Podcast Transcript
Marci: All right, welcome to another episode of the Thriver's Ed podcast. Today I have a very special guest with me. This is Susie Deville. She is a dynamic founder and CEO of the Innovation and Creativity Institute, a trailblazing business coach and an accomplished artist. With over 30 years of entrepreneurial success, including the creation and sale of a highly profitable real estate firm, Suzy is on a mission to empower, individuals to tap into their innate creativity, discover their true selves and unlock their full entrepreneurial potential. Suzy combines a rich academic background in anthropology and a master's degree in entrepreneurship with an ongoing commitment to lifelong learning from the world's leading experts. Since 2005, she has been dedicated to researching innovation and creativity, continuously refining her methods to remain at the forefront of her field. She's also the author of, the award winning book, the Entrepreneur's Guide to becoming Wildly Successful, Creative and Free, and the inspirational short form podcast, the Courage to Live a Big Life. Susie, welcome to the show.
Susie: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here.
Marci: Susie, I wanted to talk first a little bit about your background because I think it's really interesting. It says that you had a highly profitable real estate firm, you're doing anthropology, entrepreneurship, and now you've got this creativity, and art focused. So how did all of this come about?
Susie: So I grew up in an entrepreneurial household and kind of caught the bug pretty young. My father was an entrepreneur, engineer and artist. And so I was very excited and inspired by how he could just choose to do his business and conduct his day exactly the way that he wanted to. That was very appealing to me very early on. And, my undergrad work in anthropology was fascinating to me because I've always wanted to understand more about what makes people tick. And that sort of was an early harbinger of things to come. With kind of a lifelong fascination with a multidisciplinary approach to understanding psychology, economics, entrepreneurship, anthropology, sociology, etc. And how all of those intersect with one another and how we can create a holistic perspective from those disciplines to create something very unique, innovative and rich for people who are trying to up level, trying to achieve their dreams, but for some reason are just kind of stuck.
So, I went on this journey of nonprofit, leadership, did that for several years, launched two nonprofits, ended up in the world of real estate just simply because I wanted to have a license to really understand how those contracts work, because I was doing investing and had no desire or interest to become a salesperson. And then I discovered I ended up with a client about a week after I got licensed and discovered that I was really great at it, kind of like on DNA, kind of great at it. And so I, and I found that I could make it a creative venture and I could use it as a way to help people achieve their dreams in a different kind of a way. So I continued to do real estate work, but much, much less.
And, when I entered into my nuclear winter period in 2008, that was a time when literally everything in my life kind of imploded. And I was doing real estate work at the time. My husband at the time was in the construction slash, contracting industry. So we had kind of a double barrel effect in our household. And so when the markets crashed and the marriage ended and the finances evacuated and my health really suffered, I had to figure out, okay, how am I going to take all of this life experience and education and so forth and passion and redesign my entire life? Because the way that I've been doing it has not really served me that well. I was overworking. I was on the classic gerbil wheel and it took a kind of dramatic episode in my life to wake me up. So it was a blessing in lots of ways.
And that formed the foundation of the Innovation and Creativity Institute and the direction that it took in the future, which was to take this interest in social sciences and neuroscience and quantum physics and blend it with what happens to us when we create. And there's kind of this atomic explosion that happens that. If you had explained this to me in 2007 as a real thing, I would have laughed hysterically because I was all about push productivity and discipline and thought that creativity was for people who were, you know, retired or children or had time to kill.
Marci: So you mentioned that your dad was an artist. And a lot of your interests there in the beginning are very, I guess, more practical. You've got a lot of math and science with the real estate and the investing and the sociology and anthropology. And then after this kind of shift that happens to you in 2008, that's where you have the creativity. So was it the shift you think that brought that interest into creativity, or has there always been a little spark in you that's kind of interested in that, ah, innovation and creative thinking.
