Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Begin Again is for people in the second half of life who sense that the identity they've been carrying no longer fits. Host Winston Faircloth — spiritual director, daily poet, and fellow traveler — brings honest conversation, personal story, and original poetry to the journey of remembering, releasing, and returning to who God created you to be. Visit www.myreuniontour.com for more resources.
Hey there. It's Winston Faircloth, and welcome back to the Begin Again podcast. Today, another special treat, my good friend and fellow mastermind member, Marianne Renner. Marianne is a transformational leadership coach who has just a wealth of life experience to share with us on the podcast today. She's done so many wonderful things in her career, including founding a not for profit organization for at risk youth.
Winston Faircloth:She's a former bodybuilding champion and a highly sought after fitness instructor having led two youth dance teams to win gold medals in the National Junior Olympics. And her begin again story is going to stop you in your tracks. I can't wait for you to meet Marianne Renner. All right, Marianne Renner, welcome to the Begin Again podcast.
Marianne Renner:Oh my gosh. Thank you, Winston. I'm so excited to be here.
Winston Faircloth:And we are excited to have you. We've been friends for a couple of years now and it's just been such a blessing to have you in my life and to watch you grow over these last two years, especially. Tell everyone a little bit about who you are and the people that you're serving today.
Marianne Renner:Okay, I'd be happy to. So my name is Marianne Renner. I am a leadership coach, author and keynote speaker. I help aspiring, emerging and established leaders to build the confidence and courage and clarity they need to become all they were meant to become.
Winston Faircloth:And I have seen you do that over and over again with so many people. So I'm super happy that you're here today. So on the Begin Again podcast, we really talk about bringing out your story of those Begin Again moments that have really been pivotal to you in your life. So what stories would you like to share today?
Marianne Renner:You know, it's interesting. I've been thinking about this. First of all, I love this name of this podcast, and I know I've talked to you about that offline. We communicate quite a bit offline. I love Begin Again, and it's really tough because every single morning we have an opportunity to begin again, every moment throughout the day.
Marianne Renner:So there are lots of begin again moments. Right.
Winston Faircloth:That's right.
Marianne Renner:I mean, truly, what I was thinking about was where I am today, which is I'm in a place in my life today that I never ever would have dreamed. And I would say the begin again moment that was very transformational for me happened about thirteen years ago, shortly after my fortieth birthday. You know, it's not a story I share a lot because I don't want to focus on the before. I really want to share the story of transformation. But to do that, I have to say, shortly after my fortieth birthday, not a lot of people know this, but I had a suicide attempt.
Marianne Renner:And it wasn't my first. And after that, I got very serious about making some changes for my life that have been transformational.
Winston Faircloth:What changed? I mean, so you had that very dark season. Yeah. And, you know, I know a number of people are going to relate to this story because you know, they've been in a very dark and almost hopeless feeling. So what brought you out of that dark season?
Marianne Renner:You know, Winston, it's listen, I talk a lot about moving from chaos to clarity
Winston Faircloth:Mhmm.
Marianne Renner:And the importance of having clarity in in getting through the chaos. And, you know, there are there are two kinds of chaos, and we can certainly talk about there's external chaos, which as leaders, we're fighting all day long, emails and text messages and fires to put out and deadlines to hit, but there is a far more dangerous kind of chaos and that's internal. It's the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are and who we're capable of becoming. And, you know, I started writing my story when I was nine years old. Three words, you know, I'm standing in my living room looking my father eye to eye.
Marianne Renner:He was sitting in a chair, his arms wrapped around me, and he said three words that forever changed my life, Mommy's in heaven. And shortly after that, my story began. What about me? What's going to happen to me? Who's going to take care of me?
Marianne Renner:And that story began to grow and grow and grow to where those questions were all I found myself asking. And there was a sense of loneliness and fear and sadness that continued to grow. And the first time I remember lying in my bed, tears streaming down my face, crying out to God, staring at the ceiling, God, please, please let me die in my sleep, I was 11 years old. And those suicidal thoughts and feelings and fear, it just grew and grew and grew. So I had all of that with me to some degree or another for the next thirty years.
