#11: Tina Marie Speaks with Coach, Professor and Author, Dorie Clark
Multiple Streams of Income, Your Personal Brand, Staying passionate, and more with Fireside Guest Dorie Clark. Finding fulfillment and progress outside of your normal 9 - 5.
Dorie Clark has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, and was recognized as the #1 Communication Coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards. Clark, a consultant and keynote speaker, teaches executive education at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School, and she is the author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Clark has been described by the New York Times as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.” A frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, she consults and speaks for clients including Google, Microsoft, and the World Bank. You can download her free Entrepreneurial You self-assessment workbook.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 00:00
Hello, I'm Tina Marie St. Cyr and welcome to light your life the podcast. I believe our dreams have energy calling and purpose and that when we move in their direction, our lives become even more joyful, fulfilled, and effortless. This podcast gives you insights to the strategies our guests use to overcome obstacles and manifest their dreams, in business, career, relationships and in life. Listen to find new levels of energy, perspective, and courage. Your journey to light your life begins now. Hello, and welcome to light your life where together we commit to bring more of ourselves forward, expand our possibilities, increase our impact, and love our lives even more. I'm your host, Tina Marie St. Cyr, thank you so much for being here. Today we're talking about reinventing ourselves, and why we must become even more entrepreneurial in a day and age where the uncertainty in our world job markets, overall economics, and the massive shifts in technology are causing so much uncertainty. What do we do? How do we become more of ourselves and avoid risks? Consumer buying habits or going more online and now people are focusing on having a side hustle, building their own brand, and launching that business that was always in their heart. So today, I am excited to bring you our guests’ mindset, her strategies, her experience, and her heart to help you where we ask the questions that you would love to have the answers to. Let me tell you about Dorie Clark. Dorie is an adjunct professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and the author of entrepreneurial you reinventing you and stand out, which was named the number one leadership book of 2015 by Inc Magazine. The New York Times describes Dorie as an expert in self-reinvention, and helping others make changes in their lives, a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review and that's how I found her. She consults with clients in companies such as Google, Microsoft and the World Bank. Not only will our conversation today bring you actionable benefits, she has some gifts for you at the very end. So, you're going to want to listen all the way through. Welcome, Dorie, thank you so much for being our guest today on light your life.
Dorie Clark 02:51
Thank you, Tina Marie, I'm really glad to be here with you.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 02:54
Yeah, it's going to be fun. This is a day and age where the reinvention discussion is so relevant in everything that we do. So, we're going to be talking about that. But first, I want to start with your own hero's journey. Some people think that success is an overnight thing. They see where we are, and they don't know the behind the scenes. So, it wasn't always easy and in fact, you've had your own reinvention moments. Do you mind sharing this?
Dorie Clark 03:20
Yeah, absolutely. When I started my career after I finished school in my early 20s, I had a series of setbacks, there were a lot of things that I wanted to do, I was not really able to do them. I originally wanted to become a professor. I had finished my master's degree. I ended up getting turned down by every doctoral programme I applied to. So, I had to come up with another plan very fast. So, I became a journalist. I did it for about a year and then I got laid off from there. I couldn't get another journalism job. So, I ended up working in politics. That was the other direction I could go because I had been a political reporter and I ended up working on two very interesting, but nonetheless, two successive losing campaigns. So, there was a lot of grist for the mill back then.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 04:12
I like the way you put that successful losing campaigns. Awesome. There's still a lot of work that we put into campaigns.
Dorie Clark 04:20
It's true. I like to think it was not my fault that we lost. But nonetheless, we did lose.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 04:27
No worries, it's great. So, now you've become your own entrepreneur and help people with that story and understanding how to have their side hustle. Why do you think it's so prevalent in today's conversation about having side hustles and launching that inner entrepreneur?
