436 Marisa Murgatroyd: Experiencify Your Marketing

How many times have you bought an online course and not finished it? There you were, full of thinking about how this course was going to change your business and your life … and then by module 3 or so, well, you had to take that call, meet that deadline, you’re busy … that module or homework can wait.

I’m Melinda Wittstock and today on Wings of Inspired Business we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who is transforming the way we learn online.

Right now 97% of people who buy online courses never finish them, and that’s why Marisa Murgatroyd is on a mission to reinvent online education around the world so results and engagement become the norm and not the exception.

Marisa is the Founder of Live Your Message and the creator of the Experience Product Masterclass – and she helps entrepreneurs sell more online programs and get better, faster results for their students.

Marisa Murgatroyd will be here in a minute and first…

Now back to the inspiring Marisa Murgatroyd.

Standing at 4’11 and a quarter, she’s called the shortest woman in marketing — and that doesn’t stop her from having huge ideas – and a huge impact.

Dozens of industry leaders have come to learn Marisa’s “experience escalation” methodology for engaging students for measurable outcomes in the past two years including John Assaraf, Bill Baren, Alex Mandossian, Jesse & Sharla, Ocean Robbins, Steve Olsher, Vrinda Normand, Josh Turner and many more.

Marisa also turns everyday entrepreneurs into online superheroes so they can change the world from their living room – by being the most bold, colorful, vibrant expression of who they are online, because that’s the only way to cut through the noise of a billion websites and actually be heard.

She started her career as an artist who was told by her father that she had no marketable skills.

She figured out how to build a multi-seven figure business anyway and showed over 5,000 students how to succeed online—many of whom felt like they had “no marketable skills” or were also told they couldn’t do it.

She’s shared her new approach to product creation at top industry events including Mindvalley Momentum, Evercoach Summit, LaunchCon, Unicorn Club, MFA Live and the Conscious Leaders Business Summit.

Marisa is also the go-to brand builder for 7-and-8-figure industry luminaries and heavyweights such as Eben Pagan, Callan Rush, Justin Livingston, Susan Peirce Thompson, Josh Turner, and Sage Lavine.

Marisa learned the art and science of “how to get anyone excited about anything” in her award-winning career as documentary filmmaker. While making movies about everything from dirt to methamphetamine, she discovered the power of storytelling as a way to instantly transform the conversation and move people to action.

So are you ready for Marisa Murgatroyd? I am. Let’s fly!

Marisa Murgatroyd

Marisa Murgatroyd is on a mission to transform the $100 billion online learning industry around the world so results and engagement become the norm and not the exception. Some 97% of people never finish the courses they buy, and Marisa is showing entrepreneurs how to get record-breaking engagement and results. CEO and founder of Live Your Message and the creator of the Experience Product Masterclass, Marisa has created three 7-figure-a-year product lines over 700 pages of testimonials from a single product. She now teaches product creators how to 10x their engagement and results, which leads to more referrals, more sales and more repeat sales.

Melinda Wittstock:          Marisa, welcome to Wings.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:          I’m excited to talk to you because I love to geek out about all things, user experience and gamification and I love what you’re doing in the education space of actually making sure that people have actionable results from the courses that they’ve bought. And I would love to deconstruct that with you. What is the main thing that you’re doing differently from all the courses out there that get people results?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yeah, that’s a really good question. And before we go there, I want to share what a big problem is actually that so many courses and programs and products leave people behind. Because a lot of people don’t realize that the whole dirty secret in the online education world is that on average, 97% of people who buy online programs don’t finish those programs and get the results. 97% which is a failure rate that’s pretty much unheard of outside of like the insurance industry. Right?

Melinda Wittstock:          Wow. 97% I mean that’s just heartbreaking, especially for such a big industry. I mean there are so many people who are buying online courses. There’s so much demand for it, it’s this multi-million dollar industry and yet-

Marisa Murgatroyd:        It’s a multi-billion dollar industry-

Melinda Wittstock:          Multi billion-dollar.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        $100 billion a year industry and Forbes predicts that it will be $325 billion by the year 2025.

