Oprah’s “Thought Leader For The Next Generation” Marie Forleo On How To Create Your Dream Business & Experience True Financial Freedom

You can be passionate about personal development. You can be passionate about transforming people's lives. You know, no matter what kind of coach you are, fitness, finance, personal relationship, doesn't matter. You can be the best in the world at that. But if you're not also masterful at running that kind of coaching business, you're never going to make the difference that you were born to make.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome back to the show. I am so excited that you are here for this episode. This episode has been six plus years in the making. I sat down today. I realized it might be seven years. This woman has been on my bucket list since day one of starting my podcast. You guys, I tell a really funny story in the beginning of this about how this all went down and how I was turned down essentially for six years by this particular person or by.

This particular person's team.

You guys, this is one of my favorite episodes and it was so worth the wait. So today I have on the show Marie Forleo.

You guys.

She was named by Oprah as a thought leader for the next generation and owner of one of Inc's 500 fastest growing companies.

You guys.

She has created socially conscious digital empire that inspires millions. She's the star of the award winning show MarieTV, which I'm obsessed with and inspired so much of my career in the beginning. It has over 75 million views and she also has the Marie Forleo podcast, you guys. This woman created B School, which has now run successfully for 14 years and has had 80,000 students. So many people I know have gone through this course. I personally have taken Marie Forleo's courses and I just tallied up that I have made over $380,000 by different things that I have implemented from from Marie's courses. Just because I implemented these things, I truly felt like I opened the floodgates in such a major way and took control back over my launches, especially for my live events.

So, you guys, it doesn't matter what you're doing.

I know that B School can be that thing for you, and that is what we're talking about today. So even if you're not interested in B School, you're going to get so many incredible nuggets about your business, about fundamental things that you need, and a.

Few small shifts that you might be.

Forgetting about that could make you a lot more money. So, you guys, I am offering our free Be Online course. Chris and I did a course called BE Online. And if you decide to enroll in.

Marie Forleo's course, B School which all you have to do is go to.

The link in the show notes to go and get her free training. You can learn more about B School. Even if you're just curious. Go make sure that you use that particular link only in the show notes or I will not be able to give you the free course of ours. Be Online. So Be Online is all about getting your business online, getting you launched. It's the perfect, perfect partner for Marie Forleo's B School. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about it in the middle of this episode, you guys, but make.

Sure you go enroll for Marie's free.

Training right now, which is at the link in the show notes. That's also going to tell you more about B School. And then we also, if you decide to sign up for B School, are going to send you Be online. So you guys can go and check that out all at that link. And let's get into the show.

Marie, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

Oh, Lori, thanks for having me. It's a joy.

This is so much fun. Marie, I have to tell you, you have actually been on my. On my bucket list of guests for six years.

What? Come on now.

Yes. I have a funny story for you. Ready for it? It's actually hilarious. So I used to, like, come up with these little pitches because your team is so good, which I. This, this turns out amazing, which I can't wait to tell you. So I used to come up with these little pitches or these little raps because I know you love hip hop music. And I would write them, like, as a pitch to you to come on to the show. And your team is so good with boundaries that they would be hilarious. Like, even just writing these cute things back to me on why you couldn't do it. So instead of being like, dang, why can't this woman come on? I would say them and you taught me how to say no in a loving way to people. And I would literally learn from those emails. And that's how I, as I got busier. I was like, oh, my God. This was literally the best learning I have ever experienced in my life. So I just thought that you were like, that specific thing for me, which paid off so big and just made me feel the freedom to be like, this is how you can actually get your work done is by having boundaries.

Thank you so much for sharing that. I can't wait to also pass it along to the team because they're really good at what they do. And for me, you know, it's like all of the act of creation, the act of asking other people for things, whatever it might be, requests, you know, I still make them all the time, and I'm always putting myself in somebody else's shoes. And, you know, even in my own life right now, I'm navigating a bunch of different things that a lot of people don't know about. And sometimes if you don't hear from someone, you can just so personalize it, or you so make it about you, or you're not this or you're not that, not fully understanding that the other person might be like, oh, my God, they're dealing with a circus right now. And they actually really love you, they respect you, they appreciate you, and it's just not the right moment. So thank you for sharing that. It's just one of those great lessons to remember. And what a great lesson, too, for all of us. I know. For me, like, there's always a. There's a way to decline things where you can lift someone up and you can let them know that they're valued and that they're respected and that you want to keep the connection going. It's just not possible at the moment.

Yeah, I love that. It's such a great reminder, especially with everything that we're about to talk about right now. Sometimes those are literally the things that are keeping you from doing the big things that you want to do is especially I experience as just the way that I grew up and as a woman, like, I was very much learned how to say yes far before I learned how to say no. So being able to see somebody who does it in such a beautiful way, in taking that lesson and going, oh, this is how somebody who's doing it is doing it. They have to have these. These boundaries and these ideas on it. So, Marie, I want to know what is a defining moment that when you think of your life, that you can actually see those moments, or maybe there's one or two of them where you now know why you are doing what you're doing. Or it was that one moment that you're like, this is where I learned this about me. Or this is why I started to love to help people in business.

