Marcia Wieder on Dreaming: Clarify and Create What You Want

Interview with Marcia Wieder by Phil Bolsta

Watch Marcia Wieder’s interview:

Welcome, Marcia. Thank you for joining us today.

Happy to be here.
 

Allow me to introduce you. Marcia Wieder is an author, speaker, and workshop presenter on dream achievement, team building, and visionary thinking. Her most recent bestseller is titled, DREAM: Clarify and Create What You Want. Let's start off with a basic question. What's the difference between a dream and a fantasy?

Boy. I've been asked that question for many decades. Well, in a dream you can design a strategy for getting there, unlike in a fantasy where you really can't do much to make it happen. But there's an interesting distinction, Phil, because you know, if the difference between a dream and a fantasy is about taking action to make it happen, one of the challenges I have found is that in dreaming, people often go to strategy too soon and wind up compromising their dream down to what they think is realistically possible.

So the idea behind dreaming is to open up your mind, your heart, your being, and to imagine and be creative without immediately worrying or wondering about how you're going to make it happen. One of the big distinctions in the book you've just referenced — I've written 15 books, all on how to make your dream come true, so it's clearly been my life's work for more than three decades — but the big difference in this book and really what this talk is about is that “dream” is a verb.

Even though it's a noun also, we can say, "making your dreams come true," or "achieving a dream." When I got this shift that dream is a verb, it became paramount that in order to achieve dreams, you have to be committed and in integrity with your heart and soul to the point that you're going to take action on it. You're not going to be stopped by the story of not enough time or not enough money. You're not going to be off in fantasy land imagining the best or the worst... imagining the worst... but rather you're going to treat your dream as something holy, sacred, meaningful, important, and honor it as you honor yourself by taking action on it. The simple answer is: It's about doing something about it.
 

Great. I think that helped, to make that distinction. That's an important one.

Dream is a verb. It's my new favorite statement.
 

And the title of your next book, probably. Why is it so necessary for people to have dreams during challenging times?

Oh, great question. Yeah, especially now, right? We could look at the world, the world gone crazy that we live in, and we could say that this isn't a time to dream. This is a time to be realistic, and I would suggest that it's never been a better or more important time to have dreams and to act on the dreams that truly are important. You know, for me, no dream is too big and no dream is too small, so there are the personal dreams of having healthy relationships with your family, loving, committed, intimate relationships, being healthy and physically fit, work that you enjoy that's meaningful, but then there's also the global dreams, the dream of world peace, the dream of a world that works, a dream of equality and fairness where people are treated with respect and with kindness.

If we look at dreams as the articulation of what's important and what matters to us in times that are trying and difficult, even tragic and horrific like some of the many things that we're living through in our own lifetime right now, our ability to still have faith and courage, our ability to demonstrate that we're more committed to our dreams than to any reality that might try to sway us otherwise is important personally and collectively. So our ability to connect to who we are and what matters to us, our ability to articulate what's important and inspire other people to join us, to rally, to know that our voices and our presence and our thinking and our being does make a difference.

You know, it's so funny, I just had this old quote pop into my head. I probably read it in your book as well, but Margaret Mead, you may remember, the anthropologist, said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." For me, thoughtful, committed citizens means that we have the ability to dream. We have the capacity to dream. Then as we live in integrity with our dreams and our ideas and our thoughts and our words, this is where we can bring about change at a time where it's no longer optional. Things have to drastically change if we want to continue to survive.
 

Well said. If someone doesn't have a dream or is in need of a new one, what do you recommend?

Well, I love this question. You'd be amazed at how many people don't have one or are in need of a new one, and remember it doesn't matter... for me, a “dream come true” life includes all dreams, so personal and professional, relationship, health, financial, spiritual, community. The work that I teach spans all dreams, and I meet a lot of people right now who are disillusioned and disappointed, and even depressed and in despair, and it's hard to dream when you're in that state or that mindset. Where dreams come from is you make them up. Some of them are based on need, like putting food on the table or perhaps sending your children to a good school. Some of them are based on desire; maybe your dream is to write a bestselling book or travel around the world. The dreams that come from your purpose are usually the most profound, so standing in your purpose, the quality of your dreams, and therefore the quality of your life will actually change.

So when somebody says to me, "Gee, I don't have a dream," well, first I'm listening to hear, has their own internal dreamer become so wounded from despair or setbacks or even failures that there's a fear of trying again? Sometimes there's ritual that needs to be brought in, the hearing from that wounded part, and the healing of the part that's needing tending to.

