Marisa Shadrick

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Show Notes

Robert Peterson  0:00  

Today's guest is Marisa Shadrick. Marisa helps online coaches, course creators and service based entrepreneurs transform their ideas into a marketable message. Visionaries can use the power of focus and accountability to turn knowledge into revenue. Through Morris's coaching programs and mastermind groups. Mercy enjoys helping people become visible online to create positive change in the world. Marisa Shadrick and Robert discuss building a business facing fear and telling stories that matter. In a world full of noise. It is important that entrepreneurs be willing to share their unique stories and find their people that people they can serve naturally and easily and help get the most effective results. I'm gonna say thank you so much for jumping on the show today. We've already had great fun in the greenroom. I'm excited to share this conversation with the audience otherwise, they're missing out on all the fun we're having.

Marisa Shadrick  1:55  

Absolutely. Hello, Robert, thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

Robert Peterson  2:00  

Absolutely. I always have the guests start with their own entrepreneurial journey and share the highlights and the things that got you to what you're doing today.

Marisa Shadrick  2:11  

Awesome. In a nutshell. I don't go back too far. I was in ministry for 30 years, I was a stay at home mom, I had been in corporate, I left that to raise my kids. At the time a lot of parents were when women were going out into corporate life and spreading their wings. I was the only one that stayed home. All the kids would come to my house. My house was the destination for all the junior high and teenagers. I loved it. I loved every minute of it. When I started to see that I would have an opportunity to do something for myself. I thought, what do I want to do? I started writing. Then I started taking some writing classes, going to writers conferences. I thought I wanted to start putting out articles out there publishing articles that would bring encouragement, sort of an extension of what I was doing within the walls of ministry, I wanted to take it further and the Internet was fairly new. I thought about the power of the internet. I published articles and loved the writing journey. The writing sort of went to speaking because I thought now I want to dip my feet into speaking and learn about public speaking. One of the things in both of these areas. I was the writer that didn't want anybody to read my writing. I was a speaker afraid of speaking in public. I picked the two things that I was afraid to do. I dove into it. It turned out really well. Those two things, the writing and the speaking, were foundational for where I am today. Later on when I started doing more online and I started learning about marketing online, I ended up becoming an AdWords certified copywriter. Now I'm Mike Kim and you are the brand certification muscle certified with him. I coach clients and I do Done For You copy. I still do a lot of writing on my own too. All of it, those two things speaking communication, if you will, is so important to have a foundation in that. I see writing as my friend, I see writing as not only cathartic but also a way to be able to uncover new ideas that I can pass on to other people and encourage other people. Writing is sort of my friend that helps me with all the stuff that I do. Even then the speaking and writing was what helped me get a winning international speech that led me to become the top 100 speaker in the world and speak at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Iit was all with writing. It was all having this I read or write, it snowballed.

Robert Peterson  5:02  

That's so good. I love that, the writing leads to speaking but the speaking was writing and writing this was foundational and all that. You mentioned two big fears there, the fear of people reading your writing, then the fear of public speaking, putting your words out there from a stage. I want to dig into how you face those fears and push through what was helpful for you in pushing through those?