Yeah. Well, I think probably one of the earliest memories that was just an underpinning and a driver for so much of the rest of my life was when I was around 8 years old, and I remember being in my kitchen, and my parents had actually just gotten a divorce, and the papers and all the things were just finalized. It was, like, fresh that day. And you have to understand. So my parents, they were together since they were 16, so they're like the P.S. i'll tell an interesting story at the end of this. But they were so in love. And so their fights, as I remember them as a kid, it was never about, like, infidelity. It wasn't about substance abuse. It wasn't about anything like that. It was always about money. And specifically about my mom feeling like there wasn't enough of it. And she didn't have any control over any of it. So she didn't have any say, she didn't have any power. And so when the divorce was finalized and I was standing there in my kitchen, I was watching my mom crying her eyes out, and she was talking on the phone to her mom, who lived in Florida. And so this is back in the 80s, right? So we only had landlines. And I remember the cord was, like, wrapped around her hand and it was white. And I saw her eyes, and they were bloodshot. And she was basically scream, crying to her mom on the phone like, I have nothing. I have nothing. I can't believe this happened to me. So I'm terrified, and I'm just in shock standing there, and I felt so sad and so alone and so scared. And so she hung up the phone, and she kind of bent herself down so she was eye level with me, Lori. And then she took me by my shoulders and she put her nose right up to mine, and she shook me and said, marie, don't be stupid like I am. Do you see me right now? I have nothing. When you grow up, I need you to be independent. I need you to make your own money. I need you to never have a man or anyone control how much money you have or you earn. And so that was kind of my memory of that recollection of that moment. And I will tell you, Lori, it shook me to my core. And it implanted something in me. It opened something up where I made myself a promise in that moment that I didn't care what it took, that I was going to grow up and figure out a way to make so much money, that the lack of it would never take love away from my life or create this level of pain and distress in the people that I loved, ever. And so I had no idea beyond that little promise. But I saw my mom in so much pain. I know. And knew what a great guy my dad was, and I knew he was in pain. And I also remember just being in School and, like, lots of kids, you know, parents get divorced. And it's, you know, not a terrible thing. Sometimes it's the right thing, but it's also disturbing, you know what I mean? And it creates this rupture. And so I remember thinking about this promise I made to myself. I was like, I don't want to just earn enough money for my family. And I didn't really give a crap about, like, shoes or houses. I've never really been a person that's like, oh, my God, I have to have a mansion and a yacht. Like, I just don't give a shit, to be quite honest. I like nice things. I like quality things, but I don't eat a lot of them. And I just thought to myself, like, wow, what if money could, like, actually help other people, too? And what if I could help other people take away their pain? And so I had this link in my mind. And so that moment, for me, in all honesty, has been one of the moments that has been this thread and this seed throughout my entire career that not only drove me to want to understand money in such a way, to help myself create financial freedom so that I didn't repeat some of the kind of troubles and histories that I saw in my family, but I also was like, as I grew up and as I became a young adult and I just watched other women interact with money and I watched how it interplayed in their families and in their personal choices and in their professional choices, I was like, wait a minute, there's, like, more to do here. So that desire to have my own financial freedom and then help other women and men create it has honestly been a thread throughout my entire professional life. And it's such a big part of what our programs help people produce.

What do you think made you at that time? Because a lot of people, the same thing could have happened when they could have taken that on and just added another layer of stress. And like, maybe you went more towards the victim mindset of, I can't believe this is happening, this happening, My mother. What did you focus on instead during that time?

Sure. So I can't really tell you. Like, it wasn't a conscious decision to make that choice of going, like, I'm going to figure this out and make this my reality. Like, there was no thinking involved there. It was just, I think my DNA is wired to see what's possible and to want to fix things, to want to solve problems, to want to see what's beyond the pain that's existing in the moment. So I think in terms of a focus point though, the second thing that really kicked my ass was after I graduated from college and I had built up my own nice little pile of debt and I was like, oh my gosh, how did I get here? You know, and we never had a lot growing up, but my parents always lived debt free. And I think I got swept away. Like many young people do when you're trying to figure out who you are and you know, get the clothes for the internship and then try and be away with your friends and then college and textbook, you know, all the things that kind of pile up. And I found myself in this position like, oh my God, I have such a screwed up relationship with money. I do not want to live in debt. I knew I wanted more, but I had all this scarcity beliefs from my childhood. So I think in terms of what to focus on, low point of recognizing that I had a horrible relationship with money, then going like, I do not want to live like this anymore. So the focus for me shifted to how do I heal my own financial beliefs? How do I, from a strategic, tactical, actionable perspective, get out of debt? And then at that point in time, I was also trying to start a business. So I was like 22, 23 years old. I knew I didn't want to work for someone else. I was very clear that I was failing as an employee. And I also knew that I had this dream to have a business, but I'm like, I can't do that if I can't handle my money. So the focus was really on healing my own relationship with money so that I had a strong foundation to create a really sustainable, profitable, long term business.

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Okay, so at that time, what were some of your like main worries and distractions like? Was it your friend group? Did you have to break off? Was it what were the things that you were like these are the things that are going to get in the way and how did you get around them?

Well, there was a couple of big things. One, I was completely insecure. I was 23 years old and I was very sober to the fact that like who the hell in their right mind is going to hire a 23 year old life coach? Even though I was putting myself through a three year coach training program, I was extremely dedicated to understanding the craft of coaching to becoming the best that I could be. Like all of those things, it was rooted in so much integrity and earnestness and like a true desire to serve. But the things that were holding me back was like, I'm fucking 23 years old. What the hell do I know? I actually got pictures done Laurie in New York City where I had this bob cut and I got like some jacket from J. Crew and they were like black and white, basically headshots that made me look probably about like 10 years older than what I was.

They glamour shots.

