From Conformity to Authenticity: The Journey of Building a Successful Business with Erin Marcus
How can authenticity transform your business? In the world of entrepreneurship, your brand and your authenticity need to go hand-in-hand. I've experienced firsthand the misalignment between who I am and the image I portray hindered my success. I had to realign, step by step, my brand with my true self, as Erin Marcus has done. It was a journey of understanding myself better and growing.
#BeYourAuthenticSelf #TransformYourBusiness
In this episode of the Crown Yourself podcast, Kimberly Spencer hosts Erin Marcus, founder and CEO of Conquer Your Business. They discuss the importance of authenticity in business and personal branding, emphasizing the need for alignment with one's true self. They also explore the concepts of professionalism, integrity, and personal responsibility in achieving business success. Erin shares her experiences and offers advice on overcoming fear, breaking negative patterns, and setting actionable goals. The conversation also touches on the mindset of athletes, morning routines, and the importance of making a plan and executing it in business.
⬇️ RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST ⬇️
Connect with Erin Marcus.
WEBSITE: https://conqueryourbusiness.com/
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ErinMarcusConquerYourBusiness/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/erinmarcusconqueryourbusiness/
LINKED IN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinmarcusconqueryourbusiness/
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLFD-aM6LmA10FQrFC_QchQ
TRANSCRIPT:
Kimberly Spencer (00:00:00) - Hello. Hello, my fellow sovereigns. And welcome back to another episode of the Crown Yourself podcast. I am so excited to dive into this episode with you to help you conquer your business. I love that word conquer. One of the most impactful books that I read this year was Steven Pressfield The War of Art. Break through the blocks and win your inner creative Battles. This book was a game changer because so often we experience in whatever amount of growth that we're going toward, whether it's in our business or in our bodies or in our relationships. Whenever there is growth, there is something that we have to conquer. And it's typically it's typically ourselves. In fact, I would say about 99% of the time it's ourselves. And who are the bottleneck getting in the way. And it's it's not our ourselves as our highest and most sovereign self. It is our egos. It is our old identity. It is the plagiarized programming that blocks us from possibility. And, you know, I love bringing thinkers who have similar belief systems, who have similar beliefs in epic possibility, in greatness, in high performance, in thought leadership, in spirituality, as as me.
Kimberly Spencer (00:01:18) - Not because I see them as competition, even if we do do the similar things, but because I see them as the collaborators who can help you unlock a deeper part. Maybe there's something that I've said in one way that resonated, but it didn't quite give you that kapow of a breakthrough. And maybe you need another perspective, another way of hearing it to give you that full breakthrough, to crack that safe open so that you conquer that safe that's been keeping you safe, that has those old beliefs and identities locked inside that you need to unlock and unleash and air out to the world. And that is why I bring you Erin Marcus. She is the founder, a CEO, and an international speaker. She is the chief strategist for Conquer Your Business, and she has been doing this for 25 years. She made the successful leap from corporate executive to entrepreneur and small business owner, and she uses that experience, along with her MBA in education, to help her clients reach new heights that they didn't even dream possible.
Kimberly Spencer (00:02:21) - And here's my favorite have fun doing it. This is not just about business or marketing success and strategy, but it's the ability to to break down those barriers and trailblazing a new path. In fact, Erin has been named two time trailblazer of the year in her previous franchise system, and she is the host of the Ready Yet podcast, where she will kick your butt and challenge your belief systems and, you know, love a good woman who can do that. And I am so excited to bring you this interview so that we together can create some paradigm shifts so that you conquer your business and start operating like the Queen or the king that you were born to be. Welcome to the Crown Yourself podcast, where together we build your empire and transform your subconscious stories about what's possible for your business, body and life. I'm your host, Kimberly Spencer, founder of Crown Yourself, and I'm a master mindset coach, best selling author, TEDx speaker known to my clients as a game changer. Each week you get the conscious leadership strategies you need to help you reign with courage, clarity and confidence so that you too can make the income and impact you deserve.
Kimberly Spencer (00:03:49) - Imagine this podcast as your royal invitation to step into your full potential and reign in your divine purpose. Your sovereignty starts here and your reign is now. Aaron, I am so honored to have you on this show, and I just want to kick it off with what is authenticity? How is it reflected in your business? How is your authenticity changed, if at all, as you have evolved as a business owner?
Erin Marcus (00:04:17) - Oh my God, so many things, so many things, so many things. Right. So okay. What is authenticity in your business? It's understanding, especially in the entrepreneur world, in the small business world, that your audience, your client, wants you, not what you think you're supposed to be, not what they you think they want to hear from you, not what corporate told you you needed to be. Let me repeat. Not what corporately. Can we tell? That's like where mine fell apart. But they want you. And this is so. It sounds so easy, right? It's just be you.
Erin Marcus (00:04:58) - You be you. It sounds like it's in advertising. You be. Yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (00:05:03) - And what is that?
Erin Marcus (00:05:05) - Well, first of all, it's about the scariest thing you can do in the public arena. Because the truth of the matter is, we need people to like us in order to survive. I'm not even talking about business. I'm talking about, like, hierarchy of needs. So when you want to say go, be authentic, but you have any story at all. Because guess what? We all have the stories that anything about us is not good enough, right enough the way it should be. Doesn't make us suck, doesn't make us bad. That's just how human brains work. So what we're telling people to do is to fight against neuroscience. Right. Is that woo woo? It can be, but it's neuroscience. Fight against neuroscience. Fight against 20, 30, 40, 50 plus years of subconscious programming. And just throw it all out there to be judged, right? What could be? What could possibly go wrong? What could we.
Kimberly Spencer (00:06:07) - Possibly go.
Erin Marcus (00:06:08) - Wrong? Who could.
Kimberly Spencer (00:06:09) - Possibly.
Erin Marcus (00:06:10) - Reject that? Right. And so this idea of authenticity in your business and in your marketing is 100% accurate and 1,000,000% hard. Okay. And I have all the empathy in the world for the people who are struggling through it because we've been there. I'm multiple years, multiple six figures in in my business. I'm having a moment. I'm looking at my brand. Plus it's January. It's time to evaluate everything. And I'm having a moment where I'm looking at my brand. I'm like, am I getting out over my skis and how direct I am? I know, right? I know how direct I am, I know how. You know, what gets reflected back to me is I'm coming to you because I knew you would tell me the truth. I know that I'm more edgier than I am fluffy. But. Real time. Having a moment is the brand to aggressive. Is the brand to masculine is the brand to demanding? Is the brand all the things? And then you have to decide, is that an accurate statement, or am I just having a moment because I'm human?
Kimberly Spencer (00:07:28) - I definitely went through the same evolution like and I feel you in like because I know we talked about before like the name Conquer Your Business.
Kimberly Spencer (00:07:39) - Like I think that's just so powerful. And that speaks to my masculine energy. I mean, my Ted talks was called becoming a warrior for possibility, right?