Susie: So what's so fascinating to me is that I have wanted to be a writer since I was a little kid. And what's so prevalent in how we are steeped in our culture is that we tend to grow up with a very narrow definition of what art is, of what Being an artist is what creativity is. And so, in my case, and this is true for a lot of my clients, I equated creativity or being an artist with somebody who could look at something in the real world and create it with either sketching it or painting it. It was just this very limited world. And I thought, well, I can't do that, because when I draw the horse, it looks like a coffee table. So that just must be not the world for me. And so, even though I grew up surrounded by art and beauty and watching my dad create every single day, and I created things, too. I wrote a play in the fifth grade, and we acted it out, and I wrote short stories and poetry. I took photographs. But I never considered myself as an artist.
So I think what happens is that we remove ourselves from this opportunity to enjoy the richest inspiration and joy because of these narrow definitions. And what I started to get, these hints along the way was that I really was attracted to this world. I even worked at a publishing company in Boston and then in London. And, because I wanted to be around writers and editors and that whole world. So it was. You're right, it was always a part of me, but it took kind of the bottom falling out for me to start to really pay attention to how this world of creativity and my own engagement in that world was going to be the thing that sort of turned the flywheel and gave me momentum in a completely different way, as well as true joy and an, access to success and freedom that was so much easier. And I was like, wait a second. I don't have to, you know, feel like I'm digging to, you know, China with a teaspoon every day. It's. It just. Things would happen, and I was connected into and remain very connected into this very interesting, almost mystical, way to tap into creativity and then ignite courage and serendipity.
Marci: Can you tell me a little bit more about what this creativity and innovation looks like now? So we don't have to touch necessarily on what happened in 2008 if we don't want to get very specific there. But I'm really curious in kind of that before, before and after picture of how creativity is showing up in your life, what the benefits are. You touched on it a little bit with this, you know, momentum and joy. But I'd really love to hear from you on how creativity has really kind of turned that kind of 180 from what you had in that past life.
Susie: Yes. So what I started to piece together was different practices, and this was very Much by accident. I didn't set out with an intention to create a methodology for my own life that I would eventually use with clients or put into a book. I was just trying to just sort of get myself out of the fire. And, so I went back to things. Like I started journaling again. When I was a kid, I used to journal all the time. And I started to understand that Julia Cameron's practice, the, author of the Artist's Way, her practice of morning pages, which is three pages of long handwriting. I realized that I could use that as an opportunity to really reconnect with what I really wanted, what I was really thinking.
Because in that sort of daily brain dump onto the page and getting all of my anxieties and fears out, I could then tap into what my soul really wanted. And I had been so frenetically busy and sort of clamoring for the next transaction, going to the next meeting. I was missing the entire world. And I had no idea who I truly was. I was just kind of this hollow husk of a human. And so that was kind of the first clue. Then I would go out on these walks and I would take a smaller journal with me. And I started to understand the connection of the healing power of nature combined with how it sets our ideas almost into like this turbocharged state.
So I started to really get almost like downloads of great ideas. So I had sort of sat into this part of myself that was at last able to chime up and be heard because I gave it space. So that became another sort of cornerstone of, the puzzle. So I had morning pages and I had movement. And then I started taking these classes with a gentleman who was helping me learn how to do watercolor and sketching just so I could try this out. And I could feel something happening at that. I started to become very clear about what was a hell yes for me and what was a hell no. And I started to stand up for myself. And I started to get very clear about what my boundaries should be. And I stopped worrying so much about duty and responsibility and what everybody's expectations of me were. And I started to tune in on what do I love, what brings me alive? What is it that I'm truly after?
So that became another piece of the pie, the making something piece, which, by the way, is the piece that everybody fights me on. All of my hard charging, entrepreneurs and executive leaders basically run screaming when I try to explain to them that a very simple five minute daily practice of making something will ignite something in you that you can't even believe. So that was another piece of the puzzle. And then I started getting much more into meditation, which I know is kind of for some people. People feel like, oh, I can't sit there and do that. I've tried and failed. But I have a very easy way for people to get started. Just sitting in a room for five minutes. You don't have to do any special breathing. You don't have to have a special program or any training. Just quiet without distracting. And even for that five minutes, we'll still want to distract ourselves. We'll want to get up and move.
