This week Marc and Angel Chernoff join me on the podcast. They are professional coaches, full-time students of life, and admirers of the human spirit, and have been recognized by Forbes as having “one of the most popular personal development blogs.”
Marc and Angel are also the authors of two books that share over 1000 things people can do to live a happy and successful life. One of the things I love about their books (and our conversation) is that they take some really big topics and simplify them into practical and implementable things we can do in order to be better humans and make the world a better place.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- The inspiration behind Marc and Angel’s book, 1000+ Little Things Happy, Successful People Do.(6:35)
- Why Marc and Angel say their route into personal development was out of necessity. (10:03)
- What made them decide to write a book about relationships. (15:36)
- Marc and Angel answer the question, “What do I do to get my partner to be interested in personal development as much as I am?” (17:40)
- Advice for someone who feels hopeless or helpless due to life’s circumstances. (24:00)
- Why their book, 1000+ Little Habits of Happy, Successful Relationships, is great for single people too. (30:00)
- Some strategies you can employ when you are feeling burnt out. (33:39)
- Practical ways you can get back to happy and simplify your life. (37:53)
Resources mentioned in this episode:
MSN Community – we want to hear from you! Share your “Make Some Noise, ”story with us! Visit AndreaOwen.com/talk
Marc and Angel’s website
1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently
1000+ Little Habits of Happy, Successful Relationships
Marc and Angel Chernoff are professional coaches, full-time students of life, and admirers of the human spirit, and have been recognized by Forbes as having “one of the most popular personal development blogs.” Through their blog, podcast, books, live events, courses, and coaching, they've spent the past decade writing about and teaching proven strategies for finding lasting happiness, success, love, and peace. The Chernoffs live in Florida with their young son, Mac.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Angel 00:00
Step one is bringing awareness to what is within your reach. It's so quick for us to immediately go down that tunnel of what we can't do, right? We can't go on a flight. We can't go on this lavish vacation. We can't go visit family. But what can we do? What is what is close to home? What, what is within my control and in my grasp right now. So I think that's step one is bringing awareness to what you do have.
Andrea 00:26
You're listening to Make Some Noise Podcast episode number 396 with guests, Marc and Angel Chernoff.
Welcome to Make Some Noise Podcast. Your guide for strategies, tools and insight to empower yourself. I'm your host, Andrea Owen, global speaker, entrepreneur, life coach since 2007, an author of three books that have been translated into 18 languages and are available in 22 countries. Each week, I'll bring you a guest or a lesson that will help you maximize unshakable confidence, master resilience and make some noise in your life. Are you ready? Let's go.
Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am so glad that you are here with me today. And I have something free for you. It's a gift. I've actually a few things, but I'll name two of them. One is coming up in a couple of weeks. I don't know the exact date. But it is a new private, secret, if you will, podcast series. And it is for anyone who you could be anywhere on the spectrum. Maybe you are somebody who is like self-sabotaging all the time, and you just can't stay consistent. Maybe you are feeling kind of down and you need some support. Maybe you're feeling like a superstar this year, things have been going really well for you. There's three audios in this podcast series, and it's just me there are so episodes, I want you to consider this your your anthem, if you will your fight song, and I can't wait for you to listen to it. So it's coming up very soon. So keep your ears peeled. And if you are on my email list, then you will be the first to hear about it. Over there. I am so excited. I'm so excited for you. It's been a long time in the making super pumped for you to have it.
The other thing is you may have heard me talk about it the last couple of episodes. I would love your stories to be heard here on the show. community. We want to hear you. So AndreaOwen.com/talk, you can read the guidelines there, you can leave your message for us, right there from that page from your phone or your computer or whatever. I want to know how you have made noise in your life. It is in celebration of my book coming out in August. And yeah, head over there. You can read kind of some ideas to get your juices flowing as you think about some experiences you've had in your life. Again, AndreaOwen.com/talk.
