In this insightful episode of Life Intended, Kelly Berry sits down with transformational life design expert Marni Battista to discuss how we can step out of a “should” life and into radical, meaningful living. Marni shares her journey of self-discovery and empowerment, detailing how we can challenge our ingrained limiting beliefs, redefine success on our own terms, and embrace the journey toward a fulfilling life. They cover everything from navigating mid-life career transitions to creating agency in the face of life’s challenges. This conversation offers practical strategies, humor, and radical wisdom for anyone ready to live more authentically.
Marni Battista emphasizes the importance of courageously moving away from societal “shoulds” to pursue a life that’s true to you. With her own journey as an example, Marni discusses how focusing on authenticity rather than societal benchmarks can lead to a more fulfilling life. From breaking free of comparison traps to reevaluating your priorities, she encourages listeners to shed external expectations and create a life based on personal values and desires.
Kelly and Marni explore how limiting beliefs, such as binary "right or wrong" thinking, often keep people stuck. Marni’s approach, which she calls “living in shades of gray,” invites curiosity and openness instead of rigid beliefs. This mindset shift allows individuals to view setbacks as opportunities for growth, helping them move beyond self-imposed limitations to see challenges as growth experiences.
In her coaching work and her upcoming book Your Radical Living Challenge, Marni encourages redefining success. Whether it’s prioritizing time with family or finding purpose outside of work, Marni’s framework helps individuals evaluate what success truly means to them, outside of societal pressures. She also discusses her own journey from corporate success to living in an RV and creating a new, purpose-driven business aligned with her core values.
Marni’s radical life design approach involves taking manageable steps to test new ways of living and iterating as needed. By viewing life as a series of “experiments” rather than a fixed path, individuals can discover what brings them joy and meaning. She emphasizes the value of taking action without making drastic, irreversible changes—showing that small steps can lead to significant life shifts.
Both Kelly and Marni agree that creating something—whether new thoughts, relationships, or career paths—leads to a more meaningful and engaged life. Inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, Marni believes that creativity is innate and essential to feeling fulfilled. They encourage listeners to explore their creative potential, no matter their profession or role, as a path toward deeper personal satisfaction.
Marni Battista (00:00)
What if I make a mistake? So the limiting belief is there's a right and there's a Right. if you're holding on to that binary belief about life, black and white thinking, you're probably thinking about it a lot of areas of your you know,
Your partner is all good or all bad. Your kids are good or they're all bad. Your boss is a jerk or amazing. We're just like, because our brains are meaning making things and it's really hard to live in shades of gray and be curious. So one thing is like, what if I adopted this belief that there were no mistakes, that everything that's happening is happening for me, not to me. So getting out of what I call like a victim thinking.
Kelly Berry (00:34)
Mm-hmm.
Hi friends, you're listening to Life Intended, a podcast that explores what it means to be true to yourself and live an authentic and purposeful life. I'm your host, Kelly Berry, and each episode of Life Intended explores my guest's version of personal growth, self-discovery, and the pursuit of becoming the best version of themselves. Our conversations are designed so that you can take what you need and incorporate it into your life to live with more intention and authenticity.
Whether you're seeking to develop your leadership skills, overcome challenges, or simply live a more fulfilling life, you will find guidance, motivation, and practical strategies to help you navigate your unique journey. Today, I have an incredible guest, Marni Battista. Marni and I share what I think are similar purposes and missions, and I really just love her approach, her method, and her message, and I know that you will too. Marni is an entrepreneur,
author, transformational life design specialist, podcast host, and radical truth seeker. and writing drops pearls of wisdom that not only inspires laughter and insights, but shares radical life changing stories of triumph and love. She's on a mission to help women harness the courage
to stop letting life live them and start living a life that is beyond their wildest dreams. her work have appeared in the LA Times and the New Yorker, the Dr. Phil Show, On Air with Ryan Seacrest, and Home and Family TV. Her new book, Your Radical Living Challenge, Seven Questions for a Meaningful Life, is coming in early 2025 from Hay House. Hi Marnie, welcome. Thank you so much for being here today.
Marni Battista (02:23)
I'm so happy to be here.
Kelly Berry (02:25)
congratulations on the upcoming book.
Marni Battista (02:27)
Thank you. It's been a spiritual experience for sure.
Kelly Berry (02:30)
I bet. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, us more about who you are, what you do, who you work with, and just more about how you impact women.
