Birth to Net Worth with Marianne Hickman

Join us as we unravel our deep-rooted relationship with money, from earliest memories to eureka moments and building wealth. Birth to Net Worth with me, Trystan Trenberth. Welcome to another edition of Birth to Net Worth. Today I've got a lovely guest who I met in November, um, co-host of an incredible experience, um, which I was invited to join with the Chris Krohn organization. Marianne's an entrepreneur, influencer, and is really helping bring people from food stamps to freedom. That's one of the catchy catchlines that she has, which I think is a brilliant segue into bringing her to the stage. Marianne Hickman, welcome to Birth to Net Worth. Thank you for sharing time with us today.

Thank you so much, Trystan. It's an honor to spend some time with you.

Thank you. So Give us a little bit about your background, Maryann, you know, where you are now and where you've come from, and we'll lead into, you know, the genesis of the story that we're going to cover and fill in those blanks between, you know, where you came from and today.

Absolutely. Yeah, I started off— I'm the last of 10 kids, and that means a lot of things in terms of finances. My parents had to scrape, borrow, save, pinch their way to just feed the small army that they had created. And so, as you can imagine, with that comes a lot of implanted beliefs about money. In fact, I'll never forget the first conversation I had with my mom about money, and she told me about when she got married. And this is— she got married in the '60s, last century, very much into the last century. And she talked about, uh, credit cards as if they were such a terrible thing. And she said, I'll never forget when your dad put his first purchase on a credit card, and we haven't been out of debt since. And immediately I tied all of this negativity around money. I tie this all in negativity around credit cards and debt and leverage. And I swore to myself that I would never put myself in the same position, but I had no one to teach me how to do anything otherwise. You know, you fast forward to several years later, I find myself as a broke mom of 5 kids. I was on 4 different forms of welfare through the state, through my church, through, you know, any welfare I could get a hold of, local community projects. I was taking everything I could to provide for my small family of 5 kids, and it didn't feel small. Um, and then at that time, there was a moment that came that is burned into my memory forever because this is the moment where I finally asked the right question. And it came as a sort of negotiation with God, if you will. And I hope that's okay to bring up here, but I, I'm so glad because it's inextricable from my life. I was on my knees next to my bed and I my fingers hurt from clenching my fists so tight. I had been crying so hard because the bills were stacking up, college wasn't working, the, the jobs that my ex-husband didn't work out, and we were in a hole so much that the guy who lives in the gutter was $100,000 wealthier than I was because I had so much debt between consumer debt and trying things that didn't work and college debt and tuition. I said, listen, I need you to either put a box of 100 grand on my front porch, or I need you to put me in the path of someone who can teach me about money, because none of my college professors can do it. None of my siblings can do it. None of my parents can do it, and none of my friends can do it. I need you to put me in the path of someone who can teach me, or just give me a loan. Give me 100 grand. Well, I didn't get the box. I, I got the, uh, in the opportunity to meet my first mentor instead. And from then on, I've collected mentors like a baby would collect candy. And I've put myself in rooms where I can be what I like to call the dumbest kid in the room and learn from extraordinary people. And now I made a negotiation with God that has a lot to do with, uh, Viktor Frankl's book. The Man's Search for Meaning. Yes, that's exactly one. In fact, I have this statue of the responsibility right there. I keep it with me. And now it's my responsibility and privilege to pass that on. But it's because part of my negotiation with God was, if you teach me how to do this, I will commit my life to lifting up everyone I can.

Man's Search for Meaning, what a powerful book. I remember riding my bicycle a couple of years ago and listening to that while I was, you know, exercising and and, you know, obviously sitting down to— that was so powerful. It was, it was unexpectedly powerful. I didn't know what the message was going to be, but I heard that it was a great book to read from a couple of different sources. And what a great, what a great reference. What a great reference. And for people to read too. It's— for those of you don't know, there's— he was a psychotherapist, psychiatrist in Germany. And he— this was just about the time that the Germans were capturing the Jews, uh, and he went through 3 concentration camps, I believe it was 2 or 3, Auschwitz being one of them. And there is the end of the book is an essay of his summarizing of his experience and what he took away from the experience. I'm not going to go into that, that's not the topic of this, but it is such a powerful book for anybody from any background. Um, just appreciation of life, what's available to us if we choose. And it's not all about choices. There's mindset, which is huge. I know you're hugely in the mindset. I love mindset. I love peace, purpose, and prosperity. I'm anti-grind, um, you know, in every sense. Um, but just, just being present and being, you know, we could reference, uh, What's his name? The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle. You know, another very different book, but has a lot of, you know, there's so many books out there with similar messages, but just describing it. It's like having your math teacher. You couldn't understand what they were telling you, but then another teacher the next year explains it in a very different way, and it's like, shit, why didn't I get that last year? And I'm just having the same skydiving. There's, you know, 8, 12 different instructors, one just explaining a different way in a different context has just made the difference of so many different situations. So anyway, so tell, tell us about that, because winding back to that, that first memory and your mom, you know, that is powerful in itself. The first time you put something on there and 'Never been out of debt since.' What did that mean for you? You know, obviously you brought us forward a little bit into that story. What in those years between hearing that from your mom's lips and that pact that you made with God— tell me about how that played out over time with maybe you had an allowance, maybe you didn't have an allowance. Did you then get a job? Did that inspire you to make money? Or was money still something that was, oh, I don't want anything to do with that, debt might be involved? Take us through those years.