It's almost like we're trying to tame this wild horse inside of us because we are very typically on the go and distracted. And the last piece of the puzzle was something that I started to do was get back into poetry and connecting with my favorite poets and just listening to a poem. You know, I would look them up online. Sometimes they would have something, on YouTube or I would just read one of their poems online. And I started to take notes about just what that opened up in me. And I realized that. Which this became something I called moments of inspired learning. I realized that it was not only just taking the time to do this, to commune with the world of creativity and creative thought, but there was something about it. Cross fertilizing, kind of going back to the anthropology days. All of these things were cross pollinating and fertilizing each other.
And so when I did one or two or three or four or five of those M's, it was like I was standing on top of a diamond ski run in the fog. But I could see the path. No matter what the path or the chaos was, I became an insanely great problem solver. My imagination caught fire. I could tap into my intuition, and I began trusting it and listening to it and following it. So those different things that I tried eventually all kind of went into the cauldron and became this methodology. And I created an entire practice around it for myself. And then I started teaching it to other people.
Marci: That's really great. I heard a lot of really positive benefits from incorporating creativity into your life. You're talking about, you know, increasing your intuition, getting a better understanding of yourself and what you like so that you can create boundaries that make sense for you, tapping into inspiration that you might not have had.
But you also mentioned some, you know, maybe M modalities is the right word that I wouldn't typically associate with creativity. Right. So you mentioned meditation and movement or nature walks. I think my Definition of art or artist and creativity was aligned with maybe that past version of you, where it is the ability to translate what you see onto a piece of paper or to engage in a traditionally artistic medium. So how then would you describe, you know, this creative lifestyle, creativity or art, kind of at this new framework or model that you've developed?
Susie: So I call it the Creative Rebels Voyage. I love the imagery of us getting in this boat. And the author of the book, the Alchemist, Palo Coelho, called it the boat of inspiration that we just get in this boat and it takes us to this place. And so to me, the imagery, the nautical imagery of going on this adventure, and that's really what it is. And what happens is, once we open up even just a little bit to doing some of these practices, even if it's just a couple of minutes, what happens is, is that the soul and our body understand there's a new energetic sheriff in town. And so then it starts to deliver to us new insights that we had been so busy and so drained or so just off track, overwhelmed, burnt out, that we couldn't see it or we couldn't put the pieces together. And what happens is that you become supremely great at what looks like one piece of unattached or unconnected information. Something over here, something over there. And then all of a sudden, it's like everything just ignites and becomes so clear as to how all of these things are interrelated.
From that place, you can become a master at solving problems in your personal life and in your enterprise because you can spot things from a mile away, whereas it could have just come up and knocked on your door and screamed in your face before, and you wouldn't have seen it or heard it. So you become just insanely attuned to clues that help us connect with the audiences that we most want to connect with. And that connection is what precedes Cash. If we don't have a connection to ourself first, then when we're out there banging the gongs of marketing and trying to get our messaging heard over the din of the competition that's everywhere, no one can hear us and feel us, because if we're not connected to us first, then it just falls flat. It doesn't land. So we become great at articulating what we most want to say. Finally, we can say clearly what it is that we want people to know, what messaging that we want to share.
And then if we're in that aligned place with the great articulated messaging, then it's almost like—and I don't want to sound like this is magical thinking, but it is so different from trying so hard and beating yourself up and exhausting yourself to get connection and resonance in the market when if you go this other way, which is a heck of a lot more fun and easier and people can, will come to you. And these are not just your kind of quote unquote, lower ticket clients or buyers. These are people who are your dream high margin, low headache people. And it's quite a shift from just having to scratch and claw your way for the market to pay attention to you.
