The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff

#22 Mastering Your Mindset: A Journey of Self-Leadership with Marianne Renner

• Mark Cundiff

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In this episode of The Learning to Lead Show, host Mark Cundiff interviews leadership coach, trainer, and speaker Marianne Renner about her latest book, 'Self-Talk.' 

Marianne shares her personal journey of overcoming decades of depression and addiction by mastering her mindset and transforming her self-talk. She discusses the profound impact self-talk has on leadership and personal growth, revealing tools and strategies to change negative self-talk patterns. 

Through compelling stories and practical advice, Marianne emphasizes the importance of taking ownership of one's actions, thoughts, and feelings. Additionally, she highlights the crucial role of mentors and divine connections in shaping one's journey. 

Marianne also touches on the significance of gratitude, affirmations, and acceptance in fostering a positive mindset. The episode provides valuable lessons for leaders on removing self-imposed barriers and unleashing their full potential.


00:00 The Power of Self-Talk

00:57 Introduction to Marianne Renner

02:15 Marianne's Personal Journey

04:54 The Impact of Self-Talk on Leadership

08:37 Understanding the Invisible Bubble

13:11 The SEAR Framework for Changing Your Story

17:43 Real-Life Success Stories

24:49 The Clock is Ticking: A Story of Perseverance

25:18 A Life-Changing Phone Call

26:34 Behind the Scenes: Coaching and Mindset

28:31 Changing Your Stories: Past, Present, and Future

32:54 The Turning Point: Acceptance and Empowerment

36:04 Owning Your Role: From Victim to Victor

40:13 The Importance of a Support System

43:41 Books and Mentors: Continuous Growth

45:31 Connecting with Marianne: Coaching and Resources


Connect with Marianne Renner:

Email: marianne@mariannerenner.com 

LinkedIn

mariannerenner.com

Marianne’s Books

Free Learning To Lead Resources

🔎 About LeaderNotes

LeaderNotes is a quick-hit companion to each episode of The Learning to Lead Show. In just 5–10 minutes, Mark Cundiff recaps the top leadership insights, frameworks, and action steps from each interview, designed for busy, growth-minded leaders who want to review and apply the episode’s biggest takeaways on the go. It’s like the highlight reel + playbook—all in one.


