Join me this week as we celebrate ONE YEAR of The Marli Williams Podcast in this empowering solo episode! Discover the transformative power of authentic leadership and how it can catalyze epic experiences. I peel back the curtain and share invaluable lessons learned from the journey of bringing this idea to life, highlighting the importance of taking imperfect action and overcoming the fear of judgment. Tune in for motivational insights and actionable strategies to bring your unique ideas to life and become a more impactful leader. Whether you're leading retreats, workshops, or simply looking for personal growth, this episode has something for everyone. Don't miss out on some heartfelt advice on stepping into your potential and serving your audience with authenticity.

Join us at the HELL YES Retreat in beautiful Baja, Mexico this Jan. 10th-15th!

Marli Williams is an international keynote speaker, master facilitator, and joy instigator who has worked with organizations such as Nike, United Way, Doordash, along with many colleges and schools across the United States. She first fell in love with transformational leadership as a camp counselor when she was 19 years old. After getting two degrees and 15 years of leadership training, Marli decided to give herself permission to be the “Professional Camp Counselor” she knew she was born to be. Now she helps incredible people and organizations stop waiting for permission and start taking bold action to be the leaders and changemakers they’ve always wanted to be through the power of play and cultivating joy everyday. She loves helping people go from stuck to STOKED and actually created her own deck of inspirational messages called StokeQuotes™ which was then followed by The Connect Deck™ to inspire more meaningful conversations. Her ultimate mission in the world is to help others say YES to themselves and their big crazy dreams (while having fun doing it!) To learn more about Marli’s work go to www.marliwilliams.com and follow her on Instagram @marliwilliams

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Hey, everyone. What's happening? I am super stoked to welcome you to the Marli Williams podcast where we will explore authentic leadership, transformational facilitation, and how to create epic experiences for your audiences every single time. I am your host, Marli Williams, bringing you thought provoking insights, expert interviews, and actionable strategies to unlock your potential as a leader, facilitator, and speaker. Thank you for joining me on this journey of growth, transformation, and impact. Let's lead together. The Marli Williams podcast begins now. Let's dive in. This week, I'm coming to you with a solo episode celebrating one full year of the Marli Williams podcast.

And it has been a journey of really bringing this podcast to life, interviewing phenomenal people, and I thought I would share some of the lessons that I have learned along the way this past year, some insights, some reflection, and really talk about the power of transformational work in the world. The tagline of this podcast is let's lead together. So really, my audience has been people that are leading communities, they're leading groups, they're leading retreats, workshops, they're speaking, and ultimately, if you're listening to this, your mission in the world as an epic transformational leader in your life, in your family, in your business, to me is really creating a positive difference in the lives of other people, whether that's your kiddos, your coworkers, your clients, your audiences, and really considering what is possible when we show up in the world as the most fully expressed authentic versions of ourselves. And I believe that that ultimately is where the magic happens. So, you know, before launching this podcast, for any of you out there who have started something new, who've launched anything, anything that has been created in the world once started just as, you know, a seedling of an idea. There's a lot of people out there who have a lot of ideas, whether it's creating a product, or putting out a retreat, or giving a keynote. Ideas are great. They don't help anyone if we don't do anything about them, meaning if we just let them live in idea land.

And, you know, when I look back on launching this podcast, it was an idea for a long time. And I I think about this question of, well, what does it take to bring something to life, to bring a podcast to life, to bring a retreat to life, to take your idea that is near and dear and close to your heart and choose to put it out there, choose to share it with the world, to share it with other people. And then the other question is, you know, like, so what does it take and what are all of the things that tend to stop us? What are all the things that get in the way of us sharing our unique offerings, our magic with the world? And, you know, for me, a lot of the things that get in the way have been self-doubt. What am I gonna call the podcast? Who's my audience? Who am I gonna interview? How am I gonna do the editing and producing and the videos and like the show notes? And there was a lot of unknown. There are a lot of things I didn't know before I started this. And the tech side of it felt very daunting, very overwhelming. What mic do I need and do I need to do it in a, you know, studio and have a set and like all these things, you know, because I wanted it to be good, you know, and I wanted to put something out in the world that I felt really proud of. And I think one of the other things that get can get in people's way is this illusion of perfection.