Melinda Wittstock:          And 97% of people are not getting results. Wow. Okay, so that’s not good. Are they buying the wrong courses or people… I mean, let’s break down some of the things that go wrong. People see an online course, see it advertised on Facebook. It looks good. It looks like it’s going to transform their lives and they sign up and then what happens?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yep. What happens is what I call the downward death spiral. This is what happens where a series of small oftentimes unintended experiences happen where people get stuck, they get frustrated, they walk away, they give up, they refund and it’s not anything that anyone intends to happen. The product creator doesn’t go into creating a product saying I want to leave people behind. It’s just there’s a really big difference between being an expert in something and knowing how to get someone who resolves and actually understanding the psychology of motivation, understanding adult learning theory, understanding the different triggers and drivers that get people so excited about taking action, willing to do the work, willing to overcome huge roadblocks and challenges along the way and just stick with something. So instead of the downward death spiral, I like to help people create what I call experience escalation.

An experience escalation is what happens when people get build unstoppable momentum for what I call mission to mission accomplished, from saying yes to the overall mission of the product, which is what you’re going to be, do, feel, have, overcome or achieve through that product to crossing the finish line of mission accomplished and actually getting that resolved. And this breaks down almost right away when most products don’t even have a mission. There’s not clarity on exactly what someone’s going to be, do, feel have, overcome or achieve. A lot of times it’s just about learning or it’s just about education and it’s not about getting a specific result. But how can people win the game if they don’t even know what winning looks like and how can people take action and overcome challenges if they don’t have a vision for where it’s all going to begin with?

Melinda Wittstock:          Yeah, so you see a lot of courses where it’s like, okay, master Facebook Advertising or-

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Never going to happen, it changes every day.

Melinda Wittstock:          Or these things. Right? And-

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yeah. You can’t have a course that’s about, Get your First Client Using Facebook Ads. Now that would be a much more interesting course for someone where they would be able to succeed and they’d be able to win much faster.

Melinda Wittstock:          Because so I see the difference there as you’re actually applying it to something tangible. So they’re working towards the goal. And then if they have specific metrics or breadcrumbs to get there and they can measure their progress, they start to feel happy about achieving or they start to see a benefit as they go and that pulls them along to greater and greater achievements. It’s game theory, I guess. Is it all about reward and recognition at the end of the day?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yeah. A lot of it is you see them inside of our brains we’ve got powerful chemicals that when we’re moving towards our anticipated results or goals or expectation, it fires off a cocktail of dopamine and serotonin, and then we feel good and we want to keep doing the thing that made us feel good. But when we’re not moving towards our goals and expectations, we feel poorly. Right?

Melinda Wittstock:          So you talk about experience escalation or “experiencifying” an online course. I want you to break that down. What does that actually mean in practice?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Well, there are actually 10 core principles that I teach that allow you to experiensify an online program and create that experience escalation, which is ultimately getting people hooked on taking action, getting results and ultimately wanting to buy from you over and over again. So for example, it starts with just defining the mission. And I teach something I call the mission possible templates. And I actually stole this from the movie Mission Impossible but it’s Mission Possible, not Mission Impossible. And it’s basically a way to create the mission for your product. And it goes like this. Your mission should you choose to accept it is to blank. And then you fill in the blank and simply by phrasing it like this, even if you end up dropping that language later on, it’s going to put you in the shoes of your audience. The person saying yes versus in your own perspective of what you want to give and what you want to deliver, which is where most people are designing products from and it’s their perspective as the experts.

So for example, for experience product masterclass, your mission should you choose to accept it, is to design marketing and make $2,000 or a whole lot more from an experience product in 12 weeks or less. So you instantly know what it is that you’re going to do, how long you’re going to take to do it, and whether or not you hit that result or not. And that not only gives your customers an experience of clarity and focus, it also allows you to simplify your product creation. So the only thing that belongs in your product are those things that’s going to help them get from mission to mission accomplished because they want that result. So you don’t have to teach them everything there is to know about designing products, marketing products, you name it, you just teach them what they need in order to get that result. And people will thank you for it.