Contact Mark at: mark@markjcundiff.com

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The most important conversation that you're gonna have all day long, is the one that you're having with yourself. When we really peel it back, it's, all of the reasons something won't work, why we can't do it, why we can't fix it. The self-talk. People think that they can keep it to themselves if they're struggling with self-doubt, lack of confidence that they can hide it. But the reality is it leaks out and it shows up in the workplace as gossip. As being overly judgmental or critical of others, it shows up as backdoor politics, finger pointing, blaming, complaining. Those are the ways that all that self-doubt leaks out. And so whether we're talking about, a sense of connection and, and being in that invisible bubble or breaking out of it or something else that's really holding you back and keeping you stuck. 80% of the time. You can look to your self talk in changing that. Hello, welcome to this episode of The Learning to Lead Show. My name is Mark Cundiff, your host, and that was Marianne Renner leadership coach, trainer, and speaker who conquered decades of debilitating depression and addiction by mastering her mindset and changing her self-talk. We're gonna look at her new book, Self-Talk as she shares lessons she learned during that battle to help leaders remove self-imposed barriers and unleash their greatest potential. Marianne is also a TEDx speaker whose previous books also include Chaos to Clarity, success Journal, and Stop Thinking like an Employee. Oh, and did we mention. marianne is also a bodybuilding champion, so stay tuned and listen to some great content from Marianne who is an acclaimed leadership expert who's going to give us some wisdom from her book, Self-Taught, make sure at the end of the show that you go and download our leader notes, which give you a summary of all the things that we've discussed today. Hello, Maryanne. It's great to have you with us today, mark. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here with you. I'm looking forward to diving into learning a little bit more about your book and sharing that with our audience. Tell us a little bit about your story, about how you got to the point where you wrote this book and your leadership journey how you got into this space to begin with. Yeah. It's such a great question. It's a loaded question. I like it. We'll dive right in. I'll tell you, I wrote this book after three decades of debilitating depression and addiction. And when I was, in fact, when I was nine years old, I got called home from school one day and I walked into the living room and my dad was sitting in a chair across the room with his arms stretched out to me, and I walked up to him and he wrapped his arms around me and we were eye to eye. He was sitting, I was standing and he said three words that changed the course of my life. He said, mommy's in heaven. I remember vividly how I felt in that moment. I felt scared. I felt alone. In fact, the loneliness was the worst of all. Not only did it not ever go away, it got worse. It just grew and grew. Eventually, doctors named it depression. And everything after that I can remember was just, cho, every choice, every decision to try to make the bad feelings go away. And I tried all of it. I tried workaholism, which did not work. I tried alcoholism, which didn't work, and in my search to try to make the bad feelings go away, I discovered tools really revolving around self-talk. Even though I had received all kinds of, treatment, I had been through everything. Nothing was as powerful and life changing as managing and mastering myself. Talk. In fact, not only did the bad feelings go away but it changed every other outcome of my life. So my career took off in a new way and I got, into the leadership space. We'll talk about that. My relationships changed both personally and professionally. I wondered if it was a coincidence and, people were asking me about. You look different, what are you doing differently? So I started sharing these tools with others and started sharing them with leaders in the workplace. I started to see things change for them. They were landing their dream jobs and getting these incredible salary increases and getting new positions and getting promoted. That's when I decided to put it all of these in the book, the Self-Talk, 10 stories. You tell yourself that hold you back and how to overcome them. One of the things I really appreciate your book is your authenticity and how you really just get raw with us and just tell us, this is. My journey and this is the hard things that I went through. How do you see that resonating with your clients and with the people that are reading your book? When they. Talk to you about what they're getting out of it. What are you hearing back from them about the way you've approached this? Yeah, it's a, such a great question. And it's interesting because when we think about, okay, I learned these tools because I was going through depression and addiction. How does that relate to leadership? And ultimately, at the end of the day, self-talk is all about taking ownership for your actions, for your thoughts. For your feelings and for the actions that you take. And as leaders, absolutely. That's what we need because I really believe, by the way, that this is a message for our time. I've always felt that way, but now more than ever, because we're so focused on everything outside of our control, it's someone else's fault. Who's to blame? There's nothing I can do about the situation. These are all kinds of self-talk that show up in the workplace. We think about, oh, there's a problem, and rather than going right to how do we solve it. We spend a significant amount of time trying to figure out whose fault it was, right? As leaders, we not only want to own responsibility for our choices, our thoughts, and our actions, but we wanna model that and demonstrate that for the people around us. To answer your question more directly, what is the feedback mean? That's the kind of feedback that I'm getting. Some people are, ready to receive this message. Some people feel already have mastered their self-talk in some areas.'cause most of us are somewhere on a spectrum where maybe we feel like I'm pretty good at owning my thoughts, feelings, and actions. In one area but we all have triggers. For me it's if I'm stuck in traffic or my technology's not working, I always say the three T's technology, traffic or time constraints, I might be showing up a little bit differently. We all show up one way when things are going smoothly, but