Marisa Shadrick  5:32  

I was fearful about a lot of very insecure things, as a young person, it spilled into my adulthood. I wanted to I asked myself, if I could do anything, there were no obstacles, no limitations, what would you do and writing came out, I thought, that'd be a last thing that I would pick, if I dwelt on it, I decided, You know what, I'm going to do it because I love books. I love reading. I decided to start writing. When I went to a Writers Conference, I prepared a manuscript, the very first manuscript I had asked her writing friend. I asked her, Can you give me some advice? I'm going to submit an article for publication. She said, Marisa, just cut a vein and let it bleed. Then in other words, share emotion, don't give people information,share a story, share emotion. I did, it was a personal story. I always have a takeaway. You want every point to have a story. Every story should have a point. I did the best that I could with everything I had learned. I had gone back to a community college to sharpen my writing skills. In touch magazine with Charles Stanley at the time, Charles standing was running in touch magazine, they picked up the article, the acquisition editor was there. She said, we need to make it a little shorter. This is a great, great article. Then the article ended up inspiring them to open up a division for parents of children in prison, that's what it was about. That was a confidence booster. The fact that I was able to encourage people as well, was a bonus, that was the motivation for me, I wanted to encourage people not within ministry walls, outside. That set me on fire. I thought whatever it is, I'm afraid of, I'm going to face it. One of the things that I realized in an old old book that I read was Nancy Missler. She communicated, I never forgot this. I hear this from time to time people talking about this, your thoughts are going to stir emotion. Anything you're thinking, it's going to stir some type of emotion, whether it's positive or negative, whether it's fear, whether it's joy, it's going to stir something, we don't even realize it's happening. That emotion is going to begin to influence a split second decision that you're going to make. Whether you're aware of it or not, you're making a decision about that emotion, if it's fear, you might pull back, if it's joy, you might be inspired to do something new, or to pick up a project that you've laid out. Your thoughts are going to stir emotions, your emotions are going to influence your choices. Ultimately, the choices lead to action. Now, what I was trying to do is I was trying to change the action, you can't change the action, you have to change up here in your mind what you're thinking. When I read that book, I started applying that in everything. In fact, I'll tell you, Robert, I checked a silly thing to remind myself because I was dead on to to get over fear of everything, that I had these bracelets that clanked a lot, they were really loud. I had these bracelets that I would put on on my left arm. Every time I had a thought that was negative, when it's negative, you feel anxiety, you feel stress, you feel something that's not good. I would stop for a second. I would think What am I thinking about? Is it true? Or is it false? Is it an imagination? Or is it based on fact, then I would reframe it to what I knew was true. Then I would take that bracelet, put it on the other arm. By the end of the day, the goal was to have all those bracelets moved from the left arm to the right arm. I know it sounds silly, it was a way for me to physically see that I was renewing my mind, that I was changing the way I was thinking that I was no longer going to be anchored to fear because I wanted freedom from that. I knew I had something I needed to do in the world. This was my Achilles heel. This was stopping me from moving forward. I frankly, had enough. I thought I had to get over this. That's how I did it. That's how I was able to submit articles. I did a lot of that when I entered into the speech competition, which was a six month competition, various levels that you have to win to be able to be at the last finalist in Caesar's Palace. I kept thinking, this isn't my idea, I did this, everybody's telling me you should do it. If I can encourage one person, it'll be worth it. I would get up there, I was speaking to one. Then I would say, this is for the audience. I don't care what happens, the outcome, I want this to be an opportunity for the audience. It did encourage people I had in CES. In Las Vegas, when I spoke, the reporter, there was a winner. I was in the top 100. I wasn't the winner. He should have been interviewing the winner, he came over and interviewed me, the people were coming up to me saying, Wow, that touched me. You were speaking to me? Oh, my gosh, how did you know? The reporter was intrigued that people were coming up to me to write a story about me and about my speech. I feel I told him, I felt like a winner because the people resonated with the message. It all depends how you define success.

Robert Peterson  11:27  

So good. There's a lot in there, I want to dig back into the action steps and I definitely love those I teach people similar ideas and things to have awareness of the fear, awareness of the thought and recognize those negative feelings. Many people get stuck in the negative feelings, they live there. They live in the grief and the shame and the guilt and the yuck that the negative feelings create, rather than saying, Wait, I can control this, I have to figure out what's causing it, what's causing this negative feeling. That's the awareness. Now that I have awareness that in a commitment to control it, what am I going to do differently? Now when that negative thought comes, I'm going to turn it around. I love what you said, talking about, what I know is true. This emotion is trying to tell me something is true. Yes, it's here that it's telling me what is actually true. Being able to evaluate that is so powerful, so many people get stuck in, the majority of things they're stuck on are completely outside of their control. It may be true. Is it my responsibility? is a huge question to be able to ask yourself, all the things going on in the last two years with COVID, travel, shutdowns and all of these things that people got wound up about. They don't have any control. They can't make any decisions based on those things. Your trip got canceled, okay. I can't do anything about that trip. What can I do? Being able to ask yourself, what is the truth in this? Then being able to say, am I responsible for it, those two things are really powerful. The physical action of taking a bracelet from one arm and putting it under the other arm is so celebratory and so rewarding. It tells the brain, we did a good job.

Marisa Shadrick  13:31  

I thought that I needed a visual

Robert Peterson  13:34  

With brain love, we'd love that. We love getting stickers. Little star stickers, we love being able to put our message on the refrigerator and say, Oh, look, Mom and Dad, look what I did look at it. We love that. When you do that for yourself, you give yourself permission to celebrate that tiny win. It seems like a tiny win. Like, oh, I changed that thought from negative to positive. whatever they are, that's tiny, but it's so big. Yes. It's so big. It's so powerful. Now you're taking control of your thought life. That is one of the things that 98% of people don't do. They don't let their thoughts ruminate in the negative, they let their life go by as a drone. Many people are living on this planet as zombies, slaves to those negative thoughts, they don't think they have an option.