And I think just on a personal note that I'll share with you all today before we jump into this conversation with mark an angel. So I posted on Facebook last week, my personal page, and it's not a public post because I didn't to be honest with you, I didn't want my mom to see it and get all worried. But I have been so tired lately. And I don't know what's up. I'm like, Is this just middle age? Is this pandemic stuff? Is there something going on with my hormones? I turned 46 a few months ago. And so I think that's part of it, you know, middle aged, but I mean, there are mornings when it is 10 o'clock in the morning. I have worked out not to excess. I don't I don't abuse my body with exercise like I used to. And I've gotten enough sleep. I eat pretty decent, don't have a ton of stress going on. And it was 10 o'clock in the morning maybe a couple of weeks ago. All I could think about was taking a nap I was exhausted and I'm like something isn't right. So I posted a little bit of background on my personal Facebook page and asked hey, women out there if you're around my age, maybe if you do what I do for a living, why most my so tired and I've kind of like lost my my motivation like my like my drive, and it's super weird. I’m not depressed. I love what I do. It's just odd. You know, we know ourselves and our bodies. And we know when something's up, something's up. So I, yes, I've been to the doctor and my blood tests came back low vitamin D which I'm now taking a supplement and also my thyroid was on the high side. So in this conversation on Facebook, there were so many responses. All this to say, this is common. This is common for middle age. I think what I'm dealing with there is for sure something going on. But I am looking into having someone come on the show to talk more about it because I know there's a lot of you who are around my age. And it's just an interesting conversation that I think that we should all think about for our physical and mental health and emotional health as well. I did talk to a friend of mine, who is a nurse practitioner who specializes in in women. And she said that my thyroid level when I told her she said, that's high, that's hypothyroidism and you should be treated for it. So we'll see what's going on. She also said I should cut out gluten. Okay, so I'm going to try that. Send all your favorite gluten free recipes. We've been gluten free before for my son, but I still ate gluten. We will see I will keep you posted. Stay tuned listeners.
All right. Let me tell you a little bit about our guest today I'm really excited to have Marc and Angel on it's been it's been a long time coming. I've known them for a long, long time. Marc and Angel Chernoff are professional coaches, a full-time students of life and admirers of the human spirit, and had been recognized by Forbes as having one of the most popular personal development blogs. Through their blog, podcast books, live events, courses and coaching. They've spent the past decade writing about and teaching proven strategies for finding lasting happiness, success, love and peace. So without further ado, here are Marc and Angel.
Angel and Marc, welcome to the show.
Marc 06:32
Thank you so much.
Angel 06:33
We're happy to be here. Thank you.
Andrea 06:35
I was so excited. We weren't recording yet. But when I thought it was just going to be one of you. And I'm so excited to have team Marc and Angel on the show going up as a pair coming up as a pair. And you have a new book that is out which we're going to talk about. But I also have your other two books. And before, before we jump in, I want to say something about 1000+ Little Things, which was that your first book or your second?
Marc 07:00
It was published through Penguin second, but was actually our original self-published book. So it to the masses, it came out second, but it was actually our first book, which is interesting.
Andrea 07:11
The first book. I love this book, because I'm a big fan of any book that you can have in the bathroom. I hope this isn't because people spend time in there. And nowadays, they're scrolling through their phones, but I love it when there's books in people's bathrooms. And you know, you're gonna be in there for a few minutes. And you can pick up this book and just open it up to any section and read a little nugget. And you're good to go. Marc, my actual question is, how did you guys put this list of 1000+ Little Things together? Did you just jot them down on index cards? Like how long did it take you? It's so interesting to me
Marc 07:49
We started a whole blog around it. That's a wait. I'll give you the long story short on 1000+ Little Things. It was. So the book actually came together on the blog, most of most of the content came together on the blog. And then when it was added to and refined once it became a book. But it was a period in our lives just over a decade ago now, where we were going through a very dark period. And this is about the 2008 timeframe. And we were trying to hold, we had seen some therapists. I mean, I'll give the long story short is that Angel lost her older brother to suicide, we lost a mutual best friend about two weeks later. And this was the downturn of the economy in a way. So we were out of work, we were just struggling emotionally with grief, financially, it was just figuring our lives out and reinventing ourselves. And so we were going through a tough time and we started our blog as a public accountability journal, to some of the things we knew we had to hold ourselves accountable to, to step through this as a married couple. We were newlyweds at the time been together a few years. And we were just not having the conversations we needed to have. We weren't addressing the issues we needed to address. And so the blog became this public accountability journal and a lot of what's in 1000+ Little Things are actually the lists and ideas that we were putting together at that time. And that kind of took you from there to a few years after there that were just, hey, like I we know, these are the ideas we need to reference and remind ourselves and reflect on on a daily basis in order to move forward. And so that's sort of the foundation, a baseline of 1000+ Little Things.
Andrea 09:22
Okay, that's so interesting. And I'm always just curious, especially when someone compiles such a large list because I have a feeling that it didn't just see you just sat down at a coffee shop one day and they all came pouring out. Yeah. Well, yeah, 2008 was rough for a lot of people. And were you two, a couple of questions. I'll make it a two parter. Were you interested in personal development before you started doing this? And the second part of my question is when you started Marc and Angel Hack Life, did you foresee that it would become like was that the goal or were you just kind of in a bad place and needed some outlet to write about your feelings and your goals?
Angel 10:03
Yeah, no, we were definitely accidental entrepreneurs. You know, during that timeframe, we were in our late 20s. Life was good, right? We didn't have any need for personal development. We were doing our thing never really had any, you know, major loss or dealt with grief. And so our, our route into personal development was a personal necessity for us.