when it's hitting the fan, maybe we don't show up the same. So those are the moments where we can find tools in this book that help us master the self-talk. And by the way, I'll also mention that so many of my clients, specifically will come to me in one-on-one conversations and they'll quietly, secretly confess to me, Hey, Marianne, I struggle with self-doubt. And that's not something that people really wanna say publicly, but they'll say it privately and they'll say it as though they're the only ones no one else can know. And I wanna say, I've already had this conversation, 10 times today. The self-doubt, the lack of confidence. It doesn't matter whether it's an individual contributor in the workplace or someone in a high level leadership position, I mean from supervisor to C-suite. In fact, sometimes the higher they go level of responsibility people go, the more they struggle with confidence and self-doubt.'cause they're constantly putting themselves in a position where they're being challenged into new areas. That's really good. So many books that we read about leadership are externally focused, and I don't think there's enough time spent doing what you're doing here, talking about self-leadership.'cause this really is leading yourself. In order for us to be effective as leaders, we gotta be healthy and we gotta, yeah. Have the right mindset. One of the things you talked about in the book, is that what you call the invisible bubble of isolation? And when did you first realize that bubble wasn't permanent? Because I think a lot of people that have these. Mindset, things that are theming beliefs that we can talk about in a while, but you realize that your narrative could actually change. What could you say is an encouraging word to people? Maybe they feel like they're in this bubble, that they Yeah. Think this invisible bubble that they can't break through. Yeah. I came to that analogy after years, I experienced that debilitating and depression and addiction for 30 years, and so it really took a while to. Figure out. That was the analogy. I just felt so disconnected from everyone else, and it probably wasn't until in recent years where I started to realize that if I thought I was disconnected, so much of that was my self-talk. If you believe that you're disconnected, you are disconnected. But there are two things. Number one,, a sense of feeling connected to someone else or being, being connected. Number one, it's your responsibility to reach out to people, to network with people, to build relationships with people. It's your responsibility to do that. So that's number one. But number two, it's really important to check in. And say, am I really disconnected, or is that a story that I'm telling myself? I am talking with people in the workplace all the time. In fact, mark, this is I have a two hour workshop on self-talk in the workplace, which is quickly becoming my number one most requested workshop because I believe that self-talk is the root cause of 80% of challenges in the workplace. And, I speak at conferences and I ask audiences like, how many, like what do you guys think about that number? How many of you how many of you think it's too high?'Cause We'll, I'll a couple people raise their hands. Yeah I agree. Self talkin issue, but 80% that, that's too high. And I'll say, how many think it's too low? Like maybe it's higher than that. And a few more hands go up and I'll say, how many of you think that's about right? And majority of people will raise their hands. It's just right, because we're always. Talking to ourselves. That's the most important conversation that you're gonna have all day long, is the one that you're having with yourself. When we really peel it back, it's, all of the reasons something won't work, why we can't do it, why we can't fix it. And the self-talk. People think that they can keep it to themselves if they're struggling with self-doubt, lack of confidence that they can hide it. But the reality is it leaks out and it shows up in the workplace as gossip. As being overly judgmental or critical of others, it shows up as backdoor politics, finger pointing, blaming, complaining. Those are the ways that all that self-doubt leaks out. And so whether we're talking about, a sense of connection and, and being in that invisible bubble or breaking out of it or something else that's really holding you back and keeping you stuck. It 80% of the time. You can look to your self talk in changing that. That's the good news. So people on the surface think I, I don't know if I really like the sound of that, but the reality is there's a whole lot of stuff going on we can't control. This is the one thing that we can control. So that's the really good news for all of us whether you're in a leadership position or any position in the workplace. Which by the way, I love that you said leading ourselves, because at the end of the day, we're all leaders. We are leading ourselves in the way that we show up. And whether or not you have direct reports, you're a leader because you're gonna show up in meetings, you're gonna be part of a project, you're going to be part of a team. If you're working with others, you want to show up in a way where you're positively influencing those around you. Yeah. I love what you said about all of us are leaders. I love John Maxwell's definition. He said Leadership is influence. We all influence somebody, whether it's the waitress that you're, being served by at dinner or your children or your family members or your friends, we influence on a daily basis. Yes. That's really good. One of the things you talk about, you say that our stories come from both facts and our interpretation, and you talk about the emotions that go with that. What is the distinction for leaders who feel stuck? What can you explain, unwrap that? And then you also do a really good job with your SEAR process talking about how to work through that and how to I like your paradigm, your framework Yeah. That you use there. Can you maybe unpack that a little bit for us so that we can understand how the distinction between the facts and interpreting them? Yeah, absolutely. Boy and I just had a meeting this morning with someone. We had this conversation where people get stuck because we have, first of all, there's the situation, which is the fact of the matter. And then we have the story that we tell ourselves about the situation, and people get those mixed up. They go right to the story, and they consider that to be the fact for example I this is an example I talk about in my workshops just to help people figure out how that works. And this is one that