Navigating Change: A Six Step Framework to Champion Your Life -57

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Marli Williams [: 00:00:04

Well, hey, everybody. What is happening? I'd love to welcome you back to the Marli Williams podcast for this week. You are in for a treat. I am hanging out with the amazing, the powerful, Dorice Horenstein, who is the author of her new book coming out, Choose to Be Your Own Champion. And that is what we dive into on this amazing episode. You know? And as someone who has been a recovering perfectionist, I can be my own worst critic, my own worst enemy. I can be so hard on myself. And so I absolutely love this conversation where Doris shares her six step process on how we can all choose to be our own champion of our lives, our businesses, our careers, our relationships, really to reclaim that sense of power in ourselves.

Marli Williams [: 00:01:01

So I cannot wait to dive into this amazing conversation today. Let's do this. 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. Impact. Let's lead together. The Marli Williams podcast begins now.

Marli Williams [: 00:01:51

Let's dive in. For this week, we are hanging out with Dorice Horenstein, who is an incredible author, keynote speaker. We geek out on really how to create transformation in people's lives through events. And I am so stoked to have you on the podcast. We actually met years and years ago at an event we were both at called the Superwoman Summit. Got connected through NSA and Oregon here, and we just ran into each other at TEDx Portland this weekend. And I am just so stoked to have you on the podcast.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:02:30

It is absolutely my pure pleasure. Thank you.

Marli Williams [: 00:02:34

I always like to start with our guests to share a little bit of your story, your journey of becoming, you know, a keynote speaker and writing books and, you know, doing like, creating courses. Like, what brought you to this work? Because you have a really fascinating journey and story, and I think that it really provides some context for the conversation that we get to have today.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:02:59

Thank you again. And my story started when I was born. Right? This is when the story started. And Way way back. Way way back. Right? And all of the choices that I've made ever since that brought me to this moment to be with you right now. And those choices, the ones that I remember, that I was creating. When I was in sixth or seventh grade, I used to tutor kids in the neighborhood, you know, that were two, three years younger than me.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:03:29

Later on in life, in when I was 14 years old, I cleaned houses, two houses a week, just so I will have enough money to buy the things that the teenager kids want. My dad worked in construction. My mom worked sometimes in three jobs. Money was not in abundance in our family. Love was. Love was, but money wasn't. So here I am cleaning houses. Later on in high school, I was approached by my neighbor who lived up above, a floor above us, and says, Hey, Dorice.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:04:01

Would you like to be assistant to a teller in a bank? I did not know what that was, but I said yes. Right? The choice was yes because that meant a little bit more money to a high school girl who wanted to buy all these things. By the way, the first money I ever made, I bought Levi's pants and Nike shoes. Because to me, growing up in Israel, that was the symbol of wealth. I was like, oh, I gotta buy those things. And then I at the age of 18, like many, many, many Israelis, I joined the Israeli, army. I was an officer in the Israeli army. So leadership was in my bones.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:04:39

And when I finished, two weeks later, I ended up in The US with one suitcase, dollars 600, no coat in the month of December, taking a TWA flight, now it doesn't exist anymore, all the way to Portland, Oregon, where I knew one person in the whole universe in America. And I decided that this will be an adventure, a journey. I did not know back then that this would become my home. And so when I came and I thought to myself, Doris, what should you do here? I had this voice tells me, be the light. That was the voice from when I was 22 years old, be the light. And I thought to myself, what does that mean here in America? At that moment, I thought that meant that I should be in education, in particularly Jewish education, and inspire people through the Hebrew language, through the Jewish wisdom, to have them be the best humans that they can be. And I've done that for thirty years. The last sixteen of those thirty years were actually running a supplementary school from kindergarten all the way to high school.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:05:45

And in twenty fifteen, 'sixteen, I start hearing that voice again in my head, leave this, move on to something else. This is not the end of your story. And I've watched else, what else? And the voice kept on coming, be the light, just in a bigger way. And so in 07/01/2018, I left the position of sixteen years that I loved in the education world, in a place that was secure. Most people at the age of 52, I was back then 52, at that place, many people will say, you know what? Let's just do the last ten, twelve years sticking with this job, get my, you know, stability, and then retire. And what does Doris Sorensen do? The opposite. She jumps into the ocean of, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but what does that mean, be a light to everybody else? Which, by the way, be the light is a Jewish concept that I have grown up since childhood. And the light is the light of energy, the light of goodness, the light of purpose, the light of leadership, that light.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:06:52

And so with that knowledge, I said, okay, who can I share it with in this world? And at the beginning, I thought, maybe I just need a different job. Maybe that's what it meant. Maybe I just need to jump from this education to maybe work for Nike because I do love Nike stuff. Maybe I'll work with something. Maybe that's it. And none of it actually panned out, which gave me the message again and again, no, you gotta jump into the ocean and learn how to swim. And that was the time, just a year after that, I met you. Because I said, okay, I'm going to be now a speaker.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:07:29

That's what it is. I am a second language at the English speaking, and I thought, I'm gonna use that and let that be my platform. So not only to speak to Jewish people, but to speak to anyone who is interested and who's cultivating a growth mindset and wants to be the best that they can be. And instead of people coming to me, to my building where I was for sixteen years, now I come to their building, to their floors, to their conferences, to their workplace, and share a little bit of me, my journey, and then what I offer to people, which is the cultivating of the leadership and resilience. And through the first stage of being who you are and then getting out in the bigger circles, like, you know, we throw a stone in the middle of the pond, and then it goes bigger and bigger and bigger. So that's where my jam is. That's where my strength here. That's where I believe I I light the world with my own light.