Marni Battista (02:41)
Well, I you know, I always have believed that I was Here put here to sort of teach what I had to learn how to learn so I always tell my clients You know, like it just it looks like I'm like you got it together, but I'm 10 % ahead of you That's really it because I feel like when you're when you're living life when you're trying to be a radical truth-seeker There's always what I call new level new devil I
Kelly Berry (02:59)
You
Marni Battista (03:07)
used to be a nursery school teacher, I had an idea for a book, it was a different book. I just been divorced. I was married for 17 years, I had three small kids. And I was dating and I was like, this is crazy. So I had a girlfriend of mine, we decided to write this book. And so we put it all together. And I did get an agent for it. And they
They were overwhelmingly loved the idea, but they're like, you don't have a platform. And I was like, what is that? Is that a shoe? Like, I don't know what you're talking about. Cause I was a nursery school teacher. And I learned that, you know, I needed an audience or whatever that was. But what was crazy was in that moment, instead of believing like, well that's not going to happen for me. It was almost like this divine gentle hand came down and said,
Kelly Berry (03:40)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (03:59)
this is exactly what you're meant to do. Like you need to help people with their relationships and dating. And so that book idea turned into a business that I had for about 12 to 13 years in that form. And then life continues to happen. And I had a ski accident in early 2020, about three weeks before lockdown, before really, I didn't even know COVID existed at the time really, it was February. And,
I ended up kind of flying through the air, landing on my And that moment, that singular moment really changed the trajectory of my life forever. And it's what my book is about is the journey that I went on as a result of that. But what's really beautiful is that my life has been a series of what I call the worst, best things that happened to me.
have sort of realigned me and pointed me in the right direction of my soul's journey here that's for the best. And that was one of them. And from that place, I ended up having a story to tell. I sold my house in Los Angeles after 25 years, lived in an RV for a year with my husband traveling around the world, deciding what really does make me happy, what is a meaningful life, and put together another book proposal, sold that book.
pivoted my business completely away from merely helping women date because what I always was doing was helping them live a life beyond their dreams that were staying with me for years and years and years. And so was like I had to step into the identity of my the soul of my business and my own soul to really like kind of right, right size my life to who I really am. That's it in a nutshell, Kelly.
Kelly Berry (05:27)
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's awesome. One thing that you just said that I've never I've never heard it stated this way, but I love it is new level, new devil. So my background is business coaching. And I we've always said, you know, like the problems are never ending. You solve a problem and there's another problem around the corner. And I've I've always like carried that with me because I believe that everybody needs a coach that you need a guide.
Marni Battista (06:03)
Love that.
Kelly Berry (06:09)
whether it's a mentor or a coach and, you know, even the top performers, sports, business, everything, they all have coaches because you just need somebody who is like you described 10 % ahead of you, you know, like, just can see the path a little clearer. But I think that, you know, a lot of times people can just get really hung up when they run into devil after devil after devil. They think that they get to a new level and they're
Marni Battista (06:31)
Yes.
Kelly Berry (06:34)
They're pissed, you know? And they're like, why am I running up into this wall again? Or why is this new challenge in front of me? I thought I just worked so hard to get through it. So having that phrase, I think it's just really important because you know, like you break through or something good happens, there's gonna be always, always, always, always gonna be that next problem to solve, that next challenge ahead. So that, I love the way you said that.
Marni Battista (06:58)
Yeah, I think that that I was just talking to a client about that. Like the idea that when we get X, then all our problems will go away is crap. despite intellectually, you can hear me say that you're like, obviously, but like, there's a part of us that really, really believes that because we're so used to
Kelly Berry (07:06)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (07:17)
climbing a ladder to nowhere, right? Like, if I just go a little further, a little higher, you know, but the way our brains work, like the minute we get there, instead of going, look at this amazing view, we just look up and go, crap, you know, I gotta keep going and I have to deal with this thing. And that is life. That is life. So the sooner that we can realize it, that it's not personal, there is no magic, you know, when.
Kelly Berry (07:42)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (07:44)
that occurs that suddenly we're in bliss, then happier we can be, because we can let go of the climb.
Kelly Berry (07:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of that has to do too with our nature, but also what we see and what we perceive. We perceive that all of these people that we see on social media or even maybe in our lives, they've made it, they have it, they have no problems. Their life is smooth and easy and the reality is that it's just not, that they're experiencing things.
just like we are. They're probably different things, they're, everybody has their things, you know? And I think that that can be really misleading and also, you know, kind of dangerous if that's always what you're chasing. Yeah, so I have a lot of thoughts on that.
