Episode #13: Mari Smith

Episode #13: Mari Smith
00.00/39:04

Episode #13: Mari Smith

In this episode of the RealLifeSuperPowers podcast, we speak with Mari Smith. Mari is a world class expert on relationship marketing. She’s one of the world’s leading social media thought leaders, a bestselling author, keynote speaker (she frequently shares the stage with notable leaders and celebrities including Sir Richard Branson, the Dalai Lama, Tony Robbins, Guy Kawasaki, and Paula Abdul), she was named a top social media power influencer by Forbes …and the list goes on.

In a world where the only constant is change, Mari helps millions of marketers and businesses focus on proven evergreen strategies. We cover some of those, for example:

It will never go out of style to provide amazing customer service. What’s changing is the technology and delivery mechanism. Businesses will always need to have clear brand guidelines, trained community managers and customer service reps.

Basically, Mari says that the evergreen formula is to produce great content, engage with people in the way in which they want to engage and then convert them by clearly inviting them to do business with you.

Mari is no stranger to hustling and building a business from the ground up. She wasn’t born into financial wealth. Her parents got divorced when she was a young girl, after which she moved to Scotland with her dad and 4 sisters. In Scotland she always felt she was missing out on the action going on in the big city life. She spent the first years of her career working admin and sales jobs. Her internal compass always pointed to computers and people – and she followed it. But she wasn’t fulfilled and wanted to do bigger things.

She planned to open her own business in Scotland and spent an entire year working on that business. She even started to get some clients. Yet as serendipity had it, she bumped into a long lost friend who invited her to immigrate to San Diego. Although she was flat broke, she bravely decided to listen to her heart, packed up her belongings and set off on a journey to open her (now mega successful) business in the US.

We spoke about the distinction between knowing and believing. Mari says believing can be great but then doubts can creep in or maybe you borrow someone else’s beliefs until you have your own. Knowing, however, is visceral. It’s just that. When you know you have no doubt.

We also spoke about the power of networking. On top of the importance of “who you know”, she stresses the importance of who knows YOU. Who can make introductions for you. Who will recommend you. And how do you stand out and get remembered? By giving selflessly and adding value.

We cover many more topics to do with self fulfillment, growth, awareness, mindfulness, peak performance and satisfaction (the latter which as humans we tend to rarely feel).

Mari is inspiring, humble and fascinating. This is a must listen for any person aspiring to become a better version of themselves whilst staying true to themselves. We hope you enjoy your listen!

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Noa Eshed 0:25
We’re here with Mari Smith, Facebook marketing expert, named top social media influencer by Forbes, keynote speaker and best selling author, Mari, how are you?

Mari 0:35
Oh, I’m so happy to be here. I’m looking forward to this interview. Thank you.

Noa Eshed 0:38
So what are you up to these days?

Mari 0:41
Speaking, traveling, teaching, marketing, keeping myself extremely busy. And I’ll tell you why there’s been so many changes already in 2019. With Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg is just, you know, it seems like there’s something being uncovered almost daily, that he has to deal with. And then he’s been publishing a lot of content on his profile and responding and doing his best. And there’s been a lot of change at Facebook. So it keeps me very busy. And I personally really actually enjoy being able to interpret and read between the lines of what’s happening, and so that marketers can really understand it and apply it to their businesses.

Ronen 1:22
Like, how do you do that? Because Facebook is been changing so much for so long, like, how adaptive do you have to be like, Isn’t it like, it’s becoming like a 24/7, you know, stock market and being online, just to understand all the time and how to optimize and maximize what you’re doing in Facebook? How do you do that all the time?