Marci: Connection precedes cash. I love that. So if I'm understanding you correctly, it is by incorporating these elements of creativity or, you know, whether it's working through your framework or however that looks like that, we are able to kind of connect better with, with our desires, with our message. We're able to have better problem solving, more innovative thinking, and we're able to reach the people that we are really hoping to reach. Now I wanted to ask you, what about people that would say that they have no creative bone in their body, they cannot draw stick figures, myself included, what would you say to that person if they're like, yeah, that sounds great, I would love to have more innovation, creative thinking. But one, I'm not creative or even two, I don't have the time for.
Susie: This and I get it. And this was me. I mean completely. So let's talk about something very concrete that you can do. You can go and purchase a $1 spiral notebook. You do not have to have a leather bound journal with gold, you know, edges of the pages. Get something that just looks fun. Go to Walmart or wherever and just get a, little journal. Then take an envelope of any kind and start to pay attention to colors, pictures, words. It could be an inspirational quote, something that you see on a walk and you snap a picture of it when you come home, print it out, put it in your envelope, you're going to start to collect. There's a bird that's called a satin bower bird and it loves things that are, you know, shiny and glittery and blue. And it goes around and collects all these things and stashes it in its nest so that it can attract a female bird. Satin bower bird. Well, that's what we're going to do. We're going to just become this bird that is collecting things that light us up and we can't, we don't even have to know why that is. We can look at a color or we can see a word and there's a very kind of interesting electric current that kind of goes through us and we're like, ah, that kind of stopped me in my tracks. I don't know why that is. You don't have to know. Just cut it out, stick it in the envelope.
After about a week of collecting, you can then take your journal and some tape and, or a glue stick. Doesn't have to be fancy. Pull two or three things out of the envelope, then arrange them on a page in this journal. It does not have to be art, it does not have to be pretty, you don't have to love it. What is happening is that you are engaging and reengaging with what brings you alive and you're going to start to fine tune and become brilliant at discerning what you want, what you want more of and curating, becoming great at. This is a yes, this is a no. This is what I want. This is what I don't want. This is me. This is absolutely not me. So it's a little practice, a meditative practice, but it's connecting you into what I call your creativity. Back channels this verdant place of our mind that has so much knowledge to share with us and we completely ignore it, stuff it, blow it off, drown it out on a routine basis. So spending three, five minutes taking a couple of things out of this, envelope, putting them on the page, then write one to three sentences at the bottom of the page as to what came up for you and, or what you want to have happen as a result of maybe an insight that just landed for you. Then this becomes an accumulative kind of practice because each day, if you do this in the morning, literally five minutes, you will start to flip through this book to get to the next open page and these things now are going to start talking to each other. All of these insights are becoming almost like this beautiful French reduced sauce of you. And you're going to have so much self knowledge and this connection to what does stop you in your tracks. And the better we get at that, the better we have the opportunity to tap into this rich intuition and ideation, imagination and problem solving. So it's easy peasy. You can start with a magazine and a dollar notebook and a glue stick and some scissors.
Marci: So to start that creativity process, we don't have to break out the watercolors and our, you know, fancy pastels. It's really just being aware of our environment, starting to figure out what it is that really lights us up and Tapping into what it is that we really want. Because I don't know about you, but I have a lot of clients that are fairly clear on what it is that they do not want and really struggle with really making clear what it is that they do want. They know what they don't. But it's not necessarily just the polar opposite of that. It is really crystallizing that that definition of what really lights them and what reflects their beliefs, their desires, their passions. Is that what you find with your clients as well?