Sometimes I can recommend somebody goes on what I call a passion quest, where you take a period of time. It doesn't have to be ... well, you don't have to put the rest of your life on hold to do it. You can take a day, a weekend, even a year or longer to kind of put your antenna up and pay attention to what matters to you, what moves you, what's meaningful to you, because the dreams that we had in our 30s and 40s are typically not the dreams that we have in our 50s and 60s and beyond.

So for many of us, we are in need of new dreams, and we are in need of the time and space to feel ourselves, to know who we are, to know both what we do want and what we don't want. One of the critical skills, I kind of stumbled on this, but now it's become one of the most critical skills that I practice, is discernment, the ability to say, "No more," or "No, thank you," or "No way," to create some open space to be able to drop in, to breathe, which includes inhaling and exhaling, to feel myself, to empty and become receptive. To open to new dreams is so important. You know this, Phil. I'm not sure people watching me know, but I moved a year ago, a little over a year ago, to Rome, Italy.

It was the practice of discernment, of saying no to the things that no longer fed my heart and soul, the practice of saying, "No, thank you," when I had a choice, because we don't always have a choice. Your kids need you or your family needs you or you're under some kind of a deadline. We don't always have a choice, but when you do have a choice, if somebody asks you to do something and you don't want to do it, and you don't have to do it, the practice of saying, "No, thank you" creates space, and space is a necessary component for us to open to new dreams and new vision and new ideas. Many of us, many people complain, "Well, I don't have time." You know, we're so mired in reality, living from our clocks and calendars that most of us don't have time to achieve our dreams. Many of us don't even have time to dream to know what our dreams are.

So it started out kind of crossing out a weekend on my calendar, and it turned into crossing out the month of December when my business is typically very quiet. It was very frightening at the time. Could I really take that time off? Little by little I starting taking more time and saying no and discovering who I was becoming. What I was left with was one of those lingering dreams. You know, maybe someday when the kids are grown, maybe someday after my aging parents pass, God forbid, maybe someday when I have extra time and money, which I don't think ever happens for anyone. Maybe then I'll pursue my dream, and I realized that we don't even know if tomorrow is going to come.

So there's something about orchestrating our life to clear some space to find and create new dreams, orchestrating our lives to break the old habits of doing things that are no longer true for us, the ability to say, "No more" to the things that are sucking the life out of us or that we're wasting energy complaining about. All of that adds up to me to what I would call soul integrity. The ability to be authentic with ourselves about who we are, what we truly want, what really does matter to us. Then put ourselves in integrity with our soul's intention.

This idea of intention and integrity together to me are very... these are fundamental skills for manifesting our dreams, so knowing who you are and acting on it, including having the courage and confidence to say, "No, thank you," I think is a paramount skill to develop in order to be able to dream new dreams and to have the courage and confidence to act on the dreams that really matter to you. That was a long-winded answer, but I think there's a lot in there that we touched on.
 

Definitely, and I was very curious when I saw you moved to Rome. Why was Rome, in particular, your dream?

You know, when I was very young, in my 20s, my whole dream then, it was wanderlust. I just wanted to travel, and I got very lucky and I got this gig that sent me to Cairo, Egypt for a year. It's actually where I had a whole spiritual awakening, but we can save that for part B, for the sequel interview. It's a whole nother story, but on going to and from Egypt I always stopped in Rome and I had one of those, "Maybe someday I would love to live in Rome." After a couple of years of discernment and really cleaning house, what I saw was I could live anywhere in the world, and then something very interesting happened. I have aging parents, and the logical good daughter would say, "I need to be here for my family, and after they pass and later in life, then I'll pursue my dream."

But I talked to my parents. They're in Florida, and their response was charming. My mother said, "What do I care where you live? It's not like I'm coming to visit you." Because they're elderly, they're not going to get on an airplane. If I'm in Italy, every time I go to California, I'll stop in Florida and my parents actually see me much more now than they did when I lived in California, which is a sort of ironic thing, but what I realized is at some point they probably will need me in Florida. Rather than waiting around, and to be really honest, maybe feeling somewhat resentful that I was putting my dreams on hold, I moved to Italy now with the thought that if and when they need me close, I'll come and I'll move to Florida, but I'll have had this amazing magical experience of following my heart.

Living in a foreign country where everything is new and beautiful and creative and interesting has really opened up my visionary capacity. You know, at one level I walked away from my family, my friends, my community, my business, my identity. It was just sort of this... I don't know. I don't think it was a midlife crisis. Maybe it was a Saturn return, but it just felt like such a strong calling. And my favorite thing about being a teacher of meaning and living a life of passion and dreams has been this developing of my capacity to really trust myself, Phil. I know you have this because as I read your book I could feel it on every page.