Melinda Wittstock:          I love the clarity of that. It’s so interesting to me though too because you can master something, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good teacher.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:          And so there’s a lot of people out there saying, “Hey, I got to seven figures doing this or I got to eight figures doing this, so I’ve got the blueprint.” And they’ve got the blueprint for what worked for them. But is it necessarily a blueprint that will work for everybody else and how much thought has been put into yes, I mean how people learn or any of that? How does a customer or a consumer tell the difference? It’s so noisy out there about which course is going to work for them or not.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Well, one great way to tell the difference is to look at the results that other people are getting through the program. So for example, our last group of experience product masterclass students generated over 700 pages of testimonials from 700 students.

Melinda Wittstock:          That’s amazing. Congratulations.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:          That is phenomenal. I mean, you rarely hear that about any course.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yeah. So a lot of times the proof is in the pudding. Now I know it can still be tricky to figure out whether or not someone’s going to be the real deal or not. But I think part of it it’s also the level of support. A lot of times that downward death cycle happens when people feel really anonymous and alone in the program, whether it’s not really supportive. There’s been this whole movement of passive income and money while you sleep and membership sites where contents dripped out with no other involvement. And I do deliver content that’s dripped out, but we also have coaches assigned to everything single student. We have unlimited email access in our program, we’ve got group coaching calls every week if not more than once a week. And we provide so much support to help people in the application of what it is that they’re learning so they’re not alone, in this community support. There’s just a different level of support.

So obviously more support usually comes with a higher price tag because the more support that you get, the more customization, the more it takes for someone to deliver that. But a lot of times trying to cheap out and buy something for 100 bucks with no support versus spending more and getting that support as a difference between getting the results or not getting the results. So that’s one thing we look for too is what support am I personally going to get?

Melinda Wittstock:          I mentor a lot of female founders and often the biggest obstacle, I mean, apart from mindset issues, is being willing to invest enough money in coaching and education and mentorship or at least being around other female entrepreneurs. Do you find that that’s a hard argument to make with people? Do you see that a lot of people in the market just want something for not much? How does that work in terms of pricing these courses?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        I really think it depends on the value of the transformation you provide. And I don’t get price objections all that often because the truth is, is that you’re going to invest one way or another, whether you invest in time, energy, trial and error, and a lot of mistakes, or you invest your money and at some point along the line, people have to decide whether their time is more valuable than their money or-

Melinda Wittstock:          I see a lot of women underpricing themselves, which I always think is a sign of what you think about your own value. But when they’re underpricing themselves, they’re less likely to pay full price or actually understand the value of something another woman or even another entrepreneur is selling.

Melinda Wittstock:          . So when you say that you don’t get price objections Marisa, the value of what you’re providing speaks for itself because you have such a track record, you have all these testimonials. What kind of advice do you give to somebody who’s relatively new in the online space? Doesn’t have your track record yet, perhaps based on what you’ve learned along the way, to help them get their pricing right?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        I see so many women struggle with that. I wouldn’t even worry about trying to get your pricing right if you’re just getting started. I would actually just try and get a client. And even if you get a client for a fraction of the price that you’re ultimately going to end up charging later on, because even if it seems like a lot of money for you now, believe me when I say it’s a fraction of the price of what you will ultimately end up charging, then it’s going to give you the confidence of having the experience of delivering your offers in getting someone a tangible right result.

Right now, it’s so much more important to have that experience, to get that result, to deliver your offers and to make some money than it is to worry about getting your price just right. And once you do, once you have that kind of in your muscle memory, it’s so much easier to look at what the value of what you’re really delivering is in the future. Plus you’ve got testimonials to back it up and you just understand what you’re selling because when you first began, it kind of feels like you’re trying to sell hot air because you’re not clear what it is, you’ve never delivered it. And so you’re talking about something, but it’s a little bit theoretical, so just do it.

