Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Marie: What up? What up? What up? You are watching MarieTV- business and life advice that works and today is a very special edition. You know you all were asking me to do more book reviews and, gosh darn it, I am doing one today. Today is the most exciting book release that I have been able to talk about in a long time, that is, because it is Miss Danielle Laporte’s The Fire Starter Sessions. Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Now before I tell you about how much I love this book, well, I will just tell you right now, I absolutely adore this book. But we’ve got a special treat today because we are gonna talk to the author herself and we’re gonna talk about something that I quite frankly thought was “woo woo” for a long time and it’s about visualization in business. Does it work or is it just airy-fairy kaka? We’re gonna find out in just a minute. Stay tuned. Marie: Hello, hello, hello everyone! I’m right here again with you and as promised, I have Miss Danielle LaPorte with us. Oh my goodness! The author of this incredible book, The Fire Starter Sessions. I was just telling Danielle before the recorder went on that Josh has been coveting this book- he's like, “Marie, where’s Danielle’s book? I want to read it”. You know, I’ve known Danielle for a while, I have the incredible pleasure of having her as one of my dearest friends and the other night, I was just up probably close ‘til about 2 a.m. in the morning and I even read the manuscript before. That’s how good this book is- like for me to be up that late in it a second time. You have to get this book and I am honored today that we’re publishing this interview on the very beautiful day that it's released into the world, right D? Danielle: Wooo! It’s pub day! It’s pub day! Marie: It’s pub day! It’s pub day! It’s pub day! So let’s get into it. You know, I opened this segment kinda teasing a little bit saying that we are gonna talk about a topic today that I personally, you know was a little resistant to earlier in my career- the whole idea of visualization. And the reason that I was resistant to it was it was prior to me understanding kinda of all the underpinnings of living in the moment so I used to visualize and I was what our friend Gabby Bernstein calls “future tripping”, like I was so grasping at this future reality and I think I was making one of the mistakes that you are gonna talk about just a few minutes. But now, I am a believer but I know that many people watching MarieTV, you know we have our audience in 188 countries around the world, we often get very pragmatic, practical you know step-by-step kind of advice. So if they maybe sayin’ “Girl! Did you go a little woo-woo when we’re talking about visualization in business?” But no. So D, can you school us? Give us a mini-sermon about visualization and what is it and why is it even useful for us, especially entrepreneurs. Danielle: I think everybody visualizes. If you think into yourself, I'm gonna get that fat check, I'm gonna get the keys, I'm gonna get the gig, you are on some level, in some way, visualizing. So the trick is to like really optimize it as a tool for creating for you and what I see going wrong with sort of the ultra “woo woo” teaching of how to visualize is that it just kinda gets us to this foreplay state. It keeps us in this fantasy zone and you know we all want to get beyond foreplay. Haha! Marie: haha! Danielle: So you know what, I went into this big speaking event once and they did this guided visualization for like the twenty-five hundred people that were there and the woman got on stage with the best of intentions all like twinkling music and “See your dream and you are walking down this path and know that you dream is possible. Now, open your eyes.” And I turn to my girlfriend and I said, “Possible? My dream is a done f***ing deal!” And she said, “Ditto, me too!” So here's why you want to get into the state of done f***ing deal. It calms you down. So first of all let me say, nothing is ever a done deal. This is not about like manipulating the universe. Nothing is certain, there's gonna be change. You'll gonna fail, you'll gonna succeed, twists and turns but when you get in the state of done deal, your nervous system kinda goes ahh... And you remove the anxiety of “it could, it should, wouldn’t that be nice?” And you know everybody right now just think “wouldn't it be nice?” And now think hmm.. isn’t that great? It like totally changes your body. Marie: It does and you know I can think about that with a few projects that we have in our pipeline, like as you were speaking and you were saying that I was trying on the possibility of it versus oh! this thing that we’re creating that’s a done deal and I could literally feel the cells in my body. I could feel my shoulders going down, I could feel everything just relaxing in and also my heart opening up like a sense of confidence and a sense of power, just from trying that idea on so I love this. Danielle: So you get the chill and then something will happen where in that chill space, that dream of this is done, strategies will start to come in. You get in that space of you reverse engineer. “Oh! It's done so if it's done, this is what I need to do to actually walk into that dream” so you get more strategic and then, and I love this part ‘cuz I love, you know I'm all about the stop-doing list, and I know you’re are all about getting on the no train. This’ll help you get on the no train. Marie: Yeah! Danielle: When you’re in the done deal state, you get closer to your dream and you can kinda like you can see the shape of it, you can see all the implications of it, the things that are gonna happen when it's real when you get there and you may get close and you go hmm.. “that's not what I want, that's not how I wanna live my life, this is not the right time” so are you get empowered to back away from your dream and you’re never obligated to a dream, you're never obligated to a visualization- so done deal, assess yes or no and then reverse-engineer. Marie: I love it! So let me ask you this, just a personal question because I'm curious and I'm sure my audience is curious too. When it comes to how to visualize, wow! I apparently need more