Mari 1:42
You’re absolutely right, Ronen, it feels like it’s a 24/7. And there’s days, I’m not kidding, there’s days where I will have plans to, you know, like work on a project or create a new course. And and I just have to pause what I’m doing. Because I have numerous sources that I read, obviously, new sources, and you know, my member of numerous groups, and it really does take a village, it takes a village to keep on top of all the different changes. There, I have filters too. So I am not that interested in like minute little changes, this button moved from here to here. Or a lot of times, there’s folks out there that really keep on top of the code behind the scenes and Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp, or maybe some of their competitors. And we’re keeping a close eye on TikTok for example, and what’s happening in the States with that. App is very, very popular. And so just being able to discern, okay, this is interesting, okay, this is something we’re keeping an eye on the future, whoa, this new thing could affect businesses. For example, yesterday, I just did a Facebook live on a brand new email that got sent out about engagement bait, and Facebook, back in 2017, actually put something out about engagement bait where you’re baiting people to comment on this, like the share this (right). And they’ve now pushed that over into video. So if you say those words in a video, it’s going to pick up on the audio. And that supposedly was in place some time ago, but I guess they’re just starting to really kind of ramp it up and enforce it. So I wanted to let my audience know, just be aware that your video reach could decline a little bit even more than it already is, if you’re mentioning these words. So I filter out what’s useful for marketers. And what’s just noise, quite frankly.

Noa Eshed 3:41
And what did you mean, when you say that, like things are going on specifically these days?

Mari 3:45
That’s all to do with privacy and criminal investigations and you having to potentially two major threats. One is potentially government regulation, and the other is potentially, antitrust lawsuits have been being broken up as a company having to separate out WhatsApp and Instagram. And so this is, twice this year already. Zuckerberg has published opinion pieces in major publications, one in January was the Wall Street Journal. And then one just the other week was in The Washington Post. And it’s basically Zuck taking a stance saying, This is how Facebook works. Here’s how our ads work. And then and the other one was an invitation to legislation, lawmakers and other tech companies. This is what it would look like if we all got together and made up some new rules. But people were not that receptive to it. It’s like Zuck trying to go he’s trying to preempt no possible moves out there. There’s a great book right now by Roger McNamee, it’s called Zucked. And he was an early investor in Facebook and I’m actually I’m listening to an audio. Absolutely fascinating. It’s just, I like to know the behind the scenes stories, but I don’t publish about it a lot, as I say back to that point where I just, my audiences 100% business. So I’m like, they’re not too worried about, you know, government regulations are obviously there’s horrible things have happened, including government, excuse me election interference. But at the end of the day, yes, those things need to be handled, there’s no question. But for the business user, my job is to educate them on what features to take advantage of what features to make sure they know about what’s coming, how they optimize them. Groups, there’s major, major focus on groups, and private messaging. And so that was actually on March 6, that Zuckerberg published a 3200 word privacy manifesto. And he declared – alright folks, we’re pivoting we’re going all in on creating this privacy focused social foundation for the future. And I was just about to do my opening keynote at Social Media Marketing World like 5000 people and like – ah, I’m gonna change my slides, change my talking points.

Mari 4:10
Mari, I’m intrigued about something. So (Yes?) this is my thought. About years ago, you would build a marketing strategy. That is a plan. So everything’s planned out in the year, you would build the creatives and distribute those creatives, and you had like an exact budget and plan. This is what’s fascinating. It’s so adaptive that I want to know as a business, how can you be so lean and agile, to get each time and plan differently? Because how far can you plan ahead today, that if at all.