Erin Marcus (00:07:51) - And I can't hide my I mean, I look kind of girly today. I got a little heart shaped necklace on in the little girly today. But girly is not my default.
Kimberly Spencer (00:08:04) - And I think looking at that. When you say girl is not your default, I know that you know, starting your business. There was there was some blue and paisley involved.
Erin Marcus (00:08:14) - I know I was telling you, if you. Yeah. Like this is the perfect example of what happens in authentic marketing. So I come out of corporate, not only do I come out of corporate, I come out of the C-suite level of financial services. In a public company, you can't get more blue suit, right? You can't re legal. Might be the only thing more than right. This was insurance and financial service. Banking is probably the only thing more blue suit.
Erin Marcus (00:08:44) - Right. And so my first logo that I created, I didn't create, I had someone created, I was very excited about it at the time was a square with my initials in it in like an old English font. And the square was blue and gray paisley. And if there's anything I'm not. Child of the 80s, grew up with, you know, 16 Candles. And I still never embraced the paisley print with the old English font. And then you want to know why you can't make any money. It's because I didn't go with my brand. I wasn't. I couldn't speak Paisley and Old English tried it. It doesn't come out of my mouth.
Kimberly Spencer (00:09:37) - I completely, I completely understand I had about the reverse. So I had like for me, when people saw me, I was struggling with so much plagiarised programming and doubt about being so. I'm very masculine energy and I'm very direct, but I'm also super sparkly and like super fun and glitter can cut a bitch if necessary, so it's badass.
Kimberly Spencer (00:10:01) - But I, I had to for my first photoshoot, I hired a stylist and it was all crown themed and it was great, except for none of the wardrobe were anything that I wore because I had conformed to this. Like I need to be this buttoned up professional. I have CEO on my business card, right? And it was. It was so who I wanted to be. It was aspirational for who I wanted to be, but I wasn't there yet because I wasn't living the values of ownership, real authenticity. I wasn't allowing that to come through me. So I was really faking it in a way. And so I've seen so often, and I'm sure you've seen with your clients the, the evolutionary journey from fake it till you make it and coming out of the corporate or coming out of some other business or some other experience where you're like, this is who I should be, and then how that brand realignment needs to happen. Can what are some of the steps that you've seen on that evolution aside from like, I just want to blow it all up because I know that's one of them.
Erin Marcus (00:11:09) - I know that's right. And the one most likely to be followed is throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I think what you said that's so key is what are the steps in the evolution. And I think that's the whole point. It's an iterative process. It is a million times iterative process. And what I like about that concept is, number one, I can let go of the idea that it's broken and needs to be fixed if I instead replace it with this is an ongoing iterative process. So now I'm not bad or wrong because nothing good comes from making yourself bad or wrong. You cannot fix anything from that place. So if this is just an ongoing iterative process, nobody's bad or wrong. And so that's number one. And number two, what's interesting is I see this from both sides. I watch. And this was my story where the original brand and marketing because brand is not just a logo by the way. Like I know we're talking about that, but your brand is not just a logo.
Erin Marcus (00:12:13) - Your brand is how you talk, how you show up, what your clients experience. And so the original version of that for me, wasn't in alignment with who I was and how I behaved. So it didn't work. But I watched the other kind of like what you're talking about. I watched the problem come from the other side also, where the aspired to brand is too far removed from where you are. And so there's also a misalignment, and some people let that stop them. I had a conversation with a client the other day who was literally frozen and not taking action, and what we finally unpacked was she didn't see herself as being the person who made the million dollars. And so she was letting it completely stop her. And so that inauthenticity was stopping her. And it sounds right, but it's the other side of the problem. It was. Instead of being inauthentic, as in I don't match, it was inauthentic as I'm trying to do something that I am not capable of. And so what we talked about was, of course you're not.
Erin Marcus (00:13:27) - You can't do that because you're not there yet. You're just not the. This is great news. You are not yet the person who has $1 million business. The beauty of it is, by the time you have $1 million business, you will be that person. So authenticity in your marketing, authenticity in your business, and how you show up is an ongoing, iterative process that when you just stay in alignment and keep doing the work. By the way, this is not like sit back, navel gazing, dreaming, and it'll come. This is actionable work. Mindset and action, belief and action. When you do the work, your authenticity, it all becomes easier. You're growing with it. You're not trying to grow ahead of it. You're not trying to hold on to something that isn't accurate. It just all goes together and it becomes easier. And the reason it being an iterative process is so necessary is if I were to have put a tiger on my website, red and black colors and talk the way that I talk, claim the things that I claim, the things that I know I can do, the people who I think are wrong and disservice to their audience the way that I'm willing to now, I would have never been able to pull that off three, four years ago.
Erin Marcus (00:14:51) - It wouldn't have sounded right because it couldn't back it up. It would have been inauthentic. So by growing with the brand. It becomes easier to do the things that I need to do. But neuroscience doesn't stop me as much, because what I've done is I've snuck up on my brain. Instead of, like, hitting it with a hammer, forcing an issue. I've snuck up on the oh my God, we're all going to die reaction. So that it doesn't get triggered.
Kimberly Spencer (00:15:26) - Now, you mentioned something that was super powerful is it's not just, you know, navel gazing, it's the mindset work, but also the action work in the physical plane. Like we need to take those actions. And I think sometimes people get so tripped up on the how of like, what specifically actions do I need to be taking. So and those actions are different for every single person. But what in your practice have you seen, like the scope or some specific examples of different action steps that your clients or people have taken in order to become more authentic and aligned with their brand?
Erin Marcus (00:16:03) - So the way to become more authentic, more aligned in your brand is the way that you kind of do anything.
Erin Marcus (00:16:09) - It's getting past the fear that's stopping. And the one of my go to ways on getting past the fear that's stopping you is to back things up until we find the point you can take without the fear. What's the step you can take without the fear? So using speaking as an example. There's a lot of people who want to speak on stages to help grow their business. Great. Fantastic. Big fan. Do it myself. But if I say, okay, go book speaking gigs where there's a thousand people in the audience, they would have a heart attack. That's they're not there yet. That's okay. Can you speak in front of 500? Can you speak in front of 100? 100 people? Sounds like a lot in the room. Doesn't feel like a lot like 100 is kind of a magic number. It's ten tables. Yeah, it's ten tables. 100 people is a luncheon. Can you speak in front of 30 people? Can you stand up and give a luncheon, learn a 32nd? Like, where is the thing that you can do without worrying about it? Let's start there and then take the get to where that's like no big deal and then take the next step.
Erin Marcus (00:17:16) - Mm. So the action plan is number one. Figure out where you want to be. This is like, this is the thing. Most people don't know what they want. They've never been asked what they want. They've never been. They've. It's been beaten out of them a long time ago that they're allowed to want anything. So what's the outcome that we want? Where are we now? I call it road mapping. I do this for 8 million different categories. Where are we now? It's an audit of where we are now. Neutral. Nobody's wrong or bad. And where do we want to be? What's working well. Because that prevents us from throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What is already working well on our roadmap to where we want to be, and then what? Where is our room for improvement? Not what are we doing wrong? But where is our room for improvement? And then you take your room for improvement. You break it down into actionable steps, and then you just start knocking.