Marli Williams [: 00:08:27

I love that so much. And we have we have similar paths to our story where I, you know, I was in higher education before. And similarly to you, you know, I had a job that I enjoyed. And so oftentimes, we hear all of these stories of, like, I hit rock bottom, and then I decided to change my life. And one of my big mantras that I always like to remind people is that you don't have to wait for your life to suck to wanna change it. And you don't have wait you don't have to wait for your relation to relationship to suck, your job to suck, to want to do something different. And I think so often, it doesn't always come as this really loud scream or loud voice. It comes as a whisper.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:09:12

Oh, a 100%. And so often, we live in such a distracted, noisy world that we don't listen for the whisper that says you're meant for more.

Marli Williams [: 00:09:15

You're made for more. There's something else more out there for you that maybe combats what society thinks you should do at this stage in the in your journey. Right? And I just think it's so important. You know? Can we turn down the noise on all of the things happening outside of us, and can we turn up the volume on kind of that that intuition, that inner knowing? And I think a lot of people hear it, and then they don't listen. They don't honor it. They make up all sorts of excuses on why they can't do it. Who am I? There's no way.

Marli Williams [: 00:09:57

I'm comfortable where I am. And so we settle for the familiar versus taking that risk and taking that leap into the unknown, which is why I love, you know, the book that you're that's coming out, this idea of choosing to be your own champion. Because I think in those moments, we do have a choice. Do we honor the whisper? And, like, because that is our truth, that is our knowing, that is our intuition speaking to us and through us. And so often, we override it, we second guess it, we doubt it. And in that moment, I think we have we do have a choice. And so I'm excited for this conversation today of, like, how do we help people, you know, choose to be their own champion in, you know, really in any moment in their life, in on their leadership journey, on their life journey, so that they can keep say like, being true to themselves and saying yes to what lights them up so that they can be that light for others.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:11:00

First of all, when you said it's the whispering, because of my Jewish knowledge experience, I must share with you. And because you are also somebody from my faith, I must share with you. There is a story that you just reminded me of this story that is just so beautiful that I haven't said for years. And that was Elijah. It's in the Bible. When Elijah was escaping from you know, he was chased after and he was escaping and he went into this this cave, and God shouted at him, you come out, you know, you come out. So then Elijah comes out and he thinks that he's gonna see fire, and he doesn't see fire. And he thought he's going to see and he thought God is in that fire, and God was not in that fire.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:11:43

And then he was like, maybe he will be in the thunder, maybe he will be in the noise, in the loud noise, and he wasn't. And then he says, it was which means silence that could pierce any sound. And it was this Inge silence that he found God. And when you talk about it's that small whispering sound, Sometimes it's the silence that we need in order to really find the answers that are hidden way deep inside of us.

Marli Williams [: 00:12:15

Yeah. So sometimes it's not I love that story. Thank you so much for sharing that. And it's like, sometimes I think there's this illusion that we have to, like, do more to get unstuck. Like, if if you're stuck in your life and you're not, you know, you're not and you're not totally sure what's next, but you know that where you're going or where you're at isn't where you want to be or but you don't know what's next. And we think we have to, like, do all of these things to figure it out. And I think there's a there's a lot of power in taking action and in learning and in growing, but also the power of that silence of can can I quiet the noise and sit with that and listen?

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:12:54

I think doing the work in positive intelligence sometimes is in this quiet, in the letting go of all the expectations, the list, the things. That's when your creativity allows itself to actually shines through. Right? Because when we're always in the go go go go go, we stifle our own self. So that place and so many times I had to sit down, especially in the last six years, as I'm planning the next move. What will be the next thing? And, you know, when people talk about, oh, you know, I had this idea came out in the shower. Right? Or I came out in my walk and this idea came to me. It's exactly that. You know, when we allow ourselves to be open and to feel less stress and more connected to our essence, that's when amazing things pop up For us, our job is to be with our eyes open and actually see it.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:13:50

Because so often, we go, go, go, go, go because we have our own target. We see the what we want that we don't see what there is. And I think seeing what there is incredible. And not everybody allows themself that time, that awareness to discover that.

Marli Williams [: 00:14:09

I think that that's so powerful, to give yourself that gift of that time and space. And, you know, I mean, I think that that's part of why I love retreat so much is because you get to step away from the noise and the day to day dings and rings and all that distraction, and you really get to, like, tune into a kind of like a different, almost like energetic frequency, and like the space of possibility and the space of, you know, without all of these expectations and things coming at me, what else is there when that stuff isn't there?