Marisa Shadrick  14:24  

That's why I love your podcast, you talk a lot about mind, body, spirit. When you want to be an entrepreneur online, you need to have this figured out, you know how you're going to replenish yourself, not only see what is true, also what are you grateful for today and be in the moment of today because there's been a lot of things involved in entrepreneurship. Our work is an extension of who we are. We've got to get our mind right or mindset right or attitude right and every day I journal to reset. To reset anything that happened the day before, we're going to reconcile it in the morning, I'm going to, again go through certain questions that I go through to make sure that by the time I'm done, I can get on my computer and I am ready to serve, I am ready to give people 100% of my attention. I am ready. If I didn't do that, I would feel depleted from the day before, some of that stuff carries, some evening some people do in the morning, it's good to do it daily.

Robert Peterson  15:31  

Absolutely, I like that you call it a reset. The second part, you're talking about writing, I was going to cut back to the power of writing and give yourself that voice. Journaling is such a powerful way to do that, journaling is a way to recognize the stories that you're telling yourself. Journaling is putting the story you're telling yourself onto paper. We all have stories that we tell ourselves, we have stories that we tell ourselves about the past, we have stories that we tell ourselves about what's happening right now. Then we have stories that we tell ourselves about our capabilities, about our self worth, our value in the future. Acknowledging these stories and recognizing them, gives us the ability to take them to another level gives us the ability to turn many of those stories that we look back at and we think we're a victim. We look back at these stories and we tell ourselves the victim story. Rather than writing it from the place of the victor, how can I have a victory in this? How can I find success in this? How can I find the lesson in this, focus on that piece of that, tell the story of our past things in a different way. Telling the stories about our present value, what we bring to the world is so empowering. Journaling is a huge step in that story process. The stories we tell ourselves, impact the stories we tell the world.

Marisa Shadrick  17:06  

Yes, it's true. I wouldn't recommend trying to tackle everything at once. Notice, I first tackled writing. My focus was on that on one thing, all the emotions that went with it. Then once I was getting published, I was publishing articles, I moved on to speaking, I didn't do it simultaneously. I moved on. That was the next thing I wanted to work on. Many of us, especially entrepreneurs know, they forget the value of one thing. That's how people get into so much anxiety. Trouble is when they're focusing on too many things. You could talk about any part of entrepreneurship. They're multiple ways of doing it. multiple social media platforms, multiple everything, they forget the value and the power of one. When we focused on the writing, when I focused on the speaking, I was able to do well, I was focused on that. A six month competition. That's a lot. Even when I had my favorite dog, Charlie, he passed away. He lived a long life who's a happy guy. He was amazing. When I first had him, my focus was to train him and train him well, I made sure I had blocked out enough time to focus on him and train him because he was going to be a big dog. He was over 100 pounds. He was almost the same way I outweighed him by maybe 335 pounds. I wanted to make sure he was well trained. Charlie had incredible focus, Charlie, his daily duties was looking at the screen door and seeing he was going, up and down the neighborhood. Playing with his duck, he had his favorite duck that he would retrieve laying on his back cooling his belly. When five o'clock came around, I didn't know he didn't have a watch. He had no iPhone, he knew it was five o'clock. He would find an adult at that point. Sit there and stare at them. They'll have a habit. He knew exactly when dinnertime was and he had this internal clock. I thought this dog had such a focus, nothing would determine five o'clock as soon as he came around my office. I thought it must be five o'clock. Sure it's five o'clock. We forget that we need to focus on one thing. Then we need to build habits around that one thing that we can accomplish and excel at it. It's two parts. You want to know what that one thing is and then what habits am I going to implement to be able to execute that one thing that I want to accomplish? That's not easy. That's why we end up starting something and then starting something else and then starting something else. Many people in my masterminds or when I coach people, they have so Many ideas, they're everywhere. I try to help him to steal all the many ideas into one profitable message that's going to bring them revenue revenue, also is going to serve people because they're everywhere.