It doesn't mean that we don't have doubts and fears because certainly we're human and those things can come up, but the practice of being more committed to our dreams than to our doubts, the ability to get still and quiet enough to hear the wisdom within, and then to trust it enough to act on it is one of the greatest gifts that God gave me or maybe one of the greatest gifts that I have chosen to develop — and my favorite thing to teach people along the way. When we talk about living on purpose, which I touched upon when I talked about dreams, for me living on purpose requires three things.

One is a spiritual practice so we can hear the deeper wisdom within, just as we're talking about now. Secondly, to know what's unique and special about you, formed by everything you would celebrate and even much that you would grieve. Everything has made you uniquely you. Then third is to be of service with it, to take those gifts and give it back, so I took my entire body of work and turned it into this Dream Coach Certification program. We certify thousands of coaches all over the world, online now, and wherever I go I'm meeting people who have either been through that process, who have become a certified coach, who are adapting the mindset and practice of trusting themselves on a deeper level, and knowing that intention alone isn't enough, but this practice of intention and integrity.

So to wrap up the answer to the question, I would be out of integrity with my own heart and soul if my inner voice was saying, "Follow your heart and come to Rome, move to a foreign country and see what life wants to create through you," if I just said, "Eh, never mind." So the ability to act on it — because dream is a verb — the ability to act on it has been extraordinary.

Now, I want you to know it hasn't been easy. I didn't realize that so few people in Rome spoke English. And I'm dating, and the men tell me they speak English and then they don't. And they just figure they'll skip the talking part and just go to something a little bit more intense! But I'm honoring my feminine essence. I'm walking a lot. I'm sleeping a lot. I'm taking baths instead of showers. I'm luxuriating in the beauty. I'm learning the language. I'm cooking, which is something I never did when I lived in California and other cities, so I'm trusting the guidance.

And I have to tell you, at one level, other than I've always wanted to live there and it's a beautiful city and I'm having amazing experiences, at one level I don't really know why I'm there. And that kind of tickles me a little bit because for the first half of my life I needed to know everything, and now I think three of the most liberating words in the world are, "I don't know... I don't know." You know, there's an "I don't know," but there's also the, "I don't know." We live in such a time of great unknown, and I think the way to navigate through the unknown is to get comfortable with uncertainty, and the way to get comfortable with uncertainty is to dance around with “I don't know,” so I think that's why I'm in Italy, in Rome.
 

You know, as you spoke about your move to Rome, I couldn't help thinking of this wonderful quote by Richard Bach, which I live by as well: "You don't have to fight to live as you wish. Live as you wish and pay whatever price is required."

Oh. That's so powerful.
 

It is, it is. So by following your own dream, have you found that you can now write and teach and even live more authentically?

Oh, I would go as far as to say without this it's impossible. Maybe it's the kind of person I am. Maybe it's the way that I'm wired, but if it's not true for me, I don't do it. Every single thing that I teach, and I have a fabulous gift for anybody that's listening to this that will help with this as well, but every single thing that I teach, I have learned and I have lived through personally, every single thing, and I put it all together. I've put together 30 years of life's work into a little Cliffs Note gift for your folks, and here's the quick URL if people want it. It's JumpStartMyDream.com/Shift. It basically takes these core principles that you and I are very aligned on, which is, "To thine own self be true." But you can't stop there.

I think most of us have been to hell in one way or another at some time or another in our life, but we lived to tell about it, and through Shift and the kind of work that you and I teach and offer, hopefully we have or we are transmuting it into love. And then what there is to do is to teach about it. So, been to hell, live to tell about it, transmute it into love... must be here to teach about it. Some of us teach formally, like I'm a formal speaker and a teacher and an author and CEO of Dream University. Some teach informally or naturally as a parent or as a spouse, but every one of us, we've incarnated in a very interesting time in life, and life needs our gifts. I hope, really, it's truly my hope and my prayer that out of hearing this little video and all the other extraordinary speakers and teachers that are brought to you through Shift, that people are making important choices.

You know, the subtitle of my newest book, Dream, is Clarify And Create What You Want, so if all we're doing is thinking about it, well, that's interesting; and if all we're doing is talking about it, well, that's useful; but if we're really wanting to contribute to the healing, the awakening, and the transformation, that is not an option; it's not an optional conversation. But then I think each of us needs to look at, "Who am I? What has life uniquely seeded me for?” Like, somehow I've developed great courage. Amen. But for me to just take my courage and even just to run off to Rome, well, I think it's fine for a while, but I'm already starting to feel the itch of what's next for me.

