Feel Like You’re Never Doing Enough? Ditch These Productivity Myths

In this episode of MarieTV, we do have some adult language. So if you do have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

Marie: Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. Now, if you’re tired of feeling over stressed and over stretched and over committed but you don’t know a way out, today’s episode is for you.

Kate Northrup is an entrepreneur, best selling author, and mom, who’s built a digital empire that reached hundreds of thousands. She teaches data and soul-driven practices that help you save time, make more money, and experience less stress. Kate’s work has been featured by the Today Show, Yahoo Finance, Women’s Health, Glamour, Wanderlust, and more. Kate runs a membership community called, Origin Collective. Her second book, Do Less: A Revolutionary Approach to Time and Energy Management for Busy Moms, is available now.

Hi Kate.

Kate: Hello.

Marie: Oh, it’s so good to see you.

Kate: It’s so good to see you too.

Marie: Thanks for coming back on.

Kate: Thanks for having me.

Marie: The last time you were here, we had you on for B-School alum and you were pregnant with baby number two.

Kate: So pregnant. I was past the time you were supposed to fly.

Marie: Super preggos and you had beautiful Ruby and now you have a new baby, Do Less, which is amazing. I have so many things underlined. You did a brilliant job with this book. We’re going to talk about the title in a minute. We can go into all of it, actually. Why this book and why now?

Kate: For me in my own life, I wrote this book because I struggled so much with hyper productivity and an obsession with getting things done and then I had two children and well, the one kid before I wrote the book but anyway, and I was shocked by the amount of pressure that my identity had wrapped up in being productive and being busy and I began to look at that because… And we’ll talk about this later maybe but… During that pregnancy, I cut my work hours about in half and also during the first year of motherhood, way even less than that and we had a sick baby, I had postpartum insomnia and anxiety.

I mean it was a very messy year and yet we have the same results in our business and so I thought, well if I could get the same results working half this amount, what was I doing my entire adult life being obsessed with the 40 hour or 50 hour workweek, which by the way, is completely this arbitrary number that was set up during the industrial revolution based on how machinery works and it’s not evidence-based at all and of course we’ll talk about the evidence that shows the alternative and I think it’s so important for women, especially with rises in adrenal fatigue, heart disease, all of the anxiety. It’s related to stress and stress is obviously related to our obsession with doing but I am not about sacrificing results. It’s not about lying on the beach and eating bonbons either, unless you want to.

Marie: Well I love that. No, no. I’m actually not about that. I don’t think our audience is either and I will say, even when I… First of all, I’ve known you for years. We’ve been friends for a really long time. I love you, I love your work, and even when I saw the title, I could feel this knee jerk… Wait, what? Do less? What are you talking about, Kate? Are you going to make me a slothen, you know what I mean? It was this whole thing happening in my head. The title itself can be triggering, particularly for ambitious, driven women. Speak a little bit into that and also for people who might think like, oh, easy for you to say with all of your… Is this about getting a nanny and a housekeeper and blah, blah, blah. Let us know.

Kate: Yeah. Early in the book promotion process I was on a podcast and she started off the podcast saying, well, I was very surprised to say that I really loved your book and I was like, okay. And she said, because I assumed, by the title, I was very triggered by the title, and I assumed that what you were going to be talking about was exactly that, hiring a nanny, getting a house cleaner, dah, dah, dah. And she said, I was raised by a single mom who worked three jobs and I was pleasantly surprised and thrilled to see that there’s nothing you wrote about in this book that my mother could not have done. And I wrote it with that in mind because I want people to actually be able to do this and get really good results, not to diminish their results.

Our culture has raised us to believe that the more we do, the more valuable we are, and I am still a product of that culture. I still want to get great results and I know your listeners do, I know most of the world does. And so that piece about, it’s not about doing… A lot of people hear do less and they automatically think, do nothing, and it’s like, nope. Just what I mean is, do less of the things that don’t matter, do less of the things that drain you, do less of the things that don’t get you results, so you can do more of the things that energize you, that light you up, that get you amazing results. That’s what it means.