Susie: Totally. And what's so interesting is that if we are finding ourselves in, this overwhelmed, depleted state, the soul is just so exhausted too, that it won't kind of try to clue us in. So once we start to listen and get more rest and, or take five minutes in a quiet room, then these kind of whispers from the depths of us have an opportunity to have the microphone for once. And so, something that folks can do at the end of your three to five minutes, putting things into a, page in your journal. You can also ask yourself, what is it that I stopped doing when life got busy? And when I asked myself that question back in 2012, I was shocked that it had been 20 years since I had been to Europe. I was a very passionate global adventurer, traveled all around the world. And then of course when I had a family that came to an end and it just like, this time just kind of evaporated. And I had forgotten what travel meant to me. And it was shocking to me how easy it just sort of got pushed aside and that I had forgotten it. And so I literally within minutes went online and booked a trip to Paris. And that really began this whole other piece of this creative adventure which was now I remember what I used to love to do. I'm, bringing that back. And sometimes we bring things back and they're not a fit for us anymore. But there are a lot of times that we have stopped doing things that were essential to our well being and our sense of self and who we are in the world. So it's a fun exercise to try to go back and remember, okay, what was it that, that I used to do that I loved that I stopped, and how can I bring it back?
Marci: I love that. And next, time you go to Europe, please take me with you.
Susie: Well, I'll be there in March.
Marci: Okay, great, we're going.
Susie, I wanted to ask you. So you have really built this business around creativity and innovation now, and we've touched on a lot of the benefits of incorporating some Kind of creative practice in your business. Whether that's in tapping into your intuition, adding a little more joy, or even. We talked about the cash infusion, right, from really dialing into you and your messaging. But I assume from having started your own creativity institute in this, that creativity is more than just like a nice to have. It's more than just that cherry on top for your business. Can you speak to that?
Susie: I absolutely can. I have the shivers because it's so important and it's so, easy for us to dismiss it. I just got back from a 10 day retreat, an artist retreat in Mexico, and we spent nine, well, we were supposed to do seven hours of art a day. I ended up doing, sometimes nine or ten. And it was this mind and soul and life blowing adventure. It was incredible because every single day I was immersed in what I would call this. You know, you're going across the threshold into this world of the unknown. Think about what we do as entrepreneurs. That's our daily job, is to suit up and do something, a lot of times that we don't know how to do or have never done before or are stuck in someplace on the journey and doing work in the creative arts, I mean, it doesn't have to. Again, what the outcome is is irrelevant. It's just the time doing this. You have so many at bats of going across this threshold into this unknown, dealing with uncertainty, and then you cross into that world and you're like, oh, hey, you know, the water's fine in here. And then the magic starts to happen. I created things that I didn't even know I could do. And I just was like, I was blown away. And I just took a couple of pictures and put them on Facebook. I sold my art while I was still there. It was insane.
And what happens is there is a chain reaction when we're engaged in this process that connects us into gumption and moxie and a willingness to take bold action. And of course that's what the entrepreneur's job is every single day. But we're also met with feelings of vulnerability and imposter syndrome and perfectionism. And we have to control everything. Well, you can't control that world. You have to totally feel in your body what it feels like to let it go. Which was not, by the way, as a person who's a high perfectionistic, controlling human, this is not my easiest task. But when you do it, the rewards are absolutely mind boggling. And again, it ignites. People can feel it. The person who was attracted to and I had so many people inquire about buying art. The people who are attracted to that expression can't even say what it is about it. That's lighting them up. They're connecting with the energy of you when you're making that piece. They're connecting with your courage, they're connecting with your willingness to go into this murky world of I don't know what the heck is going on. And you go and do and keep going anyway.
So it has this sort of series of cascading benefits and ramifications that not only inspire and re inspire you when you're making something, when you're doing whatever it is. For me, I was doing acrylic painting, but it's also so inspiring because other people can feel that willingness and they want to now learn how to do that for themselves. So regardless of what your entrepreneurial enterprise is, there is a way for you to have that same kind of ability to ignite inspiration in your ideal audience and get them excited about stepping up and doing the same thing that you're doing.
Marci: All right, so I'm pretty sold on it right now. I am hearing that you are going to have more joy. You're going to get more in touch with yourself, with your own desires, with the boundaries that are going to support you. You are lighting up your audience, which translates to them wanting to work with you. And ultimately, cash is something we all want. You're going to have some more boldness in there. We're going to let go of those white knuckle grips that we have on the reins to make sure that everything is perfect. Because art is not perfect. It's messy and just kind of whatever comes out, we can't really control the process like we try so hard to control everything else.