Marc 10:28
Yeah, we had no, no interest in it prior to that. And then we kind of kind of found ourselves really stuck for a while, and leverage personal development as a path forward for ourselves. And the accidental entrepreneurship that Angel talks about. Yeah, I mean, when we started writing on the blog, we, we had no intentions other than publicly holding ourselves accountable in front of a few friends and family. And of course, you know, this is, you know, call it good luck, call it, you know, whatever. I mean, this is the time where social media is really starting to take off, you know, in a big way.
Andrea 10:59
And I think Twitter had just been invented, and people were just getting on face. Yeah,
Marc 11:02
and even Facebook had been like, in college campuses for a while, but had like, had only been public for a few years at that point, like, open to the masses.
Andrea 11:08
A lot of us were still on MySpace.
Marc 11:13
Dinosaurs are roaming the planet, we're gonna say, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, we started it with no intention for it to be anything more than for us. And it was like, over the months, and then years that followed, we would have people you know, first reading by the dozen, then it was by the hundreds, then we'd start getting 1000s of hits a day to the page, or to the blog, and I'm getting comments and emails, like, ‘hey, you know, this thing that you resonated is so personal and really resonates with me, let me tell you my story. What do you think of this’, and that was how we slowly started transitioning into this work. But it was a very slow process.
Andrea 11:46
That's fascinating. And it just sounds like the universe had other plans. Well, and I know that much of your work, and your books, and the content on your website focuses on what you say, getting back to happy. And so before we talk about some of the steps to get there, how it is one, this might seem like a bit of a ridiculous question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway, how does someone know that they are unhappy? And in other words, like, Are there signs or you know, we all love a good checklist that maybe they're not in alignment with their values? Or, you know, seeing what doesn't make them happy?
Marc 12:23
Yeah, I think a lot of it is a feeling, you know, I mean, just knowing that, you know, hey, life, like, there's nothing major going on in my life right now. But I don't feel like I'm heading in the wrong, wrong or the right direction. Like, I feel like I'm heading in the wrong direction. I feel like something's off center, I feel pressure, I feel tension, I feel stressed. And it's important to tune into that. And a lot of you know, in the book, Getting Back to Happy in our coaching and everything that we do our live events, I mean, a lot of the goal is helping people think better to help people tune in and not tune out. We're, we're big believers in the fact that we need to be moving towards something in life, we don't need to be running away. And so if we're leveraging distractions, as simple as Netflix, or as complicated as drinking alcohol, and getting involved in the wrong things, but if we're using distractions in our lives, to numb our pain, instead of stepping into the pain and figuring out why do I feel the way that I feel? Why am I thinking the things that I'm thinking? And how might I be able to think a little bit better and live a little bit better? That's the journey, right. And so a big piece of it is tuning in really paying attention and being more present with yourself.
Andrea 13:24
One of the things that I love about your books, especially 1000+ Little Things, and now 1000+ Habits, is that you take some pretty big topics and simplify them into practical implementable doable things for people to do. So can you speak more about that and how that became part of your teachings?
Angel 13:50
Yeah, I think, you know, our attention span nowadays is so short. And you know, the, the these two books that you mentioned, 1000+ Little Things and 1000+ Little Habits of Happy, Successful Relationships, like you mentioned, they they're not meant to read cover to cover, though, the idea is that to start your day, or or, like you said, when you're in the bathroom, or even when you're feeling yourself having a moment and needing to feel centered, that you can actually flip to any page in the book, and take five minutes and just read what's there, and then apply it to your life and resonate with it. So yeah, we've kind of made these two bits, to these two books to be quick hit inspiration to give you what you need. In this moment, with the amount of time that you have
Marc 14:35
Right. The whole goal was, again, going back to like how 1000+ Little Things came to be as it really was the small daily affirmations and reflections and ideas and understandings that we needed to keep in mind and we needed to remind ourselves have regularly so the goal was, hey, can we take some more complex thoughts and ideas and tools and drill them down to something that can be easily digestible? And so that was 1000+ Little Things and 1000+ Little Habits of Happy, Successful Relationships our newest is, is that idea just focused on relationships, like you said, as we show up with as a pair today. I mean, Angel and I are often showing up to a lot of what we do together. And that's just a question that people usually have, like, how do you do everything together? Like, you know, do you guys ever struggle? And so a lot of those answers are explored in this book. And it's like, here are some of the ways that we live the rituals that we live by, you know, one small chunk at a time, that allows us to show up for each other and the people in our lives that are important, and people that we don't even know right, being our best selves, right?