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:14:44

This is gonna be a great conversation. I just love you. When you talk about energy frequency, we don't realize the importance of us measuring and are aware of our own energy and what we bring into every situation. Now, yes, we can all sometimes have our saboteurs, as positive intelligence calls that. It's that strength of ours that are being used and abused when it's taken to the far left, as I call it. But when we are understanding ourselves, we understand that energy is felt by other people around us. It's not something that we leave behind. It's not something that somehow, you know, we can put the lid on and fake it.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:15:31

It doesn't happen. When you go to a meeting, you instantly understand and feel the energy of other people around you. And I know you do too because you call your meetings the energy exchange. You value that. You understand that energy can be exchanged and how we should guard our energies. So when you come to a meeting and there's somebody that what I call the gloom and doom, right, and if they're really strong in their negative energy and we are not strong in guarding our energy, what happens is that we go down our level. So the more and that's the work that I do in with positive intelligence, is the more we are solidified and strong in our energy, in our positive energy, a, we will guard ours, so we're not going down. And number two, we can influence that person who is lower energy to rise a little up.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:16:27

And I love that because when I come to conferences, you meet people from all sorts of life and from things, stories that happened to them that maybe brought them to that morning maybe a little less energetic. Maybe not as energetic that I am. Maybe their energy maybe they have facing problems at home with their children, with their spouse, with something. Maybe the ride to the conference was full with traffic and they got stuck or whatever. My job at the beginning is to shift their energy because I want them to be higher up in their energy. So then they will be open to my messages. So I always create that, and I tell them. At the end, I say, I'm gonna pull the curtains.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:17:10

I am literally moving your brainwaves to where I need them to be so that I will be more effective for you.

Marli Williams [: 00:17:17

100%. I love that phrase, like, energy is contagious. Right? And like you're just like you're saying, and it goes in either direction. It can go either way. Right? We can either I always say we can break someone's day or we can make someone's day, and it's up to us. Again, it's not only in our actions. It's who we're being while we're doing what we're doing, and it's how we're saying what we're saying, and it's how we're showing up. And I think, you know, one of my favorite lines in my keynote says, leadership, epic leadership, is about taking 100% responsibility for the energy you bring when you walk into any room.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:17:55

A %? I say in my book, I say we're the % product of our own choosing. I say that in my book.

Marli Williams [: 00:18:03

A hundred yeah. Like, we're speaking the same language. And, you know, the question that I love asking them is what shows up when you show up?

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:18:11

Mhmm.

Marli Williams [: 00:18:15

When you walk into a room, what was there that wasn't there before? And the biggest thing is, like, do you know what that is? And I really think that part of leadership and part of this journey even around choosing to be your own champion, and I wanna hear I wanna dive into your framework because I wanna I wanna learn all geek out with you on this, is cultivating self awareness. Because most people, I find, have a hard time answering that question. Right? Because you haven't done maybe, like like, that reflection or that work to figure out what that is and being able to articulate it in a way you know, I think so so many people are so scared of being seen as, like, egotistical and arrogant, so they don't really kind of own who they are. So we, you know, we play small. We're humble. We are we hide. We hold back versus being really, like, confident in who you are and cultivating that trust in yourself. And part of it is, like, the more that you know yourself, I think that that helps you be more confident in who you are.

Marli Williams [: 00:19:24

I think so often it's it's almost like the lack of self awareness sometimes that peep people don't know who they are, and they don't know how to talk about their strengths and their skills and their energy in a in a positive way.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:19:41

And so that most people, Marli, do you know that most people think that they are self aware? But, actually, 84% of people are not self aware. And that was a studies that I actually got this article. It was a study by a psychologist. And when I read it for the first time, I was like, what? What? How is it even possible? I will send you the link so you can put it in the show notes for people to read this article that said that most of us, we think we're self aware. That I thought that I'm self aware. So, you know, I actually it made me revisit what are the things that are maybe my blind spot. And one of the ways that I did that is I asked a very small group of people that I trust and love that love me. I said, do you think because sometimes the people around you that you trust will fill in.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:20:33

Will say, I think you've gotta have a little blind spot on this. And so part of being self aware is asking people. Am I seeing things the right way or what is hidden here for me that I still need to uncover? And when you talk about the idea of intention, setting the intention, again, I'm bringing in the little bit of the Hebrew language. The word direction and the word intention share the same Hebrew root. And when this happens in our language, in the Hebrew language, it means that there is an underlying meaning that is connecting those two words with one another. So think for yourself, What is your intention, and is the direction that you are taking is toward that goal that you have set your intention on? And sometimes those two lines are going in a different direction. And when you talk about leader as your podcast, you know, let's lead together, the concept of leadership, people think first is how do I lead other people? But the truth of the matter is how you lead yourself. And how do I know it for a fact? Again, from the Hebrew wisdom.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:21:40

Because the word leader shares the same word as a driver. The idea of and driver and leadership. So any person who is in leadership is the is first, is the driver. Now where do you drive? You drive your own car first. You don't you know, nobody's coming on you know, when you're 15 and 16 and you get your your permit, you drive you. There should be nobody in the car. Right? We have years of whatever. Two years, six months.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:22:11