Dorie Clark 04:45
Well, I think more and more people are recognizing because of a million things because of seeing layoffs and economic uncertainty because of seeing pandemics and things that we did not anticipate seeing and our lifetime, that things are a lot more precarious than we might have imagined and so, when things are precarious, it is really good to have Plan B's and it's really good to have the sort of belt and suspenders. So, if you can create side income streams, if you can be nurturing something that is a way for you to develop new skills, create new income, and mitigate risk, why wouldn't you do that?
Tina Marie St. Cyr 05:32
Right! I know in your TEDx, you talk about how do we tap into that big idea that we have and have the courage to go for it, all of us. I have an idea folder, because they plugged me in all different hours of the day and so, either it's posted or napkins or something where I just simply write it down, acknowledge it and put it in my idea folder. If I ever run out of ideas, sometime I need to go back to that folder. But what are we you tell people that have these big ideas? And what's the first, second third steps in order to launch that, hone it and understand that that's something to move into?
Dorie Clark 05:41
I think Tina Marie, that one of the challenges is kind of the way that we talk about entrepreneurial side ventures, because so often the public discourse is about these scary metaphor, take a leap, jump off the cliff, leap and the net will appear will, how do you know, that seems very risky, I wouldn't want to do that. So, to the extent that we keep talking about it that way, good, smart, sensible people, I think, quite rationally are not going to want to do it. Because of course, you want to mitigate risk, especially if you're in a situation where you have commitments and obligations and things like that, I think what is much more critical is thinking about the right way for us to talk about it, and therefore to understand it, this does not have to be a risky thing. This is something that erases risk. So, I really advocate for people, if you want to get started on some kind of a side venture, even if it's something that you one day hope we'll be able to be full time started now started, well, you have a day job, and explore and experiment and validate the premise. Before you do anything dire before you, you quit your job. So, I think at a very basic level, the critical thing is determining, will someone pay for this, and in small ways you can test that premise and begin to get validation, even while you're still employed. They don't have to be paying full fee, it doesn't have to be huge $100,000 purchase. But if you can at least get one or two or three people to say, yeah, okay, I'll sign up for this. I'll sign up for this course, I'll buy your coaching services, you begin to say, oh, okay, well, clearly, this is something that people want, I can continue to hone it to refine it. But we at least have a you know, fit and you can go from there to explore it.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 08:03
Yeah, you've tested the market. I've learned don't test the market with your friends, because they're always going to tell you you're really smart and great.
Dorie Clark 08:11
That's right. I tell people, you don't really want to charge your friends anyway, that's weird. But can you change your friends of friends? Yes, you can and that is a great starting place.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 08:31
That's great. I'm thinking of a question that one of my clients asked me here recently, because he's begun his side hustle and we can also have pressures, like you mentioned from home or people around us that would say, is this going to work out? Are you sure about this and so, advice on how to language your investigation into your side hustle, into what is your passion while you're also keeping your family happy?
Dorie Clark 09:00
Yes, it's a really important consideration. Actually, in my first book, reinventing you, it's something that I talk about quite a bit because a kind of rude awakening that a lot of people experience is, we assume, intuitively, that our family or very close friends are going to be our biggest boosters in the reinvention process. I mean, right? Why wouldn't they? Oh, they love me, they care about me. Actually, ironically, sometimes they are some of the biggest blockers or detractors of it and they they're not doing it out of malice, at least not usually. But they're doing it because they feel in you know, what I think sometimes is a misguided way that they need to protect you. It's like, somehow in their heads, they think, oh, she must have never considered the possibility that this could fail. So, let me clue her in, it's like come on, do they think you're an idiot, but they are worried, they are concerned, they don't know where to put those feelings and so, they put it on to you and sometimes it's really not helpful. So, we have to recognize that contrary to what our initial assumptions might be, we can't actually, in most cases, think about our family and close friends as being our kind of allies or our cheerleaders in this process, we have to think of them as a constituency, and it's basically a constituency that we need to control the messaging to, so that we can bring them along on the journey and help show them, no, really, I am serious about this, no, really, I would do a good job at this. No, really, this is not a passing fad, this is actually a thing and we need to all get on the train.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 10:46
Yeah, and it sounds like we need to do that with our own minds as well.