You know, Phil, when I first moved to Rome — it's been a little over a year now — I didn't even have to talk to people about it because it was clear to me that I was not who I used to be, and yet I hadn't become who I am becoming. It was clear I hadn't retired. There's no way that I'm done. I'm healthy and energetic and I have clarity, and I've been given amazing gifts and tools that I've developed and utilized just like every single person who is listening to this has. So recently I started calling it a sabbatical. I get asked two very funny questions. One, "Well, what if you don't like Rome?" I'm like, "Well, I'll go someplace else." You know? Or, "Well, how long are you staying there?" I'm like, "Well, until I don't." You know? Until I'm ready to do something else or go somewhere else.

So the practice of being very present, the practice of being in Rome with my heart open, with my love light turned on, the practice of walking through a city with my iPhone put away so that I'm making eye contact with people that I'm meeting, and smiling and using my broken Italian to relate and communicate and connect with people is opening me to ways that I never imagined was possible, nor did I know were missing, so I can feel there's a whole new skillset. Like, it's easy for me to say, "Oh, look. Now I'm cooking." I can point to that and say, "That's a new skillset." But there's something that's not as obvious except when I catch myself doing something silly or stupid, and laughing at myself instead of judging myself. So it's through the contrast that I'm seeing and experiencing myself as growing, but have no doubt about it whatsoever because I don't.

I am a kind of person and a kind of teacher who I learn something in order to teach it. I've often said, and I know I'll say this for somebody else who it will serve as well, that any time you're struggling with something in life, pay attention to how you navigate it because it could very well be your curriculum. What I'm struggling with — small “s” because it's not painful but I'm struggling with — is who am I now? I feel that if we are alive during this time in life it's because we have a destiny and we have a calling. I was one of the first teachers, 30 years ago, to be teaching about purpose. I was one of the first coaches and friends that stood behind Stephen [Dinan], even before he met Devaa, believe it or not, and was supporting him and encouraging him around starting The Shift Network, you know?

There are certain things that we are here to do, and when we develop the capacity to trust ourselves by both having the guts to say, "No, thank you,” and “No more," but also having the courage and the confidence to say, "Yes, that is mine to do, not because I'm necessarily good at it and not necessarily even because I have all the experience, but because it is a calling and it is part of my destiny, and it's very clear that dream is a verb.” So when we have that level of clarity and we have moved out of our way the cobwebs that might have otherwise tripped us up or gotten in the way of our focus, then what there is to do is to act on the dream.

I want to get this other piece in, Phil, if it's okay with you. One of the most important skills that I teach — and I almost didn't talk about it; I must be in such a new place because it used to be all I talked about — in order to master manifestation, we each need to master the skill of enrollment. And enrollment is when you share your vision, your project, your products, your services, your ideas in a way that inspires other people to join you. If we think about a visionary, a visionary has a dream, articulates it with clarity so people get it and understand it, expresses it with passion so people are excited about it. And most importantly, visionaries practice the art of inviting and inspiring other people to join them, so the obstacle called "I don't have enough money" can often disappear. When you develop the capacity to talk to anyone, any time, any place about your dream in a way that touches them and inspires them, they will often step forward and help you in ways beyond what you can even imagine. So I just wanted to sprinkle that into the conversation.

The only way to get good at it is through practice, because when I created the Dream Coach Certification, I did it because I was meeting a lot of coaches, but they weren't growing successful businesses. They weren't being paid what they were worth. They were not valuing their gifts, and in order to be paid well for doing what you love, you have to first do what you love. You have to value your gifts, you have to charge what you're worth, and you have to have enrollment conversations with people to show the value of what you can bring. I starting seeing that as I taught that, the coaches were able to charge more, they were able to get clients, they were able to grow successful businesses.

The whole Dream Coach methodology is, if what's in your heart is you're committed to helping other people achieve their dreams, well, you probably have the heart of a dream coach. But if you want to make a living doing it, you have to really think about it as a business, and develop the skill and capacity to be able to articulate the dream in a way that inspires other people to want to hire you and work with you. So hopefully, that was valuable as well.
 

Oh, I think this interview is going to give many people the courage and the inspiration to finally take action in following their own dreams.

Yes. That's why we're here. Dream is a verb.
 

Definitely. Well, Marcia, you've been teaching about manifesting dreams for 30 years. What are, say, the three most important things you've learned?

Oh, boy. That's a good question. Okay, I'm not going to reach into my bag of rote answers. I'm going to see what wants to be expressed right now. So that was one: the ability to take a breath and see what's present, to allow what's no longer true to fall away for a kernel to reveal itself.

So I think it goes back to what I said earlier. It's not about the need to know. It's about the willingness to not know, the availability, the... what's the word I'm looking for? The capacity to — this is not original to me; this came from Mickey Singer in The Surrender Experiment — the belief that life knows better than I do, the ability to surrender to something greater. But the work that I as a human being need to do in order to put myself in right relationship with that, is this practice of trusting myself.

