Mari Smith is known by many as the Facebook Queen. Everything she does revolves around people and relationships – fostering new ones, building and maintaining existing ones, and helping others with their relationships. She has studied human behavior over the years and has a particular fascination for personality assessments.
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Resources Mentioned:
- Your Big Idea: Successful Entrepreneurs have One Big Idea. Follow JLD’s FREE training & you’ll discover Your Big Idea in less than an hour!
- Audible – Get a FREE Audiobook & 30 day trial if you’re not currently a member!
Success Quote
- “The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself, because everyone, and everything, is a reflection of that relationship.” – Esperanza.
Business Failure
- Back in 1999, Mari showed up on the shores of California with a 30-day visa, 50 british pounds, and not much else. Many would have considered that situation a failure, but listen to how Mari turned that situation into gold quite quickly!
Entrepreneurial AHA Moment
- Mari realized she could make a living being truthful to herself. When she started showing that truthfulness to others, her AHA moment struck her speechless.
Current Business
- Mari is the Queen of Facebook for a reason. Listen as she tells you what her latest passion is, and what her vision for the future looks like.
Small Business Resources
- HootSuite.com: Social Media Management Dashboard.
- TweetCaster Pro: The #1 Mobile Twitter App.
Best Business Book
- The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.
Interview Links
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!
3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!
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Full Transcript
John Lee Dumas: Hire Fire Nation and thank you for joining me for another episode of EntrepreneurOnFire.com, your daily dose of inspiration. If you enjoy this free podcast, please show your support by leaving a rating and review here at iTunes. I will make sure to give you a shout out on an upcoming showing to thank you!
John Lee Dumas: Okay. Let’s get started. I am simply ecstatic to introduce my guest today, Mari Smith. Mari, are you prepared to ignite?
Mari Smith: Absolutely, yes!
John Lee Dumas: Oh, I can’t wait! Mari is known by many as the “Facebook Queen.” Everything she does revolves around people and relationships. Fostering new ones, building and maintaining existing ones, and helping others with their relationships. She has studied human behavior over the years and has a particular fascination for personality assessments.
Mari, I’ve given Fire Nation a little overview, but take a minute, tell us a little about you personally, and then take another minute and tell us about your business.
Mari Smith: Sure, sure. Absolutely. Well, pretty much as soon as I start talking, people realize I have an accent, depending on what part of the world they’re listening from. I am actually a Scottish and Canadian and a Californian. I was born in Canada to Scottish parents, so I really do feel that I’m 100% Scottish. I have tartan blood [Laughs], but I have a real allegiance to Canada, being born there. I spent the first 12 years of my life there. Then I went to Scotland when I was 12 and I stayed there for the next 20 years. Then I’ve been in San Diego, California since ’99.
I was always an employee throughout my whole working life. I left school real early and went straight to the workforce and pretty much had a job, all kinds of different various careers working with people at marketing or sales or administration, computer and training and technology. So I just had this theme throughout many of my different jobs, my career, where my love of people and my love of technology was this common like dual theme.
When I got an invitation to come to San Diego, out of the blue really, by a long lost friend I haven’t seen for a while in ’99, I came here with two suitcases and flat broke. I had 50 British pounds in my pocket, knew this one person, and I just had an absolute knowing in every cell of my body that I was supposed to come to California and have a whole new life. I got bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and was just very, very blessed to meet a whole community of people who supported me and helped me to get my visa and really get a head start on my life in the states.
I’ve been really an entrepreneur since then, involved with my two loves – with people and with technologies – doing coaching and online marketing and creating information products and doing speaking and training. So I feel really, really blessed in the journey that I’ve had at this point. I feel like I’ve had several lifetimes in there actually.
John Lee Dumas: I love that. San Diego will always hold a very dear place in my heart. I spent two years living in Pacific Beach. It was just a phenomenal time. You hear so many entrepreneurs that live in San Diego. You kind of scratch your head, but then you realize, hey, well if you’re an entrepreneur and you are location-independent, why wouldn’t you live in San Diego?
Mari Smith: There you go. Yes.
John Lee Dumas: It’s pretty incredible down there. Listen, Mari, I know that you’re huge on personal assessments, and I heard through the grapevine that you’re a “High I.” What exactly does that mean?