Dorie Clark 10:50
Yeah, absolutely.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 10:50
Not a passing fad. I am on this train. I am committed to this.
Dorie Clark 10:54
Yes, and that's why it's, I think it's so important to really understand and be clear with ourselves and with others, where we are in the process, because there is a big distinction if you are in the early stages of ideating and it's like, well, I'm not happy with what I'm doing. But I'm just not sure what I want to do. That is a perfectly valid place to be the exploratory stage is fine, that is great. A problem emerges when you are not fully communicating that to people because if you are kind of exploring and thinking about what you want to do, but you are sort of talking a clearer game than that people might, for instance, seem like a good outcome, it's actually a bad outcome. If you say, oh, well, I'm going to be a travel writer, then you might have someone who actually says, oh, really, that's it? Oh, well, that's amazing. Tina Marie, my best friend, is the travel editor of the New York Times, let me put you in touch. Well, that would be a fantastic thing, if you actually are going to be a travel writer. But if a week later, you're like, I don't want to be a travel writer, you have just burned that bridge, because you've taken the important piece of political capital, and you've used it in the wrong way. So, if you're ideating, you need to let people know that and then if once you're set, then you let people know that so that they can click into gear and help you in the way that you need help.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 12:19
That's beautiful, awesome. Because we don't give ourselves, I think enough time and that the different possibilities of where you can put your time energy and focus and find the passion in different areas. We work with a number of recent graduates or people that are coming out of even Master's programmes, and they're wondering, what do I be when I grow up and they haven't given themselves enough breath to say, what about this and what about this and what about this? Because they think they're supposed to already know. I love that, give yourself some space to be in that.
Dorie Clark 12:50
Absolutely.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 12:52
One more thing that came up while we're discussing this, in my mind is that oftentimes we compare ourselves to other people's success, or we say it has to look a certain way in order to be successful. Any thoughts there and that's also in your book.
Dorie Clark 13:07
It's certainly true. This only gets worse with the passage of time, because now we have all new social channels to make us feel inferior. So, exactly. It's you feel bad if you don't have a clubhouse invitation and then if you're in clubhouse, and you feel bad, oh, they have so many more followers than I do, it's like the endless thing of people being having to be paranoid. So, yes, I think for sure, we need to recognize that as we are reinventing ourselves, we need as much as we can, to let go of the external measures of success. I mean, of course, there are some that are going to be important, no matter what. You might have, for instance, a sense of how much money you need to make. Hopefully, that is based on calculations about your needs and your lifestyle and your obligations and not looking at the guy on Instagram with a Lambos, but it really can be challenging. s humans, we are all these social creatures that are programmed to be taking our cues from other people. So, it's hard to resist that. But ultimately, the more we can get in tune with what our own NorthStar is and try as best we can to be pursuing things because of pure interest because of the love of the game, the better off we will be. Because one of the things that I actually talked about a lot in my forthcoming book, which is called the long game, how to be a long-term thinker in a short term world, which is coming out in September, is that, the truth is, in almost all cases, things just do take a lot longer than we want them to. It is frustrating, we wish it weren't the case. But it usually is the case and so, if we actually want to be successful, in the long term, we don't want to be one of those endless statistics of people that get started with something and then just kind of give up, oh, I guess that didn't work, then we have to learn how to persevere, we have to learn how to get comfortable in that period, where we feel like, oh, my gosh, this isn't really working, why is it working so much better for everyone else, we have to get comfortable with those uncomfortable feelings in order to make it through the other side,
Tina Marie St. Cyr 15:33
I wanted to tap into the entrepreneurial piece of the career professional. I was grateful out of university, go into an organization that was quite entrepreneurial minded. It was 147, employee of a firm that within eight years became over 4000 and what I didn't know I was stepping into, which was a great benefit was a mindset of each career professional department head leadership piece there, were open to ideas of even the younger generation, which I was that and they really listened and they took heed on what the thoughts were and they didn't think that they already had it and decided they were pivoting and moving and very innovative. Yet sometimes we can be in an organization that isn't that fluid or that open to different discussions. Well, could you give advice to the career professionals who they know they want to stay in their career and they want to be innovative and they want to be entrepreneurial inside their career? What courage could they elicit to make that happen?