Erin Marcus (00:18:13) - Then you actually have to go do that, right? But on the calendar, go do the thing right.
Kimberly Spencer (00:18:19) - Yes. Yeah. I mean, for me, I've seen a lot of clients. Their actionable steps range from anything from like just doing a daily video post. Yeah, just show up, do a like test and get in your reps. Like another one I've seen is, you know, just block out some space on your calendar for a coaching client. You may not have it yet, but I'm a.
Erin Marcus (00:18:46) - Big fan of that one. I say, yeah, my calendar for VIP clients.
Kimberly Spencer (00:18:51) - I love that.
Erin Marcus (00:18:53) - Or like when I don't have it booked yet, just so that I know if I want. Because one of the things that is a perfect example of the things that used to trip me up is if I wanted, if I was in a sales conversation with someone who wanted a full day, VIP day with me, but I didn't have an opening for six weeks, it messed up my energy because I felt bad.
Erin Marcus (00:19:14) - So now I save a couple of them a month.
Kimberly Spencer (00:19:18) - It's fabulous. Yeah, yeah, that was a sales technique that actually one of my clients who had closed millions of dollars in real estate, actually taught me where he was like, this is what I teach to my team. And I was like, I'm going to implement that.
Erin Marcus (00:19:32) - You like that? I like I like that one. Yes. And it's the same thing with like whether it's your brand, whether it's being authentic. I could oddly get in front of 500,000 people at a speaking gig. No problem. Couldn't do a Facebook Live to save my life. Abject terror. And then my coach at the times got sick of me. Right? And here's some little insight. If you want me to get to do anything, all you have to say is, Erin, I bet you can't fill in the blank here, right? So easy. And challenge me to do 30 days of Facebook lives every day. Two minutes like no big deal.
Erin Marcus (00:20:13) - And this was this was a kind of a pivotal moment for me because it took four days, four days, and then I didn't bother me anymore. I was so upset with myself because basically eight minutes stretched out over four days, and I had let this stop me for over a year. But if I really look at it. There was. It's harder to do a good job in two minutes. If I'm on stage for half an hour, it's more of a conversation. I could recover and have more opportunities to do a better job. And it's was I willing to show up authentically on video? And then what happened is I did one from my mom's house, and I did it by accident on my general page, and not to a small group, and it got huge likes and is a hot, sweaty mess because I'd been jogging in Florida and that's the one everybody loved. And you realize, oh my God, I didn't die. Maybe this isn't so bad.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:14) - Now, I know Covid and like the past two years specifically, has given people a lot more grace and understanding with embracing all the parts of their lives because they're, you know, a lot of people were stuck at home and there were kids walking in and animals and pets and all those things that maybe in the past would have scared us or seemed quote unquote unprofessional, that that horrific word.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:42) - How do you encourage, like where the line is of professionalism.
Erin Marcus (00:21:48) - Yes.
Kimberly Spencer (00:21:49) - Versus that crossing the line into oversharing?
Erin Marcus (00:21:53) - Totally. I think this, you know, the thing that makes me laugh the most when you talk about Zoom World and what's professional and what's not, is the idea of teaching via zoom. I don't like growing up and going to Chicago public schools in the 70s and 80s. Like, we didn't know our teachers were humans and had homes to go to, let alone teaching us from their home. That would have been so weird, right? But I think there. I liken it to how I would counsel somebody in how they're going to show up. Because there is a very big difference. One of the things authenticity is not is permission to be lazy. Permission to be a jerk. And because we're talking to entrepreneurs. I used to be in the financial services world, and one of the things that I would teach people all the time is, listen, if you want to show people that you can help them make money, you have to show up looking like you have a little bit of it.
Erin Marcus (00:23:00) - Not inauthentic, whatever your version is of that. But if you you have to appear as the person who your prospect believes can solve their problem. And you also, in my opinion, just from a place of being of service, show up as a person. That your audience feels that they are better off for having you in their lives. Like of service. Does your audience feel that they are better off for having you in their lives, and does what you are showing on that zoom screen? On that Facebook post on that TikTok? Does it display that or not? It's not about perfection. It's not about, you know, Instagram worthiness, but it is about. I hate to use the word professionalism because we kind of used it in a, but there's the version of professionalism that stifles you, and there's a perverse version of professionalism that propels you forward. And if you want to move ahead in your business, what's your authentic version of professionalism that propels you forward?
Kimberly Spencer (00:24:17) - This was an interesting concept that I actually, and ironically found from watching the show.
Kimberly Spencer (00:24:24) - The Kardashians of you can learn lessons from everywhere, right? I was so curious of like, they built multi-billion dollar businesses, right? And one of the things that I saw on the show was a definition of professionalism, of just showing up to your commitments. Yeah, that the key, like professionalism, doesn't necessarily mean being like all buttoned up and in a suit and tie and like having to be all proper and but it does mean showing up to your commitments and being at least in integrity with, with your commitments and your word, with what you say you're going to do and showing up for that 100%.
Erin Marcus (00:25:07) - I use the word integrity for that. So absolutely.
Kimberly Spencer (00:25:10) - And I think integrity some people I've seen a direct correlation between the success of others of this and the success of my clients based on the level of integrity of of how they keep their commitments. Where is the line, though, that you've seen between overcommitting to things that are not aligned? Because a lot of times when you're getting started, there's the ease or as as you're growing, suddenly more and more opportunities come and you just like, oh my gosh, getting flooded with speaking and like, how do you decipher what commitments are in alignment so that when you commit, you fully commit and you show up to it?
Erin Marcus (00:25:51) - So there's to me that's two different things.
Erin Marcus (00:25:53) - So number one over committing yourself is scarcity mindset. Saying yes to everything because you're scared. If you don't, you won't be successful. There won't be another opportunity. That person will never speak to you again. Whatever it is, it's time scarcity, which is no less of a burden than money scarcity. In fact, I would argue time scarcity is probably worse for more people because the truth is, I can make more money. I can't get back more time. So I say the same thing you can always just go make more money. I can go, you know, if this all falls apart, I'm going get a job. I don't know that anyone wants to hire me because I'm kind of a jerk at this point. I just like to do things my own way. But I could go get a job. But I can't make I can't. You can't bring back time, right? So number one, overextending yourself and saying yes to everything is a boundaries problem and time scarcity mindset. So that is one issue to work on.