So with all of these benefits, if I'm hearing all these things and I am ready to get started, I wanted to dive into our Thrive in five, for which are either five tips or things people can do in five minutes to start to take these ideas of incorporating creativity into our lives, to both heal ourselves and to really strengthen our business on the other end. So what would be your Thrive in 5?
Susie: Number one is actually the five M's. So those again, morning pages, meditation, movement, moments of inspired learning, and making something. Start with one and start for about three to five minutes. So rather than three pages a morning long, hand writing for morning pages, do a paragraph or do one page in a small notebook. But get started and don't do the classic thing thinking, well, I have to do all five and I have to have three hours, and I have to scale Everest by Friday or I'm a complete failure. No, combat this with a kind of a curiosity mindset. Let me see what Susie is talking about here. Let me get a little journal, something that I can even put in my pocket. Let me go on a walk. Let me see what happens to my brain when I go on a walk. So, number one, pick one of the five M's and then you can add more as you go.
Number two is to deprogram yourself from our cultural lore that says that what we really should be doing as entrepreneurs and creators is, managing our time and coming up with more productivity hacks. Instead, start to focus on managing and protecting and optimizing your energy. Once I started to make that shift and once I started to actually do a cost benefit analysis in my head in a quick way, every single time there was a task or an invitation to do something, or I'm sitting there looking at my schedule and I'm trying to figure out, okay, how do I want to plan this out? I'm always, always thinking about my energy. How do I amp it up? How do I protect it? How do I dig a moat and then put the sharks in it when I need to focus? And how do I create buffer time so that I have the energy for special projects? And when I do a, big trip, for example, I had several reentry days of nothing when I came back other than get the dog from the kennel and do the laundry and get the mail, like that was it. I had no tasks, meetings. And so it's just a gentle way for me to assimilate all the things that I learned and all the wonderful experiences and adventures that I had and protect my energy at the same time. So I went from trying to crowbar 400 things into a day to finding the one big thing that I know will move the needle the fastest for me or the most. And then I have a conversation with my subconscious mind and I say, look, I know we have 50 things on the to do list, but we're doing this one today, and I promise you we're going to get to the other ones, but not now, not today. And what that does, and there's lots of wonderful research that bears this out, the mind will continue to try to solve for open loop problems. And that's true for long to do lists.
So if you have a long to do list and you're working on number one of 50, your mind is trying to figure out how to do number one. And it's already trying to solve and ruminate on the other 49. So pick one thing, protect your energy. The next is figure out what I call your circadian, your creative circadian rhythm. So that is the time of day when you have your best thinking, your most clearest access to your intuition and your imagination, your highest willingness to protect your boundaries. Figure out what that window of time is for you and protect it mightily. Don't use it. So let's say it's early for you. Let's say you have a, 6:00am to 10:00am window. Some people have a morning one, some people have a midday one, Some people have a very late one. Some people have more than one. So figure out what that creative circadian rhythm is for you. And then all of the hardest work, the things that require your best brain, the most creative thinking, your ability to sort of see through conflict and confusion and be that skier in the fog that can see on top of the diamond run sort of book all of those hard things during that window. Now, it's not a perfect science. Life does happen. Life intervenes. But do your best to kind of, you know, we don't want to be on Twitter when it's the height of our creative window, so it's a. Again, it's sort of being much more mindful and intentional about how you schedule and approach your day.
Marci: Oh sorry, I just wanted to touch on that real quick. So do you find that this, this creative circadian rhythm is in line with just your regular. Like, I personally wouldn't know what my rhythm is, but I know the hours of the day where I can focus best. Is that kind of aligned where we have that most energy, that most focus, is that hour.