Dorie Clark 16:46
Yeah, it's a really important question, because obviously, entrepreneurship is not right for everybody. But I would argue and I do a book entrepreneurial you that entrepreneurial thinking as a subspecies of thinking, that is actually legitimately useful for everyone, whether you work inside a corporation or not. Now, the truth is, who your boss is, can make a very big difference, because some, some bosses, they're kind of power hungry, they like to, you know, clamp down on creative outside the box thinking, and they can make it really hard for you which really is a challenge. In those circumstances, ideally, you want to try to look for other outlets. So, that could involve really being strategic as best you can about finding ways to build connections outside your direct boss relationships are volunteering for cross functional committees, or networking and building relationships so that you have a connection with other leaders that might be inclined to either poach you or to give you free rein with certain experiments that you could work on, that are technically out of their department and there's different ways to do it, but you do as best as you want to get out from under the thumb of the tyrants, if someone is actively trying to crush that down. But in general, what I like to suggest for people who are intrapreneurs, or aspiring entrepreneurs, is that unless you are dealing with a truly hardened dictator who wants to get rid of everything. Most bosses, it's not that they want to quash innovation per se, that's not their goal, it's the byproduct, but it's not the goal, or the goal is that they want to protect themselves and they don't want to take risks, they don't want to risk, oh, it didn't work. So, they look stupid. So, their department lost a lot of money. So, the budgets going to get cut, they want to prevent that and so, the way to do it, as with a lot of things is to find ways to de risk what you're trying to do. So, the most magic words ever spoken in a corporation, I like to think are, let's try a time limited pilot. Because if they know that it is reversible, and if they know it's only for a short period of time, and so losses of time or energy or money or whatever, are going to be sharply contained, then they often feel more comfortable. greenlighting something because they feel like, well, you know, if it doesn't work, then then it's not going to be the end of the world and if it does, then that actually could be a good thing for my career and I'll be I'll be getting the glory, it's just appealing, appealing to that and understanding how to do it in a way so that the risk feels manageable to them.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 19:46
That's beautiful. Yes, it sounds like literally building a business man or a business plan or even executive summary of your idea and your approach, having thought through it, and then present that much like you would if you had your own business going to investors, which your corporation can become an investor into your idea.
Dorie Clark 20:05
Absolutely! Well put.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 20:08
Awesome. I love entrepreneurial mindset. My first business, I didn't even know it was when I was nine years old. I mow our lawn enough and I couldn't make more money from our lawn. So, I went next door and got Miss Hildebrand's lawn, and I was like, okay, we've saved the blue haired lady from being out in the heat of Houston. I decided I'm going to keep going. So, kept going and getting got more yards and schedules, and then comes the time where I can't get them all in in a weekend and study for school and get the projects out. So, my dad in his wisdom, who became my first business coach, he were sitting at the dining table, and he's got his yellow pad with lines, and I'm just like, pulling my hair out going, how am I going to manage this after my cheerios in the morning, and he makes a spreadsheet, this is long before computers, I'm that old. So, he makes a spreadsheet and he puts along the side names of the boys in the neighborhood that I played flag football with and he said, you got to go get Brian and Joe and Dottie and then you're going to get your brother because he needs to get out of bed and he said, you're going to pay them half of what the take is and have them use their equipment, and they can do all your lawns for you and I was like, this is brilliant. I started a landscaping company at the age of nine and ran that till I was 12. And then I was like, this is fun. I didn't have to get that fire in, you know, bites on me. I didn't have any gasoline on my hands anymore. I was like, Man, this is the way to go.