Marni Battista (08:35)
Yeah, I think that that comparison to spare is like a huge problem that's been made or exacerbated by social media. It's funny when we're recording this, think Mel Robbins just really is having a presale for her book. She got invited to like, have a contract with maybe like Sirius or Excel. I don't know, whatever. I just glanced at it, right. But what I loved about her caption was like, it took 15 years to have this overnight success.
Kelly Berry (09:00)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (09:01)
Right? And so, and that's so great for her and so exciting and inspiring. And when we look at our own journey, it's the lens that we're looking at life through. And so we get so attached to the drama and we forget the facts.
Kelly Berry (09:16)
Mm-mm. Yeah. Yeah. talk about, I think you mentioned one of the things that you help women with is ditching the should life. Is that how you say it? Yeah. Talk about that and what that means.
Marni Battista (09:28)
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, you know, in my own story, and we're just like a great segue, right? Because we think that we should do a lot of things. We should look a lot a certain way. We should be here already. We should have done this. We should have achieved that. you know, you get you go to a restaurant and you order, you know, the burger and someone else has the chicken and you're like, I should have ordered the chicken. I'm dabbling.
I'm not dabbling. I'm doing my first year of fantasy football. And I was having that conversation with someone just this morning. I was like, if I should have played so and so and then I would have, you I could have won. And it's like, the should is just part of our, of our like, programming, right. And so what happens is that then we're not living life on our own terms, we're living life that is prescribed to us by
Whatever metrics and even in the football, you know analogy which some of you may or may not appreciate but it's like yes If the goal is to win I could have played those other players and maybe I would have won but if I just shift my Metric to like I'm learning a new thing and I Every week that I lose I learned something really important about myself mostly Yes football, but mostly myself
Kelly Berry (10:50)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (10:52)
then it's happening for me. And I'm already like next year, I'm going to do this so differently, right? Because I was signed up to play a game that I didn't know the rules. And that is a great metaphor for life, because we think that we do know the rules. And then if we play by them, and we follow the shoulds, then we're going to be happy. For our last conversation. And actually, that's just not true, right? And so the rules that we live by, we have to first understand like,
Kelly Berry (10:57)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (11:22)
They're not even ours. And if we start to question as a first step, every assumption, then we start to become detached from the identity that is sort of been programmed into us. We stop being robots. I'm autopilot. And we start looking at everything and asking, is this what I really want or is this what I'm supposed to want?
Kelly Berry (11:42)
Mm-hmm. And that's one of the things that I think that you and I are so aligned on. And one of the things, you know, I was living on autopilot and I think I really just one day was like, what is going on? And I started to do some questioning like, am I happy? Do I like this? Why am I doing this? So how do you, how does it?
work that women come to you, do they come to you with this realization that they're living on autopilot? Do they come to you for another reason and you help them see that? What does that look like?
Marni Battista (12:18)
That's such a great question. know, most people, well, first of all, that's been a journey, right? Like when I was a dating coach only, it was like, that's your problem, come to me, right? So when I decided that I wanted to realign my life, one of the first questions I had to ask myself is like, what's the problem that people have that they need the solution, right? Like, what was my problem? And so the problem that most people have when they come to me is that they're in a career.
Kelly Berry (12:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (12:45)
They're usually in midlife. The grinding energy that got them to where they are is like evaporating before their eyes. The runway to retirement is long. And they're like, how much longer can I do this? Do I even want to do this? Why am I doing this? Who am I? You know, like, I'm just not happy. And I think that's the thing that is the biggest pain is that
Kelly Berry (13:00)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (13:16)
I think when we're younger, we learn that our feelings are not assets, they're pains in the ass, right? So we just sort of put them on the side and we just get cookies, metaphorical, right? Like validation for performing well and doing well and getting A's, getting the job and getting the husband or getting the whatever you think your shoulds are. And we work really, really hard because we're young.
Kelly Berry (13:39)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (13:39)
And we think that if we do that, then we're gonna get to this certain age and then it's gonna be on autopilot and everything's gonna be honky-dory. And what happens is people get to that time, they have all this stuff and they're unhappy and they're like, crap, I was sold a lie. I don't even know what to do now. And that's a big problem. That was my problem. It was like, I had the business.
Kelly Berry (14:00)
Mm-hmm
Marni Battista (14:04)
You know, I had a certain amount of success. I had the husband, my kids were off and doing their thing. And I broke I did break my back that like forced me to stop. And I would really encourage people to get help before the universe. Course corrects you. Right, like it doesn't have to be big and dramatic. You don't have to break your back. You don't just sell your house. You don't live in RV. You don't do any of those things, right? There's different ways we can live a radical life.