Robert Peterson  20:17  

That's probably the biggest challenge we have today, especially for entrepreneurs that are visionaries and ideas of people.Then they have to get to the point where, okay, you got to find the one that generates revenue, generate the revenue, then maybe focus on some of these other ideas, you've got to outsource and hire and do all these other things, to maintain the, the revenue stream. The one thing is very important. We work with people in six domains, Tony Robbins teaches five domains, you talked about mind, body and spirit, your financial and your business. Then your environment are all important elements that you could use to make decisions about what's the most important thing, what's the most next most important thing and focus on that for the month or two months it takes to develop the habits that make it solid. For physical fitness? Many people have the same issue. They want to start an exercise program and a diet, you're changing so many things in your life that your brain is going 

Marisa Shadrick  21:28  

Then people question their purpose, this comes up a lot. I don't know what my purpose is, my purpose is loss, I gotta find my purpose. Your purpose is not lost. It's not, you don't have to find it, it's not lost. In fact, my purpose changed throughout my life. When I was in school, my purpose was to get good grades. When I got married, my purpose was to make my husband happy, figure out how we can develop our relationship. We have been married for 36 years now, he's the love of my life. When I had kids, my purpose was to be a great mother. When I was in ministry, my purpose was to serve the community that we had. The purpose changes, what people are saying is they want fulfillment. If they're scattered, they're everywhere, they're doing this and doing that, not focusing on one thing, not developing the habits that are going to give them that one goal, being able to see it manifest, then they're going to start questioning why am I here? Am I following my purpose? Should I be doing something else? Then they're in that whole hamster wheel, trying something else? Something else that people want is fulfillment. That comes with focus and thinking, what do I need to do today, you can have fulfillment today. A great way to have fulfillment, you had a guest on your podcast that talked about serving.It's so true that when you serve others, you're outside of yourself, that brings a lot of fulfillment. That's my take on purpose. I see people scattered with so many ideas, they don't feel fulfilled, they feel unfulfilled.They're not focusing on one thing, they've got too many pots on the burners. 

Robert Peterson  23:07  

Somehow we've gotten this idea that there's one perfect mate, there's one perfect project, there's one perfect job. If I don't find that perfect person to marry, or I don't find that perfect person to dedicate my life to that I'm missing, there's a piece of missing FOMO dancing around in our heads. The reality is, it's commitment.You and I are sitting here, my wife and I have been together for 31 years, you've been together 36 years, you understand that it's commitment. It's not the perfect person, neither one of us were perfect when we started and we're certainly not perfect now. We continue to grow and continue to grow closer to each other. We've made a commitment to a journey together. It's my wife and I living this life. For a time it's living this life overseas. For a time it was living this life, raising our kids and teenagers, and now it's living this life as grandparents. That purpose is constantly changing. The commitment is, it's her and I against the world and we're going to do it together, whatever we're doing. The purpose isn't quite as important as what is the current thing. I love the way you put that the same thing can be said for entrepreneurs. What is the most important thing now for your personal development? If your body's out of shape, you're overweight and health issues are coming up, that might be the most important thing to take care of for your entrepreneurial journey. If your body's not healthy and supporting you, entrepreneurship is going to add stress to that and take away From your ability to think, make choices, that lead to more success in your business. You've got to choose what is the next important thing that I've got to focus on for the sake of growing my business, taking care of my family and taking care of my responsibilities. That is so helpful. I always recommend the book, one thing, it's a fantastic, helps people that don't understand the idea of of narrowing down, we all make these lists, then we prioritize them one through five, then we get caught up in but when you focus on the one thing, what's the most important thing?

Marisa Shadrick  25:40  

For entrepreneurs, there's so many things they fear, they're going to have regrets, you were saying, you explain that so well. I used to think that way, too. I used to think, I don't want to, I don't want to end up with regrets. At the end of my life. I don't want to live with regrets. I realized, if we think about regrets, we're living in the past, or focusing in the past all the time, if we talk about regrets. In moving forward, we decide as an entrepreneur, their basic buckets, if you will, you've got your income producing work, you've got your list building work, which is basically how you're able to bring people into your community at usually an exchange of some type of free content for an email, you grow your community, that's one of your greatest assets. Then you have admin. if you're scattered everywhere, you could spend a day on admin stuff and not even realize it and think you're working on your business and you're not. You have to realize, what is my priority? You mentioned priority, what is my priority for the quarter? How do I break it down in the month? How do I take care of the income producing work? How do I take care of getting my brand known and list building? They bring people into my community? How do I take up? How do I take care of the admin work, that's taking a lot of my time. We have to see all the time, where we're spending our time. That's why I love journaling, you can reflect back and see what you accomplished, then you can set goals for the day. It's so important. You're right, sometimes your biggest to do on your business calendar is to get more sleep, or go for a walk. Those things are so valuable. Most people think, oh, no, no, no, I'm talking about how do I make more money. What if you get more sleep, you have time to reflect, maybe journal, you might come up with that winning idea that you need, walking, taking care of yourself eating, sleeping, we're so sleep deprived these days, I have to schedule it, I have to tell myself at this hour, I'm going to stop, I'm going to be in bed by a certain time. That helps me because I'm most creative early in the morning when the day is still quiet. That's one of the most creative that's when ideas come when I can it's just me and speaking of number one, there's one God and I pray in the morning, I spend time journaling, that's where I reset and it helps so much to be able to figure out what I'm going to focus on that day. 