I don't know. When you are by yourself in the car, because nobody's jumping on board with you, when you get to own that, when you, a driver that is secure and aware and safe and prepared, then you bring in passengers on you in the car. Same thing with leadership. First, learn how to lead yourself, then start to be looking around and say, who can I lead? What can I lead? What are the strength in me that I could bestow and inspire other people so they are also leaders? Because I think for me, that's the third step is you lead people to be leaders. That's the key here. So when you leave, and that's what happened to me in this job, I left knowing that I had leaders there and everything will be fine. And to me, that's the strength. And I think you did the same thing, because I listened to your first podcast and where you talked about your journey and how you chose to leave.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:23:11

And they took the concept of this amazing retreats that you have done several years, and they continue that. I heard that loud and clear. So it could sting, but the good news is that you continue to shine even if you are not present there because your work is continued. That legacy. Yeah. That legacy. Exactly.

Marli Williams [: 00:23:32

Looking at both of our journeys and leaving a job, like, in in education and a job that we both, you know, we enjoyed, I think that the again, this idea, and I wanna dive into it now, this choose to be your own champion. Like, in this moment, it's like, again, I can choose to stay in the familiar. It was like, I had this good job. I was in this university to you know, college town, like, living it up, having a good time. And yet, again, we hear the this whisper, I meant for more. There's something more out there for me. Like, I have a kind of a bigger message, and there's a bigger platform than just this one school, this one group of people. Right? So I'm curious.

Marli Williams [: 00:24:13

Take us through the journey of how you help people, and I know you work with teams, companies, organizations to choose to be your own champion. You have the six step playbook to become your best self. So help us become our best selves today, Therese. I'm here to learn. I'm here to grow. I am with you.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:24:32

Here you go. What you know. So here's what I think. First, think of a choice. You don't have to share it. Think of a choice that maybe you need to contemplate now. K? Maybe some of the choice that maybe popped right into your mind are, like, easy thing. You know, what to eat for dinner.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:24:47

K? That's great. And maybe you wanna play with that, but I offer you to play with something a little bit more deep inside. And before I tell you the six steps, I want to first focus on the word champion because I could say, you know, just be whatever. But I chose the word champion. And, again, full circle, I chose on my website, the tagline is find your champion within in 02/2018. Okay? Way before this book came, somehow the universe told me that this is what I need to do. So the word champion in Hebrew, because, again, I'm connecting it to universal wisdom that is deep within us that some of us are may not be aware. So the word for champion is aloof.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:25:31

Aloof come from the first letter of the alphabet, alif. It's the same vowel. The first letter of the alphabet, like, think of the a, alpha, and the word aloof, the only difference is vowels. Consonants are the same. What does that mean? Again, underline meaning, Aleph, the first one. You are one, uniquely so, nobody can replace you, you're the I call it the prime number in your own life. You are the number one. And then you are the champion.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:26:01

So most of us don't think we are. But here's the truth, we are. And how do I know that every single person on this earth has that? Again, because of Hebrew. The word for a human being, which everybody is, doesn't matter your political views, doesn't matter you are a human being. And a human being in Hebrew, a human in Hebrew, is Adam, Adam. Okay? That word Adam is built of two syllables, a and dam. Signifies the spirit within a human being. Is the word for blood.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:26:34

It means blood, which means, you know, how your muscles, your ligaments, everything in your body works. That a, the place of spirit, is the letter alif, alpha from the word champion. Okay? So what is that summing it all up in two seconds? You have the champion embedded in you already. You may not yet know how to open it up and access it. So this book is about that. It's about how do you bring that champion into your reality on a day to day basis? And so when you look at choices, that's one way of making yourself be the champion. Do I choose this or do I choose this? Do I choose path a or do I choose path b? You know, here is the thing. Every choice that we make as human beings, most choice, not all, most choices, you can recuse.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:27:28

You know, you're in a relationship. It's not good. You can recuse. You have the freedom to choose. We had a job that we love. We chose differently. You can. There are very few choices, what I called eternal choices.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:27:45

An eternal choice and example is being a parent. You cannot take that back. That is once you chose to be a parent, no way, no turnaround. There is no u-turn anywhere. Okay? You are in it. So then you have to make the right choices. You're in it. That's it.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:28:02

But most other choices in life, take us, for example, the leaving the job for me coming to a new country, learning a new language, you know, all of that. So think of a choice, and I'm gonna take you through the same six steps that I did when I chose to leave my job in order, and I write it in my book. I help the readers by giving them this example, and I walk through this. So I wanna, with your permission, walk through this in a quick way.

Marli Williams [: 00:28:28

And I love this invitation to those of you out there listening of you know, there are moments in our life, right, when we we are faced with a choice. And I like you said, it's like, yeah, we can choose to think about, like, what do we have wanna have for dinner? But maybe you're in a place in your life right now where you are thinking about leaving a job. You are thinking about starting a new business or a new career or even leaving a relationship or moving to a new city. Right? So, you know, to really, you know, take what Dorice is sharing with you today and, like, apply it to something in your life right now that you you have a choice that you're being kind of faced with. As we walk through this, you can think about how this applies to your own story. So I appreciate Yes. Planting that seed and having people if you need to hit the pause button, you know, hit it, think about it, and then we'll walk through this process with you.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:29:19

Exactly. So I took the word choose, C H O O S E, and I made it an acronym. This is the six step acronym. I love it.

