Do You Have a Calling? Find Your Purpose with Rha Goddess

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

Rha Goddess: We get to decide how this story is going to go, and part of that is about our own willingness to stand up in our own power and really bring what we’re here to bring to the party. And part of it is about our ability to learn how to work harmoniously, collaboratively, evolutionarily, innovatively with each other.

Marie Forleo: Hey, it’s Marie Forleo, and welcome to another episode of MarieTV and The Marie Forleo Podcast. If you’ve ever wondered if it’s even possible to be deeply fulfilled and well-paid, and a happily engaged citizen of the world, you are going to love today’s show.

Rha Goddess is the CEO of Move The Crowd. For over 30 years, she’s been the coach behind hundreds of breakthrough changemakers, cultural visionaries, and social entrepreneurs. Rha draws on the power of creativity, culture, and community to move hearts, minds, and policy. Her work has been featured in Time Magazine, Variety, Essence, Fast Company, and more. Her book, The Calling, is a step-by-step blueprint for finding your purpose and making your highest, most profitable contribution.

Rha, oh my goodness. You and I have been talking about this for so long, and I was dreaming. Like last night, I was thinking about going to bed. I’m like, “I get to hang out with Rha on MarieTV today.” So thank you so much for making the time.

Rha Goddess: My joy. My joy, mama. Love you.

Marie Forleo: I love you too. So listen. For you guys listening and watching, Rha and I have known each other a long time. We have been having over this year these deep soulful talks and explorations. And when we were talking about her MarieTV episode, even this morning when I was prepping, I’m like, “Look, I just got to tell you all. We’re going to go all kinds of places.” Rha is brilliant. She’s a genius. Her book, The Calling, is incredible. It’s incredible for all times, but especially for this moment that we all find ourselves in. So for my audience, this is not a linear conversation. We’re going all the places and then some. So if you’re up for taking the ride with us, hang in there. If not, that’s cool, but I’m telling you, you’re going to want to listen to this conversation because it’s going to be awesome, but it’s not going to be neatly organized. So Rha, first place that I want to go.

Rha Goddess: Yes.

Marie Forleo: Your book. One of the things I am is a highlighter. I have so many damn highlights, it’s nuts. I happen to be reading this because I started it months ago on my Kindle because when I would go take walks in nature or when I was on the beach, I’m like, “I got Rha with me,” and so many highlights. The framework for the book is, “Stay true. Get paid. Do good.” Can you break down what this framework is for us? What do each of those sections mean?

Rha Goddess: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, so the work that we do at Move The Crowd, which is really the source of the book, the book is the blueprint of our work, came from many, many, many, many, many, many years of struggling as a starving spiritual artist. My joke is I signed up for the poverty trifecta. Right? Like, “Artist? Poor. Spiritual? Poor. Oh, you care about humanity? Oh, poor again.” Right?

And there was a point. I had many sort of come-to-Jesus moments in my own awakening, in my own evolution, but there was a point where I really realized that all of us, really, if we get down to the core of us, all of us really want to just be true to who we really are, we want to make a contribution that matters, and we want to be well-compensated for the contribution that we make. And that was really the impetus for the, “Stay true. Get Paid. Do good.”

In the context of the book, what I talk about is that staying true is about realigning to what matters. All of us have things that are important to us, but the truth is, and you know this, Marie, in the day to day, you get pulled, and sucked, and drawn in so many different directions. Sometimes by the end of it, you don’t even know what your name is. You know,  real.

Marie Forleo: Yeah.

Rha Goddess: So this idea that there is a home base that we can come back to within ourselves. There is a place of integrity. There is a place of alignment. There is a place of aspiration. There is a place of joy. There is a place of love and connection that lives inside of all of us. The fact that we have the ability to come home to that, that’s the beginning of our moral compass. We have the ability to come home to that, and inside of ourselves is where the “stay true” comes from. It’s also our source of power.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: Our “get paid.” Well, y’all know. Listen. When we share our unique combination of talents, gifts, and abilities, and when we make an offering, a proposition to the world that aligns with the best of who we are and the best of what we have to give, and it meets the intersection of the wants, needs, and desires of the people we most want to serve or being called to serve, that’s where the magic happens. That’s when work becomes play, right?

In our Live, Love, Lead framework, you know the “get paid” is the love section, and it’s because… Kahlil Gibran, right? Work, right, is love made visible.

Marie Forleo: Made visible.