like so many people can relate to. Let's say you're part of an important project. You maybe there's just an important project in the workplace. You play a significant role and there's an email that goes out, a calendar invite in inviting people to a meeting about the project. And you don't get the meeting invite. That's the fact of the matter. That's the situation. I'm on this team, I'm on this project. An email goes out, I didn't get it. That's the fact. But we don't look at the fact, we look at the story and what do you think the story is that people tell themselves, especially on their worst day when things aren't going well? What do you think the first thing people jump to? They think there's something wrong with them or they're being left out, or it's some type of victim mentality. Yeah, absolutely. They're they don't think I'm important enough. I'm being disrespected. Maybe, someone's trying to take over my job. All of these things, and these are the stories. And so we don't really break that down. We just go, oh, I didn't get an email and now I'm sending somebody a message. And we tell ourselves a story. So here's the SEAR framework. You have the situation and the SEAR, by the way, is an acronym, and I love this acronym because most of our stories are repetitive. I'll talk into about the brain science if you'd like in just a minute, but most of our stories are repetitive negative thought patterns, and so they're seared into our minds. And SR is an acronym. We can sear new stories, and this is a framework on how to do that. So if you're telling stories that keep you stuck. This is the best way to get unstuck. Number one, identify the story. So in this case, in this example, the story is they're disrespecting me. I'm not important. But what happens is there's the situation we, the fact we tell ourselves a story. The story evokes an emotion, and the emotion informs the action that we take, and the action produces the result. So if the story we're telling ourself is, they don't think I'm important, how would that make one feel? What might be an emotion somebody feels as a result of that? Just dejected left out, yeah. Those types of things. Yeah, absolutely angry, resentful. And then once you feel angry, resentful, disrespected, all of those emotions. Then the action, I ask people, what action would you take? And it's usually one end of the spectrum or the other. Either it's, I'm gonna march down to someone's office and I'm gonna let them know what I, I think about that. Or a lot of people will say. Fine, I'll just withdraw. And then they stop even engaging. Once you start in these kinds of actions or behaviors, that always produces a result. If you can figure that out this is good news because we can go back and the solution then is to tell a new story. So if you want a different result, you wanna change your action. And if you wanna change your action. You have to change your emotion. And the best way to change your emotion is by changing the story. So we reverse engineer to get to the different result. I can't remember if you mentioned this book in the, in your book, I think you do at one point, but The Four Agreements. Yeah. And it talk, one of those agreements is don't take anything personally. And one of the things that I see that you're sharing that story, a lot of times, a lot of our self-inflicted wounds is that we take things personally. Yes. When I read that book, that was one of the most powerful things.'cause we tend to gravitate to that and that leads to a lot of negative self-talk. Yeah, it's a great book. In your coaching work, what is the most common self-sabotaging story that leaders tell of themselves? If you had to write down one theme or two themes that you see leaders doing to themselves that, that sabotages them. That's such a great question, mark. I love that question. I would say a sense of not being good enough. Nobody comes to me and says I'm not good enough, but we have these little masks like we have these disguised ways of saying that they might say, for example, I'm too old. I can't go for that job. I can't go for that promotion. Or I've been passed over because I'm too old or I'm too young. Like I'll I'm just not experienced enough to be able to do that kind of responsibility. Maybe I don't have the right degree. I don't come from the right family. All of these are different ways of really. Feeling that you're not good enough. I would say that's number one. And then that's where the lack of confidence and the self-doubt comes from. Those are the manifestations of that. There's an example in the book of a leader that I worked with and when she came to me, she was so unhappy. It was usually by the time people come to me, like always the pain points are so high. She was a kind of a. High level manager, director level in her organization. And she was so unhappy. She said, Marianne, I think I'm just going to quit and I think I'm going to just start clean houses. And I said time out. Don't make any decisions. Let's talk about this. And she did. She really had some self doubt. She felt like she didn't have the right kind of degree. She felt like she wasn't the right age, which, these are all things that, people it's easy to identify because there's nothing I can do about how old I am. But we worked together and helped her change her self-talk and by the time we were done working together and we worked together for quite a while she ended up as the CEO of her organization. That was a powerful story. You were reading my mind. I was hoping you would share that story. I was gonna prompt you to, if you didn't because that's an extraordinary story. Just bridging that to another story that was in the book our common friend Dan Miller, would use that question, when we find hit obstacles, we're all gonna hit obstacles and challenges. This question that we both know that he presented to us on a regular basis is, what does this make possible? He did that even into his dying days as yeah. And I saw a story in your book there where. There's this guy that's gonna get laid off multiple times and maybe just give us a brief rendition of what he went through and how that kind of mindset totally transformed his career. And most people, 99% of the people, when I was reading, I said 99% of the people would not react the way this guy did. But the way he reacted, resulted in some phenomenal results in his life. I love this story. So this was I had a coaching client who came to me and when he came to me, he was gosh, he had worked in like a six person office. He was a program kind of coordinator and he was really. Unhappy and we worked