Absolutely. I'll never forget. It's funny how you have those core memories and you can remember where you were. I remember we were turning northbound on Ward Road, just north of 32nd Avenue in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. And I remember we were in our red Geo Metro when she said that to me. And I thought, He was about 8. Yeah. I can't remember what I said to my kids. I've had, you know, 5 kids be the age of 8, if that's 6 now, but I don't remember what I said to them when they were 8. It's insane, 'cause kids are great in, you know, observers, but horrible interpreters, right? Yeah. So I committed at that moment, I said, okay, I've got to find a way to become wealthy. And at that age, it was just, I've got to find a way to earn money. I never had an allowance. We did chores, and sometimes we got paid for those chores, more of a negotiation. I said, Mom, will you pay me $5 if I mow the lawn, or will you pay me $10 if I clean the car, or whatever it is? And my mom was very good about, you know, compensating for that work, but it was always my idea. And I— one of my first jobs if you will, as an entrepreneur, as a hustler, was taking a big black garbage bag and going and knocking on every single door in the neighborhood asking for their aluminum cans, right? And I would go on and they would kind of start to remember me and start to have their cans ready for me. I would go twice a week and go and collect cans, and then my mom would take me to the grocery store where they would weigh the cans and I would get paid a few dollars for someone else's garbage. Yeah. And then I remember, you know, there were fundraisers at school and I would go door to door and I would sell Christmas wreaths. And I remember feeling so let down because I never saw anything come from that. It was a fundraiser for the school. I never saw the money from that. So I thought, hmm, well, I'm doing all this work, I'm not seeing any of the rewards from it except for the gratification, but I'm learning how to sell. And I started just picking up all these little odd jobs. I would babysit as much as I could. I would get into any field that I could to make money. I would mow people's lawns. I would— whatever you could think of, or whatever I could think of, I did it to try and earn money. There was another moment that I'll never forget after I got my first job. I got my first job at, uh, 16 years old, and I came home from work one day. I was, um, you know, selling ice cream at Dairy Queen. And my mom asked me, and I could tell she was so— she had been thinking about this question for a long time, and she was very shy to ask it. And I'm sure she was very humbled to even have to, but she asked me for $50 so that she could pay the electric bill. And I mean, I, I The reaction was, of course, yes. But also in the back of my head, how do I avoid this from happening to me? Yeah. How do I avoid having to ask my 16-year-old daughter to pay for electric bills, you know? And, and she'd been running a household wonderful and holding things together for, you know, she'd been raising kids for, you know, a couple of decades by that point because I was the last of 10. Yeah. And I just had to say, oh, and I didn't have any training. I didn't have anyone in my life that was wealthy. I didn't have any neighbors that were wealthy. I didn't have any friends. I had a neighbor that was a schoolteacher, many neighbors who were stay-at-home moms. It was a very traditional neighborhood where the dad went off and went to work, and, and my parents always hustled from home. My dad went down with several sinking ships as an entrepreneur, and I never quite figured out what he did that failed. And it was always just trial and error, trial and error, trial and error. One thing that stuck with me though, regardless of anything else, was whatever dollar I brought in, I was to give 10% back. Now, at the time, it looked like giving back to my church. Now I do it in a few other ways in addition, but whatever money I bring in, I was to give 10% back to God to give to other people. Yeah. No matter how much I've made or how little I've made, that has always been a part of my financial strategy, if you will.

Yeah. Yeah. So listening to you mention your dad, he failed and tried and tried again. I take it that may be where you got your tenacity from of you know, falling down 7, getting up 8, and again, and getting up and, and keep doing and doing and doing. What, what inspiration was that from a, from a perspective? What, what was it that he was kind of working in at that time?

I, I watched my dad go between several different jobs. My dad is one of the most brilliant people I know. He can learn anything. And he— I remember he owned a, a florist shop down in downtown Denver selling silk flowers, you know, in flower vases. And it would be the equivalent of like a Michaels or a Joann's nowadays. And that was a business he inherited from his dad. And I would say that was the first sinking ship that he inherited because his dad, uh, wasn't as successful as he wanted to be with it as well. But my dad was so smart, he created— this is before computers even existed— he created a a point of sale system, an inventory system. I remember going to that office with him and learning how everything worked. I remember watching people put quarters into the Coke machine and thinking to myself, I can buy those for 10 cents and sell 'em for 25. That means I make 15 cents each time someone buys one. So I was around my dad for all of that. And when they closed up shop, I cannot recall any frustration or negativity on my dad's and my mom's part whatsoever. Now they did, have arguments about money, but they were never against each other. And I'll never forget that. I think there were struggles, but they never blamed each other at all. And from there, my dad went and he learned how to sell cars at the John I.way dealership down in downtown Denver. And from there, he went and did odd jobs fixing electrical systems and installing telephone systems in high-rise buildings and again, same thing, doing whatever he could to bring in a few bucks. My dad is 80 years old now and he's still crawling up in attics, installing telephone systems, pulling the wire. One of my goals, one of my reasons for becoming wealthy, or what people would consider wealthy, was to be able to retire my parents. And about 3 years ago, I walked up to my parents and I said, listen, we're building a house. We've got a place for you in it. So you don't have to work anymore, you don't have to worry about a mortgage anymore. And to be able to realize that dream that I had wished for for so long, it felt like such an endowment. Now, my parents didn't take me up on it. That's their choice. The door is always open. Yeah, but to have that milestone of being able to give back, even in a small way, was so significant.

Oh, amazing. I, I've heard many people— I my parents passed, I don't have that privilege or opportunity. But, you know, I feel the heartfelt passion and power in that opportunity. And I love the fact that your dad, not from— doesn't sound like it was because it was a charity offer, but he's just passionate about just doing stuff and enjoying life and keeping doing what he wants to do. And, you know, I think that's amazing.

Oh, he'll never quit. He'll go out with his boots on, as they say.

Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. Incredible. So selling wreaths into teenage, you know, life. What was it that took you through high school? Did you go to college? I know that you're a very smart person. You've got a lot of mastery in your life. There's several things that you've mastered and stacked upon each other to to take you to where you are on your trajectory today. And we're all just on a journey. It's a never-ending journey. The journey is the passion, isn't it? Until we realize there's no destination, then we can enjoy the journey. And you're definitely enjoying the journey.

I could tell. I tried to—

what we met. So what, what, what brought you through the high school to the, to the college, to, to the beyond, to, you know, passing passing that stage of life and getting yourself to the position of having a family and, and educating yourself and working?