Robert Peterson  28:20  

A couple things in there. I love somehow in our culture, we've created this idea that if I need to grow my business, I need to work harder. We've created this growth mindset of harder work versus scaling versus focusing on. You mentioned some of the pieces that you can scale that you can outsource admin, you can outsource elements of your business that aren't the public facing necessarily. Don't think that the only way to grow your businesses is to work harder. That's a good bigness misnomer for a lot of folks. The other piece, I love the morning routine, routines are so important. I want you to specifically identify the pieces of your routine that are non negotiables for you every day,

Marisa Shadrick  29:45  

A piece of my routine, I get up early, which means I do get enough sleep because otherwise I can't get up early. I typically come down to grab a cup of coffee and I have my journal already. I do not do it on where my computer is, I do it in another part of the office or in a part of the house, where I'm not looking at the work stuff. Then I simply began to answer a series of questions, and I created a template for myself. Now, before coming down, when I'm getting ready, I will be listening to the daily Audio Bible, they give you verses in the morning, they read the Bible throughout the whole year. Then when I'm done with that, I'm still getting ready, I will listen to an audiobook. I'm always feeding my spirit, feeding my intellect. I sit down with my journal, I fill out all the answers that I need, what my goals are going to be. Then from there, I'm ready to come to the computer. Then I look and see what's on my calendar and what's going on as far as emails and things like that. I need that time in the morning. I'm a mess, if I don't have that time in the morning to be able to realign things and get focus and clarity. Entrepreneurs sometimes. This was something that I realized, it was all about, building your business building, building, building, building, you get lost in so many things. I realized, for me, it was more about tearing down things than building more tearing down things. For example, self reliance, tearing down pride, tearing down any entitlement, tearing down comparison, tearing down frustration, tearing down anger, tearing down fear. It was more about removing and tearing those things down, that would get in the way. For a while there I was trying to build and build and build and build. I had not dealt with these other things. There was a big hot mess. For me, I realized, okay, if I'm building something, I need to also be aware of the things that I need to tear down that can get in the way. Sometimes we don't realize that if we're angry, we don't realize it. If we're comparing unless we have that quiet time, I mentioned, or false expectations. We're giving ourselves grace, the nice thing about journaling is you can see how much you've accomplished how far you come. For me, I realized in the building process, I need to realize what needs to be torn down. That's one of the questions that I have in my journal as well is what is something that has to be realized? Or what is something that is hindering you right now? spiritually, mentally, whatever it might be. That's one of the questions I asked myself as well.

Robert Peterson  32:47  

So good. We talked about the non-negotiables there. You've been married a long time, you've been a mom and stay at home mom and navigated, raising kids. Starting your business. What are some boundaries? Or how have you used boundaries to protect elements of yours? The self care boundary is important to you. Protecting yourself in the morning, protecting that time for establishing yourself before you start the day. What other ways have you used boundaries, to protect the things that are important, the things that you value?

Marisa Shadrick  33:26  

You may in your personal life or in work life?

Robert Peterson  33:29  

both? Whatever, really overlap?

Marisa Shadrick  33:32  

I know my limits, I know when I am most fresh to be able to serve people. Boundaries would be learning to say no to things that would take away from something that I already have scheduled. In fact, I did that recently, somebody had invited me to be on their podcast, I was looking at my calendar, I said, this is not going to be good. I'm not going to serve them well. It's in conflict with some other things that I had going on. I graciously declined, thanked them, I didn't, that's what we all look for. We all want to be a guest on a podcast. I looked at that and said, This is not gonna work out. I'm gonna have to, nicely decline maybe another time. There are special events, some people love to go to conferences, sometimes you have to figure out, Is this a conference that I need to go to? Say no to those things, or some people get on the digital course thing and they get one digital course after another digital course and they're spending all this money, then they have more pressure because they're trying to make more revenue and they're spending all this money, have to decide, is it yes or no, or when people are asking you favors if you if you're a kind hearted person that most entrepreneurs aren't because they're so giving. You have to learn to say, No, sometimes it depends or maybe refer them to someone that maybe could answer their question a little better. Protecting my time is important because the time that I have left when I'm not working is time with my husband time with my family, we always have movie night on Friday night, sometimes we have to change it to Saturday night, if depending on the schedule, my husband and I, we find a day that we can have a date night, it's not always every week is maybe once a month, or once every six weeks or so. We make that time, our next one is going to be around Fourth of July we're going to go by the coast. We try to do that and protect family time. That's in my journal as well. I'm trying to see how I can support my family. What is it that I can do differently next weekend, it doesn't have to be big things. It could be, time with my granddaughter, I haven't had some one on one time with her. Let's go to the movies or something, whatever it might be. Those boundaries of saying no gives me the margin to be able to make sure that I'm there for my friends and my loved ones and for myself too. I need quiet times. I need sleep.