Dorie Clark 21:39
That's impressive. I love it. I wanted to be an entrepreneur when I was that young. My mother wouldn't let me mow our lawn. She's like, it's too dangerous, hashtag only child.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 21:51
So, sorry, all of us have to do everything and I moved that model into babysitting, too. I became the person who was figuring out who had weekend time to go babysit some kids in our neighborhood and a broker, very nice, totally a broker. I was a Wheeler Dealer. I loved it and I didn't know that that's what I was doing and when I went to business school and realize what business truly is, I was like, oh, this is a thing. Okay, I can do this. I love it. So, today, we're talking about the entrepreneur and you Why must be we dive into reinventing ourselves and understanding that there is entrepreneurial spirit inside of each of each of us whether a career professional, wanting to be that more inside your own company and organization to create your own impact or outside of your organization so that you can have that side hustle, that extra income, that more sure understanding of how to control your finances in your future. So, Dorie, I wanted to launch into some people do the side hustle, they start their brand, they start their business, because of money. Here we are in a place where the economic future can be uncertain, especially for someone coming out of certain industries such as oil and gas here in Houston, were impacted by that a lot. Just spoke with somebody this morning on that he's wanting to go into tech as opposed to LNG. So, what would you say to somebody who has the first, you know, push into an entrepreneurial endeavor based on money? Is there something else they need to also hold into consideration to continue that passion and the forward movement?
Dorie Clark 23:30
Yeah, it's an important point, because, of course, there are so many people that especially over the past year, have really experienced vulnerability in there, in their industry, you know, through no fault of their own, you've got like, Okay, well, this industry is just closed for a year or two by and it's incredibly traumatic, because you may have loved what you were doing, you may have been great at what you were doing, doesn't matter. When there are geopolitics at play, there's forces bigger than us, and we have to find a way to adapt to it. So certainly, a lot of people have been looking for new careers or side careers, specifically, because they do need to earn money. So, ultimately, as we're thinking that through, I would say, your ability to earn is of course, critical in this factor. It shouldn't be the only factor. And let me just give an example. I get emails from people sometimes, and they'll ask me questions like, story. I want to create an online course what online course should I create? That will sell a lot incorporations like, oh, okay, let's take it let's take a step back here, because that is a good question. But that is the wrong question in this order, big question. Yeah, like oh my god, okay, huge question. Also, who are you? Who are you? What do you even know about? So, we have to understand that if we are purely looking for something where it's like, oh, look, that would be lucrative.
It's not the best frame, because it means that it's not necessarily aligned with your previous skills, or aptitudes or even things you'd like doing. What I like to really think about is, what is the sort of Venn Diagram of something that's lucrative something people want, et cetera? I think a big piece that I teach students in my recognized expert course, is that if you really want to gain currency, for your idea, if you if you want to create an expert reputation, in a field, you have to have standing and by standing, I actually technically mean it in a legal sense. In lawsuits, you're not allowed to just kind of randomly sue someone because you want to, you have to have standing, you know, they have to have done something to you. Otherwise, it would just be this, you know, weird, like, everybody's suing everybody. So, you need to be in a position where you're affected, and you can offer something. So, yes, I could theoretically say, what's hot, coding is hot. So, I'm going to create a course about coding and selling it to corporations. Great, but I don't know a damn thing about it. I am not the right person for that. So, I would want is for people to do an analysis of their skills and their abilities, and where they can actually be a credible Messenger, and spokesperson, where they bring something to bear and then we can actually look at what the market wants. But not until we understand who we are in the marketplace.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 26:53
Right, brilliant advice! Absolutely because the if we launch into something that we don't have that core experience and the confidence and the way to language ourselves within that conversation, then we can have impostor syndrome, we can self-sabotage, and definitely work more on shaky ground. I love all your advice. In fact, everyone, we're going to be talking about the books that Dory has, so that you can dive in and experience her wisdom yourself and launch your reinvention process. Today, I'd love to do that. You're on Audible. So, there's nothing stopping them. There's some you coach, some of the great leaders of our organizations of our companies, I love you know, on your website at Dorieclark.com. There's a lot of testimonials there and people are leaning into your expertise and more than that, it's your mindset, your viewpoint, your way to hold different perspectives for them and ask them those higher questions that ultimately get them unstuck. I was wondering if you could share, what are some of those stuck points you find that people have as a common theme in life, then maybe our listeners can say, Yeah, that's me, too. Thank you, Dorie. But any common themes that you see are popping up among the leaders you work with?