Marli Williams [: 00:29:28

I love an acronym.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:29:29

And I prepared a card game or a card thing that I will then send you the PDF of all of them because, yes, so people can actually download them and enjoy that game in their mind as they walk themselves through their choice. Now as I go through C H O O S E, it doesn't mean that it has to be in that order for a person. And it could also mean that one of them or two of them are needing a little bit more time. That's okay. Focus on what you need to focus on a little deeper. And as I go through this, you will understand that better. So the first letter C, clarity. Is this first question that I always ask? Is it your even your choice to make? Sometimes we, as human beings, will get into other people's choices like, sometimes it happens with me and my own kids.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:30:26

Like, that's not my choice to make. And sometimes I forget. So clarity. Is this your choice to make? If it is your choice to make, decide why is it your choice, why there is even a choice, what's underneath it. This c invites you to have clarity about who you are with your saboteurs, which is again positive intelligence. I combine in this book a lot of positive intelligence modalities because I am a positive intelligence expert, which is for those readers listeners who don't know, it's Sherzard Chamin founded this amazing, amazing company and program that's called Positive Intelligence. It's based on four different sciences. And he put it together, and he summed it with pretty much in a really easy way.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:31:12

We have three muscles, brain muscles, and the whole concept is how do you shift from the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex, from the saboteur to what he calls the sage brain. And in this book, there's a lot of tips and tools and modalities to do it. In that clarity for the readers, I put a QR code where they can find out what their saboteur is. So often, we don't even know. Like, what are we? I don't know. What are we? Do I have the do I do I have the hyperachiever? Do I have the avoider? Am I the restless? What am I? Take the self assessment. It's free. It's for you.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:31:51

So take that. And by the way, in the book, I put a QR code for a complimentary workbook that goes along with it. It's a hundred page workbook that people can actually it's a whole course by itself that people can take their teams through, their companies, their book clubs, whatever. So that's the clarity stage. And the idea of choosing to decide. In that section, you get to decide. And then why? So in the book, as I go through each and every section, there are different choices that we make that is connected to that clarity. So within clarity, you know, choose your sage.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:32:31

You know, what choose to decide. Choose all of the species that connect to finding more clarity. So that's the first step. If you don't know your why, and you don't know if this is your choice, and you don't know what are the saboteurs that are in your way, and you don't understand how to cultivate the sage brain that you have that is already within you, stop there and start studying yourself. Right? That's what we talked earlier, the foundation.

Marli Williams [: 00:32:57

That's the foundation.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:32:58

Us. Right? But that's the first part. The second, the h. The h is honor your feelings. I am sure, Marli, that you've faced particular feelings when you had to leave that job that you loved into this. I'm sure that since then, you have had many choices to make that activated a certain feelings within you. And sometimes those feelings are not the best of feelings. Sometimes they're good, but sometimes it's anger.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:33:26

Sometimes it's it's insult. Sometimes we feel guilt. Sometimes we fear, you know. So honor those feeling. Don't let those feelings feed you and be fixated in you, but have the moment or more to honor those feelings because those feelings are who you are. So again, from positive intelligence, do not stifle those feelings. Honor them, but don't let them necessarily drive you. That's, I think, where it comes.

Marli Williams [: 00:33:59

Yeah. I think it's so important. Right? Like, this piece of, like, yeah, clarifying this decision making point in your life, And then knowing that there it's gonna bring up a lot of different feelings, and, like, none of them are wrong or bad. If you're scared, if you're nervous, if you're upset, if you're excited, if you have self doubt, if you you know, it's like all of those things. I think that, yeah, it's so easy to make ourselves wrong. And I think sometimes we wait. It's like, well, when I really believe in myself, when I'm really confident, then I'll take the leap. Versus if we're taking a risk, if we're leaving the familiar and stepping into the unknown, there will be fear.

Marli Williams [: 00:34:40

There will be doubt. There will be you know? So it's like to honor that, to face that. And most often what I say with that piece is your brain is wired to protect you and keep you safe. And anything that we don't know feels unsafe. So some of, like, the fear and the doubt and all of that stuff, it's like, I don't I'm scared. I'm trying to you know, your brain is trying to protect yourself, and so it's reminding yourself, like, it's okay. I got myself. I choose myself, and I'm gonna be okay, and I can face this.

Marli Williams [: 00:35:16

And I'm resilient.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:35:17

We're so much Oh, gosh. I mean, yes. You know, we talked

Marli Williams [: 00:35:21

we can talk for hours. Capable than we give ourselves credit for. Yes. Like, if you think about all of the things that you've been through and even things that you have gone through or transitions you've gone through that you didn't choose. Yes. Sometimes we don't choose certain things that happen to us in our lives. Somebody Here's

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:35:39

what we can choose, Marli. Here's what we can choose even in the choices that we didn't get a chance to choose. What we choose is how we respond to what happened. %. That's what we choose. And in those case, then let's focus on how we choose to respond. Again, we're human beings. Our journey in life is never a straight line.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:35:58

It's it's squiggling and then it goes back and then it squiggles again. And sometimes there is an arrow, but then it's not forever because then we are a u-turn. This is our story. You know, this is our story. So normalize that, these feelings. And as Bernie Brown said, you know, we're not a thinking machine that sometimes feel. We are feeling machines that sometimes think. Allow those feelings.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:36:22

Don't, like, put them under the carpet. Because you know what happens when we put those feelings under the carpet? That carpet rises.