Robert Peterson  36:10  

You mentioned the husband mentioned the kids and grandkids. What have been the blessings of being an entrepreneur and raising your family?

Marisa Shadrick  36:20  

Oh, my gosh, the flexibility. It's so wonderful to be able to set your own time on a calendar and have that flexibility not having to commute. No, I hardly ever need the car, I'm at home. I love that I'm an introvert. I'm a homebody. The fact that I can work from home and serve people, I love that that was always appealing to me. Then that gives me little breaks, if I need to, sometimes I go to a program that my granddaughter has. If I don't have an appointment, I can go to that and support her with that. It gives me that flexibility. We recently moved, we used to live in Northern California, we moved to Nevada, we moved back to California, my older daughter, my daughter and my granddaughter live with us. She had an opportunity in California, within the company she was with. We made that quick decision, say, we're a package deal, we'll all move. We did that so quickly. Like a meal, it was a five or six week period to get everything packed up, moved and get settled in. Had I been at a corporate job, I wouldn't have been able to block out a week to move. Shortly after that my husband was not sick, so I had to block out some time to be with him. It gives me that flexibility because you never know what's going on. That's one of the things that is such a blessing and so wonderful about entrepreneurship.

Robert Peterson  37:49  

Nice. Earlier you mentioned a basic lead magnet and what has been helpful for building your audience for generating leads.

Marisa Shadrick  37:59  

When people start and I'm a copywriter, keep in mind, I understand landing pages, email sequences, funnels, all of that the marketing, I understand that. I'm gonna say one of the quickest ways people are getting started is building relationships. Relationships are so important. When you begin to genuinely serve people, connect with people, get on calls with people, introduce yourself, leverage the conferences, you go to talk to people, we go to conferences, we stay in our own little table, begin to network and begin to build those relationships. Then it's amazing how those relationships help you. Even my relationship with Ray Edwards when I became certified, this has been a long lasting relationship. Now I do some coaching for him and I help his copy students get certified. That has been an extra blessing. Another relationship that I have with another entrepreneur, I'm the designated copywriter for his community. I'm there helping and serving there. Relationships are key. You can do all the lead magnets, you could do the funnels, you could do the Facebook ads, all that stuff. It's always good to have something at a low cost and not put too much in it. Prove that people want it first, and try offering it, without Facebook ads, talk about it wherever you are, whether it's on YouTube or a podcast, talk about it. If people are interested, then after 30 days or then maybe put a little bit of money in it so you can build your email list. When it comes to getting yourself out there, those connections are so valuable.

Robert Peterson  39:45  

Let's dig a little deeper into the power connection. You've mentioned some people that you've connected with and worked with Ray Edwards, Mike Kim and others. For those people getting started is Good. How would you encourage them to start making connections?

Marisa Shadrick  40:05  

One of the first things I did before I went into the online space, I joined the Chamber of Commerce. I started connecting with people that way. One of the gentlemen that I met there, he made websites. I didn't need one at the time, I wanted a logo. We've had a business relationship for over 10 years now. He not only serves as my website, we also partner he does websites. When people need a copy, then they come to me. There's an example of somebody local. You can, if you're starting out, take advantage of maybe even putting a review on someone's book or a review on someone's podcast, begin to follow them and begin to interact. I mean, who doesn't love a review? You're gonna get noticed by those people. Begin to converse. Or if you go to an event, take notes for the speaker, say, what you talked about was so amazing, I got this tip from Mike Kim, this was so amazing. I took notes for you. Some areas that you can expand on are some areas that resonated with me, that you can have some feedback, every speaker loves to get feedback cards. If you do that, for them to think how can I serve this person, they're entrepreneurs or they're on stage doesn't mean they don't like being served to. You can begin by getting book reviews, or podcast reviews, or even on YouTube and start connecting. When they see you, they're going to recognize your name.Then maybe you can,-invite them to be a guest on your podcasts or wherever it is that you do. You can start small that way. That's gonna take so long. What you get noticed, most people won't do it.