Well, I, I was always told— I was sold this— it's really harsh to say, but I feel like I was sold a societal lie with college. Yeah, I have 9 older siblings who value education above so much— not above everything, but above a lot. All of them have college degrees, some of them master's, multiple master's, PhDs, you name it, they've got it in a variety of fields. So I naturally followed in their footsteps and said, well, I guess I'm supposed to go to college. Now, my final years of high school, I started to, uh, in Utah they call it sloughing, I called it ditching in Colorado, uh, I started to ditch classes so I could go to work. Because work was more profitable for me than the recitation of some Aesop fable in English class, right? Yeah, I got out of The Canterbury Tales because I ditched that class. Um, but I, I started to, uh, to do what made me more money, understanding that there's a multitude of meanings behind the phrase higher education. Now, I still went to college, and that's where a lot of my debt came from. Was loans and sometimes grants, but mostly loans. And as I went to college, I started also raising a family. So college took me a really long time to get through. I went through to college for 10 years. And as a high schooler, I fell in love with two things. One that would be a career path for 25 years, and another that would be a calling. Yeah. In high school, I started picking up photography. I learned most of my business, early business skills, through just running my own photography business. In fact, that's what I went to college to do. I, my major track was a BFA, Bachelor of Fine Arts, in photography. However, I dropped out of college after 10 years of attendance, but still 12 and a half credits short of graduating, because I started to pull my head out of the sand. I looked around me and I said, my college professors are not making as much as I want to make. How can they teach me to make as much as I want to make if they've never done it? Yeah. My college professors can teach me how to be a college professor. That's what they're good at. That's not what I want to be. Right. And it made me start thinking. So, and even to the point where some of my college professors were saying, why are you even here? You already have a business. And it took me 10 years to stop ignoring that portion of what they were teaching me, and it cost me $100,000 to learn that lesson. That's the most valuable lesson that I learned in college.

Yeah, I— this behind me is one of my shots. I've got another one there. I, I love shooting concerts. That's one of my big things. Uh, oh wow, I love studio work, but I realized that it was definitely a passion, not a, a career. From the purpose that I didn't feel confident I could make the kind of money that I wanted to do through photography. Now, maybe with different decisions, but like we were talking about Midlife to Millions earlier, I was kind of stuck in that W-2 thing. And yeah, I really enjoyed photography, but I didn't want to put the photography and force it to make me money and remove the passion and the joy that it gave me. So yeah, we've got a lot of decisions to make. I went to college for hotel management. It was a vocational course. It was more like an associate's degree. But I knew that I wasn't going to make more money by going and finishing a degree, by doing another couple of years and then coming into the workplace. I was going to be behind those people that went to college for 2 years and have more experience than them in the workplace. So I completely understand. I've been through a couple of different career changes in the meantime, but now, now it's time to live passion and make money from something that is a calling and hopefully a passion or a couple of different tracks here. And make an impact in whatever that, that cause is, which in my case is, is teenage mental health. So, um, so that's so, so enlightening to hear. And, and I know that college is not an education, it's a business that provides education at different levels at different colleges, depends where you go. And, you know, Rolex is Write twice a day, say same as a, same as a Timex. Um, but how are you going to get the time? You know, are you looking to be able to tell the time and do more things where you maybe got the Apple Watch or something along those lines where you got much more available to you like you and I have through our careers? We just learned so many things from different places that have much more value than just a piece of gold that says Rolex or whatever the brand is on there that looks shiny, but that doesn't tell us everything we need to know about what's going on and how to handle life. So I think, I think if we look at college, it's probably like a clock, it's twice right a day. So it is working, but there's so many other things that we can pick up and have in a handheld computer instead of, you know, the access to knowledge, the access to relationships and people. And you and I know more than anybody relationships and those collaborations are the most powerful part of life. Not, oh, don't cheat on that test, don't look at the paper next door. This is all about, well, how can you be the mathematician in my life and I can do the visionary work or vice versa or however we collaborate on these things. And actually, you know that Steve Jobs didn't put the pieces in the computers, maybe he did in the very early days, but they outsourced, they built teams, they built departments to scale. And it doesn't teach you how to scale at university, I'm sure. I mean, I haven't been, but seems like that isn't the case. It just teaches you to be siloed and even more and more siloed through your career as you specialize, and then you're locked in this place. And I think that's when we get to our forties, it's like, shit, I love technology because it's so broad, but now I'm in this little shoebox and I can't get out because I've been in here for 3 or 4 or 5 years. What do I do? Thankfully, Rich Dad Poor Dad came into my life and I took it off the shelf after a year and things changed.

That's so beautiful. So I'm curious to hear, you know, what that looked like for you, because it sounds like you learned faster than I did that college was a business. I— that one of the biggest lessons I learned, probably a handful, one of those lessons was college is a place where I go if I want to find employees.

Right. They know how to work with somebody else. They say the C-grade students hire the A-grade graduates. They, the C-grades drop out, they start the business, and then they hire the best from college to actually work in their business for them.

Oh, I see that.

So from my perspective of learning quickly about college being a business is because I'm British. I moved here in 2005 and I could very quickly see that there are these finance departments in colleges that actually learn, try and find credits that you can bring into their thing so they can loan you money to get into this thing. And so many people are earning less money than other people that are entrepreneurs or experienced practitioners of what they do versus a graduate of a course that teaches the same stuff. In the UK, if you go to school for chemistry, You're not gonna learn English history and all of the other stuff that you learn at the associate's level here. You are focused exactly on what you're studying with nothing else. So some may argue it's a better degree because it's more specialized, but over here they have to fill out the time to then bring you back for your master's degree and then the graduate degree and the PhD because you haven't quite got to that level of excellence yet or knowledge. Because there's another carrot in front of you. Oh, do your degree, you'll get a great job. Oh, do your master's or you can get a pay rise. And none of those pay rises make any inroads into the interest rate, which ironically on student loans and you and I, I'm sure you know as well as I do from an outside perspective, why is the student loan the only unforgivable loan in the United States?

Doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't. Why aren't we helping nurses go through medical school and doctors, the people that we really need on the ground, and forgiving their debt first of all, because they've served and they've, they've contributed massively to the community in some ways. I mean, we could get— I'm not looking to get into political discussion, but are there some areas where, like Australia, my uncle in the '60s, it was a £10 pom. He got on a boat, it was a round trip ticket, but he had to stay there 2 years. Otherwise he had to pay a lot more money to come home. Australia was trying to attract talent and knowledge and experience to their country because they were short a lot of skills. Now, he chose to come back, but a lot of people stayed. In the United States, we're also trying to do the same thing as to keep people here, but making all of this cost here of, you know, to cost to go into— it takes away the passion of nursing. I don't know if you've read a book called Cashflow Breakfast Club. No. So Cashflow Breakfast Club is a book, came out a couple of years ago. My friends are running a monthly meetup here in town called the Cashflow Breakfast Club. The irony of it is it's at 7 o'clock at night. So, so the story is it's about a Hawaiian real estate agent that's been in the game 5, 6, 7 years and he's been successful, but like most agents, it's feast or famine. It's a, it's a, I think, I think I heard this up in Utah with you guys. He was a, he was a beef farmer, you know, he was a, he was raising cattle. So, you know, you sell a house, you have some money, and then he was waiting for the next deal to come along instead of being the dairy farmer. So he got this nice fancy apartment, had been living it up over the years. The beginning of the story was him being, having to leave because he was getting evicted because he couldn't afford it. Yeah, he, yeah, his sister was able to put him up in one of her duplex units. And the sister being a teacher in a very expensive country, you know, state of Hawaii, she was on very low wages, much less than he had earned over the last few years. Yet the story took us through her reaching her financial freedom number within like a few months of the story beginning, where even though she was a teacher earning very little, she had been very sensible with her money and had picked up different units and snowballed the profits into more and more properties so that she could free herself from teaching if she chose. Like even your parents, they chose not to. A lot of people keep still working because it gives them access to traditional debt. But it was just, it was a really good book that outlined a lot of these areas, which made a lot, lot of sense. It was just another take on Rich Dad Poor Dad from a different storyline, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Those are the success stories that we need. Yeah, the average person breaking the mold.

Yeah. And putting it into the reach of nurses and people that think they can't, or nurses or teachers and that kind of stuff that have a very low income, that, yeah, life is challenging. You've got kids, you've got responsibilities. You know, it's, it's the things that are hard now make life easier later. And the things that are easy now make life hard later. It's true. Paraphrase Paul Mosley, you know. But what do we all want to do? Do we want to experience life and enjoy it? So, so past, past college and not doing college, what took you into sales? Obviously photography is sales in selling your products, but what was the next, next iteration of sales or your, your next mastery challenge?

In life. Yeah, it's about that same time that I dropped out of college that, uh, that negotiation with God took place, and I asked for that person to be brought into my life. So it— there is no coincidence. It's, uh, Joseph McClendon said something that has burned a hole into my brain, and I love it. He said, as human beings, we always fantasize that we will rise to the occasion, and that's just not true. We don't do that. He says, you always fall to your highest level of preparedness.

Yeah.

And that has stuck with me because I think I was prepared in that moment to accept something that broke the norm. I don't think I would've listened or even attended the event where this person was speaking if I hadn't been looking for better ways to break the mold and had freshly dropped out of college. Mm-hmm. So I went and I, and I met my first, my first mentor. You, uh, mentioned him at the beginning of this, uh, Chris Cronin, incredible person. And that was my first financial mentor.

Yeah.

And it was at that point where I was like, okay, I did what Dan Clark says, although I hadn't met the man yet. He said, "Be willing to pay any price and travel any distance to be in proximity to the people who will teach you what you need to know." I put $25,000 on credit cards that I didn't have I begged and I borrowed that money so that I could be in a mentorship with this human being. And what I learned over the course of that mentorship, I'll never forget sitting in the back of the room when I was challenged to utter the phrase, I'm an excellent salesperson. And at the time, oh, salesman, sleazy, skeezy, gross, manipulative, whatever disgusting thing you can imagine that goes with the word. And so I was so beyond hesitant to even utter the phrase, but something told me on the other side of learning that was the revenue and the income I was looking for. And so I tried it on. I said, I'm a great salesperson. It came with no confidence whatsoever. And I tried it on, I tried it on, I kept getting better at saying it. And then I got an opportunity to practice it. There was a moment when I was selling, uh, for an influencer. I, I, the truth is I hadn't started selling yet. I was just hanging out with him. And he was on the phone with a prospect from YouTube, from YouTube. And he said, Marianne, he covered the phone. If you can sell this client, I'll give you $100. Really? All I have to do is close them. You've already done the hard work. They already love you. They've talked to you. I just have to swipe the card, essentially. Okay, I can do that. I closed them. I got my first $100 and they said, okay, we're going to give you some more leads. Can you do that with 7 people? I said, oh, try. Some of them didn't pick up the phone, some of them didn't answer, but I had already cut my teeth on it.

Yeah.

So I said, okay, I can, I can help a couple of these 7 people authentically without manipulation because that's not who I am. And then it grew until the point I was managing a team of, you know, dozens of people. We ended up taking that company from its first $2 million a year to a $25 million a year. I was responsible for the revenue of at least $50 million over the course of my time in that company. We 10x the revenue several times on the sales floor. When I first started on that sales floor, you know, we sold nothing. When I took over the sales floor, we were selling probably about $30,000 a week. And when we maximized that sales floor, we were doing $300,000 a week. And it was just through the creation of systems, teaching the system of sales, teaching influence, authentic influence, instead of this manipulative, terrible, uh, agenda-based sales thing that used to work in the '90s. And the best part of this, the best part of this, is that it was blessing the lives of my other sales reps, and it was blessing the lives of the people who bought the product.