Oh my God, it weren't glamour shots. New York City. So you have actually very good photographers here. But nonetheless it was like such a kind of posture because I didn't know what it meant to be a business person. And my, my only ideas or images of a businesswoman was, were rooted in the 80s, like big shoulder pad suits and like you had to have a high rise office, glass, you know, corner office and midtown Manhattan. Like that's all my thoughts from my exposure to business women as a kid, which basically was nothing but what I saw in movies and media. And the insecurity was one, I think the fact that coaching as a profession at that time, we're talking 1999, 2000, 2001 was essentially non existent. So this thing sounds cheesy, it sounds stupid. Who the hell's going to pay attention to. You don't know what the hell you're doing, you know, so there's like fear upon fear. And then of course from a financial perspective it's like, are you actually going to make a living doing this? Are you actually going to be able to reach your goals doing this? And then I think one of my other pretty unique challenges for me was that I've never been a person who can really focus on just one thing. So when I first started out, I remember reading all of the success books from career success to general success. And there was this consistent theme that showed up throughout them, which was you have to pick something and be so good at it and focus on it for years that eventually you'll be the best in the world and then you'll get all the rewards. But every time I tried to pick one thing to be even my coach, training was like, well, you can't just be a life coach. You're either like a productivity coach or you're a relationship coach, or you're a career coach or you're a financial coach. You know, they would kind of go down the line and talk about how you have to pick a niche. And every time I tried to be a good student, Lori, and do that, man. I failed and I sucked.

I.

It always felt like I was cutting off a piece of me. But beyond even the niche of coaching, I also had all these multiple passions in different areas. So I loved hip hop and dance. I loved fitness, I loved writing, I loved marketing. I was obsessed with this new, at the time world of online digital business, which no one knew what the hell that was. So I felt scattered. I felt, I felt and I learned. I actually have adhd, so my brain has a little bit more of a challenge focusing sometimes. So those were some of the big hurdles in the beginning that kind of definitely not only held me back, slowed me down, but made me do a lot of cries in the corner, like ugly cries in the corner, feeling like I'm the biggest idiot, this is never going to work. And then I'd have to just get back up because I was like, well, you tried like three or four or five jobs and you failed at all those. So you got to get back on the horse.

Okay, so the frustrated, overwhelmed, but wanting to do everything but your brain being like, no, you have to do all of these things. I totally feeling. And it's, it's like, it's like a frustrated toddler trapped inside of your body and you don't know how to tame it. You don't know how to focus. But you also, like, no, you're meant to do something big. So it's the craziest, like dance of frustration. What would you say to somebody who's listening right now, who is feeling that? What was maybe the first thing that you did? Was it a higher. What did you do to kind of help hone you in on at least getting some momentum in some direction?

Okay, so I'm going to tell you a story that really helped crack me open from a mindset, consciousness perspective. And then we'll get to the tactics because those are two very separate but really important things. And in my opinion, your perspective on yourself has to shift first. Otherwise you're just caught in this very torturesome loop. So at the time I was trying to build my coaching business during the day. I was actually bartending and waiting tables at night. Living in New York City, not a cheap city. That's how I put myself through college. I was like, look, I can do this again. So I'd work like seven nights a week at night and in the day, be doing all my coaching stuff at night. I remember one, and I would dread this question, by the way. People would be in the bar and it was beautiful restaurant. And they would say, hey, you know, what else do you do besides bartending? Are you an actress? And Lori, oh my God, I hated that question because I never had a great answer. First of all, I felt like the term life coach just sounded really cheesy. And second of all, just saying that also felt limiting. And one day, and I did not try and think this up, this was not something I invented. I feel like this was a gift from either my higher self or like the business gods or some other entity where someone asked me, hey, what else do you do besides bartending? And I said, you know what? I'm a multi passionate entrepreneur. And I was like, where the hell did that come from? I didn't even know what it meant, but it sounded so damn good. They said, oh, what's that? And so at that moment, I got to tell them, oh, I have this coaching practice. I write this newsletter every week. At that particular time, I just started teaching fitness and teaching dance. So I was telling them about my dance classes and all these different things, and I said, yes, I have all these different projects going on. And then, you know, I've been working here for about a year. I love this place. It helps me pay my rent, helps me, you know, keep my studio apartment in New York City. And all of a sudden, Lori, I had changed the context for how I saw myself, which then changed the context for how I talked about what I was up to. And I watched as the response was very, very different. And so that little phrase, I'm a multi passionate entrepreneur, again, it means nothing. It doesn't even matter. But to me, it gave me this new framework through which to see myself. And I gave myself permission to stop trying to fit into a conventional career box or a conventional entrepreneurial box, and to to be the real full me, which is very multidimensional, and to not hide it. And at that time, I remember teaching fitness classes and dance workshops. Like I would teach, you know, a jlo workshop or 50 cent workshop or whatever it was in a local studio. But I never would tell my dance students about my coaching practice. And like, after that breakthrough, I started cross promoting, right? I started telling all of my dance people about the stuff I was doing in the personal development world. Same thing on the personal side, I would say, hey, you should come to my dance. Are you in New York? You should come to my dance class. And all of a sudden, everything started to take off because I stopped trying to hide who I was. I stopped trying to fit myself into this narrow society. Approved definition. And I let all of me be me. Messy, inappropriate at times, very not perfect. English Things that, you know, come together don't really seem like they come together, but for me, they work. And that's tactically when I actually started attracting more clients, when I started booking higher paying gigs, when I had more energy because I was not suppressing myself. And that's when the whole train started going a lot faster. And then, you know, we can talk about, okay, well then how did you start to transition to that momentum that became creating products, creating offerings, offering higher coaching packages. I did my first group program. You know, it got to the point where there was enough revenue coming in and enough momentum that then you start hiring. For me, it was my first virtual assistant, which, by the way, I was the worst boss ever. I sucked at that. Oh, my God. So that was kind of. And I'll, I'll pause there because you may want to tease into something, but it was, it was out of that internal shift that the external results started to flow.