Erin Marcus (00:26:50) - But the second thing is the alignment piece goes back to do you know what you even want. And I do something I call it setting the stage. And I do this every day. I have my annual goals. I don't even call them goals anymore. To me, that's very boring because I never reach my goals. This is where I'm a little weird. I don't reach my goals because I move the goalposts if I'm getting close, and that's what keeps moving me forward. So I don't call them goals because I'm not going to get there. So every day in my journal, I write down cool things I'm doing, what I'm making happen. I give it a different title almost every day. Write things I'm creating. Yes, this is happening. Like whatever, you know, inspiring thing I need to say. And then I write down what they are. There's a financial goal. There's a business related goal. There's a physical goal. There's an environment goal, right? You can have a relationship goal, whatever categories you're working on.
Erin Marcus (00:27:48) - And I write them in my journal every single day. And the first part of my morning routine is reviewing what I said I. A statement it's a vision statement of what I said I wanted in my life. And yes, because I'm an entrepreneur. The business one has a very big section. But I do that every single day because it sets my stage. It gives me a litmus test. Is saying yes, yesterday is going to move me towards or away from what I said I wanted. Is this going to move me towards or away from what I said I wanted my outcome to be? And there's times when gray is fine. But if you're already having a time scarcity issue, whether real or created. You have to get Uber focused on saying yes only to the things that are moving you more towards what you said you wanted in your life. Because the answer to every single thing that you want in your life is not. Doing more. It's removing all the other crap. It's not working more hours.
Erin Marcus (00:28:59) - It's working better during your hours. So no scarcity mindset doing the work right, doing the work that I was talking to someone the other day. You ever noticed how default is bad? Like if you don't intentionally work on money mindset, your default is scarcity. If you don't intentionally work on good eating, your default is McDonald's. Like the default is never the good thing, right? Why is that right? The default is always the bad version, but so doing the work to keep you out of any scarcity or boundary issues that are messing up why you're saying yes to things, and then making sure that you have your litmus test of what you want in your life or in your business to make your decisions against.
Kimberly Spencer (00:29:44) - I think one of the things that I've seen a lot with, with my clients is when they come from corporate. And I know you come from C-suite corporate, and you've said a few times about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, what were the things that you completely rejected from corporate that you had to relearn and reintegrate into your business?
Erin Marcus (00:30:06) - So I divide it like this.
Erin Marcus (00:30:08) - In fact, I'm doing a podcast episode. I even have my notes. I'm doing one Friday on this. The two things that corporate will kill your business and the things that work on your behalf. You know the two things. Corporate experience. So number one. Is this idea of risk aversion. Corporate is extremely, extremely risk adverse. They have all the time and money to put into researching what they do before they go to market with it. Entrepreneurs do not. Um, so that was a very big thing, like the wi ts in the, in the industry, getting ready to be ready to get ready to do the thing. And that's, you know, that's a corporate mentality. And so for entrepreneurs, if coming out of corporate has made you risk adverse, my advice is to embrace the risk, mitigate it. Do things that mitigate the risks, such as don't go create a ten module course before you know anybody wants it, right? That would be a great way to mitigate risk.
Erin Marcus (00:31:12) - But and then automate things so that when you pass out from the risk it still happens. Right. Let someone else press the go button so that you can't stop it. I have zero. I have zero issues tricking myself into action like I have. But this is my business, not my life. I don't need closure, I just need it to work. So I don't care if that means playing tricks on myself. And that is perfectly fine, right? So that's like one big thing that will kill you. But some of the things that will help you, some of the things that you learned from corporate to embrace work ethic, work ethic. Work like. Most of the time I have to explain to my clients work. You don't have to work more, but every now and then it's easy to hide when you have no schedule and all of a sudden the laundry is imperative and the dog needs to walk every 45 minutes for at least 35 minutes, right? Of course, of course, of course.
Erin Marcus (00:32:28) - That's an important thing. Like. The work ethic of corporate and having a structured day will help you immensely. The other thing for entrepreneurs that corporate please re-embrace this. Stop doing everything. How your people know how to do things like in corporate. It would have never occurred to me, as the senior vice president of business development in charge of sales and new accounts, it would never have occurred to me to go spend 15 weeks learning how to create a website. Not my job. It would have never occurred to me to drive over to our office in Madison, Wisconsin, two hours away, so that I could pay the bills and do the books. So why these highly professional people who come out of corporate suddenly think that they have to do all of the things like re-embrace delegating? Yes.
Kimberly Spencer (00:33:27) - I mean, there. I never worked in corporate, but I've had many clients who have. And the discipline of the work ethic and the delegation or the two number one things that I too have seen because with the desire to have this freedom and there's a perception with freedom that that just means.
Kimberly Spencer (00:33:52) - Whatever.
Erin Marcus (00:33:53) - Like, yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (00:33:55) - But I'm like, it's not your life is on vacation.
Erin Marcus (00:33:59) - Is the horrible truth, the horrible, horrible truth that I learned that I watch so many of my clients go through. Is this feeling especially for those of us who had successful corporate careers? I'm brilliant, I'm smart, I got accolades, I got bonuses, I got ownership shares. You know, look at me, look at me, look at, look at how great I am. Of course I can leave and it will work just as well when it's my own thing. And then the realization hits that you were brilliant and accomplished and celebrated on a very narrow path that somebody else created. And once those bumpers are out of the gutters, all bets are off. And night and day, night and day. And left to your own devices. The first thing I teach people to do is, okay, well, if you can be great and brilliant on a path, let's put some bumpers in your gutters and create that path.
Erin Marcus (00:35:01) - And you forget. I watched the entrepreneurs forget that the beauty of the entrepreneurial world is you get to create whatever you want. Now, if you want to make it work, you have to create a path for yourself, but you get to decide what that is.
Kimberly Spencer (00:35:21) - And the scariest part is sometimes choosing into what it is that you want. Because so often people don't know what it is that they want. So when they're creating and stripping away what I call the plagiarized programming of corporate or society or parents or whatever, who you ever thought you should be in order to be successful when they're stripping that away, what are the key pieces that you find need to shatter first?
Erin Marcus (00:35:53) - So it's anybody else's expectations. The what is that? The definition of frustration. Is expectations minus reality. If you want to stay in a place of frustration. Have any expectations at all, especially the ones that are not yours.
Kimberly Spencer (00:36:19) - So what is the difference between expectations and goals for yourself?
Erin Marcus (00:36:25) - Probably the come from energy. Expectations is kind of like willpower.
Erin Marcus (00:36:35) - They're both very punitive in nature. Right. The come from energy is heavy. Damn near oppressive.
Kimberly Spencer (00:36:46) - It's very forceful.
Erin Marcus (00:36:47) - It's very forceful. And again, just for the audience sake. These are two very masculine women. Saying forceful is not what we want in this place. Right. Like I'm not saying be light and airy and whatever happens, happens. No, man, I have plans. We work a plan. But if I have expectations that I am tied to. It messes everything up. Goals, desires, learning. That's the way that I describe it, is I had to learn how to be pulled forward by my desires, instead of being pushed forward by my problems.
Kimberly Spencer (00:37:29) - And how did you learn that? How did you flip that practice?