Mari 6:37
Well, I love where you’re going with this, because something that I’ve been so passionate about for over a decade, 12 years, I mean, I’ve been doing this since 2007. So, and before that I did internet marketing, email marketing, and what I call relationship marketing is part of the title of my book that came out in 2012 is the new relationship marketing, the new part being the digital element, that’s the online social element, or the online social network element. And so I love to teach evergreen strategies, right? So it will never ever go out of style, to provide amazing customer service. What is changing is how we deliver that. So do you do it through a chat bot that have partially automated and then have a button that on your chat bot, your Facebook Messenger chatbot that would say, you know, talk to a human. So that person is interacting with the bot or getting their answers, questions answered, and then they’re like – ah, I need to talk to a person. So that’s a really big area that’s growing rapidly is customer service, and technology. I’m actually speaking at an event called the Customer Service Summit coming up in San Diego in early June. And they’re major major brands, major brands they’re, and many of them use a whole combination from Apple chat to obviously, outside of the US WhatsApp, in China WeChat. And so it’s utilizing all of these tools and platforms, anywhere, customers can reach you. The Evergreen element is you need to be on brand, you need to have clear guidelines, trained community managers, customer service reps, that kind of thing. And, and but the what’s changing, as I say is just the delivery mechanism. So another aspect to that’s that’s constant is content, we always are going to have to produce some kind of content, nobody engages with a completely an utterly blank profile, right? Whether it’s Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter or LinkedIn, you got to have some kind of content going out there. And what’s really big right now is video. So I really recommend video, about 70% of your posts on Facebook should be video posts, short video posts. And I love a platform, by the way plug for my clients at Wave. I’m a brand ambassador for Wave. Wave.video, they have a free account. They’re just awesome, you can create all the different kinds of formats and I use them practically every day. But you know, I was listening to Gary Vaynerchuk yesterday and a longtime friend, great, love his stuff. I’m sure you guys know him. And he was saying that every single company no matter what industry you’re in, we’re all in the media industry first. And he was given some advice to someone who’s in legal services. And he’s like – what if you found that the majority of your prospects are really into golf and you started a golf site. And now you’re competing with like golfers, daily golfers digest, what are all the golf publications are, but you’re attracting people to come to you because of that specific interest. That specific type of content, I thought was an interesting idea. But the bottom line is the Evergreen aspects are this: producing great content, engaging with people in the way in which they want to be engaged, and then the conversion components so that in the conversion, you’re inviting them to do business with you, and making sure, making sure there’s clear calls to action that they know where to go, what button to press, what phone number to call, how are you going to get them to become your customers. And those are just age old approaches to marketing no matter what the technology is doing, right?

Noa Eshed 10:22
Yeah. And I would add to that, adding value, so you’re creating content, but it doesn’t have to be why me and buy from me, but rather understand your audience and even like the example that you gave of golf, so if your audience is into golf, then add value there and see how you nurture and create a relationship. And through that, so when when it’s time and not just sort of interrupts and just go all in and just miss the momentum completely.

Mari 10:47
You’re absolutely right. Yeah, it’s really about storytelling, isn’t it? It’s about telling story, but not necessarily the story of you and your brand and all about you, like you say for sure, but meeting people where they’re at, and ideally telling the story of your clients of showcasing great results, and in showcasing real people getting real results. And and it just, yeah, the storytelling aspect of it is just this really powerful.

Noa Eshed 11:14
I feel like storytelling has become a little bit of a buzzword recently. And sometimes people sort of miss what that actually means. So it’s been around a lot, but I don’t think enough brands do it, right.

Mari 11:26
I agree. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’m a big fan of Donald Miller. He wrote the book, Building a StoryBrand, people can find them at storybrand.com. He’s got a podcast and trainings. And he really teaches people how to just absolutely crystal clear, clarify their message and meet the customer where they’re at. And also, just with websites, he has this great concept where if people look at your website, they have to burn calories in their brain to figure out what it is you do.

Noa Eshed 11:52
Yeah, exactly. And you don’t want to do that, you want people to sort of ease into your content and feel like they understand it. Actually, listen, I actually took this online course on CreativeLive by Alex Blumberg from This American Life. I really recommend it because he talks about storytelling from really professional angle. So I think also sort of as a marketer, if you think outside the box, as cliche as that is, and you try to understand storytelling as a concept, and not just through marketing, then that could really add a few points to each…

Mari 12:22
Yeah

Noa Eshed 12:23
So I’m actually thinking so I mean, you you weren’t born a Facebook expert. So how did you end up where you are?

Mari 12:31
Well, the short version of my stories I was originally born in Canada as of Canadian citizenship, but my parents are both Scottish. They had their family in Canada, and then I went back to Scotland with my dad, when my parents divorced.

Ronen 12:45
Wait. Where in Canada? We’re Canadians to here.

Mari 12:45
I was born just outside of Toronto.

Ronen 12:45
There you go. Okay.