You know, I'll start that podcast when I have it all figured out and I have the right mic and the right set and the right this and the right that. And what I know to be true time and time again as someone who's been an entrepreneur now for the past 8 years, who's had tons of ideas, is that imperfect action is always better than perfect inaction. Meaning, it's easy to perfectly not do anything. You know, because if we don't take any action, we don't have to fail or mess up or make a mistake or get it wrong or, you know, like the first podcast, you know, it takes time to find a pace, find a rhythm, find your voice, find your flow. And to be able to come to this place where, you know, one of my mantras as a speaker, even when I'm doing this podcast, is to show up and serve. You know, my mission is to every time I'm in front of a mic, an audience, a group of people, my number one job is to be of service to that audience. To say, I hope that I say something or share something today that actually helps someone, that actually changes their life in a positive way. And if I've changed one person's life, if I've given them the courage to take action around an idea, that I have done my job.

Because one of the things that I I see often and for myself that that stops people from putting their ideas out in the world and sharing them is the fear of judgment. What are other people gonna do? What are they gonna think? What are they gonna say? What if it's not, you know? And sometimes it's the fear of judgment from others, but sometimes it's our own judgment of ourselves. I have this desire to make a difference and to have the quality of the podcast episodes I put out there, the keynotes, workshops that I create, the retreats that I lead, like, I want them all to be epically transformational. I want them to be like the best thing ever. And one of my other little mantras has been like, even my worst workshop could change someone's life, or even my worst podcast episode, or my worst keynote could have changed someone's life. I could have shared something in that moment that they needed to hear. Not that I want it to be the worst, but what oftentimes happens is our ego gets in the way, and our ego wants to do 2 things. They wanna look good and get it right, and that's all about us.

And that mantra, that mindset of to show up and serve is really about being of service to the audience. And that is one been one of the biggest things that has helped me get out of my own way when I get stuck, when I get stopped, when I get overwhelmed, when I'm worried that it's not gonna be enough is to know in my heart of hearts that if I have the desire to share a message to say something that there is someone on the other side that's listening to this on your walk, on your drive that needs to hear this right now. I trust that with all of my heart. And for those of you out there listening who have a message, you have an idea, whether it's a keynote, a book, a talk, a workshop, a retreat, if you have the desire to create something in the world, it is not an accident, and there is a reason that you were gifted that idea. That gift is your inspiration. It is your intuition speaking to you, speaking through you. And my question for you is, are you willing to listen to that? And are you willing to honor it? And by honoring the ideas that come through us and to us is by taking inspired, sometimes imperfect action in service of sharing that message and that idea with the world, not from the place of needing to look good or get it right, but when you show up authentically with your heart, with your soul, with your spirit, with your love, with your energy, with your presence, you can't fail. And to me, ultimately, there is no failure.

There's just feedback. Some of my podcast episodes have gotten lots of listens and others, not so much. But it doesn't make those episodes wrong. It's like the people that needed to hear it, got to hear it. And those who didn't, didn't. Not every podcast episode is gonna land. Not everybody was gonna be into me as a podcast host, as a speaker, and that's okay. You don't have to be everyone's jam or everyone's cup of tea, but you are someone's cup of coffee.

Right? And that matters. There are people that are out there that need your unique brand of medicine, your magic, your gift, your voice, and knowing that this idea that no one will do it quite like you. I think that gets that has gotten in my way, and I see that for other people is, you know, this story that it's already been said. It's already been done. So who the hell am I? You know, there's already a book on motivation, on mindset, on, you know, whatever it is. So what your people need to hear your message and your idea from you. And so again, when I reflect on this past year and bringing this podcast to life, And you know what? And I think about this idea that a theme of my work has been, are you willing to say yes to yourself and to your big, crazy dreams, to your ideas? And to say yes to yourself, I think it can sound really esoteric and really vague. And what does that mean? And I think it requires so much bravery and so much courage to actually listen to yourself to what it is that you want to share with the world.

Who do you wanna be? How do you wanna show up? And the yes is every time you take action in service of one of those ideas to share it. Because what oftentimes happens is we let all of those stories keep us stuck. I'm not enough. Who the hell am I? What are they gonna think to say? What if I'm not actually that good? What if I mess up? What if I make a mistake? What if nobody listens? What if nobody shows up? My question for you is what if they do? And sometimes we wait until we have like the millions of followers to actually start creating versus like, who are the 10 people that are leaning in that are listening? You know, one of my questions that I love to ask myself when I'm feeling overwhelmed or stuck is, who can I help today? Who can I make a difference for today? And it might mean a voice message note, an audio message, a text message, an email that there is always someone in your life that you can serve, that you can help, that and you can show up for them. And it helps us get out of this story that, again, solution of perfection that we have to have the perfect keynote and the perfect podcast and the perfect workshop and the perfect retreat. Newsflash. If you've never done something before, it's not gonna be perfect right at the beginning, and it might never be perfect. I think perfect is overrated because what I do know is that people want rawness.