Marie: Yeah and it’s about meaning too. I actually highlighted this from the book. You wrote, the whole purpose of doing less, is to have the experience of having more, not more stuff, but more meaning in our lives and I thought that really beautifully articulated what so many of us are craving. You and I obviously both remember a time when we were running our businesses and social media didn’t exist. We also remember a time…

Kate: I know, I miss those days.

Marie: Yeah, in our lives, honestly, when cellphones didn’t exist. I remember a time when the Internet didn’t exist and for some of our viewers, that’s not their reality and for many of them, they also… They’re like, hey, I remember further back because we have such a nice diverse age range that watches the show and I do want to mention this for anyone who this is their first time being introduced to you and your work, this has been a real evolution for you. I remember when we first met. I mean you and I go so far back but you told this story, which was so great, about a person that you were dating in your early 20s and it was a time when you were really spinning all of those plates and you were very committed to orchestrating every little bit of your life and I love it, it was in your relationship and you told him that you really wanted him to take more of the reigns in your relationship. What was his response?

Kate: He replied, “I would love to, if you would be willing to put them down.” It was like, oh okay, because there is this idea. I think it affects women more, I will say, that if we are not doing it, it’s not going to happen and we kind of white knuckle our lives like, oh my God, if I’m not doing all the things, then everything will fall apart and we just… My invitation like this ex boyfriend’s invitation to me was, to let go of the reigns and just see what might happen. Let’s see if somebody else might pick them up.

Marie: Yeah, no. I mean I’ve been guilty of that. I’ve talked about this a lot. I’ve become more aware of it in probably this time in my life than say earlier but I was like, if I don’t do everything in my career, if I don’t do everything as it relates to my relationship, if I’m not the one orchestrating my family, everything, it’s all just going to fall to pieces and I was doing that and I was diminishing everybody around me.

Kate: See? That’s the thing, it’s so disempowering and I see it with parents a lot and I do this myself, so I’m not pointing fingers and I see it in relationship a lot, where we have this overinflated sense of self importance. In a way, it’s completely egotistical to think that if I don’t do it, no one else will or won’t do it as well as I could.

Marie: They don’t have it all together. They’re not going to get it right.

Kate: Yeah and so it squelches our children’s growth. It totally disempowers the people around us, whether you have a team, in your partnership, your parents, it’s awful.

Marie: It kills polarity in relationships. If you are wanting to have that sexy time happen and that chemistry and that spark and you are just cutting your partner off, not a great way to have that love stay alive.

Kate: Yeah like, I don’t believe in your ability to do normal adult activities. That’s not sexy.

Marie: Not sexy. I love also how the book is structured. In the first part, you are really making the case, the philosophy of do less, have more, and in the second part of the book, there’s these 14 bite sized experiments that any woman, or man, could test for herself. Let’s start with the data piece. The global research is really leaning us in this direction of doing less. Two things that I highlighted, one, in some research shared by Harvard Business Review that you quote, it was stated that very few people, including high performing athletes, novelists, and musicians, have an ability to be in a high state of concentration for more than four to five hours a day. I find that to be true for myself. I can hit it hard and then I got to take a break or do something else for a little bit because just grinding doesn’t really work and then this was cool. In Sweden, they’re moving to a standard six hour workday and one company found that, news flash, if you stay off social media and minimize distractions during your work day, less hours actually doesn’t diminish productivity. I was like, yeah.

Kate: Yeah because I mean if… On average, we get interrupted every 11 minutes and it takes us 25 minutes to get refocused on what we were doing and so if you do the math, you realize you’re spending zero minutes focused on what you were doing, on average, and our brain, if we don’t give ourselves the break, our brain will actually try to get the break itself by distracting ourselves. Let’s say your three year old doesn’t come in or your coworker doesn’t come in to distract you, you’ll open another browser tab and start a new task, you’ll pick up your phone and start scrolling, you’ll start a new project, you’ll distract yourself and so the advice … The experiment is, what would happen if you actually took a break at the first sign of fatigue and then came back and of course the data shows that you’re way more productive and you get more done in less time, so then you do have more time to do whatever, meditate or be…

Marie: Lie on the ground.