Marianne Renner:And I had tried everything. I mean, I had tried everything, every medical treatment over that period of time, alcohol abuse, anything to try I to remember very vividly one last time or one more time in my bathroom, this is usually where I had these big moments, and crying out and saying, God, I can't live like this anymore. And it struck me that there were only two answers to I can't live like this anymore. It's either another suicide, either I die, or or these feelings of depression miraculously get taken away. And what dawned on me was that, what if I could live like this?
Marianne Renner:And there was this moment of surrender that said, Listen, it's possible that this gets resolved, but unless or until it does, I can live like this. It was almost like the resistance against it made it worse. And once I surrendered and said, It's okay, I can take steps to live a full life, things started to change. And shortly thereafter, I started to practice gratitude in a way that I never ever had before. That changed.
Marianne Renner:Everything started to turn around, where instead of focusing on all these things that made me feel bad, I started focusing on what I was grateful for. And little by little, my entire life started to change for the better.
Winston Faircloth:So beautiful. One of the things I heard in your story too was there was actually a moment before gratitude that really began to change that life. You know, we've been in 12 step programs. I've been in the 12 step program. I'll say it that way.
Marianne Renner:Oh, me too.
Winston Faircloth:And one of the principles we learn in the 12 step rooms is acceptance. And it was that moment of acceptance that gave you the clarity and then gave you the ladder to see that gratitude was really the way out of this hole, right?
Marianne Renner:Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I've been in my first 12 step program. I mean, quit drinking, it would be seventeen years ago in June, and it that concept of surrender. And it's a very interesting concept, Winston, as you know, because many people hear that word and think, that means I'm supposed to throw in the towel.
Marianne Renner:That means I'm supposed to lay down and become a doormat for other people to, you know, walk all over me. That means loss, you know? It's surrendering to someone else. But that's not it at all. It's not it at all.
Marianne Renner:It's more like if life is a river, and I love this analogy, and I walk up to the river and I want to put in a kayak and go kayaking and I put it in the water, can I go with that flow or do I want to try to paddle upstream and flail around in this resistance of what is? And it's a paradox. Sort of the miracle is when you surrender to what is, all of these new possibilities start opening up. You just see things differently.
Winston Faircloth:Beautiful. Yes, that's so true. So the gratitude principle, the gratitude practice that you started adopting, what did that do for you? Was what was what was the what what light began to peek through this season of darkness for you as you began to do that?
Marianne Renner:Yeah. So, alright, I'll try to cut to the cliff notes as much as I can, because it's bananas. I was in a job that I just felt yuck. Okay? I'll just put it that way.
Marianne Renner:And you know, go and you have lunch with the other employees in the lunchroom and everybody's complaining about the job, the boss, the company, and I was right there with them and I stopped doing that. And I just would say, I'm grateful for a free coffee in the break room. I'm grateful to get to work with would see someone in the hallway and I'm so grateful for that person. And I was in this job for eight years and I had been looking to move out of it for about six and a half, almost seven. I couldn't get promoted in the company.
Marianne Renner:I couldn't get hired outside the company. It was just all of a sudden I started practicing gratitude and somebody approached me with an opportunity to change careers completely. Our company was bringing in a brand new initiative and the leader came to me and said, Marianne, we would love to have you be part of this initiative and we will pay you your salary, give you on the job training. It's an apprenticeship model, so you'll sort of learn from the experts, from the pros, and do as you learn. And I was like, Did this just happen?
Marianne Renner:I don't have to go to college? I don't have to pay tuition? I'm going to Yes. And so that was just mind blowing. It just plopped right in front of me.
Marianne Renner:That job then led to another opportunity to do what I'm doing today, which is living my dream as a leadership trainer and a coach and a keynote speaker and an author. That all happened from gratitude.
Winston Faircloth:You know, our mutual mentor, Dan Miller, I was going through a similar season in one of my career stops. I remember listening to Dan's podcast one day. He was telling a story about this mechanic who is surrounded by a bunch of people in his shop that were complaining about their situation and business. It was during a downturn in the economy. Business was slow and he mentored this young man to say, you know, be excellent where you are and be appreciative of where you are.
Winston Faircloth:You know what will happen. So he started with the downtime that he had. He started cleaning the tools. He started picking up paper and picking up things to keep the shop clean And eventually a shop owner comes to him and offers him to sell him the business and make him owner of this shop. And he financed him to start his business.
Winston Faircloth:And I remember that story so clearly. I remember exactly where I was sitting in a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, when I heard the story and it made me then say, even though I didn't particularly like that job or that position, I got to bring my best and then I'll leave the rest to God. And it fundamentally changed my career when I heard that story.