Erin Marcus (00:37:35) - I say learn that because isn't that tense? No, that's not that's this is an this is again, if you're not intentional about intentional I made up a word. If you're.
Kimberly Spencer (00:37:48) - Not like it.
Erin Marcus (00:37:49) - All about staying on top of this. You default to the bad version if I'm not in.
Erin Marcus (00:37:58) - So in my morning routine, for example. Sometimes it's business journaling, sometimes it's a lot of gratitudes. The thing that I do the most is called the what do I want exercise? And I will. This is great. This is great for if you're going to be immersed. You know, my family won't hear this. Just. Let's just be honest. I went to an event with my family that I was already in a highly stressed situation. I had just lost a beloved pet of 15 years. We had just moved and my other dog had an emergency vet situation. And he's an £85 beast that likes to eat people. So those three things happened within 14 days. And then I was going to a family event with 85 people, and two of which I didn't want to see, but I was. Just leave it at that. And they were very, very involved. And I literally sat down. I do this in my business. I do this in my relationships. I do this with my physical being.
Erin Marcus (00:39:07) - The exercise is called what do I want? So I sat down and I wrote down what do I want? And the first thing I wanted was these two people to not be x, y, z. Fill in the blank. Expletive, expletive expletive. That's what I wanted. But here's one thing I know I can't have that. I'm not in control of that situation. I can't have that. So back when I got my MBA, we I did a session on negotiations. And you have your baton. What's your baton? Your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. So I. I know I can't have what I want because I can't control these two people. Okay. What's the next best thing that I want? I want the people that I care about in this drama triangle to not be hurt. Their elderly, their older. I don't want them hurt. I can have an effect on that. Who do I need to be and what do I need to do to get what I want? And I wrote this out.
Erin Marcus (00:40:18) - I need to not get triggered by these people. I need to maybe not talk to these people. I need to not let what they say bother me. I need to not add to the drama. I need to just forgive and let it go. And this was like pages. And I did it every single day. Every day that I was there, I did this exercise. I do this exercise right now because I need to get back in the physical shape that I'm used to being. So this is one of my exercise. What do I want? I want to be able, when I go to Costa Rica and may to be able to do this, this and this. Okay. What do I need to do and who do I need to be in order to get that? So that's a regular exercise. I need to go to the gym three times a week. I need to drink five glasses of water a day, like we all know what to do. By the way, do you notice that like, yes.
Erin Marcus (00:41:06) - There's nothing that I've listed here that anybody listening to this doesn't know how to do.
Kimberly Spencer (00:41:12) - Yeah, it's. And the same is true with business I found as well especially. And you can't even use the excuse. I mean, I'm sure it's in the very, very beginning stages. Like, I don't know how to like what to do. You need to make sales people.
Erin Marcus (00:41:28) - Who knows how to get doing.
Kimberly Spencer (00:41:30) - You just ask like make ass, ask away and then asking as well. Works for those who like of like how do I make sales? Okay, well the one thing that you need to do to be in business make sales. Like it's very.
Erin Marcus (00:41:45) - Simple. And here's the thing. You start out with the free version of learning how to do that. You buy the books, you go to the free conferences, you listen to the YouTube channels. To get your ball rolling. There's no barrier to access to information in this world at this point.
Kimberly Spencer (00:42:00) - And I think that there's no excuse to not search it out.
Kimberly Spencer (00:42:04) - Like if you are using the excuse of like, I don't know how to get fit or, you know, raise my kids or balance business and baby's like, Google it and you will find podcasts. Yeah. Podcast like this.
Erin Marcus (00:42:19) - And like it. But then you have to take the action. Yes. And then you have to take the action. So I don't even remember what you first asked me when I went down this rabbit hole, but it's the who do you need to be calm? How do I keep that front and center is I asked myself literally every day because I wrote down what I, you know, I spent the time, I say, sit down with your drug of choice caffeine, sugar, alcohol, whatever it is, and spend some time figuring out what the things are that you want in your life. And then look at how you spend your time. And it sounds so easy and it's so hard. Put the things you want to do on your calendar so that you do them, and it's about breaking habits.
Erin Marcus (00:43:09) - And not letting the default, you know, learn to set a new default right? Create a new default. And live more. I didn't. I've been working on what my word is for the year, and this one is. It keeps coming, though it's not a very exciting word for me, so I keep rejecting it and yet it keeps coming up is intentional. I want to be more intentional in how I spend my time instead of the TikTok default the. Default the rolling. Yeah, and don't get me wrong, we will not be removing TikTok or NCIS from my life. That's not the goal, but I just want to make sure I'm not. That's not the default.
Kimberly Spencer (00:43:59) - Yeah, I completely understand. And it's it's interesting because I too have had the word intentional coming up and.
Erin Marcus (00:44:08) - I keep it.
Kimberly Spencer (00:44:10) - I said, you know, my I'm not I don't believe necessarily in choosing a word like that. You have to choose a word to define, but that the word kind of chooses you.
Kimberly Spencer (00:44:20) - And sometimes it's like my husband had a coaching group called The Reluctant Hero's Journey, and it's like, oh God, I don't want that to be my word. Like I want it to be fire.
Erin Marcus (00:44:34) - Or oh, I know, like, no, it's.
Kimberly Spencer (00:44:36) - It's like it's intentionality and simplicity for me. And those things have really keeping it simple. And it was over the past, the past six years of having my business in multiple six figures and whatnot, of seeing like, how immensely complicated. And I was like, it's got to be much more simple than this. And I think what happens is a lot of times as we grow and go along this journey of stripping away the expectations and the plagiarised programming and becoming more authentic, that the complexity gets stripped away.
Erin Marcus (00:45:19) - Absolutely to the.
Kimberly Spencer (00:45:20) - Point where you look back. And for me, I was looking back recently on all our systems and structures and I'm like, I like I want to spend a lot of that on fire, like.
Erin Marcus (00:45:30) - Well, and to your point about expectations and how do you remove the expectations and instead work on goals, there's that word and it's intention.
Erin Marcus (00:45:40) - I mean, if it really came down to it, it's intention. And it's also and this is the other one that's so trickery, trickery, trickery. It's master level personal responsibility. Because if I go back to my example with my family, I could have blamed those two people very easily for causing all the thing, the chaos that they cause and the hurt feelings that they caused. But what I can't do anything about that. And I only add fuel to the fire if I stand there. Judgy judgy judgy bad bad bad. You you you. That doesn't solve anything. It makes the problem worse. So from my angle, knowing as first cause, what do I want to put into effect master level personal responsibility, which, by the way, is the most empowering thing you can learn.
Kimberly Spencer (00:46:36) - And super unsexy and super unpopular as well. Yeah.
Erin Marcus (00:46:39) - And like but massive because now I get to create whatever it is that I want. And you know, I'm still human. It was a lot of fun in the moment where I chose to not add fuel to the fire.