Kelly Berry (14:13)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (14:31)
And it can just be as simple as, you know, I had a client over the summer who came to me in that situation who left the corporate job to start her dream business as a consultant. She was like, I don't really like this. And this summer she realized like what really matters is her new definition of success is spending as much time as she can with her kids before they go to college. And she worked really on like working part time.
Kelly Berry (14:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (14:58)
and not feeling guilty about it and spending time with her kids and knowing what her financial numbers are and talking to her husband about those things and getting realistic about how much income she really does need to make or doesn't need to make and what's really a priority, right? And that is a huge win, right? Is to look back and be like, wow, I actually spent my time going to the games and going to the-
Kelly Berry (15:11)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (15:22)
and taking the weekend trip with my almost teenage daughter and doing these things that before she never would have done because she believed that if you're not productive, you're not worthy. And realigning what success means to you as part of this journey is really what I do through these seven spiritual questions that I teach in my book that are really a new way to define success that I think we all need to adopt.
Kelly Berry (15:33)
Mm-hmm.
with you.
so how different do you feel now, like on the other side of your big pivot and rebrand? How different do you feel now than you did like towards the end of your previous business?
Marni Battista (16:02)
my gosh, well first of all, I set myself up for so much stress, right? Stressors in my life because I believed when I decided I wanted to be a coach, you I just found someone who's really successful and I was like, that's what I want. I literally didn't even actually think about it. Do I really want that? What does that actually look like?
Is that for me? I just literally I picked the name Tony Robbins and I was like that, you know, and I was like, okay, that's, that's what I'm going for. And I just started following, following people following the way everyone who was at a certain level of success was doing everything. I never want this is like, it's embarrassing to say, especially your business coach, but I literally never stopped and looked like, this what I want? Is this the right thing for me? Is this
Is this really the right thing to do or is this what everyone else is doing therefore it is right? I didn't trust myself also because I was a former nursery school teacher so I was like, well, everyone else is smarter than me so I'm just gonna do what everyone else tells me to do and I'm gonna spend a lot of money trying to find people to tell me what to do. Bad, bad idea. For me, bad idea. So what happened was that I built this machine with a giant monthly nut.
Kelly Berry (17:00)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (17:16)
hiring all these people, doing less and less coaching, which is what I really, really love. And I, to blow that up, so to speak, took a series of steps, but ultimately I did have to press the button, you know, and let the people go and decide I'm gonna commit. And what's interesting about it, and this is an answer to your question, is when I was in the RV, so I sold my house, I made this decision, a lot of things led up to it, but still it was like a huge thing.
Kelly Berry (17:30)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (17:43)
Obviously. it was like a month in, it was raining all the time. was like March or April, we were in like Kentucky. Then we were in Tennessee and it was just like the weather was so bad. And we went on this hike and it was a part of the Appalachian Trail. And I was like, I'm no Cheryl Strayed, but I'm I'm gonna.
Kelly Berry (18:03)
Hahaha
Marni Battista (18:05)
I'm gonna walk on a famous trail. I was walking on this trail and I got to this point and it's called the Newfound Gap. And on one side is Carolina, I think North Carolina and the other side is Tennessee. And you can see both states from this one point. And I had this epiphany because I was so miserable that I kept comparing what I'd done to my old life.
Kelly Berry (18:29)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (18:29)
Right. And so I think that when you make a change, it's really hard to predict what's going to make you happy. Even when you follow like steps and you experiment and you test and you make that commitment. My brain just kept going to the old way. You my old identity, my old way of being. And I had made that the superlative, even though I wasn't really happy. And I, hit me on that, on that, that hike. I wasn't in any state.
Kelly Berry (18:43)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (18:56)
I was in the middle and I wasn't committed to really living life on my own terms and really diving into what my heart and soul had wanted because my head was fighting and saying like, what did you do? What did you do? What did you do? You know, the little inner critic. And I was like, I can't keep comparing this life to my old life. I have to jump into the new way and be here 100%. And once I did that, everything changed.
Kelly Berry (19:18)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (19:25)
And in my business, was like, it was like, you know, what's that lucky charm? Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids. You know, I was like, silly rabbit, like you're starting a new business. You have to actually start a new business. You can't just drag all the crap from your old business and try and like tell people like, no, no, this is who I am now. You actually have to start over. But I'm gonna do it in a way in which I actually.