Marianne Renner:Oh, that's such a beautiful story, Winston. And you know, it's so you know, my biggest challenge is really communicating this out because it's so intangible that it's hard for people to wrap their heads around. And I saw so many areas of my life transform, and I thought, It can't be a coincidence, because I would see things happen over and over. In fact, right now, we're in the midst of, you know, a lot of chaos, external chaos, and people are worried, rightfully so, understandably so, but talks of layoffs, revenue loss, and, you know, I just have chosen not to make that my story. And I want to talk about, you know, internal chaos a little bit.
Marianne Renner:And that's not going to be my story. And out of the blue, I just received a 10% revenue increase in my financial source, in a time when people are talking about layoffs and cutbacks and loss. And, you know, it's just the stories we tell ourselves, that's what holds us back. What holds you back is not out there. You know, it's in here.
Marianne Renner:It's in your head. And all day long, we're writing stories. All day long, not with a pen and paper, or a laptop, but with every thought that goes through our minds about who we are, who we're capable of becoming, what we're capable of achieving. And what you focus on expands. I mean, what you focus on expands.
Marianne Renner:And so, I started, you know, after that, you know, my fortieth birthday, I started rewriting my story with gratitude and other stories of empowerment and success and service and love, and more of those things started showing up for me. And so I said, Gosh, if this is working like this for me, maybe it'll work for others too. So I started sharing these principles with my coaching clients, and I started seeing their lives transform, I mean, before my very eyes, successfully, financially, physically, relationship, health, every area. And so I know it works because I've seen it too many times in people's lives to know it's to think it's a coincidence.
Winston Faircloth:Yeah. We're in this uncharted waters right now in terms of what's going on across the globe. And one of the things I was saying to a friend today was I'm noticing all the things that I've taken for granted in terms of our everyday life when it's absent. And I think, I believe that however long this continues or whatever comes of it, I think we're all going to be profoundly changed for the better as a result of this. I think for me, in those in person conversations, I'm going to be more present or attentive to those things because once you lose them for a little while, you really appreciate them.
Winston Faircloth:So I think this principle of gratitude and appreciation is actually going to dramatically increase over the next several months.
Marianne Renner:I think so too. And you know, Henry Ford said, If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. And so, you know, when I hear you say, I think we'll be profoundly changed for the better, I know you will be because that's what you believe in, and what you focus on expands.
Winston Faircloth:So let's jump ahead to I'm most familiar with the last couple of years of your story. And we met in person an event coming up on two years ago. And I knew of you. I'd seen you in an online community we were part of, but just your growth as a person over this last two years has just been a joy to behold. So you're very intentional about visioning things imagining them in your mind.
Winston Faircloth:And you've just seen it's almost like a set of dominoes, domino after domino after domino have come down because you have first imagined them and then they've come to be.
Marianne Renner:Thank you. I remember the first time I met you, Winston. That was so awesome. I was like, in person. That was so much fun, and I just love how our paths have crossed.
Marianne Renner:I think it's another example. You know, what you focus on expands, and how I was drawn to Dan Miller and this whole community is life changing for me. Yeah, I am very intentional about, I like to say that I have loosely held intentions. I've always been a big goal setter. I used to be a competitive bodybuilder, and I led a group of at risk kids to win gold medals in the National Junior Olympics, and I've always been very goal oriented.
Marianne Renner:And not that I'm not still, but I've shifted my mindset, and rather than goals, I'd like to say loosely held intentions. Because it's like picking grapes, you know? If my goal is to pick a bunch of grapes, and I might go out there with, like, so much determination where I have to do it, I'm maybe pulling really hard and squeezing really tight, and then I squish them and I destroy them. But if I but at the other end of it, I'm not saying to ignore those grapes, because then they'll be eaten by bugs and birds. So it's kind of like, what do I want, and how do I just gently pursue them?
Marianne Renner:So I do. I've been meeting people that I never in my wildest dreams thought I would meet, and just achieving things in my life I thought I'd never achieve, and publishing books, and being a paid keynote speaker, and training hundreds and hundreds of leaders across the country. I mean, it's been mind blowing.