Susie: Yes. Yes. And your CCR is not necessarily what you think it is. So I used to think mine was 5 to about 11. Then when I was submitting pages, when I was writing my book, I had to get up an hour earlier so that I could keep up with my editor and get things to her on time. So I started getting up at 4, and I could write a lot better. I mean, I could write like the wind at 4. I went, I wrote fine at 5, but something happened at 4, and I was like, wow, I wonder what happens if I get up at three Now I, know everybody now who's listening is just about ready to get the hook out and vote me off the island. I'm not suggesting at all that you have to get up early, but I am suggesting you should test what you think it Is and experiment around, because I did discover that My window is 3 to about 10 to 11. I, around 11:00 every day. I have done the majority of the sort of heavy lifting on my creative work and the things that require the most energy from me. And then I have the rest of the day to do other things that are fun and enjoyable. But I also have this wonderful sense that I've just kind of aced the day already. So do play around and test it, because once you land on it and you start to protect it, it can change the entire way that you experience every single day. And your results will multiply without your having to exert more effort or spend more time doing work.
Marci: Okay, sorry, I interrupted that 5. So that was a creative circadian rhythm.
What was up next?
Susie: Yeah, so, understanding how you're wired to take action I think is really important for those of us who have this overachiever thing, which I could have gold medal that event if it were an Olympic competition. This sense of like, I've got to overachieve in order to have value and I've got to work and do all these things. But oftentimes what happens is we're so caught up in the overachieving or the accumulation of more accolades or certifications or proof that we know what we're doing, all of these things that we do. If we get caught up in that world, we can very easily be swimming against the current of who we truly are, because we're just doing stuff, we're just working, we're just trying to achieve. But if we can get very clear about exactly how we're wired to take action, and there is an assessment that you can take if you haven't taken this, I can tell you it's life changing. It's called the Colby A index, and that's spelled K O L B E and then hyphen A index. I am, not affiliated. I mean, this is not like an affiliate link or anything like that. I am certified in Colby because it became such a life changing event for me once I learned how I'm, wired to take action. I stopped doing all the things that were draining me and frustrating me and I delegated those without it, making anything negative about me. I all of a sudden just embraced. Oh, that's just for me. We're just not wired that way.
So I just stayed in the lane where I excel about 80% of the time. Again, it's not a perfect science because there's stuff that you have to do that's not your favorite thing or maybe that you're not great at. But if you're spending the majority of your time doing what you are great at, then guess what happens to the income. I went from working 80 plus hours a week to working four days a week and quadrupling my income in six months once I knew this information about myself. And then I could kind of unlock this delicious mystery of how to actually swim in the current and be free to be who I truly am and do the work that I'm insanely great at. That maybe, you know, it's just effortless almost for me to do. Whereas the things that are not my favorite things or things that drain my energy, somebody else loves to do that and is great at it. So it's great for me to give it to them to do it. And, so if folks who are listening want to take the test, you get this beautiful report from the company. And if you have questions about it once you've gotten it and you want to have a chat about it, I'd be happy to go through your report with you. Because there's subtleties in that knowledge that not only help you, but it can help people in your family or people who you work with, whether you're in, the C suite or in a startup.
Marci: I want to just summarize all of that quickly. So the very first thing is that we are going to incorporate one of the five M's M morning pages. Meditate, movement, moments of inspired learning and make some things. We're going to get curious and try to incorporate one of those a day. We are going to, instead of optimize our productivity, we are going to optimize our energy. We are going to figure out how to protect it and how to amp it up. We are going to determine what our creative circadian rhythm is, which may or not be aligned with what you think it is. So start playing around and testing that to find out when you can really dial into that inspiration, that focus, that creative thinking, problem solving number four was, we were looking at that the Colby A. It's the how you're wired to take action, focusing on the things that you are great at, learning to delegate, the things that are not kind of in your zone of genius or not, how you're not wired to take action in that area, Letting go of those things, does that kind of incorporate what we discuss?