Kelly Berry (19:46)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (19:52)
look at all those decisions that I made in the past and now I have the opportunity to do it differently. I'm gonna really create this business on my own terms. What does that look like? it's been a crazy wild ride and so much fun. But the thing that's different is in this version, in the Marnie version today, is there is no set it and forget it. One of my like greatest strengths is I'm super creative.
Kelly Berry (19:56)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (20:12)
which means that if I let go of like, there's gonna be the one magical way I'm gonna do that, then that'll be the way my business runs and I make millions and millions of dollars forever and ever. Nah, that's not me, that's not realistic. I'm like, cool, what do I wanna do this month? What do I wanna try next week? Everything is like, even things that I test or try if they don't quote unquote work, I'm like, that sucks. But like in the end, like great, what am I gonna do next? How can I use that? So I'm really living my model on a daily basis.
Kelly Berry (20:26)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (20:42)
of experimenting, assessing, adjusting, and continuing to iterate. Because iteration is really the natural state. It's when we fight it that it becomes not fun. So I just, I just am in creation mode because creation gives us meaning because we're doing something.
Kelly Berry (20:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that is great. And, you know, for listeners who don't own a business or haven't been in business, it may be a little hard to relate to, but I think, Marni, what you were just talking about is it is very, very hard. It is so hard to let go of things that you've done in the past, to let go of the way that you...
Marni Battista (21:20)
Yes.
Kelly Berry (21:23)
new things to work is even if they were working in a way that wasn't like fulfilling to you, they were still working. And so it's hard to stop doing something that you know is going to work to honor what you want. You know, that is just a really, really, really hard thing.
Marni Battista (21:41)
Exactly. And I see so many women in corporate to speak to those people, right? Who have been doing the thing, climbing the ladder, doing the thing. And then, right, that business or that organization change, it gets bought by someone else. You have a new boss, you have a new CEO, you have a new leadership. And I see these women that I talk to that come to my office, they're like, God,
Like I have to prove myself all over again and I'm like 44 or 54. I don't have it in me and I don't care and I don't even like what I do. It's not gonna change any lives or I do love what I do but this environment has changed and now I don't fit in it. And that's what breaks my heart is this, well, I was sitting on a beach once talking to someone who was in that situation in an organization and...
Kelly Berry (22:16)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (22:36)
She was like 52 and she was like, well, I only have to do this for like 10 more years. I can do it. And I was like, first of all, you're not even guaranteed that you get 10 more years. Second of all, don't let your fear in the way of your biggest dream, even if your biggest dream is your biggest fear.
Kelly Berry (22:47)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. So how do you help people overcome those fears?
Marni Battista (23:04)
Well, that's a great question. And I really want people to know that there is a solution and a process. And that is when I was faced with, my gosh, I'm so happy, unhappy. I started Googling like, I didn't even know what to Google. was like, life transition, emptiness coach. Like, I was like getting a lot of stuff like learn how to play pickleball, like, you know, let your kids go, whatever. It wasn't telling me what to do. And so,
Kelly Berry (23:26)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (23:31)
I finally came across a couple of things. There was a book about life design that these two guys wrote. And I was like, this is really interesting. What's life design? When I got into the model, I realized that it was very much based on a design thinking model that was developed by Stanford University for product development. So it's like a model that was originally conceived to help product developers create products for consumers.
And I looked at this book and I did some of the exercises and it was really great. But what I realized was that you can't think your way out of your thoughts. So if you have fear, just because you follow the structure, it doesn't mean that you're able to handle the inner work, which is to create a new identity, to go with the new life that you're creating and to really start to dismantle those shoulds.
and break down all of those things that are your fears. And so this process that I put together is like, I say I'm like a DJ, right? Like I took like the best of design thinking and the best of like, you know, somatic work and the best of spiritual work and consciousness and like DJ'd it together, right? To make this really great mashup of a life design process that walks people through the steps of what I call like the dream framework, which is
dismantling all of the old identity and the shoulds, releasing those like once and for all, embracing the you who you really are and really getting to know who you are through creating what I call your soul map, which is then like the direction for the rest of your life. And then getting into action and implementing and iterating and taking small steps through testing and experimenting. See what you like and if you like it, test out your ideas. You don't need to like...
you know, sell everything and run to Bali or quit your job and work at Starbucks. It's not about that or do nothing. And then you get it to maintain this lifestyle and then you're creator in your life through the rest of your life. And if you look at someone who you know, who's like in their seventies or their eighties and they're like really with it and they're doing stuff and they're active, they're creating, they are not on autopilot. They're not sitting there waiting for life to happen in front of a television and believe me, I love TV.