Andrea 15:36
Well, that's a great segue cuz I wanted to ask you about that. What made you decide to write a book about relationships?
Marc 15:43
How many times would you say we get questions about our relationship? It’s so interesting. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, I think it's that that was kind of the seed for it. But then I mean, the reason for it is probably a lot larger than that, which is, you know, we care about people. I mean, a lot of what we do the coaching, the events, you know, a lot I mean, you know, this right, I mean, it takes a lot to sit down with somebody and be empathetic and, and take on and internalize their, their issues and their and their stories.
Angel 16:14
And we deal with relationships all day, every day, we don't even realize it, right? Relationships with others relationships with people close to us relationships with people we don't even know right at the grocery store in a car that's cutting us off, and even the relationship with ourselves. And so it's extremely important to nurture those relationships and to deal with the tough parts of them, too.
Andrea 16:37
I guess people would ask you a lot about your relationship, when you work together and you've run this business together for so long, and you show up to interviews together. And you are nice to each other. Yeah, I guess people would start to ask you about this. Did you? And I'm curious, just about the process? Does one person write more than the other? Like, how does that work?
Marc 16:58
It's pretty shared? We we typically, I mean, writing the books are always interesting. I think it gets most interesting by actually doing the audio and tossing the ball back and forth real time to each other when you're doing like an audiobook, but yeah. I write a book very much the same way or even write on the blog, you know, it's usually alternate ideas or posts. So one person will be the lead writer, and then one will edit that writing and like add to. So it's definitely a kind of a community process between the two of us. Sometimes certainly, there's pieces that, you know, are written entirely by one or the other. But we do it a lot together. I mean, I think, you know, it's funny, like, it's always nice to have a proofreader. Right, or an editor. And so we sort of know exactly where each other and have for years.
Andrea 17:40
Read your work. Yeah, that's so interesting. Well, I have a feeling, you know, when I do these interviews, I think about, what is the audience curious about? Like, what might they be curious about? And considering that you're a couple, and that you are both not only interested in personal development for your own work, but that you teach it? I get the question on a fairly regular basis, where the women in my audience ask, What do I do to get my partner, whether they're with a man woman or non-binary, to be interested in personal development as much as I did? So what? I'm curious what your advice is for that?
Angel 18:19
I think with that, you just got to lead by example. Right? Like you being you listening to the podcast and reading the books and talking about those topics is going it's it brings it to the table. Right? So forwarding your partner, hey, leaving the book on the coffee table, forwarding them this podcast, hey, I just listened to this episode. It was really good. So I think dropping those subtle hints, while, leading by example.
Marc 18:47
I completely agree. Yeah, I think I mean, sometimes forwarding things or texting things, like they can misinterpret it. But but having them see you like in conjunction with that, like slowly peppered in. Having them see you actually listen to the podcast, right? Oh, they're like, oh, wow, look, what Look, I mean, it's, it's on, like, I've walked into the room, and she has it on or he has it on in the in the background. They're reading books, having them sit around and having it be something that not only you do, but they sort of know that you're doing it. That goes a long way and enticing somebody to be interested in the things that you're interested in. And then of course, if you can put those things into practice, and they notice a difference in your behavior and how you're showing up in the relationship. I mean, that's that is incredibly rewarding on many fronts, and it often will entice a loved one to at least go oh, well, maybe let me let me thumb through that when I have an opportunity.
Angel 19:36
Well, and also thinking about how did they consume content, right? Do they like Instagram better? Like me sending a spouse a podcast when they never listen to podcast? Well, you're gonna have resistance immediately. But if they're always on Instagram, say, Oh, you know, check out this page. I love these quotes.
Andrea 19:52
Check out this meme that I saw. I was just interviewing someone else about like deep topics around trauma and toxic relationships and she was saying she's a therapist and she's I'm pleasantly surprised how much great information and education there are via memes on Instagram. I was like, okay, good to hear that.
But I agree with you. It's, it's, it's not something that can be prescribed or shoved down someone's throat. It just, it is one of those things that I love that I think Marc you would do this, I just just pepper it in sometimes. And I always tell people, if that if your partner is making fun of you for it, then you need to have a hard conversation. And just, you know, that's, that's a no, but just they don't have to, they don't have to be completely on board, but just that they support you in your own journey. And hopefully they'll come around.
Angel 20:47
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, just like you mentioned, if someone's not ready to hear it, they're going to resist it. Right? They're always going, Oh, that's not for me, I don't need that. But if you continue to show up, and then even more, so if they see a change in you, right? If they see progress, and they see oh, okay, you know, what's Andrew over there doing? You know, I noticed she seems a little bit more happier, a little bit more focused, you know, what does she have going on?