Rha Goddess: Deeply believe that.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: The “do good.” My mother used to always say, God rest her soul, “You better leave it better than you found it.” You know, if we were playing in an area of the house or we were… You know what I mean.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: We were just raised with this belief. My mother was one of these people. She and my father survived two decades of Jim Crow segregation in this country, marched with Martin. I mean, they came from a place where you had to stand and fight for every little thing, like even the most basic common dignities. And my mother used to always say, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” So any time you had an opportunity, you had a responsibility. Leave it better than you found it. Make a way for somebody else.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: Right, so to do good, and we’re all… Marie, I believe contribution is a human need. We all need to give.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: I don’t think we talk enough about that, you know, and we need to give in ways that are meaningful. Meaningful to us and meaningful to the people who are receiving whatever it is that we have to give. This is why I love entrepreneurship because truly, we get to do that every single day. If we’re aligned, it’s joyful. Right?

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: So that’s the do good.

Marie Forleo: It’s so good. So the book is broken down. You guys, if you haven’t really gotten the message already, I need you to get this book. I need you to get this book, and I don’t just need you to get the book or read the book, but I need you to do the book. It’s very action-oriented. Rha and I share a lot of that same DNA because it is about, “Hey, there’s these incredible concepts, and awarenesses, and awakenings.” And then, you need to put that insight into action, and so you walk us through the six steps. I’m just going to say it briefly because I’m trying to tease you and entice you to get this.

Step one, awareness. See what’s happening and the impact of your choices. Step two, accepting, embracing, and telling the truth. Making peace with where you are. Three. I love this. Forgiving yourself and others. I got chills just saying it. Step four, redefining and visualizing your new future. Five, aligning through right action. Six, celebrate. Bring that joy. Acknowledge the efforts and affirm your changes. I was like, “Ugh.” So good. Anything you want to expand upon? They obviously all need to happen and need to work together, but just handing you the mic right back.

Rha Goddess: I mean, when I was writing the book and just… Shout out to St. Martin’s Press and Monique Patterson and crew over there. When I was writing the book, it was really important to me, to your point, that people didn’t just… It wasn’t just intellectual entertainment. It’s like I need you to rip the pages, dogear it, underscore, underline, write in the margins. That was my whole aspiration. People talk a lot sometimes about what goes through their mind when they’re writing a book, and you know because you’ve done this. Congratulations, right? Let’s just put it out there.

You have to, every day, wake up and be motivated to kind of go back to the page, back to the page. I tried to keep it intimate. I tried to see just the face of one soul and just imagine that I was in a conversation with one soul. You know what I mean? So I wrote the book as if you were coaching with me. If you were to coach with me for an extended period of time, this is the step by step of how we would do it. And the six-step transformative process comes from my years of watching how shifts actually occur.

In other words, when we are where we are and we want to be where we want to be, what are the steps that actually enable us to make the shifts that we want to make? And so each section of the book is designed in honor of that six-step transformative practice, and the journey for “stay true” is we go from victim, which is really just meaning at the mercy of to vision. Meaning, we are a conscious active shaper of our own realities.

Marie Forleo: Can we roll around in that for a minute because that…

Rha Goddess: Yeah.

Marie Forleo: I mean, it’s one of the themes that I have kept coming back to. When I started just learning about coaching in my early 20’s and knowing that this was going to be a part of my career, it was probably one of the biggest continual lessons of this shift in mindset and this shift in reality, and the shift therefore in your behaviors, in the energy, and what you do. Say that one more time in terms of… you were saying, so the victim mindset.

Rha Goddess: Yeah. Victim is I’m at the mercy of my circumstances. Right? It’s really the energy, you all, because I know sometimes we say that, and there could be a negative connotation to that and a lot of judgment that goes on.

Marie Forleo: Sure.

Rha Goddess: When we’re in that space, we are often judging ourselves. Let’s just keep it real, right?

Marie Forleo: Yeah.

Rha Goddess: We are not our own best friends in those moments, right?

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: In the context of victim, there’s a belief that everything is outside of your control, that you have no choice, that you have no say in the matter of your own life or in the matter of your own reality. And the truth is, Marie, that so many of us have been conditioned to believe that that is true.

Marie Forleo: Yeah.

