's so many people always ask, what's your favorite book? I said the next one and. Oh, you asked me what the book is that's coming out. One of My close friends, J.J. bilar and I, we have, we're called Authoring a Book Next. And that's actually the book we wrote together that we said we were having a conversation was that what if our mothers, when they were starting their adult life, had access to all of the information, the self, the personal development tools, and the insights and awarenesses that we've developed that we've gotten the privilege of having in our life to create our next life and our next life, and we decided to write a book. We couldn't help our mothers, but we could help people like that. And what if we could make a book that was fun and easy and gave those tools and those insights and made it accessible for people that are looking to create a new life intentionally. And so I'm really, really excited. And that'll be out in a few weeks. And it's probably one of the best ones I think I've written for people.

I know, jj so that's great you're doing together. That's incredible. That's absolutely incredible. So, so, so many ways of adding value there. Right. And like bringing closure to that. And I, I, I think books are great too, because they allow us to bring newness into our lives. You're able to create close up a chapter, a chapter in the past you mentioned, you know, whether it's parenting or where we were previous in a career. And by closing off the chapter, we're able to bring newness to our mind, to bring right. New chapters into what's next. And that's a beautiful thing. About writing books as well. We're able to kind of create new because the old chapters are out there, perhaps impacting other people who are going through challenges, who go through that journey where they can now, you know, start anew. That's so brilliant. It's so great to see how you've evolved and taken it all into what you do with your purpose with. With Authors Writers Academy. So great.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And I look at my clients and the impact that their books are having. And for example, Peter Swain, I know you know him, friend of ours, I helped him to bring his book into the world. And that after bringing that book in, he created a mastermind that and a community off of that book.

And.

And then he pivoted into roai, his new company. That is just having the most amazing impact. And even my whole team is in that and learning about AI and impact, and even though that had nothing to do with his book, but there were these iterations that happened that, you know, everything always leads to another path and leads to another path. And it's like pages of your book creating your chapter, and each of the chapters are creating your book. That is your life. And I would say if you don't like the story that you're reading, that's your life right now. Don't worry. Turn the page, keep writing, keep creating. You're not done yet. Your story is not over. And it's. A lot of times I think people give up on their story too soon and they don't realize that one. They're both the author and the reader of their story, right? And we live. We're a single person, but we're living in a duality and our minds. And I talk about this in my upcoming podcast, which will come out in a couple of months. If you look at quantum theory, there's lots of theories that explain and show us how we. We think that we are singular, but we're actually dual, too. The simplest way I could explain it is if you take a coin and you say, okay, I have this single quarter, right? I have one quarter. However, there's a front and a back. There's two sides. And so in the physical, that's the simplest way I could explain it. We are a human being. Yes, we're physical, but we're also spiritual. And we're mostly the spiritual being. And we're this power so powerful, we've forgotten that. And when we tap in and remember who we really are, we can create beautiful things in the world. We can create our Life again and again and again. Today, in this 24 hours, we can have an entirely new life. I have a client coming up who we're bringing his book into the world. His story is incredible. It went from one day, he was this hotshot, amazing prosecutor who was putting away the bad guys who were in powerful positions to himself being put in jail and locked away, and his cellmate going, who did you piss off? Because they knew that there was no way he should be in jail for anything, especially what they put him in jail for. And I had another client who wrote a book. She's a chiropractor, blonde American girl living a happy life in the US Went with her husband to Mexico and ended up in a Mexican jail on gun running charges. And she never even held the weapon.

My goodness. Wow. Yeah.

And so. And instead of being afraid and scared and. Or being embittered and angry for being wrongfully charged and convicted and all these things, she chose to share her story and to share what she went through in prison, how she survived not even speaking Spanish, but being there and figuring out how to use her gifts and of chiropractic healing as her bartering tool to get what she needed. And sleeping on a concrete floor. She shared her story in her book, but she also shared her purple principles, the mindset, things that she learned to get through that. And she's teaching that and sharing that now. So again, every time we think, oh, this is our darkest time, this is our worst moment, it's often the catalyst to the best of us. Absolutely. It's often the precursor to everything we ever wanted in our life. We just have to keep going through that.

Incredible. Especially when you're able to share the lessons out of that too, as well also, and help others do at the same time. By pulling out the lessons, we're able to now make progress to go even beyond. That's what I'm present to with all of that. What a. What a gift you have as far as being able to do that, tap into your brilliance and taking all of it, your. That whole journey, bringing it forward to help clients. And I can see your passion, too. We talk about each of these clients and their journeys and the things you're building out of it, the masterminds, the communities, you know much more. I can see, I can see your passion for that. That's what, that's what counts, really. Doing the things that lighters up on a daily basis. And you figure that out, right? Past, past, past decade and such. That's really great. That's really great. Marsha, I know we're going to do a mini podcast@momentumtips.com capture these two minute tips. We'll be doing that shortly. I'd love to hear what are some things that you embrace each day as part of your daily rituals? Perhaps the morning or the evening as you go through your day. I'm a big believer in rituals or routines and structure, especially as you mentioned before, like taking breaks, purpose breaks, anything else you want to share, like your, your day that you.