I would say trusting myself at the deepest level and knowing that it's not one of those “one and done,” you get to check the box and say, "Yes, I trust myself and therefore I always trust myself," because what I'm discovering is that as I dream new dreams, bigger dreams, and surrender to life and get that there are things that I don't know how to do that sometimes I'm being asked to do, that helps me build greater self-trust. So I think the most important skill in order to be a visionary, to be a big dreamer, to have the courage to act on what's important has everything to do with self-trust. So I will put that up there in the top three.

You know, a few years ago I received guidance to start a modern-day mystery school called The Meaning Institute. It was kind of at the graduate level, so I had Dream University for 30 years; The Meaning Institute was the graduate level program — and this is not a pitch because I'm not currently offering it — but I wound up saying yes to it and realized I had no idea how to do it. People paid a lot of money and trusted me, and it was one of those building, packing... I don't even know what the metaphor is... packing the parachute before or building the bridge as you are walking along. The first year I did it, I did well enough and a lot of people grew and got a lot of value out it. The second year — because I was told to do it for three years — the second year I actually knew what I was doing and I felt more confident. And the third year, it was hands down the most transformational thing I ever did in my life.

Then I was told to stop, which pissed me off because I finally knew how to do it. But along the way, my colleagues and peers, pretty much everyone said, "Don't call it a mystery school." It was a modern-day mystery school studying the mysteries of life, the things that couldn't be seen or touched, like love and compassion and shadow work and relationship to power. Had I listened to my colleagues, I would have really given away a big source of my own power. So the ability to trust myself enough and then to listen through discernment, that was probably the second biggest piece, to find my way, and then the practice of getting out of the way.

Like, I would design the curriculum for the modules and then I would show it to the group. "Look, we have curriculum," and then I'd say, "But we're going to set it aside to see what life needs and wants." The level of magic and transformation that occurred was unlike anything I had ever seen or done or experienced, but here's the hoot. I don't know why I did it. On one level, I know: people's lives were transformed; it made me a lot of money; it helped me transform my business and life and move to Italy. There are things I can point to, but the bigger things are the things that I don't know yet; and yet I trust my life, I trust my path.

I trust that I am on my own path of destiny just like each of you is on your path of destiny. And navigating, saying yes to what resonates with my heart, and saying no when I can, when I have a choice to do things that don't. I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to the essence of who I am because I believe and teach — and I go into this in detail in the gift, in the JumpStartMyDream.com/Shift I touch upon this — that we are born as whole and perfect, and we're wounded at a young age. It's supposed to happen, and out of that our personality gets formed. We develop a lot of skill and neuroses and capacity and everything. Then some time, usually at midlife, which I think is a mindset more than it is an age, we begin the journey back to essence.

We realize that our story is an essential part of who we are at an essence level, but it's not the whole story. So we begin that sacred journey, the second half of the hero's journey back to essence, realizing that our story and our personality is part of who we are. But there's so much more to who we are and why we are here. So I think I'm learning, I guess the third thing... I sort of lost count... but I think is the ability to journey, and for me the ability to journey from inside my feminine essence. I spent the first part of my life in my masculine, goal-oriented persona, and I was so tired of achieving goals that I moved into the dream business because dreams have a different ilk to them and a different texture to them. They are more feminine, but I was always about action and results.

Well, now that I've removed some of that, and by developing the capacity to trust myself and honor myself, and hopefully be that light and example to others as well, the ability to feel moment by moment what's needed not just for me but for life, the ability to eat when I'm hungry and sleep when I'm tired, the ability to really rest, the ability to not know and be grateful for not knowing, this is a whole new skillset. I'm paying attention to navigating through new terrain, and possibly, knowing myself, this will at a certain level be curriculum, and my Shift Network friends... you heard it here first. Phil. This is the first interview that I've done since I've gone on sabbatical a year ago.

The reason I think I'm being so wordy... I always used to be a lot more succinct in my answers and more masculine and more focused. I think I'm talking to unearth and discover what it is that I'm feeling, and you're such an amazing interviewer. You're holding this very sacred space for me to articulate into, and I'm happy that we're recording this because I will listen to it, but I can hear that there's something morphing, something that's becoming, and it's exciting to not know what it is. You know, there was a time in life where it would have been terrifying not to know what it is.

So I think all of that adds up to, at the end of the day, the ability to trust: to trust myself, to trust life, to trust spirit, to trust my angels and guides and ancestors and spirits and whoever else is involved in the direction and formulation of this life... my life and our own life that we're living. I notice I can't wrap a sentence up. You know, this is very interesting. People always tell me I was so curt and like, succinct, you know? I think I've lost that capacity.
 

