Embracing the Power of the Pivot: Creating Your HELL YES Life -19

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Marli Williams [: 00:00:00

Hey, everybody. What is happening? Welcome back to the Marli Williams podcast where this week I am going solo, And I'm sharing a topic that has been on my heart recently and powerful conversations I've had with friends and mentors around the idea of pivoting, pivoting in your life, in your business, in your relationships. And today is really about exploring, what gets in the way of that and how you can pivot at any time in your life, no matter what, so that you can create your hell yes life, a life that feels like it's aligned with who you are and what you are here to do in the world. So I cannot wait to dive into this powerful podcast with you today, and I can't wait to hear what you get out of it. And let's freaking go. 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.

Marli Williams [: 00:01:27

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. Well, hey, everybody. What is happening? I would love to welcome you back to the Marli Williams podcast. For this week, I'm coming to you solo style, and I'm gonna jam on some things that have been coming up for me on my leadership journey in hopes that it speaks to you, speaks to your heart, speaks to wherever you are at right now on your journey of leadership, of living, of being a human being on the planet. And I wanna talk today about the power of the pivot and the the idea of pivoting in our life, pivoting in our business, relationships, our career, you know, I think so often we think success is this straight line from point a to point b and don't encounter any challenges along the way or we don't have to maybe maybe we change our minds along the way, or maybe what we've been doing up until this point isn't serving us anymore, and maybe it it has served us.

Marli Williams [: 00:02:52

And the interesting thing about pivoting in our life and our business as as entrepreneurs is I see a lot of people, and I've done this myself, is we make everything that happened before the pivot wrong or bad, the story that we make up that we have wasted all of this time. And I wanna remind you that the time has not been wasted. And the only way that the time is wasted is if we choose to not learn and grow from it. Because everything that you have encountered, everything that you've done up until this point has prepared you for whatever is next for you. And here's the other thing that I think happens for people is they get to this place in their life, you know, especially in the middle of our life, we might get like kind of stuck in a rut, stuck in a rut of good enough. Right? Well, my life isn't that bad. My career isn't that bad. My job isn't that bad.

Marli Williams [: 00:04:00

My relationship isn't that bad. So we stay stuck in good enough land. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm guessing you don't just want good enough. You want great. You want extraordinary. You want epic. You want beautiful and amazing. And it doesn't mean that an epic life isn't full of challenges.

Marli Williams [: 00:04:23

It doesn't mean that everything is awesome all the time. It just means that it's hopefully more awesome than not most of the time. And I wanna give you permission right now in this moment is that you don't have to wait for your life to suck to wanna change it. You don't have to wait to hit the rock bottom moment to make a decision to pivot, to shift, to change, to do something different. And I think that so many people, like, wait for things to get terrible before they choose to change. There's a quote about change that I remember reading to students that I used to work with when I did wilderness therapy, and I said, when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of change, then you will change. I think the reason why people don't change is because the fear of the unknown. Right? Even if staying where you are right now is painful, it's what you already know.

Marli Williams [: 00:05:34

And shifting that, changing that, doing something new or different can be totally terrifying to our nervous system. Just had the podcast episode with Lisette. Right? The job of our brain, our brain has 2 jobs. The first is to keep us alive. Right? It just wants to keep us safe, and safe to our brain is what we've already been through. It's what we already know. So changing something in our life is terrifying to our brain. And the second thing that our brain wants to do is to keep us right about what we believe at the deepest level.

Marli Williams [: 00:06:14

If at the deepest level, you believe that this is as good as it's gonna get. You will stay stuck. You will stay exactly where you are because your brain wants to make you right about that. And so I think that the power of the pivot, coming back to the point of this podcast episode, is I think it's so important. One of the ways that I approach my life and my business is just that everything's a giant experiment. Right? And we're constantly just trying new things. And the more that we do that, the more that we learn, the more that we grow, and it makes it harder to stay stuck and to stay stagnant when things again, they're they're not working. So I think that in order to pivot in our life, in our business, first, we have to acknowledge that we're unwilling to settle, to settle for less than what it is that we truly want and what we truly desire, and to get really clear on what it is that you do want in your life and in your business.