Dorie Clark 28:15
Well, if we're specifically looking at places where people get stuck, I would say there's a couple that come to mind where I just see patterns. The first one is a lot of folks who come to me, whether it's for private coaching, or being part of the recognize expert course, in community, they are folks who are very good at what they do. They're very smart, they're very talented. Oftentimes, the answer, the default in their mind, because, you know, a lot of parent’s kind of put this in our heads. The default answer is, okay, if you're not getting a certain result, or if you want to do more, or whatever, the answer is education. So, you get a lot of folks who are so well trained, so intelligent, but like, okay, you got five master's degree, do you need a six. Do you need that? We're like, oh, I got this certification, and this and this, and this, and its props. That's amazing. What you need is not a certification, which needs a client. They just like the cabling for the thing and it's like, no, we need you to do a different thing. So, what I really try to help people understand is getting a million certifications, especially ones that like your clients don't even know what they are, this is not going to help. We need you to do different things that will that will help make you visible to your ideal client and the person that when they see that they're like, oh, I want to work with that person. It's a different skill set. I work with people to try to help them with that because I think a common tendency that we have as humans is, oh, if I want a different result, I should just keep doing more of the same thing, and we don't realize we're doing it. But we sometimes just need to be shaken out of that. So, let's see, that's one of the things that I see pretty frequently.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 30:15
I love that think it's so true. It's so true. I was going to show you this is how I shake some of my clients. I actually shake the monito as we're on Zoom. So, I'm like, I'm shaking you right now. Because we need courage. We need courage to do the uncomfortable the thing that we haven't been taught the thing that is literally going to get the result that we so much want and desire. Yet it takes so much it's like that Indiana Jones scene where Indy asked to go against the invisible bridge and he knows that there's got to be a way through this. But you just have to take a leap. How would you summon courage? We don't get to be the people that others listen to. By not having gone through our own stuff. So, you had to find your own levels of courage to take your leaps as well.
Dorie Clark 31:12
Yeah, I feel like for me, the mantra that I have, which I actually like talking about, because I feel it's not very PC in modern circles. But I feel like it's important. So, what I like to encourage people to do is, don't blame out. So, I think the problem that so many people have is, they get a gatekeeper, it's not really creative enough, or whatever it is, and then be like, oh, God, oh, you know, I guess she's right. Maybe I don't have it in me. Maybe I'm not good enough, she sees hundreds of people every year. She said, I wasn't good enough and it's like, people take this seriously. Are you kidding? Because these people these gatekeepers? They don't know more than you, we have to understand that. I mean, it's different. Okay, if 100 people tell you no, but if one person tells you no, that doesn't, that literally doesn't mean anything, it means they're having a bad day, it means they have a different preference. It means that whatever their boss yelled at them five minutes ago, so they're going to say no to everything, has absolutely no bearing. I think about when I was a reporter, I had this editor that I worked with, and especially toward the end of my tenure, she was like, she was not very nice to me. And she kept like, I mean, almost deliberately, like she would, she would just like, edit everything, like everything that you would, I mean, you'd look at it, and it's a sea of red.