Do you see people mostly holding themselves back? Like when people enter some of your courses and they have this idea and this vision is a lot of it. In the beginning, around that permission piece, what do you see that people need the most in the beginning?

Gosh, it's so varied. It really, it's very nuanced and it's very individualized. So I'll see a whole slice of people that, you know, like me, didn't necessarily go and get an mba. I don't have an mba. So they're not really aware of some of the fundamentals of business and what you need to do and what you need to have in place consistently in order to make any size business work. One of the gifts that I had, Lori, was through my coach training. This is one of the best insights they ever gave me. It was so powerful. It was like, look, you can be passionate about personal development. You can be passionate about transforming people's lives. You know, no matter what kind of coach you are, fitness, finance, personal relationship, doesn't matter. You can be the best in the world at that. But if you're not also masterful at running that, that kind of coaching business, you're never going to make the difference that you were born to make. And it was like a light bulb moment. It was like, oh, yeah, I can spend all this time understanding how to ask the right questions, understanding how to really partner with someone, to inspire them to take actions that are in their best interest. But if I don't also understand how to market that how to position my services, how to create a package that's irresistible to my ideal client. I'm never going to get to make make that difference. So for me, it became a dual track of not only mastering my craft, but mastering the ability to run a small business. So that's one of the places that I think a lot of people who are really passionate about their idea, they don't understand that there are some fundamental practices, principles and things you must do and have in place. And if you don't, your business is so much more likely to fail. And you probably know this, the business statistics out there are dismal. Right. It's like within the first five years, I don't know, it's like either between 50 or 80% of businesses will fail. It's depressing. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you know just a handful of things and you put them in place, you give yourself a much higher chance of having success. So that's one bucket, I think the other bucket that some people hold themselves back on, they might be multi passionate like me and they're trying to fit too many things into one business. So there's a lack of focus. And so people might say, but Maria, talking out of both sides of your mouth, like you said, you just did all these things and that's where you got success. Yeah, but there's a way to do it strategically and there's a way to do it where you can start to parse through. Do some of your passions really make sense in one business or can you be multi passionate but not try and monetize all of your passions? That's probably one of the biggest things. So for me right now at this stage of my life, I am still super passionate about dance. Actually an investor in a particular dance company. I dance a lot, I dance all the time, but I don't have it as an active revenue source. And even when it was an active revenue source, I was super conscious that by having it be an active revenue source, I was taking time away from my coaching practice, which meant that the revenue for both things was going to go down. So there's a lot of intentionality and a lot of eyes wide open that you need to have if you're a multi passionate entrepreneur. And there's a strategic way to kind of parse through and vet your ideas to see if they should go together as a business or you should just have some to fuel your heart and fuel your creativity, but not try and make money off it. So that's Another lane. And then I'd say the third kind of biggest bucket where people kind of fall down in the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey is that they really don't understand the power of modern marketing, which means that they resist it, they push away from it, they think someone else should handle it. They want to attract a partner or they want to make a hire, or they want someone else that's going to do it for them. So they can just be the idea person. And whenever I find these entrepreneurs, Lori, oh my God, Jersey Marie and me in the most loving way, I want to take them and shake the shit out of them. Because I'm like, look, you are sitting on a gold mine. Let me teach you how to do this effectively. How to market and share your products and your services in a way that is fully aligned with your heart and your values. That is so inspiring, so creative, so original, so fun that leaves your prospects and your customers feeling awesome about the experience. And you're going to wind up up financially free. They're going to wind up happy because you've solved their problems. Like all this is possible, but not if you're like, I don't want it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, you can't do that. Don't do that.

There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be.

One of them for you.

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Oh, my gosh. Okay. There's so many things there. I don't want to go too deep into this, but I love that you had mentioned, like, you love to dance, you love to do some other things, but I know you love to dance. And while knowing that that might feel like some people might have something right now that they feel is distracting or it's not going to help feed their business. But I always found that I kind of view them as what makes me feel better. Maybe my brain just works this way is I'm like, there's always these funnels to all of these different people. And like, for you, I just view dance as like, that's a funnel in which, like, I don't want to just see Marie Forleo at a desk. Like, that doesn't excite me to want to be like you need to want to be like you because you have a full life and you're living the way that you want. And oh, my God, she's so dynamic. And she dances and she does this and she does that because her lifestyle allows it. And so, you know, there used to be people because I started in network marketing as well, and there'd be people I'd follow, and I'd be like, I don't know if I want this life. They're like, like always just at a desk. And I started doing really well in network marketing because we started showing all these different parts of our lives that we didn't monetize. But technically, you do actually monetize your dancing because people are attracted to you because of it. It's kind of like a lead magnet, you know, it's really interesting, right?

Not from a direct standpoint. Like, I'm not teaching JLO workshops anymore. Though if JLO ever wanted to do workshop with me, I'd be the first.

We're open JLo.