Melinda Wittstock:          Yeah, some of the best courses that I’ve ever seen launch launched because somebody on Facebook said, “Hey look, I’ve just learned this really cool hack about this. How many of you out there are actually interested in that?” Right? And actually co-creating with their customers. Because often you have to kind of market testers or even demand for that. Or a lot of people go to are not specific enough in terms of what they’re teaching or, “Oh gosh.”

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Like I say, I call that the “earn while you learn” model. So if you look at it as a learning experience, as you look at it as one step on the way to something that could be much bigger, much better than it currently is, then you sort of let go of all those perfection characteristics and qualities along the way. And you just sort of get to it. Because a lot of times if you look at someone, say a novelist, very few novelists write their best novel, the very first book, right? So what if that blockbuster hit product is two products away from now but the only way to get there is to go through to products that are not blockbuster hits? Would that be worth it?

Melinda Wittstock:          Yeah. So in the online course space there’s so much opportunity I think for people to cut through all the clutter by being more genuine.

Melinda Wittstock:          It feels like clutter to me on Facebook …so many different courses and different, oh my goodness. There’s just so much. It’s infobesity. So what makes an offer stand out best?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Well a lot of it goes back to just the timeless marketing principle of the right message for the right market at the right time and having that message market match and really knowing what the problems are of the person that you are orienting your program around and how to speak directly to those challenges as well as directly to the opportunity in a specific enough way that moves them to action. So a lot of it’s just getting that messaging right and getting the positioning of your product right. And when you do it becomes something that people notice. But there also has to be some differentiation there. And there’s actually three types of differentiation and one of them is just the most beginner kind of 101 type of differentiation, which is simply figuring out your niche and your niche is at the intersection of what you do and who you serve.

Now that’s just basic. If you don’t know your niche, it’s hard to even get started. And it used to be enough a few years ago just to have a niche and then people would be like, “Oh, okay, cool.” But now, no matter what your niche is, there’s going to be dozens if not hundreds if not thousands of people in your particular niche. So the next factor is value, in values at the intersection of what you do, in how you’re different. So how your products and services are actually different. What that unique value proposition is. Now that’s like the 201 level and really understanding the unique value and the differentiation of what it is that you’re offering. And then there’s a 301 level that I think a lot of people overlook and that’s tribe and your tribe is the intersection of who you serve and how you’re different.

So if you can imagine this Venn diagram of a niche value in tribe, this is the intersection of who you serve and how you’re different, which is the tone and spirit and personality and story behind what it is that you do. Because a lot of people choose you because of who you are and not just because of the value that you deliver. And a lot of people tune down their kind of authenticity and their level of expression. And I believe you got to amplify yourself. You’ve got to amplify your level of expression to be heard. And that’s the noise.

Melinda Wittstock:          Absolutely. I mean it’s just the old no like trust factor and that people often forget that people buy from people. So the fact that you have this relationship, you mentioned the word tribe, and this is music to my ears because all the best content, all the best learning, I believe is social.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Well the thing to understand about the social aspect of learning is that something like 80% of the population is extrinsically motivated where they’re motivated for external reward and validation. And only about 20% of the population is intrinsically motivated, whether self-motivated. And a lot of times people who are product creators might be self-motivated, but the people who are taking the program might need a little extra external validation and support.

Melinda Wittstock:          Oh, how interesting. That’s true because the entrepreneur is intrinsically motivated. I’m just always motivated and I don’t necessarily need, I mean I like recognition like anybody, but it’s not my driver.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Exactly. So you’ve got to recognize that you aren’t necessarily creating a product for yourself.