together and he ended up landing his dream job and he had a manager level position. He loved his work and he showed up and he just gave, and gave and did such a great job. The organization loved him. He loved them, but. As this as happens, the organization was going through a restructuring and I think there was a merger acquisition, and his job was being eliminated. And even though they loved him and he loved them, it's just, you know how that goes. And his, he came to me and he said, so what should I do? And I said what do you think you should do? Because what he wanted me to say and what, and the way he felt was, I can't believe they're doing this to me. Screw them. Like how dare they? All of the things that. We here and maybe some of us have experienced and I work hard. This is another one I hear from people. I work harder than anyone else and I know my stuff. I'm smarter than any anyone around me. And how dare they do this. That's, so I hear that all the time. We can talk about that. We put a pin in that one. So anyway, I put it back on him. What do you think you should do? And he said so we talked a lot about who you wanna be as a leader and what is the mantra and what do you want to be known for? What do you want people to say about you when you're not in the room? And he really put some thought into it. He put a lot of thought into it, and he said, I wanna do the right thing. Even when it feels like the right thing is not happening to me. He came up with that and I said, that's beautiful. So he just decided that was going to be his life's mantra. And so he showed up that way. And he had I don't know, two or three months, like he knew he. They were giving him some time. Some people are let go and it's, that's the day by the end of day. But he had a, he had some time and so he kept showing up that way. And, people would stop him in the hallway and I can't believe they're doing this to you. And, and of course he wanted it's human nature. He wanted chime in and say, I know, but he wouldn't, he'd say, the organization really gave me an opportunity. I was able to learn some new things and, had such a great. Experience here. I'm very grateful. So he, that was the feedback that he would give to people that would say, man, you should be mad. So it came down to the 11th hour. I think it was maybe the week before he was to be let go. And they called him up senior leadership on the executive leadership team and said, hey, we decided we don't wanna lose you. And so they ended up creating a position just for him. He got the job. It was a, oh, I have to look at the numbers. It gets been a while since I've told the story, but I think it was like a 50% salary increase. A huge promotion. During this layoff time. So that worked out really great for him. And so then now he's telling me, boy, I really love this job even more than the first one that I got. And about 18 months go by and he gives me a call and he says, guess what? Another layoff, reorg, the whole thing is happening again, and I'm losing my job. And not only that, in the second round, in the second time this was happening, they were asking him to help people through the transition, which means for people who don't know what that means you're losing your job and other people are losing your job. And it's your responsibility to be that cheerleader and help them through it while you're losing yours too. And so he says to me, what should I do? And I said, what do you think you should do? And he said, all right. Do the right thing when it feels like the right thing isn't happening to me. And he thought it worked. It was a good strategy the first time, so maybe it'll work again this time. And so the clock is ticking. The clock is ticking. Same thing. People stopping him in the hallway. It's getting harder and harder for him, but he's consistently showing up this way. The 11th hour comes like it did the first time. It goes. And he didn't get, no callback, no nothing. He packs up everything in a cardboard box, as one does. And marches out the front door on his last day and goes home and he's a little frustrated'cause he was really hoping it would work out. I think, oh man, I don't know, less than a week went by and he gets a phone call. His phone call from a vice president who says, Hey, I was talking to the CEO about you now. He was at least three levels, if not more, below somebody at the CEO level, the CEO. This, the, they had no reason to really know each other. Huge organization. And this vice president said, Hey, I was talking to the CEO about you, and the CEO says. I've been hearing about this guy. Everybody's been telling me about this guy. So they ended up they found another role that was open in the organization and that he wasn't being considered for, they asked him to apply. So he looks at the job description and it was a very unique kind of unicorn kind of position. And when he looked at his resume and background. It was a perfect match. So he applies, he gets the, got the position another 30% salary increase and loved that one even more. He, it was a, yeah, people don't, I, people don't even, I need him to get on, I need to get on a recording with him because people don't even believe me when I tell him the story, but it's absolutely true. Yeah, it was amazing. It is an amazing story and one of the things I'd like you to share with us is the behind the scenes calls. When I read that, I was like, okay, this guy came to you early on and his mindset was, yeah, for lack of a better word, broken. He was down, he was, discouraged with these current role. So a lot of times, things that happen on stage. There's a lot of work that's done off stage. Take us behind the scenes of what happened off stage with him. Yeah. Yeah. To get him in that position where he could answer to your questions like that because he made those decisions and then he showed up in an extraordinary way. What was behind the scenes that happened with that? I'll give you a great example. This is a process that I went through with him when we were coaching the very first time he ever called me up and was inquiring about coaching, and usually this is very common. It's either, Hey, I'm looking for a promotion. Will you help me? Will you help me with my interview skills? Will you help me put my resume together? Will you help me? All of these kind of tactile things, and I, I said, listen, I absolutely can help you do that. I said, but. Based on our conversation, I'm hearing a few things that I think that I could help you with your mindset. Would you be open to that? He said absolutely. Because your mindset, which is when we're