We're openly, like, we're seeing here for it or here 100. But yes, you're. I agree with you. I agree with you. And I think that sometimes we have a program called B School, and I'll talk to our B schoolers and I'll be like, look, you know, they'll say, marie. But I have. I have many different businesses. And sure, they all put them all on one website, and I'm like, if you're you know, teaching basket weaving, underwater basket weaving, and then this other side of your business, you're working on SEO for like small businesses, we might not want to blend those. But then there's other people who are like, well, I'm a designer and I do these, you know, custom designs and I also have these printable are those. I'm like, put them on the same damn site. Like, do you know, like, there's a relevancy, there's a context. And so I think most of us, myself included, one of the values of having other entrepreneurs around and people that are perhaps a little more experienced and seasoned than you are, having those folks either as your mentors, as your teachers, anything is that they can help you pull your head out of your butt fast because they've done that. And the other thing is very, very true. And I do this with my friends all the time. I love marketing. I am extremely, extremely good at it. I've been doing this for like 22 years. And I will get myself into a tizzy with my own things because it's very difficult to have perspective on your own stuff. You can only get so close to it before. I don't know about you, Lori, but you just start swimming and that you're just like. Because you're so in it. And so the ability to have other people to give you just a little bit of a fresh perspective, to see things from a different point of view, to point out someplace where you may be caught in a creative cul de sac. I think it's just important for entrepreneurs and most of us, we get started on our own, we try and do it on our own. We feel really isolated, especially if we don't have other entrepreneurs in our life. And even if we do, they're so busy with their own business, they don't have time to give you any attention. So I think that's really where the value of having entrepreneur friends, putting yourself in programs, you know, getting in some type of connected community, online offline, both where you can just mind meld with some other people who can again get you out of your creative cul de sacs and keep you in action.

Well, that's why I love what you're doing with B school, is because, number one, it's. It's been around forever. Is this. What year is this? Oh my God.

This is I either 14 or 15, which in the online world, this is basically like a century foreign.

Hey guys, if you are loving this podcast right now, like if you're freaking out loving Marie as much As I love Marie, then I have to tell you that you need to hit pause right now and go to the link in the show notes because not only are you going to learn more about B school, everything that she is talking about, but you can also go sign up for Marie's free training. You guys, it is called get the Playbook. I used to build a multi million dollar empire and launch 80,000 plus other businesses too. So in this free training that launches and you get to go and watch for free on July 20, you will learn the crazy population, popular inspirational advice that causes most entrepreneurs to fail and her insider framework that virtually guarantees your success. Also the one weird little habit that turns stressed out drivers into freedom rich millionaires and how to stop spinning your wheels, doing all of the things and focus on the one tactic that's 40 times more effective at making you money. So guys, go to the link and in show notes and go sign up right now because I'm telling you, I think Marie is one of the best teachers out there and she has increased my personal revenue by $380,000 by doing some simple things that I learned in her courses. So you guys go to the link in the show notes that's also going to be the place that if you enroll in B school through that link, I am going to send you you the course that Chris and I made called BE Online. It is going to teach you all of the things that you need to know in order to get your business online. And not just that you're going to learn from so many incredible teachers that we've learned from personally in the BE Online course. So you guys, stop what you're doing right now. Pause it because I know you're going to forget as soon as this podcast is over. Go enroll, go sign up. At least then you'll get the emails, you'll get the reminder and and you're going to get this incredible free training. Okay, let's get back to the show.

Okay, so it's been around for a really long time. I love just based off of even what you said. My husband and I have attributed so much of our success to courses. I've taken your copy cure actually and it converted so well for me doing. I've like used it on two of my main sales pages doing it and it is so good. I want to take it again for I'm releasing a new product. I'm like, I have to get back to Marie's copycure because it's just so, so it's so like duh, you do your courses so well that it's so easy to follow that for me, someone who just doesn't love following instructions step by step. You're so good with just like, here's the basics. We can stop here, fill this in. We can do this, move on. So that has been really powerful for me. Just the type of teacher that you are. And clearly you've done this yourself multiple times and taken out all of the fluff and stuff that doesn't work on the back of what you just said. I can't imagine doing things without community. Like, why, if somebody's listening to this right now, it is not worth struggling alone when you could just voice how you're feeling into a group or a question and get your answer literally that day and know that it's not you. And maybe everyone's experiencing this and things to move forward. And, you know, there are things when people are doing it alone, Marie, that it's like they'll struggle for two months on something that could be a day problem or an hour problem. And so that's why I'm like, everybody, go do a course. Go get in a group. It's going to hold you accountable. It's going to move you forward. What have you had, like, 80,000 people?

Yes, it's. It's really beautiful. It's really awesome to think about. You know, there's 80,000 humans around the world that we've helped start and grow their businesses. And what's cool. This is also awesome, Lori. I think it's somewhere in the realm, like, 461 different industries and like 161 different countries. So we've had teenagers and we've had folks in their 70s. We've had everyone in between from every walk of life, from every kind of business. It's not just coaches or consultants or people like that. I've had folks who build apps. I have folks who are farmers and fishermen and flowers. Like, I mean, fashion you everything under the sun. We've had those kind of businesses in B school because it is about the timeless aspects of doing any business. Business that you know, no matter how the algorithm, this one, that one, the platform tastes, I don't give a about any of that. All that's wonderful. You can Google it very, very easily. The stuff that we train you in and the stuff that I want to teach people is the stuff that never changes because it's rooted in human psychology. And the reason I do that is because I want to set people up to win for life. Because one of the things I've seen 22 years, all of us. I'm sure everybody has evolutions in their business. You start off in one place, you grow, you evolve, you have experiences. Then all of a sudden you evolve and you're like, I'm in a new chapter. I'm going to shift this. I'm going to evolve. What I'm doing now, I'm doing this. That's going to happen multiple times in your career. And if you understand how to identify the right product or service, how to connect with your ideal customers who actually are able and willing to buy what you're offering, how to create outstanding customer experiences, so they keep running back to you and saying, oh, my God, that was the most wonderful experience. Can I give you more money? What's next? And then how to set up systems and how to have the marketing and the tech really serve you so you're not getting bogged down. I'm not a highly technical person, so, you know, that's just good for anyone. And we're at a stage right now in business where things are mostly plug and play. There are some complexities, I'm sure, with tech stacks that most of us have experienced if you've been in the online world for a little while, but they keep getting easier and easier. But if you line up some of these core, what we have as the core six pillars, and you really master those, man, you create your own economy for life. It doesn't matter what the government's doing, doesn't matter what's happening, this, that or the other thing. Sure, there's going to be ups and downs in every business, that's true. But when you have this solid foundation and these capabilities that you've built within you, there is nothing that can take you down.