You feel like, oh, my God, does she think I'm terrible and yes, she did actually think I was terrible. I'd asked for like guidance. Can you explain what you're looking for and she's like, make it better. That's literally what she said. So, anyway, I ended up getting laid off from my job and then I submit a piece. A couple of weeks after I lost my job, I submit a piece to the Boston Globe, which was like, the bigger the better paper. They ran it literally, with no edits, zero. I was just like, okay, who was right? Was it my editor that wanted to mess with every single thing I did or was it the globe that looks perfect. I don't know who's really right. But I can tell you this, my self-esteem would be in a very different place. If I had believed my original editor as compared to the second one. So, we really have to just understand, I think it is a much healthier reaction that if we are getting rejections, if we're getting people who are criticizing us in some way, it's, I think it's much better for our gut reaction to be like, well, you're wrong. What's wrong with you, as compared to what's wrong with me?
Tina Marie St. Cyr 34:20
I love that, what a great change in perspective and you can go get more data. So, we don't have to take that one person and say, okay, well, if there is some feedback that's usable here, I can go to another person that I trust and respect their opinion of, and also get, you know, usable feedback instead of that blockage. I love your mantra, and congratulations on getting published by the Boston Globe. That's so cool. So, you're an eighth, so, we're smarter than we know, whenever we give ourselves credit. So, can I ask your personal questions about the Dorie that lives her own life so we can learn from your habits and practices,
Dorie Clark 35:03
Oh, my goodness, let's do it.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 35:05
Okay, so, I get this question a lot for outside people saying, we want you to ask this question Tina Marie and it's like, how do you start your day? Do you have any morning rituals?
Dorie Clark 35:18
Well, my new morning ritual is during COVID. My COVID indulgence, I was going to buy this for myself and then my mother is like, well, I'll buy it for you for your birthday baby which was very nice. Because she's always having a hard time figuring out good gifts. So ,she likes to pounce on them when she finds them. But I bought a really overly expensive espresso machine, it's very fancy. It's been months now, I'm still spending all this time trying to figure it out and get the milk froth and whatever. But yes, I used to go out for to get a coffee every morning, which is good in its own way. It gets you dressed and out of the house. But in New York, it's cold in the winter, it's not always nice to go out first thing. So, anyway, I bought this fancy espresso machine I've been like adjusting all the settings and the grind and whatever to get it to get it perfect. So, I feel like I'm close. But my current challenge is I really have a really still have not cracked the code on latte art. So, for 2021, I want to get good at latte art.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 36:36
It's all in the toothpick, right?
Dorie Clark 36:42
I think it's that I'm insufficiently frothing the milk, but maybe it's the frosting it too much. I tried to hire a tutor. Not getting back to me. I want a latte art tutor. So, I'm working on it.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 36:57
Yeah, we believe it's going to happen. We can't wait to have you back on just to talk about your art skills. It's going to be great.
Dorie Clark 37:05
Thank you. I'm hoping for definitely a heart. I think a tulip is also attainable.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 37:14
I've seen bears, I've seen a unicorn was drawn in this in the froth.
Dorie Clark 37:21
It's incredible. I went out once on Thanksgiving and dude made me a turkey. I was like, wow. One day a year he can use that, the fact that he invested the time to make a turkey. I was so impressed.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 37:37
Yes. Probably Instagram central for that Turkey all day long, and so, what's your big why in life story? What drives you to be an influencer, you create impact for people, you help them create massive change in their own lives. You're a very successful author. So, help us understand that big why in your life, where's Dorie headed?