No, I think you're in good shape. By the way, it struck me that your own mystery school was itself a mystery, it sounds like.

That's exactly right. You know, I could look back on it in hindsight, and if I say, "Well, what was that about?" and the answer that I'm getting in my own spiritual and journaling practices, it was really all ... the promise of The Meaning Institute was, you will trust yourself at a deeper level. What I didn't realize when I was in it was that I was designing the curriculum for that for myself. At the end, I really learned that life is a mystery, and how to move through and navigate. Like, the main tool in moving through life as a mystery is the willingness to use "I don't know" as a compass. It's like, "I don't know and isn't that a lovely thing?"
 

Yes. Speaking of the Meaning Institute, you are a pioneer in speaking about finding your purpose. Can you offer a few suggestions on how people can advance toward their purpose?

Yes. I was talking about purpose even before Rick Warren wrote The Purpose Driven Life and put it on the map... and also Tim Kelley, who I introduced to Stephen. Tim discovered his purpose at my Dream Coach Certification program, and his purpose was to help people find their purpose. He started, of course, the True Purpose Institute. I wrote the Foreword for Tim's book, and he just went and completely just took off with that work, but I like to brag that he's a Marcia Wieder success story.

Purpose for me... I make a distinction between purpose and dreams. Purpose is, Who are you? Dreams are, How do you want to live your life? I'm playing around with the idea that the big dream is, What is your destiny? The Marcia question that I often am known for asking is, What dream must you accomplish in order to die happy and fulfilled? Now I'd like to say, What dream must you accomplish in order to live happy and fulfilled? I'm sort of preferring that, but there's something about purpose... that without purpose people often climb to the top of the mountain only to discover that it's the wrong mountain. So in the new Dream book that we were talking about earlier, I talk about five different ways to discover your purpose.

The easiest one is to look for times in your life that you felt the most alive, engaged, passionate, and look for a common thread. What was it in all three of those memories that you were passionate about? That will often start to point you in the right direction. That's one way. Another is to look at your wound. If we consider that all of life, depending on whether you take a more scientific or a more spiritual approach or option C...I believe everything was orchestrated, so I believe that I was wounded in the perfect way to become who I became.

For example, the year I was born my older sister lost her hearing and went deaf. She's still my older sister and she's quite handicapped, actually, but in my house, my father became angry at God, blamed God, banished faith, and I grew up in a home that was pretty faithless. Now isn't it ironic and interesting that I became Susie Hope? My life and life's work is all about believing in yourself and acting on your dreams. I've spent 30 years developing a doubt-removal system because I grew up in a house where people doubted and worried and were filled with fear. So it's really interesting how our wound... we got the perfect family and the perfect wound in order to fulfill upon our purpose.

So you can find your purpose by looking for common threads at the time you felt the most alive. You can go back to the beginning of your life and look at your wound. You can go on a passion quest and discover what really has heart and meaning for you. You can look at the end of your life and what would you have them put on your tombstone. I mean, these are all ways to discover your life's purpose, but here's what I'd say. It's not like looking for a needle in a haystack. Your purpose is inside of you, you incarnated with it, and what there is to do is to get still enough to feel yourself, to turn toward what you might otherwise turn away from or have been too busy to think about or focus on, and to start to engage in the meaningful exploration or dialogue with the part of you that knows who you are and why you're here.

I've talked for many, many years about purpose and dreams, but now I'm starting to speak about destiny, and it's not a word that I've really been using all of these years. I flew to Florida recently to be with my family, and finally got to watch the Wonder Woman movie, and the opening sequence, it's a little girl, it's her as a child, and she's running and she's jumping and she wants to be with the warrior Amazon sisters and women. I felt almost immediately a lump in my throat and then tears came streaming out of my eyes. When I just closed my eyes and took a breath to feel myself, I could feel this churning of destiny inside of me.

Two things came up for me around it, Phil. One was the fear that I didn't have one. What if I don't have a destiny? What if I'm just a plain, old human and here for ... I mean, it's crazy. I've written 15 books. I've been on Oprah twice. I've been on PBS. I've worked with three United States presidents. I've accomplished a whole lot of stuff. I mean, it would be enough if I stopped now, you know? But still, that feeling of, what if I don't have a destiny? Then right on the other side this fear of, oh my gosh, what if I do? What if I do have a destiny and I miss it? What if I have a destiny and I botch it up? What if I have a destiny and I've been too busy to pay attention to it… like, all of those stories and conversations.