Yeah, I, I'm very confronted by a lot of sales techniques, um, I have a similar feeling. I think it sounds like to you with the way that a lot of people sell, car salesmen, you know, I remember an experience. I was probably about 2006, '07, somewhere like that here in town going into a dealership. Just said, I'm just looking today, I'm not buying. I just, you know, stated it because that was the truth. It wasn't like a defense thing. Oh, I'm going to tell them this and And, and I was, you know, I said, how much for this one? You know, it's how much can you afford? I said, no, how much are you selling this car for? Well, that's not what I would offer for it. Well, hang on, my, let me talk to my manager, or my manager wants to talk to you. I said, no, you didn't tell me what it was. If you're not sure, not buying from somebody that's not sure, and left. I literally wasn't buying that day, but It was, it was one of those first experiences, salespeople, and I had a lot of experiences since. We've had the water softener demo and, you know, all of that type of stuff. And it is just so inauthentic in the way that it's not, um, it's not heart-centered and it's not based around this, this selling the solution to a problem. It's basically trying to bang a square peg into a round hole. Trying to look for that crack that they can force their product into to make their money. Where I would much rather jump off the phone and say, hey, I don't have anything for you, but if I, if I come up with somebody, I'll refer you. Or, hey, I've got a referral. This, this person would be much better at selling or buying this thing from you, whatever it is, a house. And I'll happily make a referral because I'm not going to try and be that guy that's just got a solution for everything. Um, but it's just, it's just amazing how I think— what's the, the word Sean uses? It's, uh, integra scarcity. That noise, the, this, the scarcity thing is frustrating as well because, you know, there's not a lack of— do you know what I mean? Right, exactly. There's only 7 left and like, it's like, yeah, I, I know that people relate to that. But let's look at the— it's pitched towards survival mindset, survival people that have— is a great example was Gucci, Dolce Gabbana, all of that stuff. What these products is so widely available, people don't realize how widely available they are, and they'll use their money to buy liabilities instead of buying assets to buy The liabilities. The money is the thing that's the most infinite. It's not the thing that's scarce, but they think in their mind that I've only got $200 or I've saved up $500 for this thing. And, and it's the relationship to that money that is the, the big thing. And when there's an object desire or there's desire created around an object, it's creating a, a motivation to buy it rather than is it an inspired from the heart, is this the right thing for me? And I think it's building motivation in a, in an authentic, or a way which is not necessarily what I would consider integrous, is one of the big problems of salespeople.

I agree. And that those salespeople typically will get burned out pretty quickly because you can only blacken your soul with that for so long.

Yeah, absolutely. So when did— when along this journey did the food stamps turn to freedom?

It— this is a story that I love to tell because it is not— the system that is built is not designed to help you exit. That the food stamp system is not designed to help you get off of it. The, uh, the government welfare is not designed to help you get off of it. It's not designed to help you grow at all. In fact, I was just talking to someone yesterday about this. They are on government welfare, government assistance, and it's there for a reason. And I have to say, I am grateful for the time that I was able to benefit from it. Yeah, absolutely. I fed my family with that. But in order to get off of the system, let's just say that you are given $1,000 a month to feed your family., and there are certain criteria and qualifications that you have to meet in order to receive that $1,000 a month. You have to be poor enough to be rich, is what I like to say. You have to be just poor enough to where they'll supplement you with that $1,000. Now, let's imagine that you cross that poverty line by $100 a month. Well, now it's costing you $900 a month more to live above the poverty line because they're taking the supplement away. If you make $500 a month more, you lose $1,000 still. So you have to somehow overcome the gap to where you're just above the poverty line or maybe well beneath it. That's just if you're close to the poverty line. If you're well beneath it, you probably have to 4x your income to be able to live without the assistance because you're losing the assistance. The delta between the two is quite large when you're trying to get out of this debt hole or this government assistance hole that you're in. So there was a moment that came when I was on, this was crazy because I was appearing on stages at the time. I was representing a wealth, brand at the time. And behind the scenes, I'm paying for my kids' food on food stamps. I was on stage speaking about how to grow financially, and I felt like such a hypocrite because I had not yet achieved the result. And I didn't give myself enough credit for being on the path because I was on the path. I just hadn't reached that milestone yet. I had my first investment property that I bought with someone else's money, but I was still on food stamps. And the day that my mentor challenged me to cut up my EBT card, my food stamps card, in other words, I was very scared to do so because I hadn't gotten that delta covered between my income and my needs yet. And I actually didn't cut up the food stamps card. I kept it. I didn't use it. I committed not to using it, but I kept it. And I kept it in my wallet to this day to remember where I came from. The irony is that I lost my wallet on my trip to Mexico, so someone else has my EBT card. It's completely useless, but if I'm gonna lose it, that's the way to do it. So this, this moment came where I had to say, I'm burning the safety net. And I have to make this work. There's no other options. I have to master the game of sales because there's no backup plan and there's nobody coming to rescue me. And I continued to show up on stages. I continued to sell the product and I continued to stash and squirrel away and live as meagerly as I possibly could until I was able to be in a robust enough position. And it feels like it was so And I hope I always have this feeling of it being so recent because it makes me so grateful for the, the hard work and effort that I put in. It was years ago that I crossed that line, but the feeling of being able to go to the store and pay for my own food with money that I earned, with a skill that I had, was something that I'll never let go of. And the skill of being able to problem solve and help people is a lucrative skill. This is a skill that will never go away. Yeah. And, and that's, I, it's hard to define a moment of when that transition took place, but that moment when I decided to never use my EBT card again, even though I needed to, that was a defining moment.

I love that. Fantastic. I, I very much relate to, you know, speaking publicly and talking on, on stages in that concept, because I'm not, not there where I want to be yet. But it's how— it's the fear of looking bad in front of other people, the pride, I suppose. But being on the journey, that was very powerful to hear you say that for me, as far as being on my journey and, and certain about where I've where I've come and where I've come from. I don't have the story that you did, you know, just marriage, divorce, child support, kids, and, you know, last 5 years getting into the real estate and entrepreneurial world. I think it's an incredible story for people to hear and to challenge themselves at the right time. And the right time being the right context here. Some people are burning the bridges and they don't know what they're letting go of. That is supporting them in a positive way, that is like a foundation. Somebody would just kick this chair out from under them and they don't realize that they're, you know, hanging themselves almost in that situation rather than being in a position where, okay, I can see the shoreline still, but I'm swimming away from shore. You know, I can see, I can see the island now. Now I know my course. Now I know which trajectory I can adjust it slightly. But I know, I know where I'm coming from, and I know where I'm going to. But I love the fact that it has that recency feeling about it for you, that it refreshes you to, to inspire others to, to follow that path as well.