Susie: You got it. You got it. The last tip, I would like to give you is this. Try to track how you naturally attract your clients and double down Triple down on that. Resist trying to do marketing the way that other people do it. If it makes you feel like you're marching off to do a root canal, I, have one. Have one done to you. So it's so important in this sort of social media, ubiquitous guru urging, coming at us 24 7. It's easy for us to look around all the time. Somebody else has, somebody else knows how to do this, or somebody. And I believe in lifelong learning, but not at the expense of what our gut knows to be true as to what we love to do and what we're naturally great at doing. So come home to yourself and remember, you know, I, I'm fantastic at getting clients through referrals. So why don't I work on more connections with people, taking them to lunch or sending a note, a personal handwritten note, or whatever it is that you love to do, rather than trying to dance in your kitchen on social media. Right. If that, if you'd rather be set aflame than do that, don't do that. Because there's, there's so much to win in the world of marketing when we're, authentically representing who we are and what we love.
Marci: I love that. As someone who just recently stepped away from social media, I can completely understand that. It's that Pareto principle of where we're spending, you know, 20% of our energy is determining 80% of our results. And I was spending so much energy in social media because I hated it. I was doing it because the gurus told me that I need to do it, because it felt like everybody else was doing it. But I showed up with that energy of this is, you know, not something that I want to do at all. That's that root canal principle. Right? And so I've been devoting my time to things that I actually enjoy, which is conversations. It's not these one sided statements. It's actually having conversations with people like this where I really get to learn and kind of, understand them better, understand my own needs better that way. So I love that you've just given everybody permission to really focus on and double down what's actually working for you, regardless if it fits the mold of what everybody else is either doing or saying you should do in your business.
Susie: 1,000%. And I want to point something out. You are in probably the top 0.000001% of interviewers who not only listen beautifully, but then absolutely are brilliant at recapping, emphasizing, coming back around to it, synthesizing it. so you're learning it. Your audience is hearing it and learning it and able to absorb it in a brand new way. I'm also hearing how you're saying it. So you're giving me new ideas for new creative things with regard to what I can do with my own content. It's absolutely delicious. So you should be doing conversations. You're a genius at it. And this, no one, can touch you in this world because you're so insanely great at it.
Marci: And I didn't pay her to say that.
Susie: This, but, you know, I mean, I'm in conversations every single day, all day long. And it is. I'm telling you that 0.001% is not, an exaggeration.
Marci: Well, thank you very much. But, yeah, that just is the. And this is not the what I was devoting most of my time to. Right. It's just kind of accepting who we are, what our skills are, what our passions are, and choosing our own path. That's what entrepreneurship is. At the end of the day, it is choosing your own path. It is creating something out of nothing. And so why not honor that in the activities that we do to support our entrepreneurship or even just our, you know, creative endeavors or how we style our life? It doesn't have to look like everybody else. It is what fits best for us, our skills. It's how we're wired to take action, what we love, all of those things put together. So I absolutely love that. Susie, if people want to find you, if they want, more information, if they want your help on analyzing that. Colby A. I'm going to put that link in the bottom, the show notes here. I'm going to put all of those thrive, in five tips there at the bottom. But if people want to learn more about you, connect with you, where should I send them?
Susie: So, I have a free toolkit for entrepreneurs that you can get from my website and I'll give you the URL for that, which is innovationandcreativityinstitute.com/bestie B E S T I E. So when you get that toolkit, there's all kinds of goodies in there, but you'll also be placed on my inspired newsletter mailing, list that comes out every Friday. So you'll get before your weekend a nice morsel of inspiration for the rest of your weekend and sort of send you beautifully into the following week. Also, if people want to begin their own journey and begin this process of understanding this in a deeper way, going on their own path with journaling and the rest of the M's. You can get a copy of my book Buoyant. It's available at a wonderful discount on Amazon. And if you get that and a little, you know, cheapy journal and a pencil, you're off and running.
Marci: Perfect. All right. Those links are going to be in the show notes here. You can obviously find her book on Amazon as well.
Susie, thank you so much for joining me today. You've given me so much to think about as someone who does not necessarily consider herself creative. I think this has been really eye opening and exciting to see all the different possibilities there. It has been so much fun having you here today. Thank you for joining me.
Susie: Thank you. It's been wonderful.