Mari Smith: Yes, the DISC. The DISC model. It’s a four-quadrant. People might have heard it as “Colors” or all kinds of different ways to interpret it. One of my favorites, because it’s so easy to understand, and it actually came about 2,400 years ago in the times of Aristotle, but the “I” stands for “Influence” and it’s somebody who’s very, very much a people person. They tend to be extroverted, they get their energy from being with other people and are very expressive and gregarious and just have a real strong love of connecting with people.
The “D” stands for “Dominance.” It’s more of a director, driver, a real strong commanding presence and leader. The “S” is “Support.” Steady, gentle, loyal, a wonderful friend, a wonderful administrator, a rock solid support person. Then the “C” is more of the analytical. It stands for “Compliance to rules and regulations,” but that’s your analytical accountants, exacting, detail-oriented. That’s actually my secondary.
You know what’s funny, John? In that DISC model, my primary, I’m like a 90% influencer. The High I. Then my secondary is the Compliance. The analytical and detail-oriented, and I have this kind of a dichotomy in myself of pretty much every day I’m like, “Okay, I’ve got to connect with people. No, handle the details, handle the details. No, connect with people.” So it actually lends itself well, ironically, to social media.
John Lee Dumas: I can picture the two mini Mari Smiths on both of your shoulders just speaking at you [Laughs].
Mari Smith: [Laughs] Yes. I know, right. It’s like having this push-pull relationship, yes.
John Lee Dumas: Oh, I love it. So Mari, let’s transition now to our first real topic, which is the success quote because EntrepreneurOnFire is all about the motivation and getting our listeners pumped up for the great content that you’re going to be sharing, and the great content that you’ve already shared. So what is your favorite success quote?
Mari Smith: Well, it’s actually by my spiritual teacher, whose name is Esperanza. Esperanza Universal, and she’s the founder of the SOUL Institute, which is the Systems Of Universal Law. She’s someone I met back in ’99. I kind of avoided her for 10 years for some bizarre reason [Laughs]. I was like scared to really own my power. As Marianne Williamson says, we’re more afraid of our light.
Esperanza has been a massive influence on my life for the last three-and-a-half years. My favorite quote that applies to every area of life is this – “The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself because everyone and everything is a reflection of that relationship.” To me, that applies to business, finance, personal, professional, all aspects of life. If you want to see what’s going on in your inner world, look at your outer world and that will tell you. If you don’t like what’s going on in your outer world, You’ll need to work on your inner world.
John Lee Dumas: I love that. Now take it down to the ground level and share with us how you apply this mentality to your everyday life. Let’s hear a specific example.
Mari Smith: So a specific example would be let’s say – and this is actually pretty relevant right now. Let’s say I’ve been booked for a speaking engagement and it’s fantastic. It’s in another part of the world. It’s exotic, I’m getting paid a nice big fee for it. Then things happen where I got another speaking engagement that’s also international and it’s now feeling like it’s adding a lot to my plate and I’m now at a choice point to go, “Wow! Do I want to travel this much? Do I really want to put this amount of commitment on my calendar?”
Then stuff starts happening. The first one, the speaking engagement, they’re not being as responsive or they haven’t paid my deposit yet or something like that. So rather than going into reaction and going, “Oh my God! What’s going on? Why aren’t they…” I’m looking, “Well, that’s interesting. What an interesting reflection.” This is my higher self or the universe saying to me, “Mari, do you really, really want to put this much commitment on your calendar?” It’s like the Aikido Principle. I can just go with the flow and not be attached.
A wonderful quote by Wayne Dyer where he says, “Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing.” So that’s worked for it. Pretty much every day, every day an appointment gets moved around or I have a specific result that I want to have happen. I want so many people to sign up for an event, and it turns out maybe half as many sign up for it. It’s totally okay. It is what it is.
John Lee Dumas: Absolutely. That’s another powerful quote and a powerful example. Thank you for being so specific with Fire Nation and really giving us a peak into how you interpret that quote.
Mari Smith: Yes.
John Lee Dumas: We’ll use that to transition to the next topic, Mari, which is failure. I have a little inkling that you don’t necessarily probably love the term “failure,” and we don’t have to because we can also term it as a challenge or an obstacle that we need to overcome, but however you do want to define it, as entrepreneurs, we face these situations throughout our journey. EntrepreneurOnFire is about your journey, Mari, as our spotlighted entrepreneur. So take us through a challenge or an obstacle or a failure that you faced in your past and how you overcame that.