You talk a lot about not having to be everywhere and just really focusing down. And for me, even right now, I feel like hearing that is such a relief. Can you dig into that a little bit more and tell me more? And where should we be?

So one of the things that I've watched happen over the especially, I'd say the past decade or so, I've watched people become increasingly stressed and burned out and disillusioned and scattered because there are so many different platforms. So right now, obviously, there's TikTok, there's Instagram, there's YouTube, there's still LinkedIn, there's still Twitter. I'm sure there's going to be another one on the horizon any moment. You know, we've got a lot going on. Going on.

Yeah.

And what I've seen is so many people try and be everywhere. So they're trying to create unique content all over the place. And they're prioritizing social and followers and vanity metrics, understandably, because that's what we've been conditioned and trained to do. And we're comparative beings by nature. So if you pay any attention on social, of course you're going to get sucked into that kind of downstream and you're going to feel like you have to race and compete. But what I've seen and what I've had so many successful B schoolers who like A most people that I meet, Lori, they will tell me. And it's almost in a whisper. It's almost secretly. They're like, marie, I kind of hate social. Like, do it. You know, I'm like, they're like, just like, it's exhausting. I don't want to have a phone in my face all the time. I don't want to be. I couldn't do that all time and do my business. Like, there's no margin for me to be able to even hire a team or do our products or services or when the hell am I supposed to sleep? And so I always like to tell people, look, you don't have to be everywhere all the time 24 7. Some people do that. That. Bless. That's awesome. That's not how for me, I'm not wired that way. I have no desire for that. I spend most of my time actually offline without my phone. I don't take a lot of photos. But I love creating content and I love creating it strategically. So one of the places that I think most people still don't leverage as a marketing tool the way they should is email. I know it sounds silly and they're like, oh, it's more competitive than ever. But yeah, you mentioned it before, Lori, when you know how to connect with people, you know how to write subject lines that beg to be opened. When you know how to get people to click through. Email is still one of the best from an ROI perspective, bangs for your bucks ever. And because you own the connection with your customer, which you don't on social, it's one of the biggest opportunities to kind of safeguard your business as we kind of go through the different ages with different social platforms so you don't have to be everywhere at once. And one of the things that we talk about in B school is how to create one piece of content and really leverage it across a lot of different platforms. I'll give you a quick Anecdote. There's one woman in our program, she runs an Alaskan fish company. So, you know, not in the course space, not in the coaching space at all. They're selling fish. And she had never heard of even what an email list was. It was just like they were doing their business. They're fishing, they're selling fish. That's what they were doing. But she trusted me. She's like, I know Marie knows what she's talking about. I know there's this social media thing out there, but I want to do the thing that's going to make me the most money. She started sending out emails to her list and got to a place, Lori, where every time she was sending an email, she made $5,000. Wow. Would take that same content, whatever the content she was creating for her email, and just slightly tweak it and put it on her social channels. She's like, it takes me no time. I have a presence, but I'm focusing on growing, nurturing and really optimizing that one place where if I put my attention and energy there, every time I write an email, it's like $5,000. And I tell people, I'm like, does your email perform like that? Our email list is one of the biggest, most profitable assets we have, and it's been that way for literally decades because we focus on it. So a lot of people, again, they're just like, they're social, social, social. It's like, social is awesome. It's great for top of funnel, it's great for awareness, great for bringing people in. But you do not have to have a phone surgically attached to your face, nor do you need to produce content like your friggin Netflix in order to be successful as a modern entrepreneur. You just don't.

Do you feel like growing an email list now is more challenging? Do you feel like?

Yeah, I think it is. I think that. Of course it is. Because, you know why? Because, you know, it's like it's been years since we have email and we have so much email that's, you know, you're kind of competing with. However, just because it's challenging, what are you going to give up? You know what I mean? Like, what are you not going to. If you learn everything is challenging, like, there's a million more people to follow and there's a million more ways to. That life is challenging and will continue to get challenging. But if you want the life freedom, the financial freedom, the time freedom, the location freedom that being an entrepreneur can afford you, it ain't Gonna be a cakewalk. There's gonna be some challenges. But choose your challenges wisely. Do you wanna have like a gajillion followers on Instagram so you can feel special for five minutes before someone else has a gajillion and one or do you wanna have a bank account that's like totally full and you can do whatever the f you want at any time? It's like, grow your damn email list and pay attention to it.

Yeah, I hear about that all the time. Just with people with a really huge following going, oh my God, I tried to sell something and nothing sold to this audience, even though I have millions of followers. And yes, we're all starting to go, okay, if that's happening for them too, maybe we should all just focus back on email again. So what are you focusing on to grow your email list right now? Like, what are some of the things that you are finding are working?

Well, before I'll go there just two seconds, I want to let you know someone that I spoke with who is so talented, so smart, super hard worker. This particular individual, I think the number got this over 18 million on tik Tok.

Wow.

