Finding Joy as Resistance in a Challenging World -50
It's time for a pep talk! In this solo episode, I dive into how we can reclaim our personal power and cultivate an audaciously hopeful mindset, even in the midst of chaos. I explore how we can shape our attitudes and perspectives, no matter what challenges come our way.
I’ll also share practical ways to take care of ourselves—physically, mentally, and spiritually—while building strong, supportive communities. Because here’s the truth: joy isn’t just a feeling; it’s an act of resistance. And in times like these, choosing hope, love, and connection is the most powerful thing we can do.
So, if you’re looking for a boost of inspiration, tools to navigate uncertainty, and a reminder that you do have control over your energy and mindset, this episode is for you. Let’s rise up together!
Join us for the upcoming Energy Exchange!
Marli Williams is an international keynote speaker, master facilitator, and joy instigator who has worked with organizations such as Nike, United Way, Doordash, along with many colleges and schools across the United States. She first fell in love with transformational leadership as a camp counselor when she was 19 years old. After getting two degrees and 15 years of leadership training, Marli decided to give herself permission to be the “Professional Camp Counselor” she knew she was born to be. Now she helps incredible people and organizations stop waiting for permission and start taking bold action to be the leaders and changemakers they’ve always wanted to be through the power of play and cultivating joy everyday. She loves helping people go from stuck to STOKED and actually created her own deck of inspirational messages called StokeQuotes™ which was then followed by The Connect Deck™ to inspire more meaningful conversations. Her ultimate mission in the world is to help others say YES to themselves and their big crazy dreams (while having fun doing it!) To learn more about Marli’s work go to www.marliwilliams.com and follow her on Instagram @marliwilliams
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Transcript
NOTE:
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Marli Williams [:Hey, everyone. What's happening? I am super stoked to welcome you to the Marli Williams podcast, where we will explore authentic leadership, transformational facilitation, and how to create epic experiences for your audiences every single time. I am your host, Marli Williams, bringing you thought provoking insights, expert interviews, and actionable strategies to unlock your potential as a leader, facilitator, and speaker. Thank you for joining me on this journey of growth, transformation, and impact. Let's lead together. The Marli Williams podcast begins now. Let's dive in. For this week, I'm coming to you with a solo episode with a pep talk because what is happening in the world right now is crazy.
Marli Williams [:It's overwhelming. It's scary. And it can lead to us feeling very, very overwhelmed and out of control and a little bit hopeless or unsure what to do, where to put our focus, where to put our time, where to put our attention, our energy, you know, do I pay attention to everything that's going on and let that totally drive me nuts? Do I put my head in the sand and just ignore it for the next four years or however long it is? And so I just wanted to come to you today with some thoughts that I have about how we can show up for ourselves when the world outside ourselves feels daunting and feels chaotic and out of our control. Because what I know to be true is that the only thing that we are really in control of is how we show up for ourselves. And it's really easy to show up for ourselves when everything is rainbows and unicorns and butterflies and everything is going really well and we have all the time in the world and we're feeling really good about ourselves, it could be a lot easier to show up for ourselves. Meaning, you know, whether that's eating well or exercising or meditating or going for the walk, like doing all of the things that we know nourish ourselves. And yet when shit hits the fan, those practices are oftentimes the first thing to go because we think I don't have time for that. I have work that I need to do or letters that I need to write or calls I need to make.
Marli Williams [:And so we stop caring for ourselves. And then we doom scroll and we don't sleep and maybe we eat junk food to satiate ourselves or ice cream or whatever it is. And we kind of go off the rails because we just feel out of control. And so the invitation today is to really reclaim your sense of sovereignty and control over yourself, your attitude, your energy, your mindset, your thoughts, your beliefs, you know, that is the only thing that the government like can't take away from you. Is and, and I feel like what they're wanting to take away from us right now is our hope by throwing at all of these things our way, dismantling all of these systems that are in place, cutting off money and grants and funding, and they're wanting us to feel out of control. And one of the most powerful books that I have ever read is called Man's Search for Meeting, which is by an author named Viktor Frankl. And he was in one of the worst circumstances anyone can imagine themselves being in, which is in a concentration camp in the Holocaust. And what he said was that, you know, if they can take all of my money and all the people that I love and all of my belongings, they can take all of these things away, but what they can't take away is my own attitude towards what's going on.