Mari Smith: Sure, sure. You’re right. I mean I don’t typically have the word “failure” in my vocabulary. I might say challenge and/or a learning opportunity. I think for me, it’s always an opportunity to learn and to just really maintain that deep connection to myself and to sources I mentioned earlier so that if something occurs in my life or my business or my finances or whatever where it’s like, “Oh my gosh, am I ever going to overcome this?” No, okay. Wait a minute. I can absolutely affect my experience right now in this moment by the words and the thoughts and the feelings and the actions that I take.
John Lee Dumas: Yes.
Mari Smith: So specifically to answer your question, John, I would say that the biggest challenge I’ve overcome is the very journey that we talked about at the beginning of our chat here, and that is coming to this country as a complete foreigner with a 30 day flight. I came, I landed here, and I couldn’t get a one way flight, obviously. I’m coming in on a British passport and I have dual citizenship with Canada as well, and very little money.
I say to people there’s a difference between a belief and a knowing. To me, I can absolutely believe that something’s possible. I’m almost having to will myself to believe it. Whereas a knowing never has any doubt. A knowing is etched into every cell of your body and your being that you know something is meant to be. So even though in hindsight now with the self that I am now, some 13 years after my journey to this country, I can look back and go, “Oh yes, I know. I have so much more wisdom now. Now what would I say to that younger person?” I wouldn’t even say I was necessarily naïve. I just was very optimistic and I tend to see the glass half full.
But really, the position I find myself in now, I’m very, very fortunate to have a successful business and have a significant platform, and I just love social media. That kind of fell into my lap in 2007 and was really an evolution of where I was taking my career. I joke about being an overnight success 10 years in the making because if I hadn’t overcome that challenge 13 years ago of, oh my gosh, how am I going to legally find a way to work and live in this country, but have no money?
One of the things that occurred is actually I got introduced to a fantastic immigration attorney within just a few weeks of getting here just by being really active in the community and networking and whatnot. I ended up trading him his legal fees for building a website. I built him a website for a project he was working on. I was like, “What’s this barter thing? We don’t do that in Scotland. Oh my gosh!” [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: That is a great example of how you turned that potential obstacle or challenge into a learning experience, and I just love your term or phrase there. I’m definitely going to be using that in the future because it’s really how we define situations that matter so much. So thank you for sharing that and thank you for opening my eyes up to another way to look at a situation.
Let’s go to the other end of the spectrum right now, Mari. That’s the aha moment. As entrepreneurs, just like we face challenges every day, we also have these little aha moments that just inspire us and propel us forward. You’re the kind of person I know that just relishes these moments and really uses them to just inspire you in the different directions that you’re taking. Can you take us back still in your journey as an entrepreneur to a really large light bulb that just went off in your head and you said, “Wow! This is something that’s going to resonate with my target audience, with my fans, with my potential clients.” Do you have a moment like that?
Mari Smith: Yes. Yes, I do. Back in 2003, I got introduced to Harv Eker. He’s the author of “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.” He has this huge event, the Millionaire Mind Intensive and he had just begun to lead them in California. I went and just fell in love with the kind of training at the time that he was doing. I ended up working with the company for a while. I took his Train the Trainer program and just really, really loved the style of teaching where it’s like super learning. There’s a lot of interactive training.
Fast forward to 2009, so I was involved with this company a little bit as a coach and I took a lot of the programs. Then as I grew my real strong brand as a social media leader , and specifically, as the premiere Facebook marketing expert on the planet, I will claim that [Laughs].
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Mari Smith: I got invited to speak at one of Harv Eker’s events, and actually, I spoke two years in a row. So the aha moment, here I am up on stage, the thousand people in the audience giving me a raving five minute standing ovation before I had even opened my mouth, before I had even said a word. That’s the kind of audience that they have. They’re just wonderful. I presented the information to them. I did a great session on social media for them and we had a great time.
Specifically, one of my own internal personal fears is around incorporating spiritual concepts and universal truths and be willing to weave that into the business world and to just be really real. To talk about some of the mishaps I’ve had and some of the challenges. It was just absolutely beautiful the first time I spoke at that event. It was a thousand people and it was in 2009. A lot of women were coming up to me in tears and just saying thank you. Thank you for sharing your truth and your heart and your light, and for being real and for not trying to sell us or giving us tons of valuable content.