Erin Marcus (00:46:56) - When person jerk person A walked into the room, you know, throwing a fit, I very happily got up and said, oh, I'll take care of it. So, yeah, I got my digs in. Yeah, I'll take care of it. Oh, no, no I didn't. Really? Seriously. I'll take care of it. So yeah, you get to use it a little bit to get your jabs and when you need to.
Kimberly Spencer (00:47:19) - But I mean personal responsibility. It's like it's full ownership. And I mean, when you're in that it's it's literal magic. When you're in the moment and you see someone behaving or your external environment and you're like, I don't like this and this, how am I causing this? And or what can I do to shift this? And it's not the sexiest thing because we as our human default wants to blame.
Erin Marcus (00:47:52) - Well, in our society has just I don't think that used to be a thing. I think that's a created problem, I think illusion. Yeah.
Erin Marcus (00:48:04) - I think that personal responsibility used to be one of the top three characteristics of human beings. And yeah, we can argue we can have a whole show about personal responsibility.
Kimberly Spencer (00:48:19) - Yeah. And whether it's society or we've changed or our values have shifted or whatnot, there is something very appealing to our egos to play that victim role. And we have to recognize that even though it may feel good in the moment, even though it may, because you're right, they're wrong. You're right about your suffering and whatnot. At the same time, it puts you at the effect. It doesn't allow you to be the creator of your circumstances, and it completely disempowers you to being a victim of the enslavement of the illusion that you're trapped under.
Erin Marcus (00:48:58) - And I don't think people realize that in the moment that they grab onto their what I call righteous indignation. And you don't realize that your righteous indignation is giving you giving away your agency over yourself? Yeah, agency over yourself is flat and righteous. Indignation has a lot of energy behind it.
Erin Marcus (00:49:24) - Right. And it's what we see on TV is what we see on social media is what we see on so called reality scripted reality TV shows is they. Reward the righteous indignation. And they don't. It's not. It goes back to like, I have a journalism degree. And I remember coming out of school in the 80s, and that was really the beginning of that sensational media and the current version of it. And you didn't realize that it was creating a culture, right? It was creating a reward system that you get attention for behaving this way that didn't used to exist.
Kimberly Spencer (00:50:07) - And attention really is one of what I call the Trojan horses to any belief system, because we have attention or acknowledgment of that which we don't want, like attention for the negative, but because we get attention for it, it feeds that desire and that biological need to be like.
Erin Marcus (00:50:27) - Well, and it's the hierarchy and needs again. It's neuroscience because if you need to be right, and now people agree that you're right, now you're safe because people like you, because they agree with you, that you're right.
Erin Marcus (00:50:40) - And now you're safe. And it is an illusion, but it's so powerful.
Kimberly Spencer (00:50:46) - It's a very powerful illusion. And so when you're when you're stepping into that space to circle back perfectly into authenticity. Yeah, that need to be right is what we're combating when we're becoming authentic, because that means that we have to have been wrong about who we have been.
Erin Marcus (00:51:05) - Absolutely. Absolutely. And it goes back to like nothing good comes from making yourself wrong or bad. You cannot embrace your authentic self as a really good point. You cannot embrace, or it's going to be really hard battle to embrace your authentic self. If you're busy making who you currently are wrong and bad.
Kimberly Spencer (00:51:26) - And even who you have been as well, because then you get tripped up on the guilt and the shame of, of and all the lower vibrational negative emotions that keep you stuck.
Erin Marcus (00:51:39) - And doing the work for it, because kind of like. You and I both talk about the times in our business where we were so inauthentic, and the fact that that led to zero sales.
Erin Marcus (00:51:50) - And yet you don't hear either of us have the dreaded emotions around, like looking back because we've done the work to forgive what needed to be forgiven, to get past what needed to be, get past. You don't have to have the attachment to it and to join in with what we were talking about, the expectations. One of the reasons that those places are hard to be is we think the inauthentic version of ourself is what is going to acquire those expectations, and instead you've kind of got like two strikes against you. You've got inauthentic self and expectations, which are coming from either a place of scarcity or a place of oppression or a place of whatever negative word you want to use. And now that's where we're going to try to build a business from, which is the hardest thing you could do.
Kimberly Spencer (00:52:43) - They're making it a lot harder on yourself. Yes. So how do we make it easy? Or at least have ease with with the process?
Erin Marcus (00:52:53) - And I'm so bad with that word ease and grace. Like they just don't land on this body, right? There's nothing about me that's easy or graceful.
Erin Marcus (00:53:01) - I don't know why that is. When I hear ease and grace, I think of people in flowing skirts with long blonde hair and I'm five feet tall, so we wear flowy nothing because we look ridiculous.
Kimberly Spencer (00:53:17) - I put two, I still wear the flow. I'm like, I will just be the fun size cupcake walking down the street.
Erin Marcus (00:53:25) - Not pulling it off to save my life. Try keep trying. Why are we drawn to the clothes that just don't look right? That's right. Yes. So how do we do it? I think. A couple of things. Number one, committing to the fact that it's a process. Nothing's broken and it can't be fixed. It's just an iterative process. You are where you are now. You have where you want to be. It's just an iterative process and committing to that process. And then one of my favorite quotes, and I will not even try to say the guy's name because I can't. It won't come out of my mouth properly. Success is tied to the amount of truth you can take about yourself without running away.
Erin Marcus (00:54:10) - Oh, and the first thing I had to learn was how to stop making myself wrong. You know, I started my entrepreneurial journey pre-COVID. So you're in your car all the time going from thing to thing, and at some point during the day there would be an outloud comment to myself, oh my God, you screwed that up. You're such an idiot. Why would you even do that? Like. I was very attached to making myself wrong within my entrepreneurial journey, and what was so hard for me to realize that was it wasn't something I had ever happened in corporate. I was the rule breaker in corporate that got rewarded for breaking all the rules. And so I didn't see that coming. I never expected that to be a problem because it had never been a problem. And so I was very, very stuck where if I wasn't doing a great job instantly, I must be horrible and I must be very wrong, and I must be doing it very badly. And so learning how to get over that again, that is a daily practice.
Erin Marcus (00:55:26) - And the other thing is I will tell you, I started out with all the free versions. I actually started out with the books. But if it if all it took was a book, it'd be easy. Everyone would have done it. You cannot see this in yourself. You just can't. You're too forest for the trees. You're too close to it. This requires external coaching. This requires on your side a commitment to being open to it, and then external guidance for the person who's already walked the journey because it doesn't. What makes sense to me now did not make sense to me that what so very clearly and easily makes sense. All the sense in the world to me now. Like why would I ever think that? Why would I ever do that? Like no emotional like back then I couldn't even see what was happening because I hadn't done the work. I hadn't learned the things. Yeah. So a book is great. Start there, podcast start there. But if you really want a breakthrough.
Erin Marcus (00:56:28) - It is going to require somebody who has more awareness. Then whatever ever level your awareness is currently at.