Mari 12:47
And then when I was two, my folks moved over to BC. So it was raised in the in the absolute boonies, a very, very remote place. In the beautiful Kootenays of BC, tiny little Quaker community, my parents were actually teachers at the local Quaker school. So that was fun. It was, I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Growing up, I always thought I was missing out and missing out on the latest fashions and like the big city life and never really knew anything about it when I didn’t even see a television till I was like 12 years old. But no, my parents didn’t have much money at all. So then we go over to Scotland, my dad got custody of myself, all my sisters and raised us by himself. And then so I was there for next 20 years. And then, in my early 30s, I got an invitation to come to San Diego and I had been planning up to that point, I’d always been an employee sales and admin and I always had a penchant for computers and technologies loved them. Throughout my whole career. I’ve had these two loves absolutely love technology, the internet, computers, and I just love people. And I always have liked, like personality assessments and behavioral analysis, what makes people tick. And so then, I got this invitation to come to San Diego and the entire year before 1998 I had been planning to launch my own business and

Noa Eshed 14:12
Wait, wait, you got an invitation from who?

Mari 14:14
Oh, just a long lost friend. So somebody, a guy that had moved to San Diego. I hadn’t seen him in about five years. We bumped into each other in England, and he’s like, you know, what are you doing right now? You’d love San Diego I moved there and I was like – okay. I was flat broke at the time I had 50 British pounds, which is about $100. And this this long lost friend and his wife, they were very, very generous and basically funded my trip over here and I bought I couldn’t get one way, I came in in the country and I bought a 30 day round trip ticket for my friends, but before for me, I landed in this country and I’m like – alright, let’s do this. So just very next day pounding the pavement and knocking on doors and trying to just get some kind of work, to be able to, you know, fund my, my stay here. But I just knew absolutely knew in my heart I was supposed to emigrate. I was meant to work here and live here. And within a very short period of time I got introduced to numerous people. By by this friend of mine, his wife connected me up to someone who’s so one of the most connected people in San Diego. And she introduced me to an immigration attorney. I ended up bartering him I built built him a website in exchange for his legal fees. It was amazing. It was just I was really, really blast. And I started working for this this woman that was this connected woman, her name is Carol, still a dear friend to this day, and I helped her to basically get her book published and do her website and consulting training

Ronen 15:49
Mari, I have to understand something. Wait, this is, this is an amazing story. I just have to understand the psychology of it. You got to San Diego. And from the first moment you decided – that it I’m staying here, because?

Mari 16:00
Yeah, I knew, I knew even when my friend invited me back in Scotland when he says – would you like to come to San Diego? I packed enough I packed two suitcases. I told my family back there my father and three my sisters were still over there – and I’m like, I’m gonna I’m emigrating, I’m not coming back.

Noa Eshed 16:17
How old were you when you did that?

Mari 16:18
32.

Noa Eshed 16:19
Wow. And like, how did you know?

Mari 16:21
You know what’s interesting, though, is I have this theory, that there’s a distinction between a belief and a knowing. Because you can believe and believe, believe but then sometimes the doubts creep in. Or sometimes you can borrow somebody else’s belief until you have your own. But a knowing is different. Because a knowing I say that is etched into every cell of your being you just know, there’s just no doubt

Noa Eshed 16:46
Were you ever there before or you just knew and that’s it, and you don’t know even how you knew or what you knew. You just knew.

Mari 16:52
I just knew, it was a defining moment in life. I thought, because I’d spent the entire year 1998 putting together my business plan. I had business cards, I’d build a website, I even started to get some clients. And I was teaching personal development, public speaking, personal growth. And when this invitation came in, I just thought – oh, I’m supposed to build my business in America.

Noa Eshed 17:16
So you’re thinking of doing it in Scotland, and then the invitation came in and it all came together?

Mari 17:22
Yeah, I was literally goint into my bank. My bank in Scotland and I was about to sign to get a small business loan to like launch, launch my business over there. Because I was so so broke, I had no money. I was like – alright, I need some, I need some funds and my bank manager was like, alright. And so then this, like, the next day, this invite came in. I’m like – oh, I’m supposed to go to San Diego.

Noa Eshed 17:47
Wow, and were you scared?

Mari 17:49
You know, I wouldn’t say I was scared. I was very, very excited. I’m extremely resourceful person. And I think that comes from like moving a lot as a kid and just watching my dad, my dad, my hero, and just how resourceful he was. And he’s so creative, and just a real genius. And he he just always managed to thrive, even though he never he never had that much money. And he emigrated himself to and he was in his early 20s. He emigrated from Scotland to Canada. And he had like, 50 pounds to his name and a little bike. A little moped.

