Another Marie Who Opened my Eyes.

-by Bia Plake-

I recently wrote a post about Marie Kondo (see here the post) and her incredible talent for de-cluttering and organizing your belongings… Marie Forleo is another talented woman that helps empower and coach women to create businesses, and live the lives they desire.

Her tag line is, “The world needs that special gift that only you have.”

Marie Forleo inspires people all over the world with her quick and witty sense of humor. She helps us overcome our fears, face our challenges, and take action in order to become our better selves.

She has a show called Marie TV (here is one of my favorite interviews), where she interviews experts on a variety of topics. The link above is with Steve Pressfield on Why Overcoming Resistence beats talent. She has interviewed Tony Robbins, Brene Brown and others. Most of the content is free and has valuable lessons that anybody can learn from.

Every Tuesday I am eager to open my email inbox. Every single time there is a great piece of wisdom from her and/or from one of her guests. She makes you think, and helps you realize what is lacking in the knowledge and skills that you need to address in order to improve yourself.

What differentiates her from all the other coaches is her genuine belief that no matter who you are, no matter what stage of your life you are in, you can take action to change your circumstances once you realize you have a brilliance you have not yet recognized.

What sometimes prevents us from reaching our potential is our self-doubt. We tend to think that everything has already been said or done, so “Why would someone listen to me, or buy form me?”

Marie tirelessly emphasizes that “there is no one is like you”, with your life story, perspective, and experiences. You are unique and this makes whatever you do special.

I used to think that people have already come up with everything in the world, and that there is nothing left to do to be original.

But guess what? You don’t have to be original. You just have to be you, telling your own story, and seeing the world through your own experience and feelings.

There is a study that indicates that nothing is completely original, that all new ideas come from a confluence of other ideas.

What matters most is your ability to be available to all sorts of information, and be open to new ideas. From there we can all bring something new to the table.

Marie is launching a book called “Everything is Figureoutable” (Gosh, I had a hard time spelling that word!)

It is actually a made-up word, but the point is, we can all figure things out. We just need to put time and effort to find the answers.

I am actually a very resourceful person, and I can figure things out pretty easily. Nonetheless, my difficulties lie in my inability to tell people about my work. You’ve probably heard of that talented artist that never sold a painting, or a writer that never showed their book, for fear of not-being-good-enough, or that uneasy feeling that you are trying to “sell” something.

That is when it comes down to being able to go into an uncomfortable space, where you have to reveal yourself to others.

I once had a beautiful website with these incredible accessories made from a unique type of grass native to Brazil, called Golden Grass.

I called my company BiaJu, a conjunction from Bia and my daughter’s name, Julia.

I made the website from scratch. Everyone would tell me how lovely and well designed it was. But unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. I needed to put the word out there.

But I failed to do so.

As proud as I was about the things I had accomplished, I couldn’t bring myself to tell people about them. I mistakenly thought that once I had my website up and running, all I had to do was wait for everyone to find my it (from zillions of other ones on the web). I didn’t do the continuous work on all the other things that needed to be done, thinking that all the “real” work had been completed.

I had a goal and I was passionate about the product and the message. Selling my products would help a poor village in a poor rural area in Brazil, empowering artisans (mostly women) to rise out of poverty.

I went to some stores in Los Angeles to show my products. The places I went to loved what I had!

But I didn’t follow through. I felt I was bothering them.

Fear of rejection is the most pervasive and destructive feeling that most of us have. I have no idea why I even get flushed just thinking about it. I learned, I now know, that even when we are afraid of things, we can still do them, and we will be just fine.

On her most highly viewed TED talk, Brene Brown says that we can avoid being vulnerable, but we won’t ever grow as a person without sometimes being inside this scary feeling. She also points out that there is no courage without vulnerability. (link to TED talk here)

Most important is to also recognize the fear, then face it. It can manifested in other behaviors, like… procrastination, laziness or lack of discipline. But once you’ve tackled this main feeling, the others will disappear and there will be no excuses not to move forward.

What could I have done differently?