Kate: I don’t know what you want to do, exercise.

Marie: Yeah, whatever you want to do or be like Kate and I and take a salsa class together, which is what we did the last time. We were like, rather than meeting for lunch, let’s just go dance, which is what we did.

Kate: It was the best.

Marie: It was really good. The do less filter, I love this. You say, ask yourself, in any area of your life, is there a way I could get the desired result here with fewer action steps or fewer elements or in less time? Curious, concrete example from how this has played out in your own life.

Kate: Yeah, so in our company, we were spending some energy and time in making these beautifully designed social media graphics. It required our designer, I had to write the copy, then the designer did it, then I had to approve them, then there was this whole communication process that preceded and then they got scheduled, it was a whole thing, right? They were gorgeous. I mean, amazing and we were tracking for analytics and also list growth and they just weren’t performing. We realized, that’s a lot of steps for getting no results on what we’re wanting and now I just take random pictures wherever on my phone and we use those for social and they get so much more traction and it takes me 15 seconds, as opposed to all the steps and all the money and all the time we were doing before.

Marie: I think this is such an important conversation because what has… what I’ve observed that happens now and I’ve noticed it in myself and I try really hard to catch it before I go too far down the rabbit whole is, there is a trend or there’s something new that bubbles up or people are starting to use a new platform and then you have that little voice in your head that goes, I should be doing that too. Am I going to be left behind if I don’t do that too? And I got to go… and then you get into this kind of rat race and I feel like that’s where many of us are spending too much of our time without actually pressing the pause button, stepping back and say, A, do I even care about this? B, is it getting any results? Why am I doing it? And what I feel like is so genius about your book is that at every corner, you’re asking us to slow down, pause, and ask really intelligent, wise, questions to get ourselves back on track.

Kate: Yeah, exactly because if we are trying to do six new initiatives or six new strategies at the same time, just because everyone else is doing them and we saw a webinar on Instagram ad or whatever, we don’t… I don’t care what the strategies are. They could be completely brilliant but you’re cannibalizing on the things you were doing before that were working and then nothing will work because your energy is like the fine mist setting on your hose as opposed to the power wash setting. I think about the hose all the time and really wanting to be that way and I also want to just say, I wrote this book because I am very easily distracted and very easily enthused. I get so excited about new things all the time and so I wrote this because for other people like me, who have a tendency to go wide instead of go deep and I just want to hold our toes to the fire because with the depth comes so much more success and more importantly, so much more fulfillment.

Marie: I mean for me, simply to amplify is like, I live my life by that and same thing, I have to remind myself of it often because ideas just… They’re like bunnies, popping out of my brain all the time. I got to corral this thing down. So it is, it’s wise. Talking about what really matters, tell us the story of you going to your annual direct sales convention. I thought that was kind of brilliant and this goes into the theme of really being rooted and knowing what matters to you and it’s going to be different for me, for you, for you, for everyone.

Kate: It’s so important. I was at this annual convention that I had been going to every year since I was 18, so this is kind of like a family reunion in a way and I remember this feeling so distinctly. My husband and I had worked in our business, we had grown it, it had been a beautiful year, and yet I… and our life was awesome. It was really working and I would say I was really happy and yet I sat there during this awards ceremony with the people crossing the stage and the highlighting the success, which was beautiful. I was thrilled for them but I had this internal feeling of like, I should have done more. What’s wrong with me? I’m a failure. I should be up there.

I should whatever and every single year, I would walk away from that conference feeling like I kind of sucked and I should have done more and then I got really clear on, like, wait a second, if I were to take the 30 thousand foot view and look at my life and look at my business, I’m freaking proud of what I’m doing and it just turns out that for the people who were doing that and focused on it, that was what mattered to them this year but if I’m really clear, being a top earner in my direct selling company is not close to the top of the list of things that matter to me and I actually am doing a beautiful job lining up my time with the things that matter to me and for three days of the year, I’m letting myself feel like I suck, then actually a hangover of a couple of months and so I stopped doing that and it has felt so much better ever since.