Marc 21:16
Yeah, I think I mean, I think you can absorb it too. That way. I mean, you got to remember that. I mean, we learned by watching and experiencing and living with other human beings. So it's, you know, if you can change your behavior, and you can show up as a better version of you, you will inherently be teaching that person who loves something, right. And like, even if they don't pick up the book, or listen to the podcast, or even read the meme, you'll be adding value to their life and helping change their life. So it's, you know, again, you can't always have expectations about what that looks like. But if you can impact their life in a positive way through through personal development of things that you're interested in, there's at least a chance that they will like reciprocate on some level, at the very least noticing what you're doing, right.
Andrea 21:59
Mm hmm. And I'm very glad that you said, don't have high expectations of what that person is going to do or not do. And yeah, that's important. important addition to that.
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Angel you wrote an article and I apologize, I can't remember when it was. And I know you've written probably 1000s of articles at this point. So you might not remember this particular one. But the article was titled 10 Things to Remember When Everything Feels Out of Reach. And the reason it jumped out at me is because this last year 2020 and into 2021 has taught us that a lot of things feel out of reach. I mean, family friends, pursuing certain goals got cancelled, etc. So what advice do you have for both of you, for someone who feels hopeless or helpless due to life circumstances? Whether it's because of COVID or because of something else?
Angel 24:09
Yeah, I think the step one is bringing awareness to what is within your reach. It's so quick for us to immediately go down that tunnel of what we can't do, right? We can't go on a flight. We can't go on this lavish vacation. We can't go visit family. But what can we do? What is what is close to home? What, what is within my control and in my grasp right now. So I think that's step one is bringing awareness to what you do have.
Marc 24:35
Yeah, controlling the things you can control. I agree entirely. I mean, a lot of the articles we've written through the pandemic and about the pandemic have been focused on that, right that like, you know, in a world of things that we can't control right now, and it's not ideal by any stretch. There are still a lot of things that we do have control over and we need to focus on those things and leverage those things in our favor and in the favor of the people we love. So I completely agree like, you know, tuning In and realizing, hey, we feel like everything's out of reach. But that's not true. Not everything's out of reach something out of reach. And and it's not what you know what the world takes away, but what you do with what you have that actually counts. And so we have an opportunity here to do a lot. But we need to be more focused and a little bit inventive in this time.
Andrea 25:19
Yes. And and, you know, what I came to realize, too, is that there are hardships no matter what, where we're, at what time we're living in. So like pandemic or not, things are difficult, it just kind of got exacerbated. So for what helped me is I did very similar to what you were saying. And there were moments where I started to panic, especially like around the beginning in March and April. And I just told myself to, you know, get present, put both feet on the ground, it was very basic, like, and it goes back to my old days of when I used to struggle a lot with anxiety and panic, panic disorder, and, and just okay, just get right to this moment, because it's all I have, you know, when you're having those spinning thoughts, and I found that to be helpful, because it's the only thing I could control in the moment.
Angel 26:06
Yeah. And you know, in the beginning, for me, some of my worst days, was just feeling like it was Groundhog Day over and over again. And I had nothing to show for I was like, what kind of memories am I creating right now. And that was the worst feeling for me at the end of the day. And so I had to make it a point to say, hey, I need to accomplish something every day, like not something big, but just something small, whether it's reading a book with my son or cooking a nice dinner, but something that makes me feel good, because I was getting at the end of every day being like, what am I doing? What do I have to show? Where am I going, and that was what was most frustrating for me.
Marc 26:44
And we started tracking here, let's just as a family, so we like ended up tracking the little bits of progress, right. And that's kind of like a hidden secret of happiness, right is noticing progress in your life, that makes us feel good. So knowing that we just said, okay, you know, we're not able to do all the grandiose things and that we're used to doing or the busy, we're not, we're not caught up in the business that we're used to, right, all the systems that we're used to living by are suddenly different. But we can be very focused about tracking the little bits of progress we are making in our lives, and then reflecting on them. And just the simple practice of doing that, as a family really, like got us out of the fog and allowed us to be more productive to be more, you know, aware of like the silver linings, if you want to call it that, or just a good things, which of course inspires you to do more of them. So I mean, it was a very good practice for us at the beginning that we've carried forward since then.
Andrea 27:31
I love that. I did a very rudimentary version of that, where I and this is something I did when I was first separated and feeling so depressed and lonely, is I took you know, you have like a wall calendar, some families have wall calendars. And I took a sharpie and would just cross the days out on the calendar. And I started doing it again when COVID hit because I wanted to see time passing because it's very obvious and logical that you know, this too shall pass and all those really great inspirational sentiments that we hear. But I needed to see like I'm like, prove it to me. I need to see time passing and the days could feel so long. And you know, your weekend plans are canceled vacations are canceled. And I honestly found it so helpful to glance over at that calendar and see several black marks through showing the, the passage of time and then you can flip through other months as the months went on to see how much time was actually passed.