Noa Eshed 18:20
There’s a theme with that number.

Mari 18:23
Yeah, exactly, I know.

Noa Eshed 18:24
It’s a family story, you start with 50,

Mari 18:27
You start with 50, there you go. Maybe that’ll be the title of another book.

Noa Eshed 18:31
And then like did your parents support you? Because it’s probably like hard for parents to sort of give their blessing to not being able to be together and being like an ocean, oceans away.

Mari 18:41
Yeah, I definitely was tricky there. And I was very fortunate to you know, once I got myself established in the US, I’ve been able to go back to Scotland numerous times, usually about once a year, sometimes twice, I’ll go go visit and then plus, I’ve had my whole family have come to visit me many times over the years.

Ronen 18:59
Okay, so back to the you build the sites and you bartered with other people. And okay, so you’re really like grinding it. And and it actually sounds like this is where you sort of built a network for yourself, right? So through those, those grinding era of building sites and bartering you sort of started to get a good network on.

Mari 19:18
You’re absolutely right. Oh my gosh, we can’t stress this point enough. You know, that saying where it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Right. And there’s great truth to that. I absolutely believe that. And at the same time, I always like to add on another piece to that seeing so it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, but it’s who knows you. Because I could say well, gosh, I know Richard Branson. I know Oprah Winfrey but like – okay, wait a minute. Do they know Mari Smith? Do they, would they just pick the phone up? Hey, Mari, how you doing?

Noa Eshed 19:49
Also, if somebody asked them. Do you know Mari Smith, what would they say?

Mari 19:53
What would they say? Yeah, yeah, there’s a reputation part of it. There’s there’s a depth of knowing a connection. But generally speaking, like I say, it’s really about who knows you and who can make introductions for you and, and so yeah, I’m I mean, I used to be very active in Toastmasters and there are international organization for public speaking, very active in my local chapter in Scotland. So is one of the first things I did when I got to San Diego was I looked up Toastmasters. And I, okay, I go to join a local chapter. And then from there, we used to have this this organization in, in the US called learning, the Learning Annex, and the Learning Annex was all of these very inexpensive or free classes. So I just started signing up for all these classes, and I’m going in all kinds of different, you know, and I had to borrow my friend’s car, I didn’t have a car. I didn’t even have social security number yet or any didn’t have my papers. So it’s just, you know, getting out there networking, that’s how I got introduced to a whole bunch of amazing people that really were so supportive and helpful. Like I say, many are still my friends today.

Noa Eshed 21:00
So were you able to tap into those groups and places where you were able to get people to actually get to know you.

Mari 21:07
Exactly, yeah.

Ronen 21:08
Okay, so you’re from a different country, you land there, you start talking to people, and you’re, you’re very likeable. But how do you make them remember you? Like, how do you make it yourself? How do you brand yourself as useful for these, you know, at that point, they were, you know, bigger, larger, well connected, you know, they live there, they had all these advantages, but you sort of grew your network, like, and probably it’s like, ability, but what else? Like what was your superpower here?

Mari 21:38
Ha, you know, Noa, I said earlier, and that and it’s still true to this day, and that is adding value. And just looking like how can you help? How can you give selflessly, how can you just really plus this person and what they’re doing, and I’m very fortunate to have a lot of knowledge in technical arena, whether it’s, you know, the internet or computers or technology, I just technology comes so easy to me. And so I found that I was able to, to teach or help or guide and you know, have a really strong background and administration. And so I got connected to the so I did like the Landmark Forum too. The Landmark Forum is a very long, established personal development program. And then through this friend, Carol, she introduced me to a whole global community called Money & You. That’s a three day program called Money & You established in the 80s. And the owner of that program, you know, I was able to be creative with her, and it was able to help her out in her office and do all kinds of great things in marketing and administration. And I just kind of like bartered my way through the first, you know, six months or so of coming to the US. And by just looking for how can I help this person? I think it just people just really wanted to help me. I think they felt like they had this new protege. Here’s this, this young single woman who’s who’s just very eager, and in many ways, it was kind of innocent, and I didn’t really know, you know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, in terms of like, what what was not possible, I just I just knew I was supposed to live here and have a great life and be very helpful and and contribute to others.