Marli Williams [:They can't take away my hope. They can't take away my thoughts. They can't take away what is going on in between my ears, you know, essentially. And so what he found was in this horrendous moment in history, the people that survived the concentration camps, you know, he was a psychologist, a researcher. And what he discovered was the people that survived were the people that had hope. They had hope for a better future for themselves. They had a vision like they, they were able to see beyond their current circumstances, meaning they created something to live for. He said, you know, when I get out of here, like I am going to write about this experience.
Marli Williams [:I am going to do something positive with my life as a result of this. And he time after time, the people that survived that atrocity, that was one of the things that they all had in common was they had hope, they had faith. And the, and, and he, there's stories in the book where it's like, he could tell that someone was going to, to die or pass away because it's like he could see it in their eyes that they had lost that. They had lost that sense of hope, which is what gives people power. Barack Obama wrote his famous book called The Audacity of Hope. And what I think about, you know, I love that word, audacity. It's like, how dare I be hopeful in a time of crisis and in a time where things are so maddening, things are so beyond what we could even perceive happening. To have the audacity in that moment to be hopeful, to be a hopeful optimist.
Marli Williams [:As I like to say, it's like in the midst of change, challenge and chaos, will you bring the weather? Will you show up in the midst of the storm and bring the weather, bring the joy, bring the love, bring the leadership, bring the energy, bring the hope to the people. And sometimes, and you know, the going back to that word, audacity, it's like, oh, to be hopeful in this time can be seen as being ignorant or naive or not paying attention to what's going on. And yet it is the thing that has gotten people through the hardest times. So how can we cultivate a hopeful mindset? How can we give ourselves the gift of seeing the joy in the everyday moments to continue to celebrate gratitude, to look for the good in the movements that people are building and the difference that people are making and the voices that people are sharing and speaking up like there is a movement among us. And the metaphor that I like to use is I feel like we're in a slingshot moment in history where it feels like we're all getting pulled backwards and we feel stretched and to our edge of what we even thought, what could be possible to go this far backwards. And my hope, my belief as a audacious hopeful optimist is that it is meant to sling shot us forward into a future. We cannot not yet even see. And I think that what they're wanting us, what, what the administration right now wants is for us to lose that sense of hope.
Marli Williams [:Because if we are hopeless, that means we'll let things happen and we won't stand up and fight against what we know is right. And, you know, if you are someone out there and you are angry, good. But anger is just the first step. Anger is what tells us when something isn't okay. But it's what we do with that anger. It's using that anger as fuel for the fire to fight against the things, to fight for the things that we believe in and to fight against the things that we don't agree with, essentially. And so in order to do that, in order to have hope, I believe we need to know that the future we desire to create is actually possible, even if it doesn't feel like it. And even if we can't see it right now.
Marli Williams [:Martin Luther King, when he got on the stage, he said, how many words I have? He said four words that changed the course of history. And he said, I have a dream that one day my children, right, will be treated as equal in all these things. Right. I have a dream. He didn't get up there and said and say, I have a plan. He didn't have a plan. He didn't necessarily know how, but he inspired people with a vision for a future that some people at that moment in time thought was totally crazy. So we can't lose sight of the vision that we want for generations to come, where people are accepted and have rights and have belonging and feel they're not outcasts, but they are an essential part of our world and our communities.
Marli Williams [:So my first question for you to reignite this hopeful optimist inside of you in your heart is to really take time to envision the future that you want and really believe in your heart of hearts that that is possible. Because if we lose sight of that, we lose everything. And again, it's like that is it's like there is research done on the power of being able to see beyond the current circumstances that we're in right now, in order to have the energy to fight the good fight and to put ourselves out there and stand up for what really matters. And in order, I think part of this work too is showing up for ourselves and making sure that we are nourishing and nurturing our own souls, our bodies, our minds, our spirit, our energy. Because if we are sleep deprived, if we're running ragged, we have no energy for hope. We have no energy to fight. And so instead of seeing these practices of really showing up for ourselves as extra, when I have time, when the to do list is done, when all the work is done, then I'll make sure that I exercise and move my body and eat nourishing food. Those things are not extra.