And I hope I never am void of that feeling. I, I wake up every day and I look— I, I live, Trystan, I live in the home that I designed on paper I literally dreamed about this home. I walked to this property and sat on the dirt, and I said, one day I'll have a home here. This is where the hot tub is going to be. This is where the gym is going to be. And now I'm sitting in it. Yeah. And that, that feeling of gratitude has been the most powerful fuel for anything I've ever wanted to create. And it's gratitude before you see it. Gratitude in advance.

Yeah. Standing up yesterday on my my 25th jump, I lay, lay with my eyes closed in the shade on a table, and I visualized the landing. And then I went and did it. And without that kind of vision of the future, that's one of the big things I picked up. Being in a state of gratitude has really shifted and made me much more clear through this skydiving malarkey. It's, it's amazing. I mean, I've had, had gratitude. I've also been looking for why don't I have such a deep level of gratitude for certain things and making the drive to Eloy on the days that I've gone down there, certainly towards the turn of the year, I'm driving down, I've got this mountain range and the sunrise coming over every morning. I'm listening to Dr. David Hawkins' book Letting Go. It's been the book I've been listening to, and that, that's an incredible inspiring book too. But just, yeah, just building the gratitude and allowing other— allowing the feeling to be there, allowing it to you know, because the thoughts are the result of a feeling or an emotion. So if we ignore the thoughts, we acknowledge they're there and just let them pass, and we, you know, lean on the emotion that's causing the thoughts. What about this emotion can I let go of? And can I, can I experience what I haven't experienced that's causing the emotion right now and then let go of it? And then it just frees us up from that point. And I think in some ways that's that cathartic process of going through to the point you let go of the food stamps is, am I letting go of the fear now? And am I stepping forward with confidence and certainty that I'm on that path that is going to take me to where I choose to be? And another funny, um, I don't know, coincidence is when I was at high school, I wanted to be an architect. And one of the— it was like a week thing, they called it, um, That's like work experience. It was— we went to— I found an architect company in St. Austell where I grew up, and I was just kind of watching the office, seeing what went on. I love technical drawing. I've done, I've done a fair bit before, just manually with rulers and everything. And they said, oh, do you want to— we've got a project, one of us is going to design the house, but, you know, do you want to take that on and just kind of work through it? So I designed this thing, they eventually built it. I didn't do the working drawings from it, but I did the external elevations and plan drawings and everything else. Somebody else did plumbing and all the other stuff, but that was, that was a great pleasure. And that, in my mind, my, my, my, um, godmother, her husband had designed a house they lived in. My dad, the house that I was born in, they had somebody design that one. He didn't design it. The architect went blind after that, but, um, There was no problems with the house because of the blind architect, but you know, I've had that creative, you know, streak in me and I would, you know, that's been one of my dreams is to design a house that I live in. I haven't put much thought to it recently, so I'm going to add that to the vision board.

How neat!

So thank you.

Oh, that's so beautiful, especially with your architectural— and I mean, you didn't spend years in the industry, but clearly the passion was there.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's, let's walk towards the conclusion. So this is beautiful how you described everything you learned. How do you convey this to your kids? Not to avoid them having problems, but to aid them in solving the problems that they're invariably going to have.

I love that you asked that because I've got 6 beautiful people that I'm trying to do a better job, yeah, than, than I chan— that I And I don't want to put my mother down. She did a phenomenal job raising us. Oh my gosh, that woman is a saint. But every parent wants to give their kids a better chance, right? Every parent wants to pass on the wisdom not only from their parents but stack on my own that I got while I was being a child and messing up. And we're always going to mess up our kids. It's inescapable that we're going to do that. But maybe through another generation added on top of what my parents gave me, I can make it that much easier. Well, I've made a lot of mistakes when it comes to parenting, especially when it comes to, uh, parenting financially. And, and like you, I'm divorced. I'm now remarried, and now we're dealing with so many different dynamics in the raising of these amazing children, not only with me and my husband who comes from his own background, but with my ex-husband and his wife who have their own background. And we're kind of living a Rich Dad Poor Dad scenario, uh, with our kids. It's two very different lifestyles, two very different modes of thinking, two very different theologies about money. And just recently, I, I sat down with my husband, and I humbly had to come to the realization that we had enabled a lot of, um, disabling— ironically— behaviors in our kids. We had gifted quite extravagantly, and we had in the name of wanting to give them everything we didn't have actually crippled them. And as we came to that realization, we sat down and we're like, okay, it stops. It stops now. Because if we continue to enable this disabling behavior, they will be dysfunctional adults when they go out on their own. And we— and we never did allowance, we did job charts, but we changed the dynamic of it. And we said, in order for you to receive payment for the jobs that you do, you have to turn in your job charts, and if you don't turn them in, you don't get paid even if you did the work, just like a time card. We said also, um, we love you and we will provide for your shelter and your food, but we're no longer buying your clothes, we're no longer paying for activities, we're no longer paying for anything really except for the basics of being a parent, sheltering and feeding our kids. And when we did that, I would say we had about 2 and a half, maybe 3 weeks of complaining and, uh, awkward turnover and the stretching and the growing pains of them learning how to provide for themselves. But it's incredible. Now I've got 17-year-old, a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old. I've got a, an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old who all now provide for themselves if they want to go to— I have 2 daughters that want to go to Paris this year. And they are saving up to buy airfare, and they're going to be able to do it. I've got a son who wants to take a $5,000 trip to Legoland. He's now thinking, instead of how can my parents pay this trip for me, how can I get them to do it, it's how can I earn the money. And he's starting businesses. He just yesterday was starting flyers for a lawn mowing business in January so we can get that lined up by the time the grass is ready to be cut. I've got a daughter that started a cookie recipe business. I've got another daughter that's selling crocheted animals online and is making money from that. Two of them have jobs and are starting their own side hustles. And the best thing could— I could have done to empower them was to take away this enabling behavior that I had given them. So that's— I, I use an app, uh, by— invented by a friend of mine, Scott Donnell. Um, it's called Gravy Stack, and this app is It's so amazing. I don't get any affiliate or anything, I just love it. And it teaches them the utility of money and it makes it into a game so they can learn it really quickly. That, that's two of the ways that we are helping our kids pass on a better chance than we had.