talking about self-talk, that's what we're talking about, our mindset. It is the foundation for your success. Yeah, I can help you with and I get requests too. This is the same thing, like people will say, will you come and do leadership training? Will you do training on communication skills? Will you do training on accountability? I'll do all of that. But here's the thing, if you do all of that without developing a solid foundation, it'll, it just all crumbles. Just like when you're building a house, if you build a house without a foundation and you want beautiful granite countertop and a, a master suite, which. All those things are great, and we want those things, but you have to have the solid foundation first, which is what we're talking about. In this case what we've, we, so here's what people do. They'll foc, they'll show up with this mindset of, I'm not good enough. Like we talked about, I'm too young, I'm too old. All the reasons something won't work. So what's happening is we're telling stories about our past, about our present. About our future. And so I'll walk through what I do to help people with these stories. And this is exactly what I did some of the work that I did with this particular individual, but in the past it's when we're focused on stories about the past, it's, we're focused on all the reasons ways that we messed up. All the reasons I'm not good enough. I messed up. I, dropped the ball on a project whatever the case is, like a mistake that I made. And then we focus a hundred percent on the mistake or mistakes that we made that day. Now we might have done a hundred things in a day, in the course of a day in, in today's world, maybe more, and maybe we just. Up in that one way, dropped the ball in that one way, but that's all we focus on. So number one, those are all the ways I'm no good. And I ask clients to write down your wins from the day every day. Write down three. Usually clients will say, I don't have any. Come on, let's do some thinking. I got the kids out the door on time. I said a kind word to somebody at the grocery store. It doesn't matter. We tend to discount. We just tend to edit. It's not important. So you wanna change your stories about the past by celebrating your wins. That's step one. Stories about the past. Then we tell stories about the present. If the past says, I'm no good, the present says it's no good. We might say, I am miserable at my job. People will say, I don't like my job. I don't like my boss, I don't like the work. So we're telling all these stories why it's no good in our present state. So I will say, write down three things you're grateful for. For your job, let's say if they're and this particular individual, he's, he has told this story before publicly. He's Marian, and you told me to write things I'm grateful for about my job, and I just got done telling you I don't like it. But listen, are you getting free coffee? Do you have a parking lot that's close to the building? Do you have a nice reception area? Fred is sitting two cubicles down from you, and he's a pretty nice guy, so it's nice to see him every day. Like you can find three things you're grateful for. So every day you're changing your stories about the present by writing what you're grateful for. So the past is on no good. We wanna write celebration. The wins present, it's no good. We wanna write appreciation. And then the future is, it will never be good, and we do this all the time. We might, I'll ne I'm not gonna apply for that job because I'll never get it. I'm not gonna go for that promotion because there's too much politics involved and somebody else is gonna get it instead. So we want to change our stories about the future, and the way to do that is through affirmation. So changing the present is appreciation, changing the future's affirmation. What is it that we want to believe about the future? And people will box sometimes at the word affirmation. Oh, that's just a little like fluffy. But listen, we're already using affirmations. I'll never get the job. It's probably gonna rain tomorrow. Oh, we're gonna get eight inches of snow. I'm here in the Chicago suburbs, we're gonna get, eight inches of snow tonight. We're already doing it. So the question is, do you want the affirmation to work for you or against you? So those are the three things. I actually have a journal called Chaos Clarity Success Journal, that walks you through those three steps. And they're also in the book, in the self-talk book as well. I love. What you're talking about with the affirmations, because like you said, we are telling ourselves a story and it can, we can choose to either be positive or negative. As Zig Ziglar said, positive thinking won't solve all your problems, but it'll make you be able to solve'em better. It'll make everything better. As you're moving through that let's move back to your story a little bit'cause you talked in there and I think this applies to everyone. You said you came to a point where you said, once said something has to change, but what, how did you start finding the first answers? Because we have if we're going to create a new mindset, create new stories, have a new path forward, we have to come to some realization, some point where we realize that something's gotta change and sometimes it's a crisis. Sometimes it's just a desire to have a better life. What was it for you? What caused you to. Make that decision to change things. Yeah, that's such a great question. So I, I tell this story in the book that again, I'm pulling from my personal journey because by the way, personal, professional, they go together. You can't really separate them. And in my case, I was feeling, like I said, 30 years of depression. And throughout all of that I was, trying to do the same things over and over again. And I was, going to this person for help and going to that person for help. And I used to just say over and over I can't stand it like that. This is another one. These are the stories we tell ourselves. It's different versions of, it's not fair. And my version of it's not bare was I can't stand it. I can't stand it anymore. I can't live like this anymore. And I had this, I called bathroom mirror moment because I used to be getting ready for work in the morning trying to put on my makeup as tears were streaming down my face and saying, over and over I can't live like this anymore. And one morning I just had this thought, it rose up into my mind like. What if I could live like this? If I keep saying I can't live like this anymore, either the depression lifts or I die and I did have a suicide attempt I write about in the book. And