Rha Goddess: Right? So we take back our lives in the “stay true” section of the book. Right? Literally, and we walk from a place of being at the mercy of our circumstances to being the architects of the life we want and the world we want. Right? So that’s the first shift that happens through the six-step process in “stay true.” In “get paid,” we take you from scarcity to abundant sufficiency. Right? And I want to talk a little bit about the difference between just abundance, right, because we hear a lot of language about abundance, to abundant sufficiency. Some of us feel a lot of pressure to want things that we really don’t want.

Marie Forleo: Say more. Say more, mama.

Rha Goddess: Yes. So I remember being in a conversation with somebody who is talking about building a business, and they were like, “I want to do a hundred million because after all, a million dollars is chump change.” I was like, “To who.” I said, “Do you recognize that half of the world lives on $2 a day?” You know what I mean? Listen. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a million. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a hundred million. Right? But what’s your truth? What’s your money truth? Some of us are simple girl, right? We just want flip-flops. We want to do what we want when we feel like it.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: You know what I mean?

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: We want a couple of really nice vacations with the hubby and the kids, right, or the wife and the kids, right?

Marie Forleo: Yeah.

Rha Goddess: With a partner and the kids. You know, however we’re doing it because we come in all shapes, sizes, and orientations. And then, some of us are fancy, like we really look good in a Maserati, and that’s what’s true for us. You feel me?

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: That’s what’s true for us. I think the freedom and liberation that we can give ourselves to want what we want without the judgment of it, but to want what we want from a place of simple enjoyment, from a place of inspiration, from a place of curiosity. Not from a place of pressure. Not from a place of have-to. Not from a place of, “Well, if I don’t hit this mark, then I don’t matter.” Right? I’m going to say this with all the love in my heart, Marie. Right?

Like you, I’m in a lot of seven-plus-plus-figure rooms, right? I’m in a lot of B rooms. Let’s really call it, and it’s fascinating for me to watch the people who… They’ve achieved what they’ve achieved out of a burning passion to want to make a difference. They’ve achieved what they’ve achieved out of a burning desire to want to bring life to an idea versus people who have achieved because they want to keep up with the Joneses.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: Or the Watkinses, right? Or the Petals, right?

Marie Forleo: Yeah, yeah.

Rha Goddess: I just want to say it. And we have to be aware of what we’re wanting and why. It’s back to the “stay true” piece. Why is it important? So in the “get paid” section, we get into the conversation of your personal economy. We get into the conversation of, what is your money truth? Now, for some of us, we do want to live simply, but we’ve got big visions for the kind of difference and change we want to make in the world. And we do see that the ability to resource and leverage hundreds of millions of dollars enables us to do more good. Right on, but in this work, you go from scarcity, not-enoughness to source and all-providing and abundant sufficiency. Meaning, I am fully in alignment with what it is that is enough for me, and that enoughness is actually a very powerful place to be.

Marie Forleo: Yes. Rha, I don’t know if we’ve had this talk on our usual hangouts, but there’s this woman that I’m fascinated with. I want to have her on the show. She’s an economist in the UK, Kate Raworth. I may have gotten the pronunciation wrong, but she talks about us just fundamentally dismantling our old ideas of unlimited economic growth because of the impact, all of the negative impact that it has. It doesn’t take into account what that unlimited up-curve actually does to our planet, to our people, how it doesn’t account for all of these things.

She talks about doughnut economics, and it’s this incredible, quite brilliant notion of taking it away from… To your point, it’s like just, “More, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more,” without any kind of consciousness, any kind of heart, any kind of intention or truth, and taking it to a place of sufficiency where we change the goal. Rather than unlimited growth in terms of economic growth, you say, “What do we need to do so that everybody on planet Earth, including planet Earth, including our environmental systems and all life thrives?”

Rha Goddess: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and…

Marie Forleo: I get like… to you. So yeah. I don’t want to cut you off but that notion.

Rha Goddess: It’s the new conversation.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: This is the new conversation of economy, and I want to shout out because it’s so important for me, my mentor in the conversation of sufficiency, which was Lynne Twist, and the groundbreaking book The Soul of Money.

Marie Forleo: Yes. One of my favorites. Yes.

Rha Goddess: Lynne, dear friend, mentor of mine, and Lynne was the first person who started to talk about this whole idea that more is not better.

Marie Forleo: Right.

Rha Goddess: But we’ve been so conditioned to believe more and really holding your beloveds in this conversation because I can feel your ladies right now, right, and your brothers because I know that the men are peeking in.

Marie Forleo: Yes, they’re here.