Melinda Wittstock:          So how did you learn that lesson? I mean when you created your first product, were you creating it for yourself or did you have a really developed sense out of the gate of how you were different from your customer?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Oh, I didn’t know that right away, but I remember this first lesson came in high school where I was in a writing program and I had to design a test for the other classmates around the novel, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. And I created a test that I thought was so easy of all the things that I picked up on in the novel and everyone else failed the test. And at the time I realized that I was picking up in completely different things from everybody else around me. And of course when I made my first product, I made it for someone like me. And again, people got stuck, they got frustrated, they walked away. And I had to realize, wow, okay, I’ve actually got to understand the way the vast majority of the world learns and operates and kind of create a product that caters to them.

Melinda Wittstock:          Right? So you can have like a brilliant person who cannot teach to save their lives because there is no relatability.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:          Yeah. So I’m intrigued by gamification. I have been building apps and things with a game layer since I think my first one: it was a widget back in 2008 that had gamification in it. It was called Ask Your Lawmaker and anybody could ask any questions they wanted of their senator or representative in Congress. You could vote them up the order and then certain questions that got voted up, by the crowd got asked. And the person who had done the asking got recognized. This thing grew like wildfire. It grew to three million people in eight months. So I know firsthand about the power of gamification. I mean, it really, really works. So you’ve used gamification not only within the courses to move people along to their next milestone or their next sense of achievement. But you’ve also used it to actually sell the course as well. And I’m curious how you do that.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yeah, so absolutely. And first of all, I wanted to say that I like to consider myself more of an expert in helping people create engagement in results. And a lot of times people hear a word like gamification and they misunderstand what that means. They think, oh well my topic is serious and I can’t use gamification, or my audience is corporate and I can’t use gamification or whatever it happens to be. And the truth is that what I do is more, I call it more “experensification”. And it combines gamification elements with a whole lot more. But really my goal is to help you sell more of your programs and get more of the people who buy to the end of the program so they can get their results. And so it really comes down to the series of 10 principles, which is part of the experience formula that I created and that I teach. And I teach my students to apply it both to their products and to the marketing.

So for example, I mean we already talked about mission, right? And that in principle is constant wins. And the third principle is unstoppable momentum. So unstoppable momentum is based on the understanding that you’ve got to ramp people up from small, simple actions and small, simple wins to bigger actions and bigger wins that if you drop someone in the deep end of the pool, they’re going to probably sink, right? And so you’ve got to understand how do you ramp someone up? You get them winning right away, but you ramp them up from the simpler things into the more complex things because there’s always going to be challenges. And a lot of people drop their customers into the most boring or the most difficult things right away. And it just causes them to lose momentum versus gaining momentum along the way.

And that when you combine the unstoppable moment which is the structure of your program, the constant wins, which is how come every time someone interacts or engages with you and they feel like they’re winning, right? How can you validate what it is that they’re doing? How can you give them an action to take and not just throw education at them?

Melinda Wittstock:          I love it. So I want to completely change course here. I’m curious about you. Were you always entrepreneurial? What were you like as a little girl? Did you have that lemonade stand and-

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Oh no, I wasn’t an entrepreneur at all. I was a total artist. I thought I’d be broke forever. I spend my days reading books in my room. I was shy. My brother was entrepreneurial and he was the one who would go from garage sale to garage sale buying all the best stuff at eight in the morning and then marking up the prices to sell it. He was the guy who was the entrepreneur and not me whatsoever. So the fact that I became an entrepreneur and then I became a good one and that people come to me for business advice. It’s still kind of mind boggling, but honestly it’s my creativity that’s made me a good entrepreneur, is my ability to make connections that other people can’t see.

And to think outside of the box, that’s given me my success as an entrepreneur. I was an artist, I was a filmmaker, I went to art school, I’ve been a designer. I thought I was an artist. I didn’t really think that business and art could go together and that you could do business like an art form. But I was wrong.