Winston Faircloth:I was going to say that the people that you've met, I mean, remember you telling the story about people on your on a vision board or on a, you know, that you had a visual representation of the future that you were holding out there. Yeah. And then, you know, last summer you meet Mr. Canfield, right?
Marianne Renner:Yeah. So I love Jack Canfield. He was a big influence on my life. His book, The Success Principles, and if your listeners don't have it, you have to get it. And for those who don't know him, he's a co founder of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Empire.
Marianne Renner:And I just said, Man, one day, I'd like to meet Jack Canfield. And was very Not long after that, I had the opportunity to meet him, have lunch with him, get a picture, have him sign my book, ask him some questions, and that was amazing. And then I just had something very similar happen a couple of weeks ago, where I got to meet Sean Achor. For anyone who is not familiar with him, he's a Harvard researcher on the subject of happiness, which, as you can imagine, just hearing my begin again moment, what a big theme that has been for my life. He has a book called The Happiness Advantage and also Big Potential, both of which I have, and now one of which I have signed by him.
Marianne Renner:So that was really amazing too.
Winston Faircloth:And then in between those two stories, put a book together and not only put it together, you got it out there in the world and it's been well accepted in terms of just helping your clients and helping all the people that have come into touch with that book.
Marianne Renner:Yes. Thank you, Winston. It's called The Chaos to Clarity Success Journal. And it was just one more extension of how I could help people with this message where I saw my own life change. I started to see my clients' lives change and transform.
Marianne Renner:And so I said, you know, I'm going to put these principles down in a book so that I could reach even more people with this message. And it's three daily actions, three steps you can take every day, less than ten minutes to practice. It's really simple. Simple works. But you've got to do it.
Marianne Renner:That's the only thing. You just got to do it. Yeah, I I have it right here. And it's for anyone who wants more clarity around their purpose, to have a deeper sense of purpose and meaning, and confidence that they can achieve their hopes and dreams, and courage to live the lives that they know they were meant to live. I really believe each of us is designed with a unique purpose on this planet Earth.
Marianne Renner:And, you know, this book is designed to help people pursue, discover, pursue, and fulfill that purpose. Because, listen, you know, we were talking about everything that's going on today and living lives focusing on things that are important. And one day there's going to be an end of the day for all of us. And, you know, I want to be able to say that I have done all that I was put here to do, and I have become all I was put here to become. And that's really what this book is here to help people to do.
Winston Faircloth:Beautiful. I love that. And it's been very helpful to me in terms of reigniting my own gratitude practice in terms of just pausing and observing and appreciating the little things. There's so many little things that are good in my life and the accumulation of those are amazing when you really take stock of them and you really record them. So the book has been super helpful to me as well.
Marianne Renner:That means so much. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, you know, gratitude journaling is one piece of the book. And, you know, another What would happen was, you know, part of the reason that the book came about this way is I would have conversation after conversation, same conversation with clients, you know, they would say, you know, be focused on things that they were frustrated with. And so I would say, get a notebook and write down three things you're grateful for.
Marianne Renner:And the other theme was this confidence issue, this sense of worthlessness. I mean, to put it bluntly, where people would say, I don't feel like I have worth. I don't feel like I have value. Or they would focus on all the things they did wrong that day. And I would say, Go get a notebook and write down all your successes from the day.
Marianne Renner:And it would be heartbreaking when I would hear them come back and say, I don't have any. And when they did, it's just what happens is we discount Listen, we might do one or two things that we feel like we messed up, and that's what we focus on, and we discount the hundreds of things we did great that day. Things like waking up on time, getting the kids out the door, any little thing, and they add up. And so, you know, if what you focus on expands, you know, so instead of focusing on that one thing where I blew up at the kids or, you know, or I dropped the ball on a project, let's start focusing on the hundreds of things that went well and more things will show up that go well for you.
Winston Faircloth:And that's exactly how it unfolds. The more we focus on the things we have done, I mean, that's a new practice I'm putting into place for my business now at the end of the week. I don't take an inventory of the to dos that did not get done. I take an inventory of the actions that did get done and the to do list gets wiped away, completely eliminated. And we start the next week with a brand new to do list.
Winston Faircloth:But what gets kept is the list of what gets done, not what didn't get done. So it's been helpful for me in terms of momentum in my own business.
Marianne Renner:Yeah. And don't you doesn't that elevate your sense of empowerment?