Marli Williams [: 00:36:28

They're gonna come up. I always say if it doesn't come out front ways, it comes out sideways.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:36:34

Exactly.

Marli Williams [: 00:36:35

So we just gotta acknowledge and honor our feelings. I love that. Beautiful.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:36:41

So that's the h. Then we go into the o. So after you had the clarity and after you honored your feelings, openness to options. Openness to options. So often, we think that our choice is either one or two. But you know what? Just like you go to the eye doctor, when it tells you one or two, and then you say one, and it says three or four, and you say four, and you say five or six, and then they go 1 or five. And it was like, oh my god. So many choices.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:37:08

This is it. We have more openness to option. Now if you did the clarity stage and you understood how your brain works, which I explain in the book, then allow that side right side of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, where curiosity, where love, where hope, where creativity lives. Dig there because it will open your mind to more options. Think of your business. You know, there's so many options. Right? And the more you're aware of the things that you can do, then you can choose. It's not, oh, I'm gonna be a speaker or I'm going to be working in the university.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:37:46

There's so many things in between. You know? So be open to the options. And so I teach things like the yes, and game that I talk about that is, again, coming from the theater world and then used also in the positive intelligence SAGE, modalities that we train our clients. So that's that o. Then we go to the second o, and that's, I love that, oneness with self. I wholeheartedly believe that the choice that we make, we need to sit with it and it has to feel in our heart as the right choice. Because if not, we will always feel split. And, again, a of Hebrew, the word for hole in Hebrew is It comes from the same word in Hebrew as peace, shalom.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:38:39

When you are feeling whole, you are at peace. And when you are at peace and on hold, then you are one. So how do you become one? Are your choices reflect your values? Because if your choice that you're making is not reflecting who you are and the values that you stand by and your purpose, then you'll always feel torn inside. So that section is inviting us to feel whole. Even though sometimes it could be scary, but you know, I gotta jump. It's I'm scared. I'm always but I feel in my heart, in my gut, and that's, you know, the brain and the heart and the gut all line up. How am I gonna do this? I'm going to do it.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:39:21

I don't know if I'll fail. I don't know if I'll sink or soar. I don't know. But I know that it feels right. And a lot of the time, if you fail, recognize that you're not a failure. We all fail at some point. I mean, I can tell you the number of times that I failed in my life. Michael Jordan has this video, this documentary where he says, nobody knows about the thousands of shots that I did and it didn't make it in.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:39:49

They already they only know about the ones that somehow are on video that I made it, that I'm like the star. So same thing with our own life. People may not know about all these things that we tried to do and failed, and then at the end, we succeeded. I mean, there's books by written by Chicken Soup for the Soul. He tried to publish it in over 50 publishing houses, refused every single one of them, and then became the bestseller that it is. So there is this.

Marli Williams [: 00:40:16

I heard something this morning when I was writing my Peloton, actually, that that and she said, life isn't a test to get right. It's an experiment. Sometimes I think we take ourselves so seriously. And even with this, like, openness to options, like, this idea that I have to make the right choice. And like you said, I think that it can even be daunting. This idea of, like, you can do anything and be anything and be anyone, and it's like, well, you know, there's a there's a book out there that's called The Paradox of Choice. And sometimes, like, essentially the summary of that book is the more choices we have, the less satisfied we are with the one we make, with the with the choice that we make. Right? So if I had to choose between 32 flavors of ice cream and I choose one, I'm missing out on 31 flavors.

Marli Williams [: 00:41:04

But if I just have to choose between chocolate and vanilla, I'm only missing out on one. And so this idea too, like, this kind of I think that people get really stuck in this, like, analysis paralysis and this what's the right thing, the right move, the right you know? And even, like, with keynote speaking, like, what's the talk? What's the message? What's the book? And it's like, it's a message. It's a book. It's an idea. And our message, our story, it will evolve as we grow and evolve. I think what happens for people is they're not willing to actually make a choice because they're so terrified of making the wrong one.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:41:44

And then they have to ask themselves, what is the price that I pay for not making that chain or that choice? Right?