Melinda Wittstock:          I love what you say about the connections that cross fertilization of disciplines and ideas, to be a great entrepreneur it’s to see things that other people don’t see and artists see things that other people don’t see. It makes sense to me.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yeah. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:          And so what was the turning point? What got you into this to begin with?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        I was a documentary filmmaker and I’d been working for a number of years, I think maybe seven years in that industry. And I got frustrated about how long it took to make a film and how few people would ultimately see the film. And the average documentary takes about two years to make. And so I started to ask myself, “Well, what can I do? What else can I do? Where is there a better fit for my talents?” And the funny thing is, is that I didn’t really have an answer. I was like, “Well, I know how to make things look good and sound good and tell a damn good story, but who’s going to pay me for that?” And as an artist I didn’t realize the value of those skills. But now in retrospect, those skills are the basis of all business and marketing. And I just didn’t know what I didn’t know because I was stuck in my one little frame of being a broke artist and I didn’t realize that the skill that I had spent my lifetime developing would be hyper value and useful in another context.

Melinda Wittstock:          Isn’t that interesting. I mean I found the same thing with journalism because for years I was a journalist and an anchor and a television producer and a lot of those skills are absolutely vital in entrepreneurship and in marketing and all of that. It was a matter of just taking them and applying them differently.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yup. Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:          And you see things in different way, but you hit on something though, which was, which is true. It’s like storytelling and the best content I think is around connection, which goes back to what you were saying about the tribe. So when you have a tribe involved in your course and you have all this kind of hands on and people connecting and all of that, that makes it stickier, doesn’t it? I mean, when people are doing things in a community.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Absolutely. And one of the principles of experience escalation is community. And that’s the opposite of the isolation that many people feel as they’re up against their challenges and going for their greatest goals in life.

Melinda Wittstock:          So true. And so you have another launch coming up super, super soon and you do these massive million plus launches. What’s next for you? Will you continue on kind of with the launch and with the courses or is there something bigger around the corner? Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yeah. Well, I don’t know where I see myself in 10 years because I can really only see a few years ahead into the future. The world is changing so fast that I’ve got to say that I don’t believe in creating 10 year plans anymore. Right? It’s good to know what the end looks like potentially. Like what do I really want in my life? What do I want my legacy to be, what I want my lifestyle to be? Not how big do I really want to be, but I don’t know the specifics and I don’t know if I want to know the specifics at this point because if as soon as I try to set that concrete vision into stone, then I’m not paying attention as the world is evolving around me and the one thing that I know to be true in business is that everything is always changing.

You’re changing. The market is changing, your audiences expectation’s changing. Technology is changing and the world is changing. And when everything is changing, if you try to be too rigid or attached to what the end looks like, what the outcome is, I think you end up missing opportunities that are right in front of your face. And it’s really interesting. There’s a story about Kodak and the film and camera company. I think back in, I think it was the ’80s or something the sort of middle manager at Kodak went to the leadership and said there’s not going to be film in the future. Everything’s going to be digital and cameras are going to fundamentally change and you’re going to have access to everything on your computer. And he had this whole vision of what it was going to look like. And they said, “No, that’s not going to happen.” Right?

Melinda Wittstock:          Yes, I know, I know that story well, and it’s funny because I met the former CMO of Kodak, who tells a very, very funny story where he was sitting first-class on an airplane and this young woman was sitting next to him and she said, “So what do you do?” He said, “I am the chief marketing officer of Kodak.” And she said, “What’s Kodak?” So, right? I mean, what you’re saying is so profound because we don’t know anything. The only thing we really know is who we are, how we can be more authentic to ourselves, what makes our heart sing and what mission is important to us. And to just take enough or open enough space in our lives to be able to kind of get that inspiration. It comes to me in the morning when I’m meditating or when I’m walking the dog or whatever, but it’s like creating those open spaces where you can actually see something or see an opportunity.

But if you’re just stuck in your to do list or you’re stuck in some sort of rigid, like, “I’m going to achieve this by year three and, or whatever.” Yeah, you’re right. You miss all those opportunities, all those golden nuggets that you wouldn’t otherwise hear or see or experience.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Totally. Totally.