But when you really approach this and you have a creator lifestyle and you start realigning success to these seven questions, then you are just really living your soul's journey at the most expressed way you can. And then life gets really, really fun when you stop, you stop doing it the way you think you're supposed to, because that's what's going to make you or other people happy.
Kelly Berry (26:07)
Yeah, so two questions. One, have you read Big Magic? Yeah, I'm reading that right now actually, but it talks about how we are all creators and we were born that way and even if you have to go back several generations, you can go back in your family history and find people, that's what they used to do. They used to sit around and create things and even if you think it's
Marni Battista (26:12)
Yes.
Kelly Berry (26:34)
not you don't have it in you you do you just need to like access it so
Marni Battista (26:39)
Well, this is a great point. talk about this in my book, because one of the seven questions is what did you create? Because creating is a very meaningful and fulfilling thing. And so what I talked about is creation doesn't mean you're creative, like you like arts and crafts or you always come up with the fun idea. Creating is really, you can create new thoughts, you can create new questions, yes, you can create ideas, you can create relationships, you can...
Kelly Berry (26:45)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (27:05)
create connection, you can create a great conversation. We don't want to be passive in our life and being in a place of creation, new community, new thoughts, new learning. mean, it's just endless. It's endless. So everyone can create. It is not a genetic skill that says like, look at my picture. Isn't it pretty?
Kelly Berry (27:13)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep. And I think as I've kind of reflected on my own life and had a lot of conversations with people, I think that if you are feeling stuck or if you're feeling burned out, you know, I was specifically like extremely burned out, that one of the biggest aha moments I had was like, I haven't had an original idea in years. You know what I mean?
I haven't created anything. I haven't been creative. I haven't, you know, expressed anything really. And so I think that like if that's something that you can like reflect on inwardly and those are things that you're not doing, you're not having ideas, you're not excited about things, you're not creating any, you know, any of that long list of things that you mentioned, like that could be a really good signal to yourself that you're, you know, you're not living.
authentically or you're you're are burned out or some kind of change probably needs to happen in your life to kind of wake up.
Marni Battista (28:30)
And there's so we're living and this is why I've been saying I'm like everywhere I can as women for the women that are listening like really we've never had more agency in time. We've never had more power really. I mean yes there's more to have but like we've come a long way right and the good part about
the technologies that we have, there are more ways to create than there ever have been, right? Like there's more tools, there's more resources, there's community. I went to a writing conference the other week and I am really looking at creating connection and community, because I moved a couple years ago here, but I was just having a conversation with someone about...
talking to a lot of parents of teenagers and my kids are now in their mid-20s and late-20s and so it's different, right? But I was talking about like resources and what's out there and someone was just like, where there's this great program in our community called Partners for Youth and you can mentor a kid from seven to 17. And I was like, and it just sang to me, cause I used to be a teacher and I loved being a mom. What I'm saying is if you get out and you start having, creating conversation.
Kelly Berry (29:39)
was amazing.
Marni Battista (29:41)
creating connection, not for the sake of like your next thing, right? Because when you leave space and you're not attached to the outcome and you stop thinking so hard and you just start doing things that light you up and following that song out, literally there's breadcrumbs everywhere. They're down there. You just have to look and start following them and lighten up, right? Like I love the title that book, Big Magic, right? Because
Kelly Berry (29:45)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (30:08)
When you get in that space, that's where you're allowing the magic to come in. I know that's counterintuitive, because most people believe the more I hold on, the more I control, the happier I'm gonna be. But that's also like a lie.
Kelly Berry (30:20)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Another tough lie to swallow and it really is another big leap of faith to take because it's not how we're programmed, right? We're programmed to hold on tight, control, and even to some degree as a business coach, it's what I've preached for a long time. Your outcomes are very...
attached to the activities that you're doing to get them. And if you're just sitting around hoping or crossing your fingers that things are gonna go a certain way, that's not really gonna happen. So there's a little bit of, for me personally, reconciliation I've had to do with those two things because, you know, this year for me has been a lot about relationship building and exactly what you're talking about, like detaching from outcomes and just like meeting people to meet people and having conversations.
to have conversations and a lot of doors have been opened there hasn't really been any kind of push for me to open those doors. It's just having the conversations, being who I am, and things have just started to happen. So I guess living it after having a really hard time letting go of it for a long time.