Marli Williams [: 00:07:31

And, you know, this past year, I have made a big pivot in that I've been running this adult summer camp called Camp Yes, for women for the past 7 years, and I got to this point where it just felt like it was time to move on. It was time to let it go, and I didn't know what was next. But I had to listen and honor that knowing, honor my intuition, honor that voice inside me that felt the calling to complete that chapter of my entrepreneurial journey in the face of people being like, why would you do that? I love camp, or people were sad. People were disappointed. People said, like, oh, I never got to come. All of these things and the old version of me being the the people pleaser that I've I've done a lot of work on my people pleasing, I just kept doing it because I wanted to make everybody else happy. So where are we just doing things because we are so terrified of letting people down, of hurting people's feelings, not giving them what it is that they want. And I think that that that's why a lot of people stay stuck.

Marli Williams [: 00:08:51

And, like, I could I could stay stuck doing that for a really long time even if I felt like I was complete with it, even if it felt like it was time to move on, I would have just kept doing it just to make other people happy. So what are you doing in your life just to make other people happy and you are suffering in silence? So first is to acknowledge that you're not willing to settle. And once you do that, you now have a choice to choose to do something different. And here's the thing. So often people want the this idea of clarity. It would be so much easier to let go of camp if I knew exactly what was next. But I didn't. And I knew in order to figure that out, I had to create space When I was just in the midst of running camp and doing all the things that that required, I didn't have the time and the space to allow what was next to come through because I didn't have the time.

Marli Williams [: 00:09:59

I didn't have the energy. I didn't have the bandwidth. And that's another place where I think that people get stuck is they wanna shift something in their life. Maybe it's like letting go of a relationship, letting go of a job, shifting in their entrepreneurial endeavors, if you will. And we don't wanna let go of that good enough relationship because what if, no, I'm never gonna be loved again. Or we don't wanna let go of that job because what if I'm never gonna work again or get hired again? And so I I invite you to let go of needing to know and needing to have all the answers. And I think the best thing that you can do is, again, acknowledge that whatever it is that you are no longer willing to settle for, It's not what you want anymore and letting yourself not know. And how comfortable can you get in that not knowing place? I don't know what's next, but I trust it's gonna be awesome.

Marli Williams [: 00:11:11

And how can you create the time and the space to sit with yourself, to reflect on your life, to reflect on what matters to you, and to keep taking small steps forward, and to follow your curiosity, to meet interesting people. I would go to networking events and retreats and conferences and surround myself with people and ask these questions and read books and meditate and go on walks and write in my journal and talk to my friends. And I ended up, you know, meeting someone at a networking event, and they had a connection to a woman who was selling their business literally called hell yes. And we had some conversations, and you know what? I still don't know how it's all gonna work out. And yet I had to trust myself, trust my knowing, trust my gut, and I was still scared. I was like, okay. I've never bought a business before. Here we go.

Marli Williams [: 00:12:17

And I bought a business, and then I I wanna pivot this business. So I'm pivoting my business. I'm pivoting the business I just bought, and I'm still figuring that out and what that looks like. But I keep moving forward, and I keep putting things out there, and I see what lands, and I see what doesn't land, and I and what lands out there, but also in here for me. And to be super transparent, I put out an offer and invitation to this, like, hell yes speaking academy, and I thought it would, like, fill up super quick, and I'd be golden. And guess what y'all? It didn't. A few people were interested in it, but not enough to really run it. And yet I kept taking steps.

Marli Williams [: 00:13:06

And I went and I went to go look at the space that I was gonna record these the speaker videos in. And I was standing in the space and I'm like, man, I would love to pack this room with amazing humans and inspire them to live their hell yes life. And I got that hit while I was planning this whole other program that I, right now, for now, I'm gonna let go of because it felt heavy. It felt hard. And I'm not saying that I'm not I'm willing to put in the hard work. And I kept taking steps forward. And so now I'm in this place of ideation and exploration around creating this 2 day event in Portland called Hell Yes Live, which is all about helping women who are in the middle of their life and who want to reimagine, reinvent, and rediscover discover what their hell yes life looks like, where you wake up every day saying, hell yes. I get to be me.

Marli Williams [: 00:14:18

I get to experience all of these amazing things that I have created for myself and my life, and I'm showing up saying yes to what it is that I really want and to build community and to create this really epic experience. And that's where I'm at. And right now, I'm looking at different venues, and I'm I have some dates in mind, block August 3rd 4th. Put it mark your calendars. Hell yes live. You're in Portland. And if I took myself too seriously and put all this pressure on myself to have all the answers, how, 1, that would be really boring. And 2, I I miss out on all of the learning and all of the growth that gets to happen when I just take one one step at a time and really ask myself, like, what is my calling? What is my purpose? What is my mission here? And how can I create something that is in alignment with my deepest heart and goals and desires? And I have this thing that I look at every day right in front of my computer.