That's awesome. Scott was on here in the first season.

He lives—

oh, he wasn't— we weren't physically together, but, um, yeah, he, he was pre-launch at that point and he's done a lot with this app. I'm, I'm really please. I haven't seen it myself, but I totally understand the providing the needs but not the wants. And it's enabling for them to get into a different mindset of their value to the world, that they can provide value to receive value in return, rather than just being— I won't say entitled, but some kids may end up being entitled from such a situation. Um, and then I think in this in this world of the ease of e-commerce and all of the opportunities available to us and kids. You know, my, my youngest is a brilliant artist. My oldest is a good artist too. They both make music. My youngest, I just said, you know, if you could draw 2 or 3 different characters or a character in 2 or 3 different situations, we can upload it to a print-on-demand shop and you can just put that out on Instagram and just have an Instagram. They don't need to know it's you. No voice, no face. You can just, you know, maybe make up a little few stories or draw it in a few different scenes, and you can have t-shirts or mugs or caps or that type of stuff printed. Maybe you sell one this month, none next month, and you sell 100 the next month. Yeah, but maybe it just picks up and it's just a little bit residual income for you.

Yeah, my daughter's done the same thing. She lives in a whole different universe on Instagram. There's a storyline. She's on this universe with her friends. They I mean, it's a parallel universe. There's, there's weddings and there's babies being had and really, and she puts it all on Instagram. And I said, this is, this is where stories are made. This is where any show that you've ever watched on TV, this is where it comes from. Yeah.

Brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's just, and I think what it comes down to as well, Marianne, is kids don't listen to us. They won't do what we say. But they'll do what we do and what they see us doing. Exactly. I think that's, that's the biggest learning point that I, I realized. You said about the 2.5-3 week, you know, pain period on adjusting. It reminds me of when my kids were babies, when you change the sleep schedule or something in their schedule. It was more, you know, it's like training the dog.

Yeah.

I'm training myself to be consistent with the dog so the dog is consistent with me. Yeah. Same for the kids. If we can go endure that pain for 2 or 3 weeks of that whining and the crying or whatever it is, and get to the other side, the kid's fine.

Exactly. And you said it so perfectly. We're training ourselves to be consistent so they can be consistent with us. Perfect.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, so what, what program? I know you're live pretty much every day, at least once or twice a day on Instagram and other platforms. What is the program that you're helping other people, you know, find their freedom from food stamps? Tell us about that.

Yes, so I, I run a couple of different things right now. My favorite is a weekly call that we do. We call it the Mastery Hive, and this is a program where we meet once a week and we discuss 6 different areas of growth. And these 6 different areas come in the form of faith, family, fitness, friendship, finance, and of course philanthropy. And those are our 6 pillars. And the foundation for all of your growth in every different area is dependent on your growth in every other, because you can't just pick up a piece of a fishnet. The whole thing comes with it. So every Tuesday night we meet at 6 o'clock, we jump on the call, we go through different modules and different segments. We also have other programs. I'm releasing a— that sales course has been released for those of you that are, you know, specifically looking at getting this skill of sales. I put everything that I learned going from food stamps to financial freedom into a course. I'm giving away the book for free for as many people that can make use of it. So those are my favorite things that are going on right now. We're also starting a retreat series. There's Trystan, we're doing so much, just, there's so many ways I love to have fun. But that's how generally people start to play in the sandbox with me is they either come to the weekly mastermind calls or they read my book and then they come later on to retreats and jump into courses.

Fantastic. That is incredible. Well, um, what else would you like to share? Marian, you've got an amazing story. You're an amazing soul and so many, you know, empowering experiences. You've taken the pain and turned it into, into gain for yourself and those around you. I just remember 4 days with you in November, and I'd never met you before, never heard you speak. And you were so, so authentic and so well connected to all of us in the room. When you told your story there. I think it was a shortened version of this, but, you know, it was very touching. And there's a lot of people that speak on stage, but there's not many people that touch me. And I think that different people touch— are touched by different people. There's a lot of this, um, you know, hustle and grind and very masculine sort of thing out there, which is great for some people, but I think that's one of the things that burns out as well. What can you share with us from your heart that, you know, you might want to share with other people that may not be related to speaking? Maybe there's a cause that you support. I know that Chris and the Chrome Foundation support sex trafficking, and, you know, as, as I contributed towards that, and also the, the project in Canada, which I'm still very, very passionate about and excited to hear more about. Share with us some of your passions and your causes that you're you know, you're standing behind.

I— and thank you for asking about that. This is— so I'd love to give back in many, many ways, and sometimes I give anonymously because that's the way that I feel called to give. And sometimes I give and I— and then I, I like to be able to watch and see the response. I'll give a small example and then I'll share something that I'd love to invite as many people onto if they feel called to. Uh, I was MCing an event a couple of weekends ago. And they had provided a 2 meal trucks. One was a taco truck and one was a hot dog truck. And I said, okay, I'm gonna go in for the tacos. And I had just finished speaking to the audience about how the community I was speaking to was known for their generous giving. If you know Keaton the Muscle or Jimmy Rex, they host these, uh, $100 tip dinners. Yeah. And bring it to their communities. And I said, if you feel called Now's a good time to show up for your community and to show up for this community, what this community is known for. And as I went down to the taco truck and I said, okay, I, I can't with any level of integrity get up on that stage and ask people to give generously and not do so myself. Yeah. That would make a total hypocrite of me. And I want to give, but I, I, I didn't want to make a big show of it honestly. But I, I, I wanted to be an example just if people happen to see. Yeah, I'm not going— it's not— the glory is not mine. Yeah, let's, let's pass it where it belongs. Uh, I— so I grabbed this, you know, $100 bill, and I bring it up to the taco stand, and I saw this little tip box, and I looked at my husband. I said, should we just put it in the tip box, or do we hand it to them? And he said, well, you could just put it in the tip box. And I thought, I kind of don't want to. And not for any selfish reason, I don't need any glorification, but there is a payoff when you get to see someone's face. Yeah. And, uh, I, I got my tacos and I, I handed her the $100 bill and she, she had her hands full and she just took it in her palms because she had her gloves on. And I watched her take it and she looked at it and she looked up at me and she looked back down and in broken English with a very heavy Spanish accent, she said, this is too much. And I said, no, no, it's not. I'm grateful. Thank you. Thank you. And I got my tacos and I started to walk around the truck and started to leave. And she banged on the side door of the truck. She leaned out to me. In that same beautiful voice, she said, and I didn't catch all of it, but what I did pick up on was, help doctors very sick. Thank you. Yeah. And what that meant to me The only summation I could have come to because of that was this is, this is going to help because we've been very sick and we've been saving for a medical procedure of some kind.