Marni Battista (31:31)
Yeah, yeah for sure and I think it does help to have a process right so we do want to have some clarity which is very different from control but clarity is a really important thing so cool like in order to have trust self-trust I it helps to have a process like you said it helps to have a mentor it helps to have someone who's walked in the your steps before that can guide you and lead you when you
Kelly Berry (31:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (31:57)
When you decide and you own that you can create a second chapter that is exciting and fulfilling and you go, you get off that newfound gap and you just jump in and you're like, I'm committing to this. Like you commit to anything else and you go, okay, I'm here for the ride. Let's do it. Like living a courageous life is living a meaningful life because you're stepping off the
the easy safe path. It's not for everyone. And I have no judgment for people who want that. But for the people that get this and they're like, you have that thing about like, I just want to do something right? Like, you can, you can.
Kelly Berry (32:41)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So what are the, I guess, are there like common beliefs that the women who come to you have or like is there a list of like the hardest things that they are holding on to or can't let go that you run into just like over and over and over?
Marni Battista (33:00)
Well, yeah, like, what if I make a mistake? So the limiting belief is like, you know, there's a right and there's a wrong. Right. And if you're holding on to that binary belief about life, black and white thinking, you're probably thinking about it a lot of areas of your life. You're you know,
Kelly Berry (33:07)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (33:19)
Your partner is all good or all bad. Your kids are good or they're all bad. Your boss is a jerk or amazing. We're just like, because our brains are meaning making things and it's really hard to live in shades of gray and be curious. So one thing is like, what if I adopted this belief that there were no mistakes, that everything that's happening is happening for me, not to me. So getting out of that, what I call like a victim thinking.
Kelly Berry (33:39)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (33:44)
Not believe me, I'm not saying that you sit in the bomb on the corner crying in a puddle. You don't. But if your default thought is why is this happening to me? Why does nothing ever go my way? me? Poor me? Like that really needs you need to let go of that regret, like letting go of regret and remorse. A really big thing that I work on with people. And also
that would never work thinking or I could never do that thinking or this one. I already know how that's gonna happen, how that's gonna turn out. No, you don't. I can't tell you how many people that I've worked with when we're talking about setting boundaries and they've got their soul map and they realized what's not working at work and they have that clarity and they can go talk to whoever it is about that and take a stand for what they want or start to set some boundaries.
Kelly Berry (34:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (34:35)
I would say like 99 % of the time the person is like, okay. Great, like you're valuable. You're not gonna leave, are you? And I think that what I've learned from talking to so many people in corporate is that they don't understand that they're valuable and that they do have more power.
Kelly Berry (34:44)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (34:54)
and that if it's not gonna work, that there is going to be something that is going to show up or something that will come to them or something they can seek out that's actually gonna be a right fit. But I think a lot of people don't understand that from my experience is that people will just keep crapping on you if you keep taking it. They're just dishing out the work. They're just asking the people who just keep saying yes to do it because there are always people who say yes.
Kelly Berry (35:13)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (35:22)
And that way it's very much like dating. If you get asked what's up at 11 o'clock at night and you start saying, yeah, I'm available, that's what it's gonna be like. Because those guys know there's always someone who'll start talking to them at 11 o'clock at night, right? So that's who you are at work. So one of the things is starting to set boundaries and take agency over your time, your boundaries, what you will and won't
Kelly Berry (35:39)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (35:48)
People are often surprised what happens from that.
Kelly Berry (35:51)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. That's a really good point Are you familiar with conscious leadership like operating above the line or below the line? Yeah, so it's very aligned with like the victim mentality and really just like your Perception of things that are happening and are they happening to you or for you? I think that's a really really powerful tool and a really like powerful mindset shift for people who find themselves often
Marni Battista (35:58)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kelly Berry (36:18)
in that like victim mentality because really it is it has more to do with the way that you're interpreting things and receiving things and then the way that the things are actually occurring.
Marni Battista (36:31)
Yes, one of my favorite activities that anyone could think of or do here through listening is I have people tell, I put them in partners so you can do this with yourself, you can journal it. And I say, come up with something that's not going your way in your life and then tell the story about it. And I've loved doing this live because I'm sitting there and I'm listening to people, they get so amped up. They're like, and then she did this and I said that and they're just like, you know, gets so amped up. And then they do that.
And then I go, okay. And I give them like five minutes. And honestly, after five minutes, when I say time, they are still like three quarters away through the story. They're just creating this energy of how it's happening to them. Then I say, okay, now, share the facts and the facts only of what's going on. Complete neutrality, no emotion. And they're like, Jane comes to work late. Sometimes she doesn't get everything done. That makes me mad.