They want realness. They want authenticity. We can feel and smell bullshit from a mile away. So if you're just doing something to people, please, because that's what you think people want from you or that's what people will pay for. That's when I think we can get really stuck as entrepreneurs. It's just to create something because you think that that's what people want versus, like, what is the message that's on your heart? What is the retreat that you wanna create? Oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, I really believe that, you know, there's all of these people that talk about, like, who's your person and what's your niche and all these things. It's like, oftentimes, your audience is you 5 to 10 years ago, maybe even 2 years ago. It's like, what is the thing that you wish that you had at a certain point in your journey? A certain book, a certain podcast, a certain message that you needed to hear, a certain experience that you needed to have.

And we oftentimes create the thing that we wish we had at that time that we were going through something really challenging. And one of the things that has made the biggest difference for me in my growth and my journey as an entrepreneur has been attending and going on retreats, like personal development retreats and leading women's empowerment and leadership retreats. I would say hands down, those are the most transformational experiences for me that I've had as a participant that's made the biggest efforts for me in my journey and my ability to overcome some of that noise. The doubt, the fear, the insecurities, the who the hell am I to do this work in the world or to give these keynotes or to charge this much to get on stage for an hour. And the power of a retreat is that it allows us to step out of our day to day life, our distractions, the noise, the dings, the rings, all of the things that are keeping us from our intuition, our knowing, and what, like, what is that hell, yes, idea, life, business that is ready to come through you? We live in such a noisy world where there's just so much information coming at us constantly, and it can feel really hard to tune out the noise and tune into ourselves, to disconnect from all of that, all of the distractions, and reconnect with our hearts, our minds, our spirits, our souls, our bodies, and give yourself the gift of that time and that space to ask some of these big questions of what is my hell yes life look like? If I were to wake up every day saying, hell yes, this is what I get to do today. What would that look like? What would that sound like? What would that feel like? Who would I be hanging out with? What would I be doing? What would I be saying? What would I be sharing? How would I spend my days, my weeks, my months, my years, so that way we get to the end of our journey whenever that time may be and say we look back on our life and say, Oh, yes, I showed up and played full out. I was true to myself. It's so hard to be true to yourself when you don't know yourself.

And so many of the women like leaders and change makers, entrepreneurs that I work with, they get lost in being a parent, being a partner, being a business owner, that they lose sense, and they lose touch with, like, who am I? And what do I really want? And I'm so busy saying yes to everybody else. You know, as someone who's a self-proclaimed people pleaser, that has been my journey that I've really had to work on. And the retreats and the inner work, the personal development work that I've done to really navigate that, to move through that, to have coaches and mentors and experiences that help me understand the impact of people pleasing and the impact and the cost that it has on myself, my own well-being, and also on the people around me. My mentor one time said to me, people pleasing is the highest form of lying. She said, Marli, you're a liar because people pleasing is doing something to get someone to think certain way about you. Oh, if I do this really nice thing, they're gonna think I'm a nice person. But is that really true? Is it authentic? Is it genuine? Or am I doing it to get a certain reaction or to make someone feel a certain way or think a certain way about me? And I thought for a long time, well, it's like either I'm a people pleaser or I'm an asshole. And not realizing that there was something in between that of, you know, again, how do I show up and be authentically true to myself and to set healthy boundaries, to say no with kindness, love, and grace and compassion? And when I think about the upcoming retreat it's coming up in Baja, Mexico, the hell yes retreat, it is really about having that time and that space and permission to reflect on your life without actually being in it.