So guys, I've been working on myself my entire life and yes, I still have neuroses. I trust myself deeply and I still have doubts and fears, but I don't get swept away in them anymore and I don't let them dominate my dreams. That comes through an ongoing practice of, "Which one am I more committed to?" So I believe I have a destiny, as I believe that you do. I believe that it's starting to reveal itself. I believe that the move to Rome was for me to slow down, to stop doing, to feel myself, to stop lecturing for a while and teaching for a while and even writing for a while, to stop doing all the things that I was so identified with so that I could start to feel this next level and this next layer reveal itself to me.

There's no question in my mind that at a very simple level my destiny is to help make the world a better place, and then there's, okay, what does that look and feel like? I didn't realize that when I moved to Italy, that my street cred as the Dream Queen, as Stephen Dinan likes to call me, that my street cred as the Dream Queen was going to go off the charts. I just thought that people would forget about me, but I've been given too much, and feel too alive and too energized for this to be the end. Yet the unplugging from what I had always been doing, which has been important... I've been serving a collective for a long time, and I love who I have become. I feel privileged for the body of work that I have created and the lives that I have been honored to touch. And yet I'm not done, so I think this ties very much in with purpose.

There's a question of, on one hand it's, What is mine to do? But on the other hand it's, Who am I becoming? You know, what has life seeded me for that I'm not available to ... I don't even know what the verb is. I was going to say to serve, but it doesn't feel like that. That I'm now available to surrender to, to have it lead and guide. I think that anyone listening to this video, if you took a little time and you looked back at some of the critical decisions that you've made in your own life, whether they were yeses or nos, whether they were certainties or maybes or whatever, you will see that you became more of who you are through those choices and decisions, and all of that adds up to living a purposeful life.

At a certain level, and I don't know that I've ever said this before, at a certain level I think it's all on purpose. I think when you get to the point where we are as members of The Shift Network and that there's a level of consciousness that we're committed to, I think that it all becomes purposeful, so there's nothing in my life that I'm doing that's not on purpose, but I think there's, what is life calling forth? That feels much more feminine to me, the not knowing, the willingness to surrender, the offering a gift in service to life without any need or expectation for a repayment or a... I don't know. I don't know. I just think that it's an exciting time for those of us that are asking important questions, and most importantly, taking the time to listen to the answers.
 

Very well said. You know, you've touched upon your own doubts and fears. Many people enjoy dreaming of a better life, but their fears and insecurities end up sabotaging their dream. How can someone overcome these obstacles and these fears that block their dream from being realized?

Yeah. I'm very glad you're asking about this because it's a huge issue, obviously. Because I grew up in a family that had lots of doubts and fears, I spent 30 years developing a doubt-removal system, and if people opt in for that gift, they'll definitely get the Cliff Notes on that as well. Let me give you a couple of important points. First, the number one way that we sabotage our dreams is we project our fears and doubts into the dream. We typically do it with three little words: "But what if?” But what if I move to Italy and I'm lonely? But what if I move to Italy and I don't make any friends? But what if I move to Italy and everybody forgets about me and I run out of money? But what if? But what if? So the practice is to separate out your dreams and your doubts. It's not that we don't have doubts and fears. You'll hear this on all my programs. I encourage you to turn toward the thing that you want to turn away from so that you have a relationship with it.

I teach you how to hear from the doubter. You see, if we turn the voice of the doubter down, it becomes the realist. The realist wants to know what's the plan... basically, where are you going to get the time and where are you going to get the money? But in the early phases of dreaming you may not know. You may not have it all figured out, especially if it's a big dream or a long-term dream, and if you go to strategy... I think we started with this comment. If we go to strategy too quickly, we'll compromise the dream down to what we realistically think is possible, and with it often squelch the passion, so you want to turn toward the doubter, right? If we have a dreamer that says, "Yes, I can," and this doubter that says, "No, you can't" or "It's a bad idea," the doubter part of you will give you your list of obstacles.

Every obstacle is either an internal job — a limiting belief that you have about yourself, the dream, or life — or an external job, something that requires a strategy. Where big dreams die is we just like, we plop them onto a to-do list. I couldn't even just put like, "Move to Rome"; I couldn't just plop that on a to-do list. I had to break it down into small manageable projects. This is a lot of what the dream coach program teaches people to do, because people put, "Write a book" or "Run a marathon." They just put it on their to-do list and then wonder why it never happens. Then when you say you're going to do something and don't do it, well, nothing activates the voice of doubt more than breaking your agreements with yourself and with others, so it comes back to an integrity conversation.