Okay. Okay. So like awesome human being. That human being put together a beautiful course full of integrity and barely sold anything. So drastically underperformed. And does that make. So I just needed to say that because there's this perception that if I could only that all of a sudden it's going to solve all those revenue problems in the back end. And I keep telling like it doesn't. Like if your passion is there and you're like, oh my God, I just love the people and I don't have to worry about money and I just want it. Awesome. Beautiful. Do you go do it? But if you're running a business to actually make cash, really pay closer attention to what numbers are growing. So back to your core question. What are we doing? So on an ongoing basis, you know, there's a part of my team that's the growth team where we're constantly testing different and new lead magnets. So earlier this year, we did a beautiful challenge that was called actually the Dream business boot camp. And it was something that I that came to me as a creative download because that's how sometimes I get things. I don't know where they come from, but they show up in somewhat full form. I wish that happened all the time. It does not. It's a blessing does. But this particular thing was around. Do you have a dream business or a screen business? A dream business is full of dependability and helping you reach your financial goals. And it's energizing and it's abundance, giving and it's meaningful. Where a screen business is all filled with scarcity. Right? It's chaotic. And so we go through the acronyms and I'm like, I can help you move from a screen business over to a dream business very effectively. And there's a whole assessment. So that was an extremely powerful lead generating experience event. Did it take work to pull together a hundred percent? Was it worth it? Yes, because I got to serve people on such a high level. It was free. It also converted beautifully and I got a chance to create something brand new. So events, online events, challenges, whatever you want to call them, I think that in terms of ads to some type of free value still worked. Whether that free value is an ebook, it could be a webinar, it could be again, some type of online virtual experience. I also think that getting in front of other people's audiences still works. So for us, earlier this year, we did a few beautiful campaigns. People were reaching out about having me on their podcast and we said, hey, in order for me to be optimizing my time, let's batch these over a couple weeks. So I actually flew out to LA and we had a bunch of them done within a few weeks and we just watched all of our numbers grow. So it's not necessarily rocket science and it doesn't have to necessarily be like, oh my God, this latest and greatest like, trick that no one knows about. It's like, what are some of the basics? How can you get in front of other people's audiences and deliver massive value? You can do that for free. You can do it through paid ads. Like, there's a bunch of different things, but those are some of the things that we've done over the past, I'd say six months. Lori and, and they work, they just work. That's all. Besides our paid ad strategy, for different lead magnets that we just have that are more evergreen in nature. So since I've been doing this for 22 years, there's a lot of content that we have and there's a lot of beautiful free content that can really serve people that we have packaged up. And so for our show MarieTV, for the Marie Forleo podcast, even for our paid ads, it's like we'll drive traffic to specific lead magnets to get folks into our world, introduce them to our work, see how we can help them change their lives. And then when we have an offering, a program that's coming up or something that's paid. It's like, come on in. And people by that time usually know us like us and trust us. And if it's the right offer for them, meaning it's the right opportunity for us to help them change their lives, they say yes. And if they don't, they can just hang on for the ride for a little bit.

So talking just about that particular lead magnet that you created, the Scream or Dream one. Is that something that you would invest in once and then you run it a couple times? Is that something you do at once, and then you want to do something else?

No, for me, I like doing things multiple times, but I like taking a break, because at this point in the business, like, I create something, I want to see the results, and then I usually have something other that's following it up that's a little different so that I have time to step back and then take a look at, you know, our dream business, bootcamp, and go, okay, cool. Now that I have a little perspective now where I can I see where I feel like it worked great. Is there anything else I want to tweak? We'll go out with stuff again and again. A hundred percent. Because I always try and keep the perspective, Lori. Like, there's, what, 8 billion people on the planet, and I've only reached the tiniest fraction with whatever lead magnet or promotion or event or book or whatever it is. It's like some of us have this mistaken notion. Like, oh, everyone's seen it. It's like, everyone? Like, really, everyone? I don't think so. So, you know, it's a really valuable thing to stay humble in that regard and to realize that there's always more folks out there that you haven't had a chance to transform their lives yet. So maybe some things need refreshing or you want to retweak something. That's cool. But I think a lot of people get into this hamster wheel of creation where they're just like, oh, I've done that. Now I need something. Oh, I've done that. It's like, well, how many people did you really reach with it? Probably not enough.

So I want to just briefly talk about the six pillars. But before we do that, I want to ask you, because I'm hearing so much of a theme of almost like kind of of putting blinders on in certain areas or systematizing a lot of things. Because if I can think of one person in this whole industry who I feel like really like you really are just in certain areas, I know where I'm gonna get Marie's content. I know where I'm gonna like to consume it the most. I know what's going on. I know what she's selling, even though you're not everywhere. And that feels like I don't. I don't follow you as much on social as I do your email.

Like, I'm gonna be reading all of.

Your emails and knowing what's going on or even maybe like, podcasting or things like that, or hearing your. Your videos that are sent to me. An email. How did you kind of decide where you best showed up? And then do you remind yourself, like, wow, I do not work well when I'm in all of these places. Or how do you put your blinders on so that you don't get distracted? I think the main thing right now is just everyone's so freaking distracted.