Angel 28:30
It's so funny that you brought this up because we have like one of those big desk calendars that I have hanging on the wall in our laundry room. And you know, usually when the month goes by you rip off the month and you crumble it up and throw it away. And I actually it's funny that you bring this up, I don't even think I've ever even told anyone this or Marc, because it's not groundbreaking or anything. But I've had for whatever reason, during COVID. And even still to this day, starting March of 2020. I never threw them away. I just kept them because I'm like, I want to keep track of like this time like this, this time is going by and it wasn't a good thing or a bad thing. But for whatever reason I had this resistance to throwing it away. And I would write stuff on it like what we did, and yeah, and I kept those calendars. I don't think I knew how to, yeah, for a while. And I've never thrown them away. It's along the lines of what you're mentioning. Yeah. And I know, it's comforting. I can't pinpoint why I'm doing it or what I hope to get from it, but I still have them.
Andrea 29:30
For me it was a tiny sliver of comfort. Yeah, yeah. It's the tiniest of sliver.
Marc 29:36
That's what's a good reminder that we have to have like I mean, it doesn't matter how we logically know something's going to eventually pass but like on any given day the feeling will be something different. We feel overwhelmed we feel out of control we've and so like knowing what, not like being able to tune into that and then having a small tool like you guys are talking about to to cope to make us feel better and get through it is important.
Andrea 30:00
I want to talk about your new book for a second. And I like to say that the best time to work on your relationship is before you're in one. And we surveyed this audience, and it's about 50/50. They're in relationships or single people. And so tell us because I think I know the answer to this, but I want to hear it in your words, tell us why this book is also great for people who are single.
Marc 30:23
Oh, it starts with self.
Angel 30:25
Yeah, the first chapter is all about self. And even, you know, it's broken up not into just intimate relationships, right? Again, it goes back to we have relationships all around us, we have everyday relationships, we have family relationships, there's so much more to relationships than just an intimate relationship that we, we we overlook.
Marc 30:48
Our relationships with, you know, the other people in our lives. And certainly, like we said, our relationships with ourselves is it's so meaningful. Like, if we're going to show up into an intimate relationship with somebody, we need to be feeling centered, and we need to be feeling whole. They're not completing us, right? It's it's two holes showing up and sharing a space together. So it's, yeah, I mean, the entire the book actually starts with self, which is interesting. And certainly relationships also start with self and we have to be in a good place. We have to take care of ourselves, for those that we hope to meet. And those we love, of course. And so yeah, that's that's a good reason I think.
Andrea 31:27
It is a great reason. And I mean, I love a good table of contents. I don't know about anybody else. But unless someone has told me like, Andrew, you absolutely have to have this book. Don't don't wait, go and buy it. I'll buy it. But usually what what differentiates me either buying or not buying a book is the table of contents. And as I flipped through the table of contents in this book, I was I was thinking to myself, okay, you two covered everything. What if anything out, and it's, it's so fantastic. And let me just read like the main parts, I would, it would take me three days to read all of your table of contents, because again, you cover everything, cover everything, but Part One is Self-Love and Self-Worth. Part Two is Couples and Marriage. Part Three is Children and Family. Part Four Friendships and Everyday Relationships, Part Five Conflict and Drama. Part Six Boundaries and Expectations. Seven is Love and Pain. I mean, you guys nailed it. It's everything.
Marc 32:26
Well, I mean, I tell you what, it there's a lot that goes into our relationships, right? I mean, it's in I think even reading that table of contents, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. That's right, doesn't matter what kind of relationship we're talking about, including the relationship, relationship with ourselves. So yeah, I mean, there's a lot to explore. But you know, the reason again, that a book like this, I think is so helpful is that there's a lot of things that we logically know, there's a lot of things that we've heard before, but one of the reasons, affirmations or prayers or quotes or reminders, or whatever you want to call it, the reason those things are so powerful is, the more that information is in our present awareness, the better it serves us. And so that's what our hope for a book like this is, is that, you know, we Angel I know that we've used, we use the 1000+ Little Things as an example, as a tool for ourselves. And so for people in their relationships, you got to you got to reflect from time to time, you know?
Andrea 33:20
yeah, it's a full time job.
Marc 33:23
It is so so yeah, it's just it's, it's, it's kind of tuning into a piece of this book that you're you're currently focused on or struggling on, or maybe just even curious about, and allowing yourself to dive in for a page at a time. For a little healthy self-reflection.