Marli Williams [:Those things are essential now more than ever in order to, you know, again, put ourselves out there and do this work to fight against these systems that are coming at us. We need to be resourced. We need to be filled up. And so I really invite you. And again, these things can be small little ways that you show up for you every single day. Whether that's taking a walk, feeling your feet on the earth, taking time to sit and meditate. And even for one minute, putting your hands on your heart and say, you know, I am safe right here right now in this moment. And to cultivate this inner sense of safety when the world feels unsafe, when the world feels like it's coming at us, things are falling apart, things are hard.
Marli Williams [:Again, there's so much outside of us that we cannot control. The only thing that we can control is ourselves and reminding ourselves in each moment that we have a say in what goes on between our ears and to say like, wow, this is hard right now. And I'm made for this. I'm built for this. Let's fucking go. We got this. Let's show up. Let's fight.
Marli Williams [:Let's do this together. And the other piece of this puzzle that's so important, you know, one is again showing having this vision for this future that we want to create, showing up for ourselves, nourishing ourselves. And the third piece of the puzzle here is finding your people. Finding your community of support, people to lift you up, to build you up to, so that you don't feel alone. Because right now we need each other now more than ever. And the world is so isolating and so divisive that we need spaces and places in communities where we can feel seen and heard and loved and lifted and supported. And like we belong. So my invitation for you is to find your people, find the people that inspire you, find someone to support you and find someone who inspires you.
Marli Williams [:Right. And find someone to inspire and find someone to support. Right. It's this give and take and this, the law of reciprocity. And can we come at it with a sense of generosity of what can I do to help you to help your neighbor, to help your friends, to help your family, to help your community? And so I invite you to reach out and really find some support, find some community. And if it doesn't exist to build it, I just got off an amazing call with the amazing woman who came to the Baja retreat. And one of them was brave enough to sit, you know, it was like the movement and the community that I wanted, what didn't exist. So I created it.
Marli Williams [:I brought these moms and parents and kids together to mobilize, to write letters, to show up for one another when things are hard. And so either find your people, find your community or build a community and know that if you have a desire for a certain type of group or support or community, that you are not the only one. And there are people that need that too. That's one of the reasons I created the energy exchange here in Portland was like, I want to surround myself with movers and shakers and entrepreneurs and leaders and change makers and people who inspire me because we are not meant to go this alone. We are not meant to do this alone. If we isolate, we die, we drown and our own sea of overwhelm. And, and again, finding your people, it can be, it can be one person. It can be two people.
Marli Williams [:It might not be a sea of people, but we all need someone we can count on and rely on and call when things are hard. We don't know where to turn someone who gets us, who can see us and who can support us through these challenging times that we're living in right now. And I just want to say from my heart to your heart that we will get through this. We will get on the other side there. I have to believe that in my heart of hearts, that there, this is hopefully the fuel to move us forward into a better, brighter future. And it's it, we might have to go through the dark to get to the light, but that we have what it takes to do that. We do. And for those of you out there writing the letters, making the phone calls, doing the good work, I see you.
Marli Williams [:I love you. I support you. And I want to end by saying something that came up in the call as well, which is that joy is a form of resistance. What they want from us most is to lose hope and to be scared to live in a state of fear. And when we live in a state of fear, we are powerless. But when we live in a space of joy and hope and love and possibility, we are unstoppable. We are unshakable. So lean in to what lights you up, lean into your joy.
Marli Williams [:Remember to laugh, remember to play and to know that that in and of itself is a form of resistance that we, in the midst of this challenge that we, there may be suffering. And even in the suffering and we can find the joy, find the good, find the love and spread that. Be that light in the dark. Thank you so much for tuning in this week for listening to this pep talk. If it resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to share this. Love it, like it, send it to a friend, send it to someone who needs to hear this message right now. And I would love to hear what bold inspired actions that you take, whether that's remembering what our vision for the future is, nourishing and showing up for yourself, finding or building your community, whatever that is, really leaning into your joy.
Marli Williams [:I love you and I'm so grateful to have you in my life. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. And until next time, take care. Thank you for joining us on another inspiring episode of the Marli Williams podcast. We hope you're leaving here with renewed energy and valuable insights to fuel your leadership, coaching, and speaking endeavors. I'd love to invite you to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast to help us reach more aspiring leaders and speakers like you. We have more exciting episodes and remarkable guests lined up, so make sure to tune in next time.
Marli Williams [:Until then, keep leading with purpose, coaching with heart, and speaking with conviction. This is Marli Williams signing off. See you next week.