Marli Williams [: 00:15:24

That's my operating system for myself. And what it says I'm gonna read a couple things. It says, my purpose is to be a guiding light for others on their path of growth, to be a positive source of love and joy by helping others see their own greatness. I am here to help others see what is possible and to be a stand for them, to see and fulfill their own potential. I am here to impact Williams of people's lives through programs, the this podcast, courses, presentations, and powerful retreats. And there's another part of it. So that's my purpose. And then under what I will do, it says provide transformational and deeply impactful experiences for others by using my contagious enthusiasm and energy to inspire, empower, and motivate them to believe in themselves and their purpose, to curate powerful communities of like minded and like hearted leaders who have a mission to make a positive impact in the world.

Marli Williams [: 00:16:35

I will continue to show up every day and serve with love, compassion, and kindness. I will love people with my whole heart. I will speak kindly to myself and have patience for the journey to keep growing into the leader that I am meant to be. And when I sat down and I read that, I was like, this event is so in alignment with my purpose. And I don't know how it's gonna go. I don't have all the details figured out, But what I do know from being entrepreneur for the past 8 years, for being a human for the past 40 years, is the only way you get to the top of the mountain is one step at a time. And my mission isn't just to get to the top of the mountain. It's to enjoy the ride.

Marli Williams [: 00:17:26

It's to enjoy the journey, enjoy the lessons. And sometimes we take a detour, and we try a path, and it dead ends. And then we try a new path, and we keep going. And I think the last piece that I wanna share with you around the power of the pivot is to give yourself permission. At any point in time in your life, you have permission to change your mind. There have been many times in my life where especially in relationships where I've committed, I've over committed, and I get emotional thinking about maybe something shifted in me that being in that relationship wasn't in alignment with my heart and my soul and my intuition. And it was terrifying and devastating and heartbreaking, And it felt like I, I had to break my own heart to honor my heart. And I had to give myself permission to disappoint people that I love, to hurt people that I love, and to to choose myself and to honor myself in the face of I think the hardest lesson for me to learn was feeling like it was okay to disappoint other people.

Marli Williams [: 00:18:53

Like, that felt like the hardest thing for me to do. And I see it in a lot of my clients, a lot of people that I work with, is so often we don't give ourselves permission to shift, to change, to pivot, to grow because of our fear of letting other people down, of hurting other people, of disappointing other people. And so we get stuck living a life that doesn't feel true to who we really are. And one of the things that I've done in my past and in relationships is I have lost myself. I've lost myself in loving others. I've lost myself in pleasing other people. And I feel like I've gotten to a point in my life where there were times where I'm like, I don't even know who I am anymore. I don't even know what I want anymore.

Marli Williams [: 00:19:43

And I think that that's why I am on this mission to help as many women as possible choose themselves and say yes to themselves. And that's why I'm so freaking stoked about this event that I wanna create. I wanna reach more people. I loved camp, yes, but it felt like my capacity was limited in how many people I can serve, and I wanna create an epic, exceptional, transformational, life changing experience for women to have the time and space to connect to themselves and their heart and their why and their joy and their play and their passion and their purpose and so that they can leave there with the courage and the confidence, first to have the clarity on what their hell yes life looks like and have the courage and confidence to live it and a community to support them in doing that. And I'm freaking stoked. So save the date, August 3rd 4th, hell yes live here in Portland. I will keep you posted when registration opens for that. And I hope that today's solo episode served you.

Marli Williams [: 00:20:54

I hope that it spoke to you and your heart and your soul wherever you are at on your journey, that you always have permission to pivot, to shift, to change, to grow, to expand, to evolve, to whatever the next chapter on your journey is. And I am sending you so much love. As always, if this resonated with you, I would love for you to share it with your people. I'd love for you to rate and review the podcast so we that we can reach more folks and make an even bigger impact in the world. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much for joining us this week on the Marli Williams Podcast. Can't wait to see you next time. All right, everybody. Take care.

Marli Williams [: 00:21:38

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, 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.