Andrea 33:39
Yes, healthy self-reflection. I love, I love her just like, like rolls off your tongue like that, like healthy self-reflection. But I also love that you said it's not always rainbows and unicorns, it's, it's humbling. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna use that word humbling.
I want to ask you, Marc, because you wrote a really excellent article, Three Ways to Break Through When You're Burning Out and Ready for a Change. What are some strategies, and I'm sure you have a lot of them. So if you if you don't directly quote this article that might not remember exactly what you said, that's fine. But I'm more curious, what are some strategies one can employ when they are feeling burnt out? Or and or they know that they need a change?
Marc 34:25
Sure. Um, well, I mean, I think the basics right is like the rituals or habits that we have in our lives. A lot of times we're trying to, we're setting a goal for ourselves and we're trying to build habits and rituals that reinforce this thing that we're reaching for. But the flip side of that, of course, is that we have habits and rituals in our lives that are kind of our default setting. The things that we are doing all the time that we don't even necessarily notice or constantly consciously choose to do. And so a lot of times when we're feeling stuck and feeling like we're not making progress in our lives, what I try to do is get somebody and I do this in my own life also, like I will say, hey, what's something broken? Like what, like, what is this feeling? Like, let me be specific with myself like, what is it that I want to change? Right? Like, what is this broken feeling that I have or this situation that needs some adjusting? And I try to be very specific and identify it. And then I ask myself, okay, now that I've identified this thing that needs a little tweaking, what am I doing every day, consciously or subconsciously, that's actually fueling this broken situation in my life, right? Like, what am I, in what way am I on a daily basis, or very regular basis, reinforcing this thing that I say is broken? And I try to get very conscious about that. And like, say, hey, not only is there a situation, that's not right, but there's actually little things that I'm doing that are perpetuating that situation. And then I try to turn it to the positive, right, then it goes to the goal. It's like, okay, so in, like, what do I need to change? Like, what does an ideal situation look like? And what can I start doing on a daily basis, that kind of takes me from point A to point B. Again, I'm not leaving from one area to the other. But I want to see some progress again, and I want to have something that I can track that shows that I'm making a little bit of progress going from this broken situation, to this more ideal situation. And even if I don't get to the ideal situation, at least I'll see the progress of a shift happening. And so that's, I mean, that's a big part of how, like, it's the basics of a system of getting from point A to point B.
Andrea 36:18
Mm hmm. Yeah, it completely doable. And I love that it's it's sort of baby steps, if you will to get there. It doesn't have to be this overwhelming gigantic, grandiose action steps that you're taking?
Angel 36:29
And we always think that it does, right? What are what are the positive steps that we're putting in place to reach this goal, but it's important to take stock and what rituals we already have going on? And like Marc said, What are the pieces of us that feel broken or feel that we need to fix and what are the rituals that are supporting that? Right? Because we already have rituals in place, it's just are they serving us? Do they need to be removed? Do they need to be adjusted? Is it time to edit them? It's really taking a look at what we do on the daily that's on autopilot. And when we're doing certain activities, what are the thoughts that are going through our head in those moments?
Marc 37:09
And everything is little steps, like you said, right? I mean, everything's little steps, like, we like nothing. Even a business doesn't fail on a day, right? Like, like, like, there's not one big catastrophic moment like a business fails, because you fail to check the books, because you failed to innovate, because you fail to listen to your customers. It was like all the little things that you did or didn't do, eventually, your business fails, right? And I mean, our life is our business, right? And the same thing is true, like things happen on a positive and a negative one little step at a time. It's not one big massive event on either the positive or negative end. And rituals or habits are always part of that, like, what are we doing on a daily basis, that's either moving us closer to where we want to be or further away from where we want to be?
Andrea 37:53
Rituals and habits, Absolutely. Thank you for that. And I want to ask you one more question. And I feel like this might kind of sum up a lot of the work that you do. And you talk about, like I said, getting back to happy and you also talk about simplifying your life. So can you both maybe give us some strategies, like what listeners can start doing today, in order to get back to happy and or simplify their life?