Ronen 23:14
I’m wondering, you’re very humble. But I’m wondering, in retrospect, was it you helping them or because you learn really quick, and you came with the tech background? You were helping them more, you know, like, your memories is the funny things. I’m wondering in that situation, maybe they’re saying – wow, this, this, she saved me she built this amazing, you know, whatever. You know what I mean?

Mari 23:38
Yeah, I hear you, I hear you. So my friend Carol, for example. She’s a she’s an expert with the disc model, a DiSC, it’s a personality assessment. And, and she for like, 20 years or more, she’d always wanted to publish a book. So I just helped her to publish a book. I’m like, well, here, let me just I’ll put the book together for you and get it published,

Noa Eshed 23:57
Were you sort of tapping into the way that you could help people out, and then through that nurturing relationships and climbing up some sort of milestones that you’ve identified and set for yourself?

Ronen 24:08
Like, was it a strategy or was it random?

Mari 24:11
That’s, you know, it was a strategy, you know, you’re right. And I that’s something that I’ve just really had, gosh, you know, I think it’s probably an ethic that my father instilled in me if I go way, back way, way back to being a little kid. And he would always say things like, if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing, right. And he’s, he’s also a fiercely independent Scot. And he’d be like, it’d be like, if you want anything done around here, do it yourself. So he’s like, he’s also a very, very hard worker and I really stuck in at school and I found like, with my father being a single parent, raising five girls by himself aged three to 13 att the time, I found the way to get my dad’s attention was to be really smart at school and to come home with great grades. And then he but he gives me a moment of attention and appreciation. Like yay dad, look, I got some good grades. I just have I’ve always been an overachiever and a high performer and just really determined and and, and then I think also, you mentioned humility. My with my Quaker upbringing, I do believe that my, both my parents really instilled that in all of us to just treat everybody as equals, and to just not put people on pedestals and don’t allow others to put you on pedestals and just to really be to be humble.

Ronen 25:29
Right. And, and as entrepreneur, so yeah, like, what’s amazing about your story is, is again, as every giant winner, and I’m not going to be humble about you, if you let me. So, like growing from nothing to something that is amazing and inspiring. So if I was an entrepreneur now, okay, and I want to be like you, I want to be the best at what I do. Okay? What would be three things that you would tell them that these are your rules that you’re not willing to break?

Mari 25:57
Oh, gosh, okay, so I say number one at the top of the list is to be true to yourself. Like your gut, for most people is gonna be a gut feeling. We all have made decisions slightly differently, or like we knew our true some people might be feeling in their heart, some people it’s more than their brain or their throat chakra, or just, you know, where are you kind of get your truth where your truth meter is. And I know for me, it’s in my gut. And I know there’s times when I’ve ignored my intuition, or my gut feeling, I’m like – ah, oh, my gosh, I find myself down a path I didn’t really intend to be.

Noa Eshed 26:28
And it’s never wrong.

Mari 26:29
It’s never wrong. No, because we’re all tapped into, we’re all connected into the infinite intelligence, that greater universal collective consciousness. And when you allow yourself to quiet the noise, and that’s one of the biggest challenges today is there’s just so much noise, there’s so much, you know, notifications and social networking. If we, if we overuse them, it can be too overwhelming, and that we don’t hear that still quiet voice. And so…

Noa Eshed 26:54
And that’s coming from a Facebook expert.

Mari 26:56
Yeah, exactly. Use it within reason, you know, but it’s still challenging because they build these platforms with psychologists, and they make them so that we will release these brain chemicals, and we’ll want to keep coming back to that fomo, right? So anyway, yeah, I would say that we want to be treated ourselves no matter what, have a clear plan, if possible. And, but be willing to be flexible, like, like, know what you want, but but also, don’t get too attached, because the universe might have a totally different plan for you. And that’s okay. One of my clients actually, he’s out to Tokyo. He’s got a book coming out in June. It’s called Happy Money. And he’s kind of known as like, the Tony Robbins of Japan is really gonna make a big splash here in the US, Ken Honda. His name is he’s just lovely. Gosh, talk about humility. Just a beautiful, humble, generous kind, man. And

Ronen 27:56
That’s not totally Tony Robbins.