coffee, when it comes to actually how to do it, is it a daily practice, do you find yourself doing it you know every morning or is it one of those things that kind of ebbs and flows and it's just kinda a natural occurrence and you’ve trained yourself to rather to visualize a possibility you've now created the habit to visualize something as a done deal? Danielle: For myself, I have like the big moment visualization. That's when I've got my mole skin, I have my Papermate pen, I'm just you know I have my tools and I kinda write out the plan and I get very clear, this is so important - I get very clear on how I wanna feel. “When I hit the New York Times best-seller list, this is how I want to feel. I want to feel free, I want to feel empowered, I want to feel affluent, I want to feel useful.” And then, I think about the little seemingly like just trivial playful things I'm gonna do when I get into like done deal is the real deal which is like who are the first three people I'm gonna call when this happens? And what am I gonna do with it? I think I'm gonna have a mani-pedi and I'm gonna go out and have a cold Corona that night and I'm gonna call so and so. I'm gonna call Forleo and Chris. Ahaha! And Forleo is gonna say... And that's all part of that visualization process and it gets the blood moving and it also gets you thinking well, maybe I should call Forleo right now, because she'll tell me what the f**k to do! Marie: I love it! I know I can hear people because I know people love step-by-steps and I know that is not necessarily like you're kinda a free-flowing gal. Have you ever come across in your work because I know you’ve worked with hundreds if not thousands of people, do people create a habit around it in terms of doing it everyday? I'm not, like besides my green juice and a little meditation and hopefully some nookie, when you know mama can get it up, like it's not like I have a set formula and people always ask me that, like you know do you do the same thing everyday like I'm like probably shoot myself if I did the same thing everyday so am I hearing that you don't necessarily recommend that people like visualize? Danielle: I don't do anything everyday because it doesn't make me feel free because I'm clear in my core-desired feelings I want the most is freedom so the whole point is that this is gotta work for you just like time management, just like working out, visualization as a practice actually has to feel good because if you are sitting there at 8:37 every morning and just like squeezing out your visualizations, you’re actually, you affect the outcome of the done deal so you want this to feel good. However, to just get really teachy, I think when you conceptualize something, you’ve have to, you’ve got to go full tilt with the visualization. And maybe that's it. Like that’s sorta my style, like that's the vision. I know how I want to feel, I know my matrix of success for that. I'm done and there's something really empowering by that. I just like hand it over to life and then I show up. I meet life half-way. I go meet that vision half-way with my strategy and my phone calls and doing what I need to do. Marie: Yeah, I love that! I absolutely love that! I wanna just quote one thing before we start to wrap this up. On page 116 on your book- again which you all go out and get this right now – the best book ever! I love this and I feel like it's a tweetable - “You have to believe it to see it”, you have to believe it to see it and I just read that and the hair stood up on my Italian arms and I was like “Oh! I love it!” I just think it's absolutely gorgeous and I know that we wanted to help people as we always do with MarieTV – take action. So below this video, Danielle has been gracious enough to gift us some of the worksheets that are straight from the book to help you actually take what we are talking about today, right D? Danielle: Yup! Marie: And really start putting all of your dreams and your thoughts down on paper and to start to get that clarity that we are talking about so you can try it on to see huh, as you get closer does it feel good, is this my truth? And if the answer is yes, you'll have it right there on paper so you can have these clear, it's a done deal type of visions and then start moving and shaking and make it happen. Danielle: They're super useful and super practical. These are not fluffy worksheets. The first one, Dream Analysis is about really looking out why you want what you want. I think some us inherent, ah, inherit, visions. Marie: Yes! Danielle: It's your mom's dream, it's the Jones' dream, and something on reality television which is not real anyway so really, really is this you know do you need what you think you need? And then the second worksheet is about really pushing yourself, sorta get all that negative talk out of your system about why you’re so unreasonable and why the odds are stacked against you and really ahh... I don’t want to say combat, it's not the best, but really meet that with some like some positive positioning but then I you know it's a call to action ‘cuz everything’s gotta be a call to action. Marie: CTA’s! I love CTA’s! Marketing and in life! CTA’s! Danielle: CTA's- three things that you're gonna do that may be outrageous to put that dream into reality this week. Marie: I love it! This is perfect! So all y’all, you have the wisdom from Danielle below. Again, I cannot stress to you enough. I'm not saying this ‘cuz she's my friend, ‘cuz y’all know I do not blow smoke up people's as***, not even my girlfriend's as**s. I tell them all the time like that's a shi**y idea. But this book the reason I say this is this book is a must-read for everyone on the planet. Anyone you care about, get them as gifts. And Danielle and I you know we always like to challenge you in these videos to comment and to talk to us, so what I’d love to hear from you all and hopefully Danielle will be interested in hearing this too – do you have experience with visualization and specifically have you ever seen something in your mind's eye and seen it so clearly that was a done deal and then whether it's a month or two months or three years or five years it becomes your reality? We'd love to hear about that so please tell us in the comments below your