so I thought what if I could live like this? A lot of people. Live with a lot of terrible things. And so there was a moment of acceptance and one of the first chapters in the book is Accept what is. And there was a moment of acceptance, what if I could live like this? And in that moment, like everything started to shift and acceptance is really about. Dropping the resistance against a situation because when we're stuck in resistance against a situation, it ke it inhibits our ability to think creatively, to solve problems. And so we need to accept where we're at while we're on the way to where we're going. So I always have to explain to people what acceptance does not mean, because people will say, what are you just saying? I should be a doormat. I should lay down and let people walk all over me. Just accept it. And that is not what I'm saying, but what I am saying is you've gotta let go of the resistance against, because when you're in that. Emotional state of angst. It really inhibits your ability to move forward. And I will say that is exactly what happened. There wasn't a light bulb moment when the depression was gone, but there was a light bulb moment of that thought. And from that moment forward, I gradually started to see the depression lift. Then I'm making different empowered choices that were all about more empowered self-talk. That helped me move forward in, in that area. And so that was, that was really the start of it. I see that it's a good transition in the next thing I wanted to ask you,'cause I think you're been alluding that to this throughout about your chapter on owning your role when challenges come, and the victim mindset is just predominant in our society. Everybody's a victim and we're really trained even by the professional media that, the victim mindset. How do you combat that? How do you help them change their mindset around owning their own role and owning their responsibility, taking a hundred percent responsibility for what's going on in their lives. Yeah. I. Yeah, I you're referring to the chapter where I tell the story about my AA sponsor when I was in a recovery program and she was walking me through the 12 steps of recovery and we, things were going along pretty well for a while, and then we came to the fourth step. And I had heard of the four Step because it was like something of mythical proportions. And like Moby Dick, the great white whale, it was like the scary monster. You didn't know what it looked like and you knew you had to go to a deep, dark abyss to find it. And so the four Step says. We make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. And I thought that didn't sound too bad to me because, life had screwed me, not the other way around. So I was okay with making a moral inventory, right? And so then she said to me, go home. I want you to go home and make a list of every person who ever wronged you and the circumstances around that. And I thought, oh, you know what? Bring it on. And I grabbed a pen and a whole pad of paper, and everyone was on that list. Mark. The government was on that list at the top of the list. I had ex-boyfriends and bosses on that list, and so I went back the next week, so excited to show her my list. And she said she, by the way, she wasn't nearly as impressed as I thought she should be. And instead she said, now for the second part, and I thought, huh. What more could there possibly be? And she said, next to every one of those names and the circumstances, I want you to write your role. And I was like, wait, what? Wait. What? I don't think you heard me. And what I learned through that process and so many other tools was that if I'm the writer of my story, which is what we all are, then I play a role there. If I'm in the situation, I'm playing a role in the situation. And by the way, I said to her, listen, this stuff that I wrote down, it's not my fault. I'm not to blame. And she said, I'm not asking you to assign fault or blame to you or anyone else. And that was the big light bulb moment was, oh, just because I play a role, I'm not trying to say it's my fault. So I'm not beating myself up. I'm not trying to say it's someone else's fault, so I'm not pointing fingers at them. But if, and this is where people get really stuck because they think why would you ask me to do that? And I'm thinking, why not? Because if I play a role. Then I get the free, I have the freedom to choose the pro, the role that I want to play. So ultimately, at the end of the day, I always have a choice, and that's if we can get to that place, then there's freedom on the other side of that. I think that was a powerful story there with your coach in AA telling you that, and it really, to me, bridges to the same philosophy that Dan Miller had with what does this make possible. That that's what he would always do. I remember when his place that he loved the barn in, in, in Tennessee, and. Made new rules where he couldn't use it for business. And he said, what does this make possible? When he found out that he had cancer, he says, what does this make possible? So I've seen that lived out in his life. And then to me, that's when we start taking ownership when we can ask that question, what is my role? How can I make right this story? And you get ownership of it. Then you get to, dictate how that is interpreted. So I think that's powerful. Yeah. Let's bridge this a little bit with, so you had that person helping you there in aa, and then at the end of the book you talk about Monica. So you had a, this is Maryanne's story and she's interweaved with a lot of people that you've had in your life that you've helped, but there are a lot of people that helped you along the way. Tell us a little bit about the importance of that, of having a, Monica, having a person like you had coaching you through aa. To get you through those difficult times. Tell me the value of having a coach a counselor, a supporter in your life. Oh my gosh, mark I don't think anyone has, I've done a lot of interviews and I don't think anyone's ever asked me about Monica, and that's probably the most important chapter of the book. I don't know. I hope I can even talk about this without getting emotional. Yeah, Monica's been, she was my therapist for 20. Five years. And what I think the takeaway, what I want people to take away from the book, number one, I just wanted to honor her. But for the readers, I really want them to understand that none of us can do this alone. That we all need a Monica. And Monica is someone who was there for me. She knew me better than she probably, other than God is probably the only one who knows me better than