I saw I’m absolutely living my dream life right now, and I always have. I feel that way every day. Some days are challenging of course, but it’s just an amazing feeling to know when you can show up to “work” every day and be 100% fully authentically you, and that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do in this lifetime.
John Lee Dumas: That’s powerful, Mari. When you had that aha moment that you just so graciously shared with us, what were some specific actions that you took to really leverage that aha moment into what you currently have today?
Mari Smith: I really began to deepen my trust – my own level of trust in myself and to watch when the self-doubts come up and the fears and the concerns about really just putting myself out there. I lead my own events. Just a few months ago, I had a real small group training here in San Diego, and over the last couple of years, I’ve just gotten so much more comfortable with being extremely transparent and authentic and just being willing to be vulnerable that my spiritual teacher, Esperanza, says the safest place in the world is your own vulnerability. You just sharing the inside of you.
So people come to me for social media training. I love it when people say, “You’re really a spiritual teacher too.” I say, “I resonate with that because I gravitate towards social media.” Of course I do. But I really see that social media is channels. It provides us with channels through which we can get the message out, whatever that might be or whatever our cause is, whatever really fires us up, that we want to make this change on the planet and we can take it out through social media. That Facebook and Twitter and all these sites have compelled us as human beings I believe to a higher standard of excellence and integrity and authenticity. Not like there’s necessarily levels, but it’s like people just want the real you.
So I have really strived to do that more and more in my business, and when people come up to me now at my own events and say, “Oh my gosh, that was transformational, that was life-changing,” and all I’ve “done” is taught them some social media skills [Laughs].
John Lee Dumas: Mari, with all of these amazing milestones that you’re sharing with us, have you had an I’ve made it moment?
Mari Smith: That’s a great question. I probably have, John, and I don’t have a real specific one that’s coming to mind this second. I have a way of measuring my success each and every day, and that is each night when I go to sleep, that I feel that I’m living my life on my own terms and that I’m in alignment with my truth and my gifts and what I’m supposed to do in this lifetime as I say. So I would say, John, I think probably every day. I would say every day, I have that I’ve made it moment because if I don’t say that, if I have this nagging feeling, which I think a lot of people tend to do, of like one day, someday, I’m going to make it. One day I’m going to put a stake in the ground and go, “When I lose those five pounds, when I make that extra million dollars, when I have a baby, when I travel the world, when I write a book,” or whatever the things are that people want to do and with them like then I’ve made it, we call it the when I/then I syndrome. I just feel for me, I’ve already made it, and I make it every day.
John Lee Dumas: The when I/then I syndrome. I love that, Mari. It just speaks so clearly. It’s going to resonate so well with Fire Nation. It’s just great to hear that you actually take a step back, apparently every single day, and just really appreciate the achievements that you’ve accomplished throughout your career, the milestones that you’re making, because so many entrepreneurs just get caught up and putting their head down, driving towards their lofty goals. Reaching those goals, and then just immediately setting that next goal forward where it’s so important to set goals and to have those lofty standards for yourself, but to appreciate the achievement that you’ve made. EntrepreneurOnFire is about the journey, and I’m so glad to hear that you’re enjoying your journey because it’s just a great symbol for Fire Nation in general to enjoy their journey.
Mari Smith: Awesome! Thank you so much. Yes, I think there’s nothing worst for entrepreneurs or just people in general, to be climbing and climbing and climbing a ladder, only to get to the top and find out it was leaning against the wrong wall [Laughs].
John Lee Dumas: I love that! I am writing so many notes down right now. This is incredible.
Mari Smith: [Laughs] All these little gems.
John Lee Dumas: Let’s move to the next topic now, which is your current business. You have so many exciting things going on right now. Speaking engagements, everything to do with social media, you’re the Facebook Queen. Facebook is really just taking on a life of its own in so many exciting areas. What is one thing that’s really exciting you about your business, about Mari Smith, right now?
Mari Smith: Well, I just love to do webcasts, otherwise known as webinars. Over the last year, I’ve invested a significant amount of money – a quarter of a million dollars, in fact – over the last twelve months to work with an extremely high end business coach, and she has helped me to really, really elevate my brand, my messaging and really overhaul my business and the different streams of revenue. She has a background in television. She used to have her own TV show for 10 years back in the UK.