Yeah.

Embrace to keep you moving forward.

Yeah. So definitely one of the most important tips I would say is to be mindful of your mind. Guard what you're. Be mindful of what you're putting in your eyes, in your ears, because it'll come out of your mouth and it'll go into your heart. And you know what we're listening to, what we're watching, the people we're around, the things we're doing, it affects us. And especially when we're going to sleep at night and when we're waking up in the morning, that's when our subconscious is really, really open. And our subconscious has no filters. It can't discern what is true and false. It just accepts it all. And so people that are falling asleep to like the news or to fighting and arguing or recounting all of the horrible things in their life or in the world or whatever, and they go to sleep in that, they're putting that down in them and they're creating a certain life and a certain narrative and so being very intentional with that time before you go to sleep and when you wake up. And so when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do, as soon as I'm aware that I'm awake, I say thank you. I believe that thank you is the highest form of gratitude. It's the highest prayer. And just thank you and really mean it and feel it because you did not have to wake up. And the reason you woke up today is because you have more to do in the world. You have more to give and more to become. And, and so be grateful for that, be excited about that. And when I don't sleep a lot, I sleep probably four hours a night, maybe five. And it's not intentional, it's just that's when my body wakes up. And I've learned to put myself thanks to one of my other clients, Ryder. In his book, he talks about being in a sleep state. And I, I put myself into a sleep stasis when I wake up that early. Now instead of just Jumping up and starting my day, I go into a meditation mode and I might find something on, on YouTube like Abraham Hicks or some other morning meditation or something. Very calming, life affirming. And I'll in that still sleep state, Silva method, you know, and I'll put that on and I'll allow it to permeate into my subconscious intentionally. Because whenever we're in that semi drowsy, semi awake state, everything just goes in easier. Yeah. And when I do that in the morning, and sometimes I'll fall back to sleep for a little while and a light sleep and other times I'm just in the sleep stasis mid, mid space of meditation and then I'll get up and my day is so different from that energy because I could feel this higher vibration and higher vibration and higher vibration and people, and people ask me how I'm doing. I always say outstanding. I say I never get up until my day is outstanding. And then I start from there.

Amazing. That's so beautiful. So rich for you to share. It really is. Yeah. I'm gonna try them. I'm gonna try that. I've never, I've never framed it that way. I, I love Steven Pressfield's work, the board of art, all of that. And going pro. He talks about how when you wake up, there's less resistance and it's just brilliant. We're able to kind of engage in mind, kind of hypnotize ourselves in some way, some form, put our attention onto things that, that grow fruit. Right. And, and it's powerful to be able to do that while you were in that state. Really, really, really insightful. Marja will be back any moment now. I thought that was brilliant what you just shared. And I will be embracing that as well. That. And here is she here she's back. Excellent. Awesome. Mars, if you can go back in time and if you could speak to the 18 year old version of yourself or perhaps mentor somebody who's 18 now and give them one piece of advice, what would that piece of advice be?

Wow. When I was 17, I decided to. That's when I decided to leave New York for the first time. I went to college in Northern Michigan and I turned 18 shortly thereafter. And I was afraid and I did it anyway. And years later, I started naming my years and I give each year a name. One year I named the year the year of yes. And I said yes to everything that wouldn't kill me and wouldn't addict me so that I can get out of that fear mentality of reacting of no that default. No, I'm not going to do that because I'm afraid. I'm not going to do that because I don't know what will happen. I'm not going to do that because and going into reprogramming my body to go into a. I'm afraid and yes, let's see what happens. I learned to see that on the other side of fear is actually the gift of everything that we want and, and to step in and lean into that. And so I would tell my 18 year old self to do even more of that and that you did a good job and I'm proud of you. And so wherever you are in life, tell yourself right now that you're proud of you and who you are and what you have done and allow yourself to lean into and look in the face of whatever you're afraid of and start to move with it and dance with it and play with it and laugh with it and realize that it's just a doorway to the gifts of what you want and of your heart's desires.

Incredible. I love it really is theme of your year is say yes and be, be open. Right. We hope be open to what happens next.

Yeah.

Excellent, excellent. Well this has been, this has been enjoyable. It's a great, great, great, great session with you. We'll have more of these tips as well. The momentum tips.com with Marja. Marja, how do people contact you? How do people engage you?

Yeah, best way is you can reach me@awa for life.com that's awa for l I f e.com or you can find out more about me and everything we've done and@marja360.com and that's M A R J A H360.com that's the easiest way because you can get all of my social media there. You can get access to me and my team there and everything else you need.

Incredible. So M A r j h margin360 360 number360 com for all of you out there. You can access this podcast interview, the summary mind map and much Much more@rulesforsuccess.com this has been and privilege for me to be able to connect with one of my good friends and, and, and clients and someone I've come to respect a lot of the past few years. So really grateful for you Mara, being, being able to do this. All of you out there, rock, rock it out. Dare to play bigger and we will see you on the other side. That's it for Today's. Episode of rulesforsuccess.com podcast. But the journey to success is far from over. Join us next week for another inspiring conversation with a successful entrepreneur. Until then, remember to be bold, be courageous, and go after your dreams.