Mari 27:58
Yeah, yeah. Innovation part. I think that’s really the motivation part. They call them a Zen millionaire over in Japan. Reason I’m bringing them up because this this aspect of like, setting your goals, but not being attached to them, and he has this concept that everybody has like a container that you can hold so much money in. So some people it’s like, you know, hundreds of 1000s others, it’s millions, 10 millions, hundreds of millions, billions, whatever the amount is, is like you’re able to kind of hold or attract or manifest this amount of money. Other people might call a blueprint or whatever, there’s different bodies of work out there. And what Ken says was fascinating to me is that he teaches a lot in Japan, but also China. And he says, he says that everybody in the US when it comes to the US and China, all they want to know is how do I grow my container? I want him I need a bigger container, I need more money. And he’s like, whereas in Japan, they come to him and they say how do I cultivate more satisfaction with the container that I have? And that is something I think is such a powerful message for for everybody today because we’re hearing these messages about hustle and grind and get ahead and more more more consumed more, generate more, and I’m like, wait a minute, then one day you might wake up and go is this it? What am I pushing and hustling for? Why do I need more so.

Noa Eshed 29:28
It’s also never enough when you think that way? You always want to grow the container.

Mari 29:32
It’s never enough. You know, I know I mean this is just such a fascinating conversation we’re having here today. As I just recently heard an amazing cardiologist speak here here in San Diego she was speaking at an event I was at and she said the only area that as human beings ever feel satiated, satisfied. Is when we’re eating. You eat till you’re full otherwise every other area of life, it’s never enough. We always want more. I’m like, that stopped me in my tracks. I’m like – oh my God, she’s absolutely right.

Noa Eshed 30:08
I’m really trying to think now, if I if I can think of other times, it’s difficult. Could it be true?

Mari 30:13
It depends. But yeah, I think that it takes a cultivation and I was gonna say maturity but I’ve seen I’ve seen kids and teenagers and you know, younger generations, it’s not necessarily about age, it’s more about having the wherewithal or the decisiveness that you are going to be mindful, you’re going to know yourself, I think there’s enormous power in knowing yourself and not getting swept up in what society thinks that you should do, and be and become, and just really, as we said earlier, but really, you know, tapping into your own truth. And I think it’s a lifelong journey. You know, I always used to say that, that you’re never finished growing. And the reason that you know, is that you’re above ground. You’re still alive, you’re still growing, you’re still getting to know yourself, and you’re always striving to become the best version of yourself. I think it was the late the late, great Dr. Wayne Dyer that said that, you know, don’t don’t compare yourself with others, he’s like, you can absolutely compare yourself with yourself. So you want to be a better version of you than you were six months ago, six years ago, 60 years ago, and always looking to be a better version. But that doesn’t mean that it’s about more, it doesn’t mean that you’ve got more of everything.

Ronen 31:35
I’m curious about something. You sound to me, like, like, you’re into a lot of flow of things, like peak performance flow.

Mari 31:40
Yeah.

Ronen 31:41
Yeah. Like, is it like a thing now, like, this is what’s interesting. Everybody has all entrepreneurs that I met in the meantime, that it was successful, have their own ways to maintain their flow, or peak performance. Either things that are, let’s call them material that is not natural, or material that is natural. Meaning through themselves, or either meditating or, or hiking or whatever. What like, what’s your way of maintaining the flow?

Mari 32:11
Yeah, so I do meditate. I love time in nature, I’m very fortunate to live quite close to a beautiful lake. And I like to be creative. I don’t have as much time for it. I don’t make as much time for it. But I play the keyboards. And I like to paint and draw. My partner and I have a beautiful church that we go to most Sundays. Yeah, so just really striving to keep our spiritual lives connected.

Ronen 32:43
Now, this is like, one of our final questions. But this is really important for all our listeners. Now, you’ve done so much like you’re saying you want to become a better version of yourself, which I love that sentence. What’s the next step for you? As two versions? Like you can’t, you can’t tell it personally, but also personally and also professionally, what’s the leap up in the height you’ve been in right now? Like, how higher? Are you, are you going to strive? And how are you going to do that and what it is?