Yeah.

And I thought, how cool would it be to extend? I'm going to copy Jimmy and I'm going to copy Keaton totally shamelessly. My goal this year is to once a month host at some restaurant somewhere a $100 tip dinner where everyone at the table comes knowing that they're going to give that $100 tip, or even if they do it remotely and, and share it on social and say, I was a part of this.

Yeah.

And do that. That, that's something that we'll be doing a lot more of. And you can watch my Instagrams and things to know when that's happening. But it doesn't need an organized thing. It doesn't need to be an evening with us. You can just do, you know, do it when you feel called. But there are others out there that are doing it. And, and to those that, I, I wanna speak to those that feel the calling to do something more than they're actually doing right now. Yeah. A simple message. You will disqualify yourself so easily because you haven't seen the result yet. But I wanna tell you this right now, if you haven't seen the result, it's because it's waiting for you to create it. If you are called, if you feel the calling here, that means you're qualified. So take whatever steps is necessary to watch that result come to fruition because that dream deserves to live.

And I, and I think where, where we look at these things, whether we're qualified or not, coming back to collaboration, it's who, not how.

Exactly.

Fuck how, as Thach Nguyen said. You know, it's, it doesn't matter how. My friend Matthew's very good friends with him. He's part of his mastermind. And Matthew tells a story about flying to Seattle and seeing it 10, 10, 15 years ago now, opening the Alaska Airlines or whatever it was magazine. And it was showing about how many, you know, condo units and apartment buildings are being built. He got to Seattle and said to Thatch, he said, you wanted to do this. Why aren't you doing it? All the cranes are busy, I don't have the teams, I don't have the contractors. Matthew said, set the intention. Fuck how, just set the intention to do it. And he did. And since then he's built, you know, hundreds of thousands of doors possibly in Seattle because he just set the intention and called those people. Like, it is the $100 dinner. We've done one or two here. I know Jimmy's had some of his people here do those and It's reminding me that I, you know, I'd love to do something like that too. So just bringing the people around you that feel the same calling, your vibe attracts your tribe, as they say, however you want to say it, but you bring people of alignment together. You know, just make a difference. Doesn't need to be all fully planned. It could be, I think a lot of those flash mobs are well planned, but it's almost like to the audience, it's just turns up and it's like a surprise. And it's like, wow. You know, it's, it's kind of like a flash mob tip dinner, really, isn't it?

It is nice.

It's kind of undercover, and then at the end it's like, you know, we appreciate you. Yes, we hear you, and you know what, what you do matters, you know.

I'm gonna steal that phraseology because I love it. The flash mob tip dinner.

Fantastic, fantastic. And you'll be happy to know that Food Stamps to Freedom.com is available. So you might want to go and grab that up and use that one and forward it to your funnel website.

I might want to do that. No. Yeah, I'm going to pop on my server right now. I thought I already owned it. Shoot.

That's with the T-O because I'm British. You might have bought the 2, the number 2.

Okay.

Well, Marianne. I so enjoyed this conversation. It's, you know, when you're in Phoenix, I'd love to, love to have lunch or dinner and, and catch up with you and, you know, maybe Brandon, those guys as well. Um, I don't know when I'll be back in, in Utah, but it won't be too long, pretty sure. I just love the energy, love the community, and love the spirit around the event and everybody there. And, you know, I've made connections with Forbes Riley, with, uh, Sean Caleggi, and so many others that I'm now in touch with. I'm hoping to do a deal with, with— do you remember Troy and Barb that came up to the stage? They were from Arizona, an older couple. We're trying to help them out with some more affordable housing on some land that he owns in the mountains with my friend Cedric. You remember Cedric? That was from Benin in Africa. So, you know, just, just being in alignment and finding the right people. We arrived in in Provo. Cedric was sitting on the front row of the plane next to Troy. He didn't know Troy at the time. I was sitting further back. By the time we got into the thing, Troy was about to, I don't know, order a cab or something. I'd already ordered an Uber. So he just said, look, we're staying at the same place. Let's just take a ride. So that just developed through the days into, you know, us hopefully doing, doing some business together and helping each other and solving problems together, you know.

Oh, that's so beautiful. I love that so much. The relationships are absolutely incredible.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you once again, Marianne. Um, I'm gonna wrap this up and we'll chat afterwards briefly, but thank you so much, guys. Thank you. I hope you really enjoyed that conversation. See you on the next edition of Birth Network. Thank you, Marianne.

Take care.

There you have it, folks. The vulnerability of owning where you come from, identifying the lessons that we can learn along the way, and just putting into practice the simple, straightforward things that aren't always obvious in life that we pick up. Physical health, financial health, and the wealth health will follow. Undoubtedly. Check out Speaker Mastery Hive with Marianne Hickman. The link is below and some information on how you can follow her on its social media. But please sign up for that Speaker Mastery Hive. You'll get on stages you never dreamt of, into places that you never imagined, and you'll gain results and confidence that you couldn't even contextualize several years ago, maybe even weeks ago. Thank you. See you on the next episode of Birth to Net Worth.