Marli Williams [: 00:41:51

Yeah. I remember yeah. Like, doing some coaching with somebody, and they were saying, what's the message you wanna share? Right? So some sort of idea, right, with that. And I was just like, I I don't know. And then she said to me, which is you know, I ask people this all the what do you want? I don't know. And then she asked me, what do you get out of saying I don't know? And what I said was, I get to not fail. I don't know is a version of keeping us safe because if we don't know, then we don't want to do anything.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:42:23

Think about children. When we have young kid, like two year old, three year old, and he's like, what to wear? We don't open the closet and let them choose what you want. We take out two outfits and says, this one or this one? You know, for a two year old, that's and we are talking about it from a neuroscientific way. Right? When there's too many choices, that's the paradox of choice. Too many, I can't I'm paralyzed. I don't know. But the more we train our brain to choose between two, then we can choose between three, then we can choose between four, then we can choose between five. It's a gradual thing.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:42:55

And connect it to a two year old. A two year old, you give them two choices. Later on, love will slowly build up. But if you have never had to choose in a strong way, start small. Start small. Start small in the choosing. So that's the o, the second o, the the oneness. Now we're coming to s.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:43:14

Strategize your success. Strategize any choice that you make. So you landed on a choice. Whatever that is, you are thinking, okay, I'm gonna do this. Strategize. Who else do you need to bring in to let them know about this choice that you just decided that you're gonna make? For example, me. When I decided that I'm going to leave my job, the first person I had to kinda tell, that was my husband. Because I had to say, honey, we may go backwards financially before we go forward because I am leaving.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:43:48

And I needed him to be on board with me. Right? So who do you need in your life to be on board with? Who are the rest of the team? You decide to go one way, but if nobody knows about it, that could create some heavy rocks along the way. So who do you need to bring in with you? What is the timeline that you have? When you make a choice, okay, gotta have a timeline. You can't say, well, you know, whenever it happens, it happens. I mean, you could. You may not be as successful, you know? Give yourself some kind of a timeline. And again, you can be flexible. You can say, okay, it didn't happen in ninety days, but I'm expecting that in a month and a half from now, I will have template email list or something, you know.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:44:33

What is it, the thing that you want? I knew that when I left when I left my work, 07/01/2018, by August 12, I had a basic website. I changed it three times since, but I had a basic thing. I exactly. I had something that I could say, okay, okay, okay. Something is happening. You know? Do I need do I need the EIN? Maybe the next first month, I should get an EIN because I don't know what it is, but people say I should. So I do. You know? Learn and move on.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:45:06

So that's the s.

Marli Williams [: 00:45:07

I love this. And I I wanna add one more thing because I love this idea of strategize your success. One of the questions that I love to ask people when they're moving towards, you know, yeah, new goal, new vision, new life is how do I make success inevitable? So what are you know, who are the people? What are the skills? What are the resources? Like, how can I and it's like, what do I need in order to succeed? Right? And really being you know, it's like, I hired a coach, and I joined a mastermind, and it was like, I think that sometimes feel people feel so alone. And most of the time, whatever it is that you wanna do, someone's done a version of it. And I like to think about this idea of success leaves clues. Who is someone in your circle that's already done it? And can you learn from them, you know, watch them, be inspired by them? But I it's a question that I love to ask people, and, like, that's something to add to the that strategize your success equation is how do you make success inevitable?

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:46:17

I think what you are pointing out, and you didn't say it but I am feeling it, is the belonging to a community that has those parameters as well. And you are the best. I mean, you are creating community, you know? So that the community feels like, okay, we're all in it together. And sometimes you have to attach to a community that already exists, that welcomes you, like National Speaker Association or Toastmasters for speaking professionals. That was my first belonging group because I thought they have the goals that I have. So let me hitch my wagon on there and learn because they admit I don't know what I don't know. So let me learn. Let me learn.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:47:00

I am inviting myself, and that's the growth mindset. I was reading the book mindsets, and it's so important in how we train our brain to have the growth mindset. And not to say, you know, I have the best thing since sliced bread. I need nothing to learn.

Marli Williams [: 00:47:15

Totally. A 100%.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:47:16

I mean, you could still be the best thing since sliced bread. And what can I learn? How can I become better? There's a group of people that always talk about you don't have to do, you just be. I'm not there yet because for me, the becoming is that word that invites you to a journey. Because be is like the state of quo. Right here. Right here. I'm being. And to me, my life and what I've seen through my life is always a process of becoming.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:47:46

I never achieved that, whatever it is. Well, maybe you ask me when I'm 90 and where I you know, but but at this point, I'm still on the journey of becoming. And that's how I become, you know, my best self. So now it brings us back to the very end, to the e, to the enactment. Action. No choice is going to be a choice taken without you taking that step to make it so. So what are you doing? What is the first step? The strategizing was lining it up. The enactment is inviting you to action.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:48:22

Enact. K? What is it that you are actually going to do? And realize that your saboteurs, again, going back to clarity, your saboteurs are going to stop you. Your brain is going to stop you. We're going it's gonna say, oh, Marli, we haven't done this. You know? We haven't invested this much money into a coaching program with somebody we don't know. No. No. No.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:48:42

No. Don't do that. Absolutely could be dangerous. How do we work with our brain? And how do we are becoming aware that those saboteurs will try to derail us? But if you go through all of these and you write them down and you reflect and by the way, don't do it only in your head. That's why I provided the complimentary workbook. Write it out. When we things out and that's why, you know, people talk about journalist, you know, journals on when we write things down, they become reality because our eyes can see it. Our hands is doing it.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:49:18

It's all of our senses are engaged into, yeah, that's the choice. So if nothing else, you gotta write down your goals. Write down. So when people talk about manifesting, it's not only up here. It's not only, oh, let me visual how I'm gonna be. Write it out. Map it through.