Kelly Berry (37:09)
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (37:28)
That's the whole story. Right? I'm like, okay, well, so what would you if you were unbiased and someone told you Jane comes to work late, and it makes me mad. What are all the things that you would do to try and rectify the situation when you don't need to be right when you're like, little gremlin isn't telling you this when your childhood wounding of being like not important isn't showing up.
Kelly Berry (37:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Marni Battista (37:52)
And so try that exercise because you will see that like from a neutral, unbiased perspective, when you just look at the facts, if someone else were to bring that situation to you, you would probably be able to create a lot of different ideas of how you could resolve it. But we get so attached to the drama and being right.
Kelly Berry (38:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ouch.
Marni Battista (38:12)
Exactly. People are like, and literally I give them like a minute and they're done in like 20 seconds. Everyone like looks up at me and they're like, we're done. I'm like, yeah, you're done.
Kelly Berry (38:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, So I know we're at time, so I want you to talk a little bit about how people can find you, what working with you looks like, all of that, and more definitely about your book too.
Marni Battista (38:35)
Yeah, mean, so there's so many ways to find me. So I have a website, marnibattista.com. Marni is spelled with a M-A-R-N-I, Batista is B-A-T-T-I-S-T-A. And I have my book coming out and you can pre-order it on marnibatista.com. It's called Your Radical Living Challenge, Seven Questions for Leading a Meaningful Life. So it's awesome. And immediately I some help.
in the form of a quiz. Everyone loves a quiz. And it is, you did? What were you? What were you?
Kelly Berry (39:03)
I took it. Yeah, I did. I'll have to, when are, when are, yes.
Marni Battista (39:08)
It's decodeyourdestinyquiz.com. And it actually asks you questions like low key in form of these seven spiritual questions about like, you living a meaningful life? And it categorizes you into an archetype about whether you're actually living a life of meaning, like are you literally on the right track? And it's a reality check. And also I show you where the areas are that you can grow and change.
Kelly Berry (39:16)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Marni Battista (39:34)
so that I can help you do that. And it's been really fun talking to people who do the quiz and then they book a call with me and we figure out like the next steps of how we could actually help them live life on their own terms without blowing up like they have. Okay.
Kelly Berry (39:36)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I'm the settler.
Yeah, that was rough to read. It did. probably already knew a lot of it, but yeah, I enjoyed that and the information that I got from it.
Marni Battista (39:52)
It was. Did it resonate?
That's great. Yeah, because I think for settlers, it's really interesting. People who settle are like avoiders, sometimes people pleasers. And here's the thing, if you've been through a big tragedy or a big trauma and you get over that, you learn these coping skills and that's amazing. so everyone, I used to say like, if you're a settler, the thing is your life doesn't suck as bad as it used to, which is amazing.
Kelly Berry (40:28)
You
Marni Battista (40:29)
But also, do you want to thrive or do you just want to survive, right? Like what's your next big dream? And so it's a really important thing. And then I think I talked about there too about this idea of time scarcity and time denial, right? And some people just are in denial about how much time they have left and they're trying to wait for one day and settlers are great at like one day. And so my whole thing is make today day one.
Kelly Berry (40:43)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm
Yep. Yes. I think I'm like a recovering settler. So we'll see.
Marni Battista (41:02)
Yeah, exactly. Right. You're in action. It's just got to be an action.
Kelly Berry (41:05)
Yeah, yep, exactly. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Did you have any other, I know I interrupted you because I took your quiz and I liked it. So what other resources do you have that you'll understand? Okay, okay.
Marni Battista (41:18)
I have so many go to Marnibattista.com. There's like it's brand new, by the way, we're super excited. So there's the decoder destiny quiz, you can pre order the book. There's a life wheel exercise where you can actually look at your life and look at where the gaps are and then come up with like a plan of action about where you want to start taking some steps based on what's working and what's not working. So it starts doing that life design path. So there's just so many things you can listen to our podcast like
Just come visit. It's an open door.
Kelly Berry (41:47)
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. I encourage everyone to do that. Marni is great. Her podcast is great. All of her resources are excellent. And I'm very much looking forward to the book next spring too. Yeah. Thanks for joining. Appreciate you so much and everyone have a good rest of your day.
Marni Battista (42:00)
Thank you.
Kelly Berry is a strategic business leader and business coach. She is known for her operational excellence and her ability to drive growth and results across multiple industries.
She is also hosting her own podcast, Life Intended.
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