Marie: I think that’s so important. Most of us forget how influenceable we are by our environment. We’re built that way as social creatures and we don’t realize that depending on the environment we put ourselves in, that we almost walk away with a little bit of a sickness or a smell that’s in relation to where we were, that all of the sudden we leave and we see our life in a context where, I’m terrible, I’m not doing enough, I’m not ambitious enough, I’m not popular enough, I’m not rich enough, I’m not successful enough, and it’s bullshit. It’s bullshit on a stick, toasted, dipped in butter. Throw it out. It’s terrible, right?

Kate: It is terrible and I think it’s so important to realize that our ability to stay grounded in our choices and conscious in our choices, that’s why I love the do less philosophy because it’s asking yourself these questions so you can truly own your choices and I could show up at that conference and be like, I chose this year to focus on other things and I’m really proud of it and then that sort of inoculates you from getting the icky vibe.

Marie: Yes, yes. I also loved in the reminder, so much of this is really about the 80/20 principle. For anyone in our audience who’s unfamiliar, will you please give us a rundown of the 80/20 rule and then we can talk about how important it is to know your vital few.

Kate: Yes, so the 80/20 rule is Pareto’s Principle, as you know. It says that 80% of your results will be caused by 20% of your actions. Also, 20% of your sales… Sorry, 20% of your people, your customers, will give you 80% of your sales, et cetera. You can put it on a lot of areas of your life and business and so what’s really critical and this is why I think that we made the same revenue even though we cut our time in half when I was pregnant and that first year of parenthood, because I got instantly clear on the 20% and those limited hours that I had, I just did the 20% and really largely let the rest go and it didn’t impact our results that much, really at all. That was shocking.

Marie: Then you have to have a wake up call like, what the hell was I doing with the rest of my time?

Kate: It was a song and dance. I mean it was just… which I love singing and dancing but it…

Marie: It wasn’t the joyful kind.

Kate: It was like a lot of this with looking busy but not actually moving forward and there is so much of that because we are rewarded in our society for being busy. I got a message from somebody and they were like, you’re rocking it. You’re just always out there hustling, always out there grinding and I was like…

Marie: No, she ain’t.

Kate: This is not a compliment.

Marie: But I was just about to say, they don’t really know you because…

Kate: No, right. The things look however they look, right? But I think that’s what’s so important is to hone in on that and then here’s what’s key, is to also allow ourselves to feel what it feels like to not be that busy because that’s where… I really believe and I didn’t really write about it in the book but this is kind of what’s… There’s always something that’s next. What’s next is, I really think our busyness is a way that we numb and it’s a way that we avoid being with the space of just like who we are.

Marie: It’s a way to avoid a lot of things like intimacy, a lot of our emotions, connection, any challenges or problems that we might have that busyness can kind of cover up for. It’s a big thing. What I love about the 80/20 rule and we’ve seen this in our business and we try really hard to always come back to it because it’s true, you can fill up these days and these weeks and these months and these years and I think one of the gifts of getting older is you get some perspective and you look back and you can really start to see, what makes the biggest difference? Whether it’s certain projects, certain programs, certain relationships, certain experiences, that when you start to get a little bit of that perspective, you can see really what produces the greatest results, both financially but also emotionally, right? What gives you the most bang for the buck. This idea of the vital few, what does that mean?

Kate: The vital few are the things and I got this from Darren Hardy, who’s the publisher of Success magazine. I don’t want to take credit for that phrase. It’s the things that you and only you can do and that you’re the best at. Other people call it… Gay Hendricks calls it, your zone of genius. There’s a lot of different ways to talk about it and for me, I really did the analysis on my business and I saw, oh for me it’s creating content but it’s also connecting with people. And up until the point when I really did the analysis to say, well I need my list of what is the 20%, I had felt really guilty for the amount of time I spent in my 20s, specifically, meeting people.