Dorie Clark 37:59
That's very kind. Thank you. Well, it is really important to me. Thinking back on starting my career, as a self-employed person, which now was 15 years ago, it was really challenging to every new entrepreneur experiences, having to figure out how to differentiate myself in the market and get my first clients and figure out all these things and it was this stressful process, because you can read books and do stuff like that, but to really understand for yourself what it takes to sort of break through and get noticed, that I had something good to contribute. But it was very hard in the early days to convince other people of that fact, which is a very frustrating gap. So, what is exciting for me with the work that I do, is that I feel like I hopefully, through my books, through my courses, through my coaching, I try to make it easier for people to figure out how to do that how to close the gap, because there's a lot of really great smart people out there. I would like their ideas to get into the world, I would like them to be successful and it is unfortunate to me that because it can be such an opaque process, figuring out how do you break through that not everyone does, some people get stymied, and their talents are not able to be sufficiently deployed. So, I really enjoy helping people figure that out so that they can make the best impact that they can.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 39:35
Awesome. Thank you for doing that and thank you for being that advocate for others and congratulations on 15 years, thank you very much and that definitely allows for me, I don't even know it's a 20 something years and as an entrepreneur and well done and I don't think of the time, you are just in it and it's beautiful too. You have that experience. So, thank you. We're going to show you one of my symbols because I think it goes with your reinvention and that is the Phoenix.
Dorie Clark 40:08
Oh yeah, nice.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 40:11
His name is Charlie. So, for those that are listening in, you're interested in reinventing yourself you're interested in in really taking yourself to that next level that the fire of whatever's the circumstances are around your life that feel painful, maybe frustrating. Maybe you feel alone in your pursuit and journey and, and maybe even beat up by the ideas in your own heads. Sometimes, I really invite you to reach out and investigate Dore’s work, dive into it. So, I'm going to give you a little some things to write down into take note, it's really easy Dorieclark.com. That's all you really need to know and they can find your courses. They're your books, three amazing books, plus the workbooks that you've built around that to guide them straight through reinventing yourself, diving into your entrepreneurial self, the entrepreneurial you and stand out, which I particularly love. Because sometimes we do need to find that one niche way of presenting ourselves that we stand out, and we can believe in. So, we don't compare ourselves to the other people in the marketplace. Plus, you have a TED Talk. That was so fun. It's finding your breakthrough idea. I think that was probably the first way I found you. You're on TEDx. I said, oh, wow, this is so cool. I love the way she presents herself and your wonderful ideas. What else can people dive into? You've got a newsletter. I get that all the time. Thank you so much. You've got LinkedIn lives, which are so fun to watch and you listen to the chat and actually converse with people through the chat, which is great and you have a podcast. Correct?
Dorie Clark 41:49
I don't exactly have a podcast but with the LinkedIn lives, I do a weekly interview show for Newsweek and it gets distributed on LinkedIn and YouTube and Facebook and all of those things every Thursday at noon, Eastern. So, it's podcast sequel in that way.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 42:08
It's got a little bit more juice to it, than just a podcast. So, thank you for being our guests I did promise everybody a gift at the end of the show, and so, you can download Dorie's entrepreneurial self-assessment, u what's inside of you and you got to take this assessment. It's awesome. Where are you going to find that is Dorieclark.com/entrepreneur. When I first felt entrepreneur whenever I was in my 20s, I was like, wow, there's a lot of balance in that word.
Dorie Clark 42:37
You were not wrong at all.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 42:42
I love it. Thank you, Dorie for being our guests. It's such an amazing pleasure to bring your brilliance to the let your life audience and we're here to support you in anything you do, including your upcoming book that we get to have the long game.
Dorie Clark 42:56
Tina Marie, thank you. I really appreciate it.
Tina Marie St. Cyr 42:59
Thank you so much. Until next time, everybody, stay tuned to all the episodes here on Lighter life. I'm Tina restates here. Thank you for lending your ears and your attention to what we do here and remember, light your life that was so energizing, I have takeaways that will help my life and I'm sure you do too. To get show notes bonuses, gifts for you from our guests and more. Head over to light your life podcast.com and be sure to bookmark this podcast is one of your favorites. I am Tina Marie St. Cyr, founder of Bonfire coaching and creator of the Bonfire method. Thank you so much for being connected. Now, my homework for you. Summon the courage to light your life a little more and go make progress on your dreams today.