Melinda Wittstock:          So profound. So what’s your daily kind of routine? How do you get in? I’m just going to pick up there. So Marisa so many entrepreneurs on this show talk about special routine they have or how they get rid of any kind of limiting beliefs or blocks or they have miracle mornings. They have different routines and things that allow them to really Excel as an entrepreneur and do so in a way that doesn’t necessarily involve trade off or whatnot in their lives. What are some of your routines?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Yeah, well, right now we just moved to Topanga Canyon so we could walk to hike versus driving the hike. And every morning my husband and I take a 40 minute loop up a mountain then around and to starting in nature is so powerful and feeling the sun in my skin, I’ve been meditating for an hour a day and a lot of it’s mastering my mind. It’s really blocking time so I know what I’m going to do when and then not allowing all the challenges and obstacles and problems that come up to derail me. So I’ve become a master at what I call compartmentalization, which is if you can imagine a little bento box in your brain, right? Maybe half of the compartments have problems and issues in it.

I’ve learned to close the lid on those challenges when I say step up to the mic to do a podcast, so no matter what’s going on in my world, I can be fully present to the thing that I’m getting myself to right now and it’s not like I’m ignoring the problem or brushing it under the rug. I’m just going to come back to it when I can actually focus on it rather than obsessing about it when it’s not helpful to obsess.

Melinda Wittstock:          Oh, that’s such good advice. Meditation has been absolutely transformational for me as well. I mean it’s led me to the point now where instead of a to-do list, I actually have an intentions list in the morning like I think about what would make it a great day if all these things were accomplished and then I imagine them done. It’s amazing how transformational that little tweak is because it puts me back into being a human being instead of a human doing. I think I was for a lot of my life, I think we all are, we get trapped there.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Oh yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:          I think with all the women that I have interviewed, hundreds and hundreds of women on this podcast and almost the single biggest predictor of success is meditation, is clearing time for self care. We’re both in the same Unicorn Club as well for high performing female entrepreneurs. What do you think are the key determinants of success for a woman in business, for a female entrepreneur?

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Well, I think a lot of it is belief, and I’m talking about being at a feel in your body that everything’s okay and that you’ve got this and you’re doing this sort of makes not just a mental commitment, but to really believe with every ounce of your body that you’re doing this. So belief is important, so is resilience. There are going to be people who, no matter who you are and how amazing you are, once you step out, there will be critics, whether it’s yourself, your family, people you love, or people whose feathers you ruffle along the way. And still building their resilience and also knowing that there’s going to be problems. Right?

Melinda Wittstock:          Gosh, I could talk to you for hours. I think anybody who’s listening, who wants to do a course or has a course that they have out in the world right now that’s not quite working properly. Gosh, everybody just hit up Marisa, she knows what she’s doing. And you have a lovely freebie offer for everybody today too. I want you to tell everybody about it.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Oh yes. So I basically put together these 10 core experiences to make a super addictive program, product or service. And by addictive I mean getting people addicted to overcoming their challenges and achieving their goals. And when you do, you’re going to sell more and get more referrals and get more repeat customers and more happy customers. So I put together the 10 core experiences to do this as well as the 10 experiences to avoid, if you don’t want to send people down the downward death spiral. And if you don’t learn this formula, you may end up creating programs that leave people behind.

And I know that so many of my customers are world changers, they’re change agents and they’re really in this to elevate the people they serve. And it’s just not common knowledge and I was never intentionally leaving people behind. But it can happen if you don’t really understand how human motivation works, how adults learn, how to leverage these triggers inside of our brain to get people to follow through with their commitments. So I put that all up at liveyourmessage.com/wings. That’s, liveyourmessage.com/wings and you can grab a copy of that there.

Melinda Wittstock:          Wonderful. Well, I’m going to do that. I encourage everybody to do that and everybody make sure you follow Marisa on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, where you can find her @liveyourmessage. Marisa, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        Of course. I don’t think I have a choice. If you’re born with wings, you got to fly.

Melinda Wittstock:          You surely do. Thank you so much.

Marisa Murgatroyd:        You’re welcome.