I literally think I spent a decade meeting people and it turns out, while I was doing it because it was fun, it turns out it was incredible for my business and I was able to let go of, really, a decade worth of guilt of thinking I was wasting my time because I realized that many of those relationships have led to incredible things in business but also obviously incredible fulfillment and so just because you’re enjoying the thing, doesn’t mean it’s not a valuable use of your time because there’s also this thing in our culture that things have to be hard in order to be valuable, right?

Marie: Yes.

Kate: And so sometimes your vital few will actually feel really joyful.

Marie: Yeah, yesterday we were shooting MarieTV episodes. I’ll show you after we’re off camera. We’re all in costumes and we’re doing crazy shit and it is the… I’m like, I can’t even believe this is my… Yes, I can believe this is my life because I created it but those are some of my most joyful times and I’ve certainly had the thought because our minds do some interesting things, where it’s like, this is kind of dumb, Marie. I’m like, no, it’s the best thing ever, get more wigs, more wigs, more dancing, but my point is this, that is part of my vital few as well. I realized when reading your book that you and I share that in terms of if I’m creating content, that’s a big bucket or I’m connecting with you, I’m connecting with people and developing relationships, anything outside of that, I don’t need to do at this point. Someone else could probably do it and do it way better and I’m going to be more joyful, I’m going to be more loving, I’m going to be able to contribute better if I stay in my little zone of genius.

Kate: Yeah and your ideas will be better. When we do that, our work becomes richer. If you’re listening and you’re struggling with like, well what is my thing? I’m not… I don’t feel like I’ve found my thing, what I found is, the less I did, the less busy I was, the more powerful my work became and I felt less like I was pretending, playing business, and I felt more like, oh this is real.

Marie: This is real, yeah. Let’s talk about scheduling your week because I know productivity is a big thing and it’s a topic we both love and many in our audience love, so I love these three questions that you ask yourself before anything goes on your list. You ready guys? Write this down. Don’t tell me. I know some people are like, can you write this down for me? No, write it down for yourself. You’re going to remember better. One, does this list need to be done? Excuse me, does this need to be done? Two, does this need to be done now? And three, does this need to be done by me? Those are some good questions, Kate.

Kate: Yeah because often we use our to do list as the catch all to dump everything that’s in our brain of anything we could do now, ever, later, in the future, and then we look at that list and it’s incredibly overwhelming and then we feel paralyzed, so we just scroll Instagram. Instead, I recommend getting ruthless and asking, does this need to be done? So often we have put things on our list that actually if we say, what result am I after? This thing doesn’t need to be done. Does it need to be done by me or is there somebody else in my life or in my business who could do it and does it need to be done right now and if it doesn’t need to be done… I do a weekly to do list because it gives me some wiggle room rather than a daily. If it doesn’t need to be done this week, it doesn’t belong on your to do list. It belongs in your project management software or in your calendar, so then you can just get it out of there and then you’re not distracted.

Marie: I like it. One of the experiments you talk about in the book is an experiment around managing your energy. Taking a peek around your world for energy drains, we shall call them, and I thought one thing and I’ve heard this a lot from our viewers. When I scan, we have thousands and thousands of questions that people have submitted for MarieTV, and a lot of times it has to do with navigating their relationships with other people. And those can be coworkers, that can be family, it can be your loved ones. Can you share the story about the friend that you had who you love her and she was fun and vivacious but she also came with a lot of drama?

Kate: Yes. I would notice that when we would hang out, a lot of the time the conversation ended up turning towards the drama that she was having and then I would find myself being in the role of trying to fix it, which of course is my own issue but what I decided is, one day I would try to… I would just see what would happen with the dynamic. She was sharing a story that was going on and I listened and I said, wow, that sounds like a lot, what do you think you’re going to do about that? And it instantly changed the dynamic where she was like… I just tossed the hot potato back to her and she was like, oh, this is my potato and then it really honestly forever changed the dynamic of our friendship and we could go back to the fun instead of tossing the drama back and forth.