If you have not dealt with your own doubt and you meet another doubter on the road, their doubt will probably magnify yours. But if you've dealt with your own doubt and you meet another doubter on the road, by contrast, it becomes the opportunity to deepen your commitment and your conviction to your dream, so this goes back to enrollment. When you develop the capacity to talk to anyone, any time, any place, about your dream or idea or projects or a business opportunity in a way that inspires them, even if they don't agree with you, you'll be developing your own confidence to stand up for what matters to you and that's a life-changing practice. I want to just say on this, it's not that we have to get rid of our doubts. We want to use the information. If there's an obstacle called "Not enough money," well, then we need to design a strategy to manage that rather than projecting the fear into the dream and using it as the reason, excuse, or justification to quit. I can talk a lot more on this topic. There's a lot to it, so…
 

There is a lot, and I think people will get a lot out of what you just said and it's going to be a big help, but finally, one more question. You already mentioned you were there in the beginning when Stephen Dinan dreamed up The Shift Network. What do you recall about those days?

Stephen did not... he's my friend, so I hope he will love that I'm saying this because it speaks to who he's become. He didn't know diddly-squat about being a businessman, and the Shift Network is a multimillion-dollar success story now. So that's one thing that's just like, I didn't know anything about how to create a mystery school. I learned and I became, like I moved from being a personal growth and development teacher to being much more of a spiritual or even a mystical teacher or a facilitator by saying yes to what I didn't know how to do. Stephen did much of the same.

The other thing I remember is that he has stayed very true and clear and impeccable to the vision that Shift... at a very simple level, we share a similar commitment to make the world a better place, but Stephen is one of the most brilliant people that I know. And his ability to think holistically and to really look at what is needed, whether it's politics or science or it's food or it's world peace, and really positioning himself with the best teachers and the best facilitators, and always, always, always — and we talked about this a lot in the beginning — always coming from a place of integrity. Not that it's about perfection, but doing the best, making the right choices and decisions, and when there's a mistake, cleaning it up. Being vulnerable, being transparent, owning our mistakes so that we do trust ourselves and that the people around us, whether it be the team at Shift — many of the people who I know and admire and love and respect — whether it's the team or the clientele or the faculty, which I'm very proud that I have been a faculty member since in the beginning.

I guess this is my ... I don't want to say this is my coming out of sabbatical interview, but it is the only one that I said yes to after many years and many months of saying no because I love Shift, and love who you are and what you stand for, and really know Stephen and the organization to be committed to the highest level of integrity and truly committed to the healing and awakening of our planet. I love that Stephen, he doesn't back away from what's frightening. He's often a lone wolf voice. When there's something he believes in, he speaks it loudly and clearly and boldly. I'm honored that we are friends, and I love him and Devaa, and of course beautiful Sienna, deeply and dearly. I'm happy that I'm one of the confidants that they feel that they can turn to when they want my opinion or guidance on something.

We're very, very aligned on our values and our beliefs, and I think Shift is doing such important work at a time... I just can't even imagine life without The Shift Network right now. You can quote me on that. I really truly can't because the things that are happening in the world have gotten crazy. I mean, even reading the Catalyst recently where Devaa wrote about the Fierce Feminine, I wrote her and said, "Thank you. I resonated with what you said. You said many things that I'm thinking and feeling.” And I noticed that that happens a lot. That's been consistent through the many years that Shift has already existed and many years to come, for being a voice for many of us around the very important things that need to be said and said out loud, loudly, clearly, and boldly.
 

Marcia, thank you so much for sharing your insights and wisdom with us today. It's been a dream talking to you.

Thank you, Phil. I've enjoyed it immensely, and thank you again for holding such a beautiful and sacred space for me to figure out what I'm thinking and feeling at least a little bit more.
 

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.
 

For over 30 years, Marcia Wieder has been CEO of Dream University, impacting hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. FInd out more about the Dream Coach Certification home study course here.

She’s been a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, writes for Huffington Post, and is the author of 15 books, including DREAM: Clarify and Create What You Want, Making Your Dreams Come True, and Doing Less and Having More.

She appeared as an expert often on Oprah and was featured in her own PBS-TV show called Making Your Dreams Come True. She taught at Stanford’s Business School and, as president of the National Association of Women Business Owners, has assisted three U.S. presidents.

Marcia gives speeches and inspiring workshops on dream achievement, team building, and visionary thinking. Her most recent book, DREAM: Clarify and Create What You Want, will help you fully understand:

• Who you really are
• How you want your life to be
• How to develop dreams that inspire you
• How to look at your life with a fresh perspective
• How to remove fear, doubt, or other obstacles
• How to implement shortcuts and the techniques you’ll discover

Click here to visit Marcia’s website.

Click here to access a free ebook from Marcia — #DreamSteps: Ten Tactics for Real Results.