So what we have done this year is really up leveled the standard and quality of these webcasts that I do where I go and I rent a professional studio, I have multiple different cameras. We have a script, we have a studio audience. So sure, it’s a webinar, but it’s literally television quality. I just love the camera and the camera loves me, and I have said for years in the context of social media, that there is no amount of sophisticated technology that will ever, ever take the place of in-person, live, pressing the flesh, eye to eye, belly to belly, shaking that hand and being able to read somebody’s body language, feel their energy.
But I’ll tell you something, the next best thing is video, and specifically live. So live streaming at like Google+ Hangouts. That’s a really popular feature. We have Skype video. All these different mediums that we have. FaceTime on the iPhone. Then now like really where you’re seeing the convergence of television and the Internet and streaming technology and mobile apps. So I’m just really excited about where all these is going. I’ll tell you what, John, you will see me one of these days on a main, major television network because that’s where all these is going.
John Lee Dumas: I will applaud that day because it’s your kind of energy and passion, Mari, that we need more of in the mainstream. So I’m excited for that to happen. I’ve no doubt it will happen. Your confidence is just shining the way, and there’s great things to come.
Mari, EntrepreneurOnFire is really about telling your journey, and part of your journey is kind of pulling the curtain back and looking inside a little bit. I know that you don’t have two days that are identical in any way, shape or form. That’s just not the life of an entrepreneur, but can you share with our audience two tasks that seem to occupy a good portion of your day, every day?
Mari Smith: I would say the first one, absolutely undoubtedly, is engagement. I have another quote for you that’s one of my own, and that is specifically in terms of online marketing or social media marketing, that “content is king, but engagement is queen, she rules the house.” So a fact of social media marketing, sure you can delegate your content. I have help with one of my team members who finds content for me to put on Twitter, but I’m so, so rigorously committed to being the only one that does the engaging when it’s me. I don’t have ghost tweeters. Nobody writes on my behalf and speaks in my voice. So one task, every single day, I’m going to check my tweets, my Facebook. I’m going to personally respond to as many people as I can. It’s just really, really critical to me.
I would say the second task that occupies a majority of my day is really the planning and the scheduling. One of the major changes I put in place this year with my coach was to switch from – well, I use a calendar, a digital calendar system, but in addition, I have augmented that with a giant wall-sized, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, year at a glance planner, and use little sticky notes and Sharpies and we have whiteboards and flipcharts everywhere, and my whole team and I, we’re just always making sure that we’re mapping out and planning ahead and scheduling and really having full control over each and every day and the results.
John Lee Dumas: Thank you for giving us that insight, Mari, because oftentimes, the word “entrepreneur” is just a mystery to people. To be able to really take a glimpse and see that just like everybody else, you’re on Facebook, you’re on Twitter, you’re engaging with people, that’s just really great to see and it really just makes you much more accessible.
Mari Smith: Thank you.
John Lee Dumas: So Mari, we’re going to move to the last segment of the show, which is the Lightning Round. It’s my favorite part of the show because I get to ask you a series of questions and you get to come back to us with amazing and mind-blowing answers. Does that sound like a plan?
Mari Smith: Absolutely! Sure.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?
Mari Smith: Well, I would say undoubtedly, it was belief. Belief in myself. Belief that I could do it, belief that I was capable, belief that I had a vision and a mission and that I was meant to be a leader, and that I dance this fine line still on a daily basis of getting out there and being a leader and not making it about my ego. Just really always leading from the heart and keeping the ego in check.
One of the ways that I do that is before I put anything out there, I always ask myself, what is my deepest intent? In fact, before I send any tweet or Facebook post or email or text, I’d go, what is my deepest intent? That allows me to always come from the heart and not from the ego.
John Lee Dumas: What is the best business advice you ever received?
Mari Smith: That was – gosh, I want to say probably 10 years ago. A person I only ever met once, they were a speaker at a coaching group that I used to belong to, and we ended up meeting up a few days later for lunch. This person said to me this powerful question which I use in my own coaching programs, and that is if I were to buy everything you offer, how much would it cost me and what would I get for my money? When you can answer that question as an entrepreneur, your whole business model there, you will see where it’s flawed. You will see where if you’re trying to make a million dollars this year, but you don’t have the right components in place, you don’t have enough to offer people can give you money for, then you might need to reorganize your revenue streams and profit centers.
John Lee Dumas: What a unique insight. What’s something that’s working for you or your business right now?