Marie: That’s amazing. For anyone listening who have people in their life, let’s say family, friends, co-workers, who obviously… There’s some folks where the relationship is complete, right? And that’s wonderful and sometimes we move on but other times it’s like, well I can’t move on. They’re blood, they’re in my life for a long time. I love that you have three great recommendations. One, consider changing your side of the relationship dance, which is exactly what you just described, right? Seeing what your part in it is.

Kate: Yes. I learned this from my friend, Teri Cole, if you change your side of the dance, the other person cannot do the same dance. They have to change their dance. It works like almost every time. It’s amazing.

Marie: Then the question becomes, what part, if any, am I playing in allowing this particular dynamic to continue?

Kate: Yeah.

Marie: Yeah and you do that from a place of curiosity, not beating yourself up.

Kate: No, no, no, no.

Marie: Not making yourself wrong.

Kate: It’s fascinating to just try it out and be like, what’s going to happen?

Marie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love it. Number two and this is so Kate Northrup, envelop yourself in an energetic bubble before seeing them. What the hell does that mean?

Kate: I literally… I’m quite simple when it comes to the woo. I literally will sit in my car and imagine myself protected in an energetic bubble before I go into that interaction. It takes five seconds.

Marie: Yeah, I love it.

Kate: Just see what happens.

Marie: Just see what happens. And then three and I love, this is so practical, if you can, limit the time that you spend with them, right?

Kate: Yeah, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.

Marie: Boundaries, boundaries.

Kate: You just make a date… you know what the other one I’ll just add that’s not in the book is, do an activity rather than just hanging out. There have been people in my life where we’re going to continue the relationship but I’ve realized it works really well to go to a museum or, honestly, do a project. Make a cake or something rather than just being in conversation.

Marie: Yes, yes. It’s like rather than having dinner, you could put together a puzzle, you could go somewhere.

Kate: Or ask for help on a project, that could be great.

Marie: I love it. So practical, Kate. That’s why I love you.

Kate: Do a puzzle.

Marie: That’s me. Let’s do…

Kate: You want to come over and do a puzzle?

Marie: I’m so cheesy.

Kate: Well can you come hang out with my three and a half year old because she loves puzzles?

Marie: Yes, every time I’m around young kids, I do puzzles with them.

Kate: So sweet.

Marie: I will come over and do puzzles with the girls.

Kate: Please do.

Marie: I want to wrap this up with talking about what is hard for most of us, this gets a big hand raise from me: asking for help. I still have trouble with this. You know, I’m coming up on my own book and so that will be… Everything is Figureoutable will be coming out and I realize, I’m like, oh this is such a great growth opportunity for me because I’m so not used to asking people for anything and now I need to ask for help.

Kate: Yeah, a book launch is really a time… I mean I remember my first book launch, I really had an asking hangover. It felt really awful and I’m happy to report because I’ve been practicing what I preach, that this time it was… I do not have an asking hangover and that’s awesome.

Marie: Great.

Kate: Here’s what I recommend and I wrote… This was the longest section of the book. Obviously, some of it got cut but I wrote 25 thousand words just in a chapter on asking for help, which is like a third of a book because it’s so… Here’s the thing, we have been raised to believe that if the more we can do by ourselves, the more valuable we are as human beings but there’s nobody at the end of their life and I talked about Bronnie Ware’s book, The Five Biggest Regrets of the Dying, which I know you’ve referred to too. Nobody is having a regret at the end of their life like, I wish I had done more things by myself. No one is thinking that and here’s what I found, becoming a mom forced me to ask for help in ways I never would have before because the well being of my child depended on it and I recommend asking for help early, so asking before you think you’re going to need help.

If you think you’re going to need help next week, ask now, not when you need the help because it’s very hard to help somebody who is in the middle of a crisis, needing help in that minute because there’s more drama. Now obviously if it’s a real crisis, of course you can help but daily stuff of like, oh I forgot to ask my mom to pick up the kids at daycare and now it’s too late and now she’s at a hair appointment or whatever and then asking often because I believe that we do better… We really do better in villages and I literally live on a cul-de-sac in a community in a neighborhood where we can see in our neighbor’s windows and everyone hangs out under the streetlight at night and…

Marie: You chose that though.