Robert Peterson  42:01  

That's so powerful. So true. You mentioned earlier, leveraging conferences, making sure that you're intentional, don't sit in a corner, sit at your table, start meeting people and start creating relationships, you never know who's in the room. You never know if that person that's going to refer you to millions of dollars of business is sitting next to you and your arms are crossed at the table waiting for the next event. Next speaker, definitely take advantage of those and follow up with those connections, follow up with the people that you meet at the conference and say, Hey, we met at the conference, I need to learn more about what you do. Where are you doing it? How can I refer people to you?

Marisa Shadrick  42:46  

Take a picture and put it on Instagram and ask them can I put it on Instagram and begin that conversation with them? I was trained young, you don't talk to strangers. I was trained to fear strangers. To do this took a lot out of me. I started building that practice so that every time I was at the grocery store in line, I would talk to the person behind me or in front of me. Then anytime I was somewhere waiting at a store, I would talk to people to get in the habit of starting a conversation. Most of the time, people love having a conversation with you. They do. Even if you see somebody who looks like Grumpy Pants, you start talking to them, you soon realize oh, my gosh, they were so nice, I would have totally missed out on meeting this person. That was so amazing. I've met veterans, I've met so many people by doing that, when you move you have to get utilities turned on all this stuff. We were standing in line, and I started conversations with people. You find out a lot about the area you find out, they are open books. I had to learn because I was taught, don't talk to strangers. I had to learn to do that.

Robert Peterson  44:00  

So powerful. So helpful. Okay, you mentioned earlier, one of the things you talked about was you're feeling down and wanting to get that next level of growth is to serve others.Contribution is a big part of our faith background. How has contribution helped you in your business? How is your business allowed you to contribute more, give back more?

Marisa Shadrick  44:28  

There's always opportunities. If you're online, there's going to be people that you encounter and talk to and there have been times where I support people completely free. I see that they're in pain or they have high anxiety, it may not even be related to business. I figure I will make the most of every opportunity. Not every opportunity is to generate revenue, some of it is meant for you to step up and maybe open your mouth and share two or three sentences, or maybe affirm someone, or acknowledge something good that's happened or maybe even wish them a happy birthday, whatever it might be. That helps your brand, who you are, how you show up, it's all part of who you are. Oftentimes, when I ask people, how did you find out about me, when we get on a one on one call, they say, Ah, somebody recommended you, you seem like a nice lady or something. I'm a nice lady. As long as they know that my integrity is there, they know that I'm there to serve them. If it works out, we can work together great. I'm not going to pressure them or anything. I'm okay with the nice lady thing. It's funny, it gives you it's part of who you are as a brand. When people are yourself, that's the advice my husband gave me when I started doing this, he said, Marisa, just be yourself. I said, Are you sure? I am, you're at home. He says, yeah, just be yourself. I took that advice. A lot of times I am myself, when I'm on live streams, it's good to be polished when you're doing a TED talk, or you're doing some type of international speech. Most of the time, we're having conversations with people. That helps people be seen and heard and feel like you're talking to them. You want to be able to communicate like you're talking to one and then you'll talk to many. The contribution part goes hand in hand, we're serving all the time. Every opportunity isn't always revenue, it's a way to impact.

Robert Peterson  46:52  

So good. Your husband is so wise, our authenticity is lost a little in reminding people, especially in the online space, especially, even in socials that you need to be you in the world needs to hear your voice, the other people already are taken. Why would you need to try to act like them? 

Marisa Shadrick  47:23  

That might even come through feeling like comparing yourself to other people. That might come from maybe in our mind, we're thinking, Oh, we're trying to be authentic. Inside, we might feel insecure. We might compare ourselves to someone else. Without realizing it. We're trying to be like someone we're not, we're trying to make up for that. That's why journaling and reflecting helps to be able to let that surface.

Robert Peterson  47:54  

What has been the impact of being an author?