Marli Williams [: 00:49:35

Strategize. All of that. You know, I think it's so powerful to have a process to guide people through, to walk people through in the in the face of the unknown, in the face of challenges, in the face of, again, like, how do I choose to be a champion for myself, for my life? So that way you know? And I think about, you know, for what? You know? For what purpose? And to me, when I think about why it's so important to choose to be your own champion is so that when you look back on your life, you can say, I showed up and I played full out, and I took the risk, then I took the leap, and I made it happen versus, you know, they have all of that research on, like, the top regrets of the dying. Right? And it's like, I wish I would have lived a life that was true to myself. I wish I wouldn't have cared so much about what others thought. I would you know, it's like, I wish I would have played more and, like, took these risks. And so instead of getting to the end of our life saying, like, I wish I would have, it's like looking back and say, I did that. And I just think that that's like you know, there's another quote that I love.

Marli Williams [: 00:50:40

It's like, twenty years, you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do, by the things you did do. Uh-huh. Yep. I really love this framework of walking through, you know, clarity and honoring your feelings and ope that's openness to the different options that are out there and not staying stuck where we are, that oneness with ourselves, that alignment, that wholeness, that peace to take time to figure out what does that success look like and to make a plan and then to take action. You know? I I always like to say, action's where the magic happens. And, you know, even just like with this podcast, like, you can someone can listen to this, but the power is taking the information that Doreen shared with us today and implementing it and integrating it in your life to hit the pause button, to write, to journal, to reflect, to choose to do something about it, to choose to be your own champion of your life.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:51:31

You said about your purpose. And, again, you know, my brain works in a way that I I hear your English, and in my head, I'm also hearing the Hebrew. And it's like this crazy things is happening. So when you know, the word for purpose, again, is that's but it comes from the root which means whole. What is your like a l l, all. All of the things. That's your purpose. You take in all the things.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:51:56

So when you go to when you're 90, when you're looking back, you look at all the things that actually brought you that to where you are today, and that's your purpose. That's your purpose. So, yeah. I wish everybody that is listening and hearing us internalizing. Because there's a way you can listen, you can hear, but here I think this beautiful podcast that Marli has done for so many other speakers before me and and guests is the idea of internalizing what is really the nuggets of wisdom to make you better than yesterday.

Marli Williams [: 00:52:29

%. That's the goal. You know? 1%, one degree better every day. And, you know, I'm so grateful for you sharing your gifts, your knowledge, your wisdom with all of us today. And I would love for you to share, yeah, any final thoughts, golden nuggets, and then where can people find you, learn more about you and your work in the world? And we'll wrap bring it home.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:52:53

My life has been a series of choices. And with every choice, I learn something about me, about the world that I live in, about my purpose, about the what I could do better, what I could do more of, what I should do less of. And that's the journey of being a human being. You know, we are in this ocean, and we don't learn without doing. So we learn to swim. We learn to ride the waves of life, and sometimes those waves are big and high and mighty, and we sink down a little bit, go under and maybe struggle to come up. And sometimes we're just cruising through life. And so those events are the waves, the events.

Dorice Horenstein [: 00:53:37

These are the choices that we have every day in our lives. Small, eternal, internal, permanent, not permanent. What are the choices that you make? So I invite you to look at other things at blogs that I do on my website that I share. I have an email list. My website invites you to those email lists, and it's just simply my first and last name .com, doricehorenstein.com. Easy access. And if you ever need somebody like me in your company, in your conference, I would be delighted and honored to serve you.

Marli Williams [: 00:54:12

Thank you so much for sharing that, and we'll have all those links in the show notes. You know, again, thank you so much for I love, you know, as someone who grew up Jewish and, you know, I took Hebrew in in high school and and in college, I've been kind of, like, far away from the language of like, the Hebrew language, and I think there's so much power in really, like, what is the what is the meaning behind the word? And, you know, I I appreciate the depth of of you sharing your, you know, your background as an educator and sharing, you know, where do these words come from and what do they really mean and, you know, not just, like we're not just randomly choosing these words, you know, even for the name of your book and the and your website and your keynotes. It's like, how much intentionality can we bring to our life and to our work? And, again, you know, if you are at a choice point in your journey, you know, my invitation is to, you know, use this as a tool and a technique and a framework to to guide you through that process and know that you're you're not alone. And I I think we all have these moments in our life. Like, I really would invite you to, like, what does it look like to choose yourself? To say yes to you? To say yes to the life that is meant for you? You know, I think that if you have a calling on your heart, a whisper in your intuition, your knowing, that it's not an accident, and there is a reason that you have that vision and that you have everything that you need to bring it to life and that this this, framework today can help you do that. So thank you so much again, Dorice. Thank you all for listening. Love to, as always, hear your golden nuggets, your takeaways, and, thanks for joining us on the Let's Lead Together podcast.

Marli Williams [: 00:55:58

We'll see you next time. 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. Until then, keep leading with purpose, coaching with heart, and speaking with conviction. This is Marli Williams signing off. See you next week.