Yeah, well, I know myself really well, and I don't like the feeling of being pulled in a gajillion, direct actions. And I'm very, very understanding of. I don't feel good if there's a million places. Like, if I have a million tabs open in my mind, it's not pleasurable and it's not joyful, and, like, I'm on this ride of life to actually enjoy it and to have fun. And I know, like, it's not long. The whole journey is not long. My days are so full with time with my family, with time with my loved ones. I love, love cooking. I love being around my house. I love working out. Like, there's so many things that I love to do that have absolutely nothing to do with business. And so you asked me in terms of how do I know what to focus on and how to not get distracted. One is, honestly, Lori, I spend virtually no time on social media just because I don't really find it to be valuable in my life. Yeah, that's just me. I love creating content. I love having conversations, I love reading books, I love learning things. And then I like creating. For me, my art is my content. And then I have an awesome team that helps me translate that. You know, when I started making YouTube videos for MarieTV, it's not like I was uploading my videos to YouTube and spending all day freaking watching YouTube. No, I would like my team would handle it. Then they same thing with the podcast. I love having conversations with people. I love the prep work. I love all of that happens to it, but they're the one that's going to put it in the, you know. You know, basically do all the Magic in the back end so that it shows up on every propagator and app, Gator and Apple and, you know, Spotify and all the things. Same thing with social. Happy. To create social content, I don't need to post it, I don't need to be in the apps, I don't need to scroll. So I just go to the places that fill me up and that help. Like, I feel a place and a sense of joy and that also give me results. Like, I'm a writer by nature, so for me, writing email comes pretty naturally. And so I also feel really good when I write and I love seeing the responses back from our audience. It's like so, so fun and joyful and it feels really intimate to me. Social is cool, but I just find that there's so many. It just is weird, honestly. And I think that there's a lot of negativity and downsides, even if the people are. Everyone's being nice. I just think it feeds a part of our brains and our psyche that's not healthy or productive or producing of joy, at least for me. At least. So. So I follow what feels good and I follow what creates results.

Yeah, I think that's so much permission right now, though, is because, you know, there. There's so many voices out there that are like, no, you have to be everywhere. You have to be omnipresent and there is a way to create that. But then get off totally where you want and then get off. I'm literally, this year, that is all that I've done.

Good for you.

So much better. Oh, my gosh. Because it is very. I can still find myself in that spiral. And I'm like, this is soul sucking. I don't like myself, myself right now. So we need to get back to doing things that we like. And I love to write, too. I love to write emails. I love to do all those things. Yes. So much better. So much freedom. So let's talk about B School, because I think if anybody's listening, they're probably eating out of your hand right now. Like, how can I possibly get that life? I feel so overwhelmed. I'm so confused. I have these big ideas. I have to go and do the thing. Like, it has to come out of me. Who is this for? And then let's talk about what is going to be covered in it.

Yeah. So really, B School is both for folks who are kind of new on their journey and they're thinking like, oh, my gosh, I have this idea. I have this product or service. I really want to get it out into the world, but I don't know how to do that. Like what do I do first, second and third because I am overwhelmed. There's so many things I should do. And you've probably been, you know, listening to podcasts and watching folks on social media and like having that desire, but you don't know the step by step plan. So also for people, you know, I've had a lot of folks through the program, Lori, that already have like million dollar PL businesses, but they've hit a plateau or they're at a place where they're ready to uplevel or evolve it or change it and they just need a fresh perspective or they've been kind of going at their side hustle for a while and it's hit a place where they're like, I know this has more potential in it to scale, but I'm not seeing something. What am I not seeing? So we have all of those different people. So that's who it's for. It's for people that don't necessarily want to go raise venture capital, right? It's for people that are pretty scrappy happy and want to do things themselves or understand how to hire the right people to help them, but to do that really effectively. And it's for people who might have some gut understanding that they could be better at marketing and promoting their business, but they have either a distaste for it, a resistance to it, they're scared of it, they don't want to come across as aggressive or slimy. They might feel like they're undercharging, but they don't know how to really charge what they're worth because there's a lot of kind of self worth things mixed up in the there. Those are all the people that B school is awesome for. People that want financial freedom and location freedom and time, freedom from their business and don't want to necessarily work 24 7, 365 and like, oh, I'm going to dominate the world. Like, like that's not our vibe. It's just not. I'm way more into helping people create their ideal balance of life to have the success that they desire, but also to have that rest and that freedom and that peace and that downtime time. That's how we roll in terms of what people will get out of it. It really is this step by step blueprint that is so proven at this point with 80,000 entrepreneurs that if you let us walk you through what you need to know and do and understand to have A freedom rich business to be able to put the systems in place so that you can have the support that you need to run a business that is profitable, that's meaningful to you do, and that's really an expression of your highest and best in terms of your heart and your soul. That's who it's for. Like in terms of the curriculum, I'm sure you'll point people to it. Everything is super transparent. Everything is really online. Like you can see everything right there. If you like what we talk about in terms of what you're gonna walk away and get, come join us. If you don't, don't like. It's, it's super straightforward from really identifying who you should be serving, to understanding your communication plan, to leveraging your time and your energy so you're not a content mach machine 247 to understanding some of the timeless principles to how to inspire people to act, how to price and position your offering so that you maximize your profits and maximize the kind of satisfaction of your customers. And also how to simplify your tech stack so that you're not all over the place, so that you're not wasting money that you don't need to be wasting and so that things are as streamlined as possible. We've got an enormous library of advanced trainings too, from technology to PR to all kinds of different stuff. And again, you'll point people to it. It's really people who want that freedom rich life from their business and want a proven plan and a step by step coach training how to get there.

Amazing. Well, I am so freaking excited for everybody because I know your courses have changed my life and many, many, many, many of my friends, so. And you're just such a good teacher and I just want to say like the clarity thing, you are so good with cutting through everything and reminding us what's important and also getting us clear on our message. So if you are remotely like, if this felt like answers, like if she was giving you answers or things that you need, I will say you are one of the best teachers out there. I have personally gone through your stuff and it's a game changer and I'm.

So grateful for you.

And we will make sure that you guys all have the link and you heard all the spots that you get to go and you can go in the show notes as well. And Marie, thank you, thank you, thank you. We are so grateful for you. And until next time, everyone, everybody, earn your happy. Bye everyone.