Kimberly Spencer (00:56:39) - And outside perspective for sure. And I think it's from the iteration of having my business. And then from just in the past six months growing our podcast guesting agency, what I've seen is that as we got more and more clients, more and more people couldn't see how their brand was being projected from the outside. They had a perception of how they thought it was being perceived, but from the outside, as we were submitting them for podcasts and the feedback that we were getting, how how it was actually being received was very different for some people. And so how do we bridge that gap between who we are and how we want to be perceived, and do it in an authentic and aligned way?
Erin Marcus (00:57:29) - I think it's the most courageous thing you can do. It takes bravery, quite honestly. It takes courage.
Kimberly Spencer (00:57:39) - I would say it also takes humility to oh.
Erin Marcus (00:57:41) - God, you can't. Heaps of humility.
Erin Marcus (00:57:44) - So random story is for you. Do it this way. I guess you could. This is how I did this. When I was 40 years old and left corporate. I needed something to distract me from that chaos. Right? And I grew up since I was 19 years old. And this is hysterical because I'm five. Since I was 19 years old, I've been in a powerlifting and bodybuilding. I used to actually compete in bench press, and then I also was boxing like this. None of this goes together, right? But I tell you that to say that once I started my entrepreneurial journey and I needed some kind of physical stress relief, the gym wasn't going to cut it because they'd been doing it for 20 years and hitting it hard for 20 years, so my mind can wander while I'm even lifting really heavy because I've been doing it so long. So at 40 years old, I decide that you want to talk about learn how to be uncomfortable and stand comfortable. I decided at 40 I was going to learn how to figure skate.
Erin Marcus (00:58:52) - Ooh. And by the end of the year, I was in an adult beginners competition for figure skaters, with the blue dress and the glitter and the blue scrunchie. Because I had long hair and I did a 92nd routine choreographed routine to Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. That is amazing and I am telling you followed up by six eight months of. Trapeze classes. With the silks and the rings and stuff. Yeah. And I will tell you, if you want to learn humility, go do either of those things. As an adult with zero experience in either of those things. Like, you cannot take yourself seriously when you are on your hands and knees, careening across the rink backwards. Right. Or hanging upside down by one leg from the loop in the rope, needing some cute 20 year old college student to come rescue you. Laughing so hard at yourself that you don't have the strength to get back up into an upright position that would loosen the loop around your foot. I don't know why that's so specific.
Erin Marcus (01:00:29) - But seriously, like, there's something about me that thinks it's hysterical when I have no idea what I'm doing.
Kimberly Spencer (01:00:40) - And think that a testament to having the courage to be seen as a beginner. And especially coming from such a successful background, so many people put their success up on a pedestal which is easy to get knocked down. And you didn't start with your success on a pedestal anyway. You you had to climb, but when you put it up on a pedestal, mentally, it's very easy to get knocked down. And you don't. It looks very scary. It's a straight drop off, a pedestal to get to be at the bottom again, versus the gradual climb that it took for you to actually get to that height. And I think when you have the courage to be and the humility to say, I'm a beginner at this, I'm just getting started. Like I listened back to our first podcast episode, like.
Erin Marcus (01:01:31) - Enough.
Kimberly Spencer (01:01:32) - I was like, all right, I've grown.
Erin Marcus (01:01:37) - Used to here doing that.
Erin Marcus (01:01:38) - How did we how did anyone keep listening? Absolutely.
Kimberly Spencer (01:01:42) - And I recommend to to anyone that whoever you follow or admire on, on Instagram or Facebook take ten minutes because it will take ten minutes to like, scroll through all of their posts from the recent to look at where they started, and you'll see where they they got started at being a beginner. And they got started just by appointing themselves as having a message, a brand, a business that was worthy of starting and then growing from there.
Erin Marcus (01:02:13) - You know who I saw? Do a fantastic little clip on this. And she's not a business coach. She's a lifestyle coach. Rachel Hollis, the girl, wash her face. Yeah. So she was the first person I saw that when the pandemic hit. Now she made her living holding huge, gigantic events. She was the first person I encountered who very, very quickly switch to a virtual event. And I would have never gone to one of her big in-person events. I'm not a parent. I'm not Christian.
Erin Marcus (01:02:46) - I'm like, I am not her market. But I did read her books and I found her interesting. And for a virtual event that I can sit on my couch and do at the beginning of the pandemic, sure, I'm in right? And she did a great clip of talk of showing her trajectory, and she was so cute. She was she looked terrible. She wore horrible clothes. And she stood in front of the room with her note cards, reading off her note cards. And that's how she started. And now she was on stage in front of thousands. Like, you don't get to where you want to go if you quit.
Kimberly Spencer (01:03:23) - Yeah. And if you don't start as a beginner.
Erin Marcus (01:03:28) - That's a beginning.
Kimberly Spencer (01:03:29) - Oh, Aaron, I have loved our conversation. I could keep this going. Keep going. Uh, but let's switch to a little bit of rapid fire. Are you ready?
Erin Marcus (01:03:39) - Oh, sure. Awesome. Let's hear it.
Kimberly Spencer (01:03:43) - What female character in a book or a movie do you most admire and why?
Erin Marcus (01:03:49) - In a book or a movie? I have a rock star who's my muse.
Kimberly Spencer (01:03:54) - Or a rock star?
Erin Marcus (01:03:56) - Pink is my news.
Kimberly Spencer (01:03:58) - I love her. She's phenomenal. And the phenomenal aerial arts, the aerial arts.
Erin Marcus (01:04:04) - So the physicality of her being she's not the, you know, whatever the definition of beauty is. But she's awesome, right? But she's gorgeous and awesome and hardcore and she stands up for what she believes in. And she has an amazing work ethic and she's. Yeah. So that's my person.
Kimberly Spencer (01:04:27) - Who would you want to trade places with just for a day, like be in their body? See how they think. Dead or alive. Like, obviously not dead, but like in their time of living.
Erin Marcus (01:04:36) - Right. Um, I got it's so interesting that I go for the athletes. I go for the athletes, I don't know that I have one in mind, specifically like a Walter Payton type person. Because they have this mixture of ability but work ethic and humility and generosity, but swagger. So you can tell how old I am. Because, like, 80 bears was my thing, right? The Super Bowl bears.
Erin Marcus (01:05:08) - But so that like a Walter Payton type person. Because there is something different about elite level athletes. Yeah, they're physically different because there's like the top 1%. And then you have to drop down to the bottom of the barrel to get semi-pro. Like they're just built differently. You know, whether it's Muhammad Ali or Walter Payton or some, you know, that top level athlete who creates a business out of their athleticism and it's full package of next level peak performance?
Kimberly Spencer (01:05:42) - Yeah, yeah. I think if if all business owners adopted and adapted an athlete's mindset to their business, we would have far more 2% than 2% of women hitting $1 million businesses.
Erin Marcus (01:05:56) - Absolutely. And I've had many coaches say to me, oh my God, I love that you were an athlete because it means you'll work the plan.