Marc 38:16
I mean, Angel and I mentioned earlier tuning in, right, I think in life, again, we don't want to be running away from things we want to be moving towards things. And so tuning into yourself, I think if you could do one little thing, I'm missing something Angel, I practice all the time, it would be paying attention to the negative emotions and feelings that you have, right? Knowing when you feel like noticing, just noticing, bringing awareness to when you're feeling off center. And maybe just taking a moment. And writing that thought that's going on in your head in real time down. Like just letting that be the practice, like acknowledging, oh my gosh, like I'm feeling off center and filled with anxiety, or whatever it is, at this moment. What is the thought in my head at this moment, no matter how irrational or whatever, because oftentimes, our emotion is not rational. It's just a fact just writing it down, just getting it out of your head in black and white in a sentence or two, not long form, journaling, real time, quick journaling. And then when you're feeling calm and collected, doing that as often as you need, but then when you're feeling calm and collected a day later, two days later, whatever it is, opening that journal of thoughts of, you know, those really tense moments and that might sound counterintuitive, but putting some calm, collected awareness against those thoughts, like those trains of thought that you probably have in patterns, right in your life that are during the tense moment. So your brain calm, collected awareness to a lot of that intensity. And certainly, that's just the first step. You can certainly challenge them, you can question them, you can try to look at them from different angles. Give yourself the opposite of that thought and try to find some truth in that. But it's a tool that Angel and I have leveraged throughout the years and we do it with a lot of our coaching clients. It can be very beneficial a way to almost self-coach yourself.
Andrea 39:51
Yeah, I know. Exactly. I was thinking to say
Angel 39:54
Yeah, and it's extremely important, right. So, so often we think we should just oh bury the hard time. Or, you know, quickly go go to the good stuff. But we need to address those thoughts and bring them to the surface, or they will continue to show up again and again in the worst moments and come out even even bigger and stronger than the last. And so I think, yeah, writing down those thoughts and tuning in on what is going on in your head and heart in those moments where you're feeling the most anxiety and the most pain and the most uneasy. So I definitely agree with Marc's idea.
And then also, you know, just to add on to that is finding, you know, 5-10 minutes every day, to fill your own bucket. You know? And that looks different for every person, but just slowing down and making space for whatever that is, that fills you up. I think that's so important and being consistent about it too, because it's easy on the easy days, right. But on the hard things are going great on the hard days is when it's going to be difficult, but it's going to be a lot easier when you've been consistently doing it on the easy days. So then when those hard days do inevitably come up, that you are you this is a part of who you are and what you do.
Marx 41:11
And that will help you have a baseline of rituals that help support you. I mean, that's why it's so the opposite of what we're talking about here with tracking like your negative thoughts and acknowledging them and then challenging them a little bit. The opposite of that would be gratitude, journaling, right, which is a pretty common personal development practice. And again, like to Angel's point, though, gratitude journaling, like writing three debt things down that you're grateful for at the end of the day. I mean, it's been scientifically proven to help a lot of positive psychology studies on that. Super simple. And a lot of times because it's so simple, people think, oh, well, that's just the cliche, right. And it's only simple and a cliche and easy on those good days that angels just mentioning, right? But the only way you're able to access any form of gratitude on a really tough day or a really dark season of your life is if you've been consistent with gratitude, on the great days, right on the average days. And so that's where it becomes really powerful. Gratitude is not powerful on an average day, gratitude is incredibly powerful on the worst damn day of your life. That's where gratitude saves your life. And the only way to have any gratitude during those days is to be grateful every day.
Andrea 42:11
I have personal experience with gratitude changing my life during like the fetal position on the ground day. The desperate days. Yes, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing those just tangible things to do. I just adore the both of you and your work is so incredibly important. 1000+ Little Habits of Happy, Successful Relationships everyone is an out now. And the links for all of Marc and Angel’s books are going to be in the show notes as well as their website. Where do you want to send people to get to know you more and find find more about what you have to offer?
Marc and Angel 42:47
Yeah, whatever platform you like the most, you know, our main content is on the blog, MarcandAngel.com where we put out a new article every week. We also have an email newsletter that we send out to our email subscribers. And we're on Instagram Marc and Angel Facebook Marc and Angel. Yeah, you can find us pretty much all the social network area. Twitter, included.
Andrea 43:12
Awesome, thank you so much mark and Angel for being here. And listeners, thank you so much for your time, you know how grateful I am for that. And remember, it's our life's journey to make ourselves better humans and our life's responsibility to make the world a better place by everybody.
Hi there, swinging back by to say one more thing. You know, I'm always giving advice over here on the show and on social media. And a couple of those things is that I'm always telling you to ask for what you want, be clear about it, and also ask for help. So I am taking a dose of my own medicine and I'm going to do that right now. It would be the absolute best and mean the world to me if you reviewed and subscribed to this show, make some noise podcast on whatever podcast platform of your choice. And even more importantly, it would matter so much if you shared this show. Sharing the show is one of the few ways the podcast can grow. And that also gives more women an opportunity to make some noise in their lives. You can do that by taking a screenshot when you're listening on your phone and sharing it in your Instagram or Facebook stories. If you're on Instagram you can tag me @HeyAndreaOwen and I try my best to always reshare those and give you a quick thank you dm and also you can tell your friends and family about it. Tell them what you learned. Tell them a really awesome guest that you found on the show that you started following whatever it is I appreciate so much you sharing about this show.