Monica, let's put it that way. She saw me at my best. She saw me at my worst and she never wavered and she never left my side. And we all need someone like that and not someone who is just a cheerleader and will say, when you're showing up your best, say, that's okay. They, you should just stick it to them'cause they stuck it to you. No. Somebody who will always take the high road, always encourage you to be your best, always love you when you're not, but help you and champion you to rise up. And that's the role that she played in the book. I say she's the closest thing to a mother I've ever known since my own mom died when I was nine. And she, she saved my life. But, ma, in many times, in many ways emotionally, psychologically, and physically but here's the thing. We, we all have, if we look for them, we have divine connections. And Monica was a, she was a divine connection in my life. So was Dan Miller, who you referred to? New York Times bestselling author of 48 Days to the Work You Love, who's no longer with us. There are, I can go back and connect the dots of my life and just look at, oh, I'll never forget when I had a best friend in high school who. Basically forced, drove me to a therapy session. And then when I met Monica and the SCH particular scholarship committee that gave me a scholarship to college and, you can look for these divine connections. And, but we all need a team and we really need a team of the right. People though, the right people, I can't emphasize that enough. Again, not just somebody who will say, get in the mud with you and if you wanna fight dirty, they're gonna fight dirty with you. No, but that person that will say to you, who do you wanna be today? How do you wanna show up? What do you want people to say about you when you're no longer in the room? So Monica was, pretty was and is a pretty amazing person in my life. That's powerful. Yeah. We all need to have somebody that can impact us like that. Can you share, I know you have a growth mindset, so you're always learning, growing. I saw you go through the process getting ready for your Ted Talk and writing this book. I've watched you do these things. What are some books, what are some mentors that you lead, whether it's podcasts or going to their trainings. What are a few that you would recommend to our audience that's helped you grow in your leadership and in your coaching and in your. Personal life journey. What's some that stick out? Yeah. Thanks for asking that. First of all, before I share that let me just be really clear, i'm on a journey like I am. I have not made it. I have not arrived. I fall down every single day. So I don't wanna give anyone the impression that I'm, oh yeah, I got there. Like every, the tool that's in self-talk, I'm practicing every day and. Oftentimes not, messing it up. But I would say one of my favorite books that was very inspirational and influential for me was called The Happiness Advantage, written by Sean aor, who's a Harvard researcher on happiness. And he actually wrote an endorsement for, he's on the front cover of the book, wrote an endorsement and has a TED talk as well on the happiness. This is. Especially for people in the workplace, it's about how happiness can give you a competitive advantage in the workplace. So it's very personal and professional. And anything he's written, he's got a great book called Big Potential. I loved the Success Principles by Jack Canfield. It's been around for a while. My favorites are books that have been around for a while. I love The Four Agreements you mentioned The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I'm looking over at my bookshelf. Jay Shetty's got a great book called Think Like A Monk. Yeah, I love Napoleon Hills. Think and Grow Rich. Yep. Those are some great ones. You've named some. Some classics there. Yeah. I like the old classics. That's great. One of the things I'd like you to share with is just how people can tell a little bit about what you do and how people can get in touch with you. And we'll put all that in the show notes and the leader notes and what it, how you. Work with people and the speaking and training that you do.. Just share a little bit about that. Sure. Thanks. Yeah, so I have three, three areas. I work with people, individuals, one-on-one. In coaching, I work with organizations. I do workshops and trainings leadership trainings and workshops, and then I speak at conferences. And I would say if somebody wants to connect with me, go to my, you're gonna love this. You guys are gonna love this. Go to my website. And it's marianne renter.com/ self-talk. So go right to the self-talk page. You, if, listen, if you haven't been sold on the book and you're not sure you wanna sync the,$16 or whatever it is right now online, you can get free chapters. So you can go right now and download free chapters from that page. You can also get a workbook for free that has every single tool that's in the book. So the book, by the way, every chapter is a story you tell yourself. Dozens and dozens of tools on how to change your self-talk and all of those tools are in the workbook. So yeah, just go to my website and you can get all that stuff and we'll stay connected. We'll stay connected through email. I highly recommend it. It's been life changing for me and thinking about my mindset and it woke me up about a few stories that I've told Myselves over the years. So I really appreciate you sharing with our audience today, and thank you for your time. Thank you so much, mark. This has been an honor and joy to be here with you.

Wow. That was a power packed episode from Marianne and her book Self-Talk. I hope you'll go pick up a copy. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. Make sure that you download the leader notes. This will give you a good comprehensive overview and outline of everything that we discussed and we'll also give you the opportunity to access the links to all the books that were mentioned and give you some. Tools that you can share with your team and help you grow as a leader and help your team grow as a leader. Self-talk is such a critical aspect of everything that we do in our personal and professional lives. If you got value out of this episode, please go give us a rating of five at your favorite podcast player. Also, make sure that you share with a friend and subscribe so that this enters into your feed. Every time we publish an episode. Thanks for being a part of the Learning to Lead Show. We appreciate you listening and sharing our content with others. Now, go out and learn, grow and Lead. Take your organization to the next level. I.