Kimberly Spencer (01:06:04) - Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's I've been a marathon runner for 12 years.
Erin Marcus (01:06:09) - And and here's the analogy for the failure problem. I was a powerlifter. The goal is failure. The goal is failure for a powerlifter.
Erin Marcus (01:06:23) - When do I reach failure? So it changes the perspective.
Kimberly Spencer (01:06:29) - Yeah. Yeah, that's a huge perspective shift. Huge like transformative to how you show up.
Erin Marcus (01:06:40) - And the other thing about the athletic world that I think is a really good muse, or to to set the stage for you, is things that people are scared to talk about, athletes just put out there. This is how much I weigh, this is how old I am. This is what I eat like it's no big deal. Yeah. All the things that. This is how I look when I'm a sweaty, hot mess. This is when I look when I'm pretty and ready for the press conference. Like it all is how.
Kimberly Spencer (01:07:09) - Much I got paid to be this.
Erin Marcus (01:07:10) - Is this how much I got paid, right? It's all just out there. So, so much of what we let hang us up in the athlete world is just a step. Yeah.
Kimberly Spencer (01:07:23) - Oh, brilliant way of thinking about it. What is your morning routine? Speaking of athleticism.
Erin Marcus (01:07:30) - So my morning routine is. His current format was dictated by a puppy that is now six. Because. I let not having a perfect morning routine stop me from having any morning routine for way too long because, oh, you got to do this the first time you wake up and you got to say this to yourself, I don't like I read these books that are about when you wake up, before you open your eyes, like, I didn't know that was a thing. The way that I know I'm up is my eyes. Like how you treat me like this when you wake up. But you haven't yet opened your eyes. I'm like, oh, this. Like that moment in time doesn't exist in my world. Number one, number two. I got to pee. The dog has to pee. So I don't want to hear about what you do in bed before you get out of bed. Because the first thing we're doing is getting out of bed because everyone's got to go to the bathroom. Biology.
Erin Marcus (01:08:31) - Biology comes first, right? So I let those stupid, stupid, random problems stop me. My current morning routine is I get up, I go to the bathroom, the dogs go to the bathroom, we make coffee and we I have my my now one page set the stage of what my goals are. I have a forgiveness practice comment that I read and think about, and I have some reflection questions. And then I journal and this is all done sitting on the couch with the needy dog during the commercials to NCIS Los Angeles. This is not done in the sunroom. This is not done in the meditative state. This is done. It takes an hour because it's done in eight minute increments during commercials and six in the morning. Now, if I'm traveling and I don't turn on the TV, it's like 1520. That's how I do it. That's how I do it. And then so I do the journaling. And then when I get into my office, there's the calendar review. What am I doing? Do I have what I need? What are the goals? There's the calendar review.
Erin Marcus (01:09:40) - But yeah. Commercial breaks.
Kimberly Spencer (01:09:44) - Awesome. Awesome. And that speaks to authenticity. So what is your nighttime routine to set you up for such an epic morning routine that is so authentic for you?
Erin Marcus (01:09:56) - You have no nighttime routine. I am an on off switch. I'm fine. And then I'm not fine.
Kimberly Spencer (01:10:07) - I'm fine. And then I'm done.
Erin Marcus (01:10:09) - And my boyfriend will make fun of me. Because every day there comes a point in the evening that I say, oh my God, I'm so tired all of a sudden. And he says to me, why are you perpetually shocked by this? Because happens every single day. I usually read at night and then I fall asleep like I don't. I've tried to have an evening routine, but I don't. I'm not in control of things. You know, we take the dogs out. I watch TV or I'm reading whatever it is, then, you know, chilling out. I don't try to set up for the next day. At night. I can't do it.
Erin Marcus (01:10:49) - I'm a useless lump. What I read in the evening is not usually difficult reading. It's more right. And then I move from reading the book on the couch to reading the book in the bed. And then at some point I'm like, yeah, I'm done. And then I go to sleep, but I don't try to. I really like sleeping first of all, and I don't. There is no evening routine because I'm not in control of the biology of.
Kimberly Spencer (01:11:16) - Yeah. The biology is just like we're done.
Erin Marcus (01:11:18) - You're dead.
Kimberly Spencer (01:11:20) - So what do you define to be your kingdom or your queendom?
Erin Marcus (01:11:24) - I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility for animals. And so we just moved this summer. We bought a house. We have an acre and a half very wooded lot, and the first thing I did was set up my bird feeders. And so we have a three window sunroom, and right outside the window are all the bird feeders with the electric water bowls and things. Because it's winter here. And that's where I sit, and that's just my space.
Erin Marcus (01:11:52) - And I get worried now if any of them don't have food. So great mother nature is my queendom.
Kimberly Spencer (01:12:00) - I love that. And lastly, Erin, how do you crown yourself?
Erin Marcus (01:12:05) - This is really weird, I am more. It's taken me a lot of money, time and effort to be able to tell you that. I'm very proud of my accomplishments in my business, multiple six figures, very, very quickly in a business that most people can't get past 50 grand in. So I'm again, a lot of money, time and effort to be able to just say that to you. But I still seem to give myself more credit with athletic, physical accomplishments. So when that's going well is when I really feel good, when the being of service, regardless of the sales, when I one of the things I do to grow my business is I host a series of educational events. Some people then move on into paying clients. Some people don't because they got everything they need. But when those go well.
Erin Marcus (01:12:59) - Right. When those go well, I get very proud of myself and very excited that I was able. To have a moment. Um. Marketing is my jam, right? Marketing and sales. Marketing and sales. And the reason I love marketing so much is marketing. Marketing done right creates aha moments for people. Marketing done right is when somebody looks at your message and starts to think their life could be different. That to me. Is huge. That's a huge, huge gift. Huge impact on the world.
Kimberly Spencer (01:13:39) - Powerful. Powerful. Aaron, how do we find you? How do we work with you? How do we conquer our business with you?
Erin Marcus (01:13:47) - Oh my God, I wish. I wish there was a magic bullet. It really. It doesn't have to be hard. It can absolutely be fun. It's just a matter. You make the plan, you do the plan. You do the work right, making it easy for you. You just go to conquer your business, right? Conquer your business that way.
Erin Marcus (01:14:03) - Everything that's there for you social links, pop ups, freebies, you name it, it's all there. Conquer business. Make your life easier all in one place.
Kimberly Spencer (01:14:13) - Awesome! Aaron, thank you so much. I am so honored to spoken with you as always, my fellow sovereigns. Own your throne. Mind your business because your reign is now. Until next time, thank you so much for tuning in today. If what you heard resonated with you, be sure to subscribe and start creating a bigger impact now by sharing this with a friend. Just by doing that one simple act of kindness, you are creating a royal ripple to support more people in their sovereignty. And if you're not already following on social media, connect with me everywhere at Crown Yourself Now for more inspiration. I am so excited to connect with you in the next episode, and in the meantime, go out there and create a body, business and life that rules because today you crown yourself.