Kate: I chose that.

Marie: You used to be here in New York City.

Kate: I did and that was a different kind of village but it’s taught me, like when my husband was really sick this past fall for a while, it really took us down. My neighbors would come over and do my dishes and serve me and my girls dinner. It was just incredible because we are better when we’re interconnected. Sometimes you need the help and sometimes I need the help and the more we’re willing to ask, the more then we can be available the next time when somebody else needs it. It’s not about always receiving the help, it’s also about replenishing ourselves because there is this give and take and you will need and I will need and you will need and I will need and then the last thing is to ask for help kindly because when we ask early, before we need it, then we’re not in crisis.

When we ask often, we’ve strengthened the muscle and we get good at it and then it allows us to ask kindly and it is so much easier to think about… I think about in my marriage, when I’m cranky and I’m way past needing help, I am not easy to help and no one wants to help me because I’m awful and if I ask early and often, then it’s really easy to ask kindly where I can be like, hey babe, next week I’ve got this thing, can you get the girls at daycare and whatever, what have you, and it’s like, oh yeah, sure. No problem because you are being lovely right now.

Marie: Yeah, no it’s really true. It’s a muscle that I think so many of us need to strengthen.

Kate: Every day with little things. It could be asking somebody to open the door for you. It doesn’t have to be, oh, can you overhaul my whole business or something.

Marie: Yeah, no and I really loved what you shared too because it’s also about you start that cycle and people will then ask you for help and you can contribute to them and that…

Kate: Yeah and it feels really good.

Marie: It does feel really good, that feeling of connection.

Kate: It really, really does.

Marie: We both know the stats about this and most people feel it intuitively, they feel it in their hearts about loneliness is on the rise, people feel so socially isolated and this is a simple but unexpected way to combat some of that, to reach out. I sometimes feel guilty, depending on what’s happening in my life and if I’m here in New York or whatever I’m like, I don’t know if I can… Is there anyone around? If Josh is away and I’m working on something, I’m like, I don’t know if there’s anyone I could ask, right?

Kate: Right but you know what, here’s the thing and I think a lot of people who watch your show are probably similar in terms of high achieving, they seem like they’ve got it all together, right? And I mean that as a compliment of you and so it’s such a delightful thing. If you were to call me up and ask me for help on something when you have in the past, I’m like, oh my God, how lovely is that? Because to help somebody who also really does have their stuff together, it’s such a compliment. It’s really actually a gift to other people in our lives.

Marie: Yeah, yeah. No, it is. It’s really beautiful. Can we wrap up by having you read… I loved this, this last part of the book. Would you mind? I know reading on camera is sometimes like, pressure, but these are your words.

Kate: I can do it.

Marie: And they’re lovely.

Kate: Okay. Let the amount you’ve moved your body this week be enough. Let the effort you put into that project be enough. Let the amount of time you spent really truly being with your kids be enough. Let the amount of sex you’re having be enough. Let the love you have to give be enough. The world doesn’t need you busy, the world needs you here and it’s enough.

Marie: Thank you.

Kate: Thank you, lady.

Marie: Great job. For anyone, if you don’t have it, please go get Do Less. You are going to love it. So many fun experiments to try, so that there is more joy and more love and more you to experience in the world. Thank you, Kate.

Kate: Thank you.

Marie: Now Kate and I would love to hear from you. I’m curious, we talked about a lot of things today. What’s the biggest insight that you’re taking away and most important, how can you turn that insight into action starting right now? Leave a comment below and let us know. As always, the best conversations happen over at marieforleo.com, so get your butt over there and leave a comment now. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe to our email list and become an MF insider. You’ll get instant access to an audio training I created called, How to Get Anything You Want, it’s really good. You’ll also get some exclusive content, some special giveaways, and some updates from me that I don’t share anywhere else. Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world really does need that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.