Mari Smith: I would say going back to that webcast, the live webcast, and just doing these like television quality broadcasts where people can interact and people can get tremendous value. I use it as a revenue generator where I have people come and join me for free, and then I will always make an offer so they can continue to work with me if they wish. My most successful one this year, I had 6,000 people tune in live from around the world. So I’m always looking to beat my own record [Laughs].
John Lee Dumas: That’s great, and I have no doubt you will accomplish that goal, Mari.
Mari Smith: Thank you.
John Lee Dumas: Do you an Internet resource like an Evernote or something along those lines that you’re just in love with that you can share with Fire Nation?
Mari Smith: Well, a tool that I use every day, absolutely beyond a doubt, is HootSuite.com. That allows my team to schedule posts for me. We use it predominantly for Twitter because Facebook has its own scheduler. Yes, I absolutely use that every day. I have different apps on my iPhone that I use regularly too, but probably HootSuite is my daily one that I use.
TweetCaster Pro. There you go, I’ll give a mobile one. TweetCaster Pro is my favorite Twitter app for the iPhone.
John Lee Dumas: Nice!
Mari Smith: I use that daily.
John Lee Dumas: That’s an EntrepreneurOnFire first, and we love those.
Mari Smith: [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: What’s the best business book that you’ve read?
Mari Smith: The best business book is Darren Hardy’s “Compound Effect.” A simple, quick read. I highly recommend the book and the CDs. Pop it in your car, listen to it many times. Darren Hardy is the publisher of Success Magazine. He’s a friend of mine. An amazing man. His book is so, so concise and well put together, and you start to recognize that success doesn’t happen in massive big leaps and giant changes. It happens in micro habits that you do every single day that compound over time.
John Lee Dumas: I love that. Mari, this is the last question, and it’s kind of a tricky one. So just take your time, digest it, and then come back at us with an amazing answer. If you woke up tomorrow morning in a completely new world – this world is identical to earth, but you knew nobody. You still have all the experience and knowledge that you currently have, but only $500 in your pocket, a computer with Internet access, and your shelter and food are completely taken care of. What would you do in the next seven days?
Mari Smith: [Laughs] Okay. So you’re saying my business and everything has disappeared, my whole online presence has disappeared?
John Lee Dumas: Poof!
Mari Smith: Poof!
John Lee Dumas: No more Mari Smith. Nobody knows Mari Smith in this new world, except that she’s just a really pretty blonde woman.
Mari Smith: Oh, thank you. Gosh! Yes. Well, if I have a computer and Internet access, then I’m going to spend a significant amount of time on that computer, building out a blog, building out a Twitter account and a Facebook, and looking to reestablish a presence and connecting with influencers. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with Klout, the influence scoring system. It’s now called Kred with a K. You’d be able to look and use these online tools to identify, okay, who do I need to know? Who can I befriend? How can I help them? How can I add value to them as opposed to coming from like, hey, can you help me? Then I would do a combination of online activities as well as offline.
In fact, funny enough, I love your question here, John, because I found myself in that position pretty much 13 years ago when I came to this country. One of the first things I did was I was very active in Toastmasters back in Scotland, so I looked up all the local Toastmasters and also speaking circles and different networking groups and Meetup.com and just looked at places where I could instantly put myself in an environment where people are openly looking to network and build relationships. It’s critical to have that blend in this day and age of both online and offline.
John Lee Dumas: That is such actionable advice. In this whole interview, Mari, you have given us great actionable advice, and we are all better for it. Give Fire Nation one parting piece of guidance, then give yourself a plug, and then we’ll say goodbye.
Mari Smith: One parting piece of guidance? Gosh! I would say to always, always trust your heart and your gut, and just the way that you do that is you have to take time each and every day to be still. To be still. Don’t just jump on your iPhone or your mobile device and get on to Facebook the moment you open your eyes. Take time to just read something spiritual. Bring something that brings you joy and uplifts you so that you can go throughout the day with the peace and the tranquility and the groundedness, and then you’ll hear that still small voice and you’ll be able to trust it.
As for a plug, people can find me at MariSmith.com and on Facebook.com/marismith and Twitter.com/marismith, and I like to say to people, just google me! [Laughs]. Go to Google.
John Lee Dumas: I’m sure your SEO is incredible. We will link everything that you’ve mentioned in the show notes today, Mari. You have been so generous with your time and with your information and with your experiences. Fire Nation, we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.