Winston Faircloth:1000%. I mean, because you look back over that and this is the stacking that happens in our life is that the more we stack good upon good, the higher and higher we go.
Marianne Renner:So I love that wisdom. You are so great at having such nuggets of wisdom for people.
Winston Faircloth:Thank you. I don't know where it comes from, but I've received it. Thank you. So, Marianne, you've worked with so many people in such a wide spectrum of situations in your coaching role and in your corporate training role. For people who are facing a challenge, perhaps their own pivot, begin again moment in their life, what advice do you give them that would be an inspirational takeaway from your life?
Marianne Renner:I know this sounds a little woo. It's a little less tactical one, two, three step, but here's why. Tactical one, two, three how to's, you can find everything and anything. All you got to do is do a Google search. So I'm going to assume, listen, you can find those things out.
Marianne Renner:Most likely, when people are challenged and can't figure something out, it's because there's a deeper root. And what I would suggest is if you are stuck in any area of your life, do anything and everything you can to put yourself into a positive frame of mind, whether it's gratitude journaling, whether it's being of service and helping someone else, whether it's focusing on your successes. Those are three great tools that you can use right now. Here's another one I've been sharing with quite a bit lately because people are feeling out of control, that is get a sheet of paper, start writing down everything you can think of that's within your control. And here's why I'm going to tell you why this is so important.
Marianne Renner:There was research done in the late 1990s out of University of North Carolina by a researcher named Barbara Fredrickson. She developed what's known as the broaden and build theory, and you can Google it. And what she did was she took two groups of people and she asked them to solve a problem. First thing she did was she showed them images, one group images that evoked positive emotion, the other group images that evoked negative emotion. She gave them a problem and said, Think of as many possible solutions as you can come up with.
Marianne Renner:So as you can imagine, the result was those in a positive frame of mind had a list a mile long of possible solutions, and those in a negative frame of mind had a very difficult time. And what she discovered is when you are in any kind of negative state, your brain operates the same way it does as when you're in fight or flight mode. So the parts of your brain responsible for thinking creatively, problem solving, critical thinking skills, they go into lockdown because your brain is trying to help you just fight or flight, just giving you one thought. So it's critical that you do whatever you can to stay as positive as you can so that you can develop those creative ideas, the problem solving ideas, so that you can move forward and make the decisions that are going to be most empowering for you.
Winston Faircloth:So many gold nuggets. I hope people are like writing furiously throughout this podcast because I heard about acceptance. I heard about gratitude. I heard about loosely held intentions. And now I heard about how to keep that negative influence out from dominating our thought process.
Winston Faircloth:So, Marianne, amazing. Thank you so much. So much value in this podcast. So how can people connect with you and get even more of this goodness and even more of this support that only you can provide them?
Marianne Renner:Thank you for asking, Winston. I'll give you kind of a two for one that will help you connect with me and also give you a resource. If you want to go to my website, it's my name, mariannerenner.com, and you hit the slash BELIEF, b e l I e f, you will get a link to download my limiting beliefs worksheet. And what it will do is it will help you start to reframe your thoughts into new empowering thoughts. And by downloading that, you'll also be added to my email list, and so we can connect that way on a weekly basis.
Marianne Renner:I send out more messages like this, more tools, more resources. So I would love to stay connected with you that way, And the Chaos to Clarity Success Journal is available on Amazon.
Winston Faircloth:Absolutely. And I think I was one of the first ones to pick that up on Amazon.
Marianne Renner:Winston, I think you were the first. Yes.
Winston Faircloth:It was like, there it is. I was looking for it. There it was. It was such a blessing to have that in my hands. Like two days later, it was phenomenal.
Winston Faircloth:So congratulations for that. Congratulations for showing us a path out of darkness into light.
Marianne Renner:Thank you, Winston. Thank you. I'm so grateful for you.
Winston Faircloth:So let's draw deeper faith, inspiration, and encouragement in our own begin again moments. If you'd like to help others, make sure to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. Remember, your honest review helps us spread the word. And when you post your review, capture a screenshot and contact us via the link in the show notes. We'd love to send you a gift.
Winston Faircloth:And for more support and inspiration in building your own faith centered mission driven business, visit winstonfaircloth.com for free resources and guides. And remember, the biggest breakthroughs in life and business occur the moment you decide to begin again. I'll catch you on the next episode.