Mari 33:11
Well, I’m a really, really big fan of digital streaming television and I, Facebook Live, like really changed changed all of our lives. I love doing Facebook Lives, I have a home studio. And so the next level up is to actually have a show an online show, as well as a major television show, I see myself the hosting or co-hosting a regular mainstream television show around business and development, personal growth. I have a concept I started many, many years ago called Business & Beyond. Back in 2013, I had a club called Business & Beyond club, I need to resurrect that as a mastermind to really help people make that connection between the business and the personal development, the spiritual aspects of of business, because we all you know, it’s not like we’re two different people, we have that. And so just just really working on myself to make sure that I have the capacity to have the energy and the support team around me to be like a mini Oprah. I love Brene Brown. I just aspire to people like that, Michelle Obama to just be able to have major major stages where I’m I’m an amazing public speaker imparting messages about empowerment, about business about self development, and being Facebook and more so not just Facebook, but Facebook and more so business and beyond.

Noa Eshed 34:44
So like currently, most of your influence and you have you have millions of followers. I mean, a lot of people in the Facebook marketing industry have learned so much from you. So do you feel like is what you’re saying is that you’d like to expand that influence the more of helping people sort of fulfill themselves as a whole?

Mari 35:06
I’d like to expand, yes, to be to be more mainstream. And at the moment, I mean, I found this from the in the 12 years that I’ve been a Facebook expert that people will come to me, especially when I do a live event, they’ll come to me, because of the Facebook, right? That’s the hook, if you will, they come to learn how to market their business, how to grow using social media, mostly Facebook, Instagram. But then when they get to know me then, I helped to kind of open their open themselves up to more and this is a lot of it has come through in this conversation we’ve had today. And we’re that we can bring these these soft skills to light. And I wrote about them in my book actually have a whole chapter on soft skills, which are things like deep listening, compassion, empathy, really just having having deep and meaningful conversations, as opposed to making it all like the left brain business technical stuff.

Ronen 35:58
But that’s very obvious for me, like, you’re seeing a Facebook expert, but you’re actually it’s not Facebook that your expert of. You’re expert of the users, the people. How, like to make them listen, to make them empathetic to what’s going on, you’re building relations. So it’s like, it’s very mainstream, because Facebook is not like it is about the tech and adaptiveness that we talked before. But I think that what you do is you’re actually building audiences, which is super mainstream, you’re talking to people, which is like, exactly what people are looking to focus for. So it’s very logical for me that it is mainstream already.

Mari 36:33
Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Yes, that’s very true.

Ronen 36:37
Okay, I did the you know, saying what I think?

Mari 36:41
Yeah.

Ronen 36:42
So out of all of this. We had an amazing time. My last question is, what is your superpower?

Mari 36:51
Oh, I’m going to say listening. Listening. Because it’s so all-encompassing to listening, like listening to myself to my own intuition, my own inner guidance, listening to my mentors, my coaches, and and then listening to others and listening between the lines and being able to have that empathy that you just spoke about Ronen. And to be able to, to listen also just kind of tune in as to the kind of the whole industry like I feel like I’m always listening to where’s the social media industry right now? Where’s the planet right now? What do people really need and want right now? So it is like, really tuning into that collective consciousness and listening with deep heart and compassion and knowing and knowing that in order to positively impact the planet, it starts at home, like giving peace, peace starts inside of ourselves, you know, and just being able to speak my truth in a very compassionate way when sometimes that’s like being able to say no to something that people if somebody really wants me to say yes to, but I’m listening to mine and guidance. So I’m like – this is not for me right now. And just do that in a very honoring way.

Ronen 38:10
Amazing, amazing. Mari, thank you so much. We’re definitely going to tell our audience to listen to the super listener. And we appreciate the time.

Noa Eshed 38:23
Yeah this is really powerful. I’m really glad that we met each other and we got an opportunity to be doing this.

Mari 38:27
I look forward to the episode coming out, please do let me know.

Noa Eshed 38:30
Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Mari 38:32
Take care. Thanks, Ronen. Thanks Noa.

Noa Eshed 38:34
Okay. Bye, bye.

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