Marisa Shadrick  47:58  

I love the fact that we can communicate our heart with words. Being able to write articles that people enjoy, it's a real quick win. Right now I'm working on an ebook, it's going to be a short read, like probably maybe 30,000, maybe no more than 40,000 words, not a big book. People enjoy those quick wins. People like to be able to process something at their own pace when they're reading. When you read, oftentimes, when there's something awesome, if it's a physical book, you'll grab that highlighter. You'll highlight it, you want to remember it. When we write, we want to make sure we're writing something that people will want to pick up a highlighter. If you can write something that's in digital form, people can now read it and consume it, that's a wonderful thing, it's another form of communication. Video is wonderful. Some people prefer video, different people prefer different things. The writing, I don't think that's ever going to go away. People love books, they love reading, they love articles, it's something that they can consume when it's quiet. A lot of times if I get an article in my inbox, I don't delete it. I'll save it and wait till I have time to go back and read it and chew on it a little bit. It's not something I want to glance through. It's something I want to experience as I'm reading it.

Robert Peterson  49:25  

There's still millions more blogs than there are podcasts. Podcasts haven't passed up. logs and by not even they're four or five digit zeros away from catching blogs. I agree the written word has power and even the written word in the digital space is a powerful medium. I'm one of those people that loves audiobooks. Then I buy the written book because I like to look at it over and over again. The audio book works for consuming the books, then I buy both because I love to see the words. I used to have a rule about highlighting, I never wanted to write in a book and now I write all my books.

Marisa Shadrick  50:17  

Has been wiped out, we cannot have the same book because I like to break it in highlight notes, and he likes it crisp and nothing on it. I want to get into it and tear it up, and consume it completely. For entrepreneurs, having the habit of listening to whether it's audio or reading books is important. That's very helpful. It only takes whatever time you have in the morning, when you're getting ready, you can put these wonderful little ear pods in and listen to something that's encouraging and something that's going to lift you up or educate you and inspire you. It's important to have daily practice as well.

Robert Peterson  51:01  

Absolutely. Lifetime Learning is a commitment to yourself. It's a part of that self care. It's going to make you a better person, which makes you a better business person, which leads to better things. You can't go wrong. Unless you're reading stuff that's going to negatively impact you. Most of the personal development stuff out there is powerful and good. about helping. I love to talk about playing fun, how do you incorporate play and fun into your work.

Marisa Shadrick  51:39  

I have a quirky sense of humor. When I'm at home with my family, we laugh a lot, we all have a sense of humor. That to me is so much fun, because sometimes we are belly laughs, we feed off each other. Those are some of the most great times that we have. You and my husband and I when we're together, we make each other laugh. It's awesome. Humor is great. I love humor. I love to watch movies with my family. I love Walks now that I'm back in California, in Nevada, you would cook and roast. It was so sad because I'd have to get up at 430 in the morning or five and it was already hot. It's so beautiful here. I want to get back into walking more because it's beautiful all day long. As far as what I love to do, I love summer nights, I love humor. I love movies with the family, I love being able to spend some time looking at nature walks, whether it's the park, at the very least. Those are the things that fill me up. I'm a simple person, I don't have to go somewhere to enjoy life and nature. I like to be able to have that

Robert Peterson  53:04  

That's beautiful. This one's gonna be a little more challenging, you've got a lot of history. Most memorable date with your husband.

Marisa Shadrick  53:13  

Our most memorable day, I will say a trip that we've made for our anniversary in Monterey. We had such a beautiful time in Monterey. We were near the beach, when we had our dinner, they had dessert. We don't usually eat dessert and they brought dessert. Why did they bring dessert? We didn't order dessert. It had some icing or something they put on their decoration that said Happy Anniversary on it. Beautiful dessert. It was every part of that. That time we spent in Monterrey was so memorable. That was one of my favorite memories.

Robert Peterson  53:50  

Nice. What's your big dream?

Marisa Shadrick  53:53  

My big dream, I would say is to. That's a tough one. I feel that I'm living the dream right now. I would say to be able to publish my book. That's something I've wanted to do. I would say that would be something because it has a lot of the stories, a lot of the things I wanted to share for many years. As you said, I have a lot of history. We'll leave it at that. I've got a lot that I can share because I've lived a few years. That would be something of a dream come true. 

Robert Peterson  54:36  

Nice. Say you spent an hour with an entrepreneur and you're gonna leave him with Marisa's words of wisdom, what would you share?

Marisa Shadrick  54:45  

For entrepreneurs, whether you're in the beginning stage in the middle, or maybe you've reached a plateau, don't let fear creep in and remember that fear needs permission to exist. Don't give up mission

Robert Peterson  55:02  

So powerful. Marisa, thank you so much for joining me today. Appreciate all the wisdom that you shared and appreciate you taking the time.

Marisa Shadrick  55:10  

Thank you. It was fun. Thank you so much. Bye everyone.