To take a step back, to get a bird's eye view, to have this like 360-degree view of where you're at in your life, where you've been, where you are now, and where you wanna go from here. And having that time and space to get really clear on, you know, what do I wanna say hell yes to? And also, what do I wanna start saying no to? And my friends, that requires so much courage. You know, once we get clear on that, what's the hell yes, what's the hell no, then it's about cultivating that inner courage in yourself to actually go back into your life and have the confidence to lean in, to take inspired action in service of those I hell yes ideas, to create your hell yes life, to have those maybe hard conversations with the people that you love about what matters to you, to reset your relationship with your kids, with your partner, to reset your relationship with yourself, and to have a community to support you. One thing that I know to be true is that I really truly believe that personal development work going in and going to therapy, having a coach, doing 1 on 1 work is so, so, so powerful. And after leading groups for 20 years, there is something truly powerful, truly magical about healing and doing this work in community. And the biggest gift that I see this giving people is this knowing and this awareness of, you know what? I'm not the only one who's navigating motherhood and dealing with aging parents, or I'm not the only one who is being challenged as a leader in my business or my career, or how hard it can be sometimes to be an entrepreneur or to put your ideas out there into the world and to be in a community of other bad ass powerful inspiring women where you don't feel like you're the only one and that you don't have to do it alone. There are people that there's this beautiful gift that retreats give the people that I work with is we get to be heard, seen, and loved and lifted up and supported and acknowledged and valued. And like, there's so many ideas that come to life when we're in that space of possibility.

If anything was possible, you could do anything, be anything. Like the space of limitless possibilities, who would you be and how would you show up and to get to explore those ideas in community. And I'm telling you, as I again, bringing this back full circle, when I reflect on, you know, my journey as launching this podcast, but also my journey over the past, you know, 41 years of my life, Being surrounded by people who believed in me has been the greatest gift that I could be given to bring my ideas to life. I don't think anyone has created something magical and epic by themselves. It takes a team. It takes a village. It takes a community. And if you are out there and you don't have those people in your circle, in your life to lift you up, to build you up, to support you, to see you, to hold you, and to see you like, I see your greatness in you.

I see your potential. Let's fucking go energy. And the world right now is crazy, and chaotic, and overwhelming, and daunting, and it can be so draining on our energy. And my gift in the world is helping people, like reminding you of your greatness, reminding you of your potential, the possibilities, your hopes, your dreams to reconnect with that, to get reignited, reinspired by your life and by what's possible and to help you go from stuck to stoked. That is my mission in the world. So I wanted to share some of my ideas with you, some of my insights, reflections as I celebrate one full year of the Marli Williams podcast, Let's Lead Together. So if you are interested in leading together and not doing this alone, there are still some spots left in my upcoming hell, yes retreat coming up this January 10th through 15th in beautiful Baja, Mexico at the most epic retreat center you can imagine with the most delicious food, the most gorgeous view, and even more amazing inspiring people. So if you are feeling stuck in a little rut, if you want a little mojo, some motivation, some inspiration, and to get to do that in a beautiful place with incredible people, go to Marli williams.com/retreats.

And if you put the promo code podcast, all caps, that will give you $250 off registration for the upcoming retreat. And this is the greatest gift that you can give yourself is this time, is the space for you to reset, to reconnect with yourself, your heart, your spirit, so that you can bring your bold, your big ideas to life and do it in a way that is nourishing for you, fulfilling for you, or you can have fun doing it. I'll share one more thing that I've learned along the way too is I can tend to be my own worst enemy and my own worst critic and be so freaking hard on myself. And, you know, this retreat is really giving yourself this gift to you and say, you know, I don't have to do it alone. I believe that motivated people need a coach or, you know, maybe you tend to be a motivated person, but you feel stuck and you've lost again, lost that spark, lost that mojo. Let's freaking get it back. And again, we can pursue our goals and our dreams and also nourish ourselves. And again, like I said, have fun doing it.

We don't have to beat ourselves on the way up to the top of the mountain. We can have fun. We can eat snacks. We can take pictures. We can have a good time and still be in the pursuit of greatness. So with that, I wanna thank each and every one of you for taking the time to listen to the podcast, to rate, to review it, to share it so that we can reach more people and help you lead even better, lead yourself better, lead your teams, your families, your organizations even better than you already are. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and until next time, take care. Thank you for joining us on another inspiring episode of the Marli Williams podcast. We hope you're leaving here with renewed energy and valuable insights to fuel your leadership, coaching, and speaking endeavors. I'd love to invite you to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast to help us reach more aspiring leaders and speakers like you. We have more exciting episodes and remarkable guests lined up, so make sure to tune in next time. Until then, keep leading with purpose, coaching with heart, and speaking with conviction. This is Marli Williams signing off. See you next week.