Rha Goddess: Hello, right? All of the souls.

Marie Forleo: We just looked at our analytics, and it was like our… identifying as male audience from, again, analytic perspective. That’s what they have. It was like shot way up. I was like, “Oh, this is interesting. New world.” But please keep going.

Rha Goddess: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I’m saying all the souls, no matter how you orient. Right? All the souls. We’ve been conditioned to believe in not-enoughness.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: So that the drive and the ambition, and now I’m touching the energy of the second book. The drive is coming. I’m writing… working on it now, but the drive is relentless, relentless. And the challenge is when we buy into… That sort of obsessive drive for more is driven by scarcity conversation. So that’s the other thing that people don’t understand. So you’re amassing all these things, but you still feel empty and hollow inside, and you don’t know why. Right? And so this idea of abundant sufficiency and this idea of a wealth consciousness is more about the prosperity and the sense of fullness and the sense of fulfillment that you feel inside.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: And realigning our relationship with money is part of it. Realigning our relationship with money is part of it. Some of us do need more in order to realign, right? But some of us need to give more in order to realign. You feel what I mean?

Marie Forleo: Yeah.

Rha Goddess: So it’s like we’ve got to recalibrate and honor that this idea of sufficiency actually opens the doorway for the way of greater fulfillment.

Marie Forleo: It’s also, you know, I’ve been investigating these things. I love talking about money as you know. Money is one of my favorite topics. I find it fascinating, and I think removing the stigma and the taboo, and just being able to have these conversations, especially as entrepreneurs, it’s so, so important. Another section. Again, highlights upon highlights, upon highlights. In the “get paid” section, you have, “You cannot create anything new from a disempowered place.” So we’re here in 2020, right?

We’re in the fall when we’re recording this. So much has happened in the world, and I know in my heart that there are beautiful, powerful souls listening to us right now who may find themselves in this moment feeling very disempowered by circumstances, by what’s happening, what’s going on. If someone listening right now hears what you wrote, this incredible statement, “You cannot create anything new from a disempowered place,” what would you say in terms of the steps they can take to start to shift that?

Rha Goddess: Yeah. So the first thing is to really even understand why we got put on timeout this year. We got put on timeout for a reason, and this is not to entangle in the, “Is COVID real or not real?” conversation. But this is about understanding energy and recognizing that we came into the top of 2020 with a kind of frenetic desperation. I don’t know about you all, Marie, but I was like… We were in the middle of January, and it felt like we were in April.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: It’s like whatever people didn’t get the last 10 years, they were trying to get it this year. You know what I mean? We came into this decade like we had been shot out of a canon, and there was a kind of intensity that at least I know I was feeling in every interaction and was sort of this way where, “We got to have it now. It had to happen now.” Everything was about now, now, now, now. And I believe that we got put on pause because we were on a path of just losing our way. It’s the best way I can say it, that we were on our way to losing our way.

And a lot of us were reaching for things when our foundations were not intact, our foundations were not solid. We were building on shaky ground. Many overreaching, overstretching, overcompensating, over efforting. I don’t even need to see. Just raise your hand if you know that’s you, like you know I’m talking about you. Raise your hand just to yourself, right? We were not in profound relationship with ourselves. We were not coming from a grounded place. We were coming from a place of, “I have to have it,” right, “because I,” and all of the reasons.

This is a thing to say even for my beloveds who are successful, right, because success has its own set of challenges, right? “I got to top that now. That’s not enough. I got to do better.” I want to say this with love is sometimes we get gassed up on the, “I’m a badass,” conversation in ways that don’t serve us. Right? So this whole sacred pause moment that we got invited into was about coming home to ourselves. It was about getting our house in order, and it was about realigning with the truth of what it is that we are really supposed to be about, what it is that we’re really being called to. The truth of ourselves and the truth of our calling. What it is we’re really supposed to be doing. And we all needed a reset whether we know it or not.

Marie Forleo: Mm-hmm.

Rha Goddess: Now, for those who are struggling and have been struggling, right? It’s been a tough year, my beloveds who have anxiety naturally, right, who have depression naturally. In other words, it shows up for you. It has a tendency to show up for you naturally, that that has been intensified. When I say to you that we cannot create anything new from a disempowered place, it means that we, all of us, have to come back to our internal well.

Now, for some of us, we didn’t even know we had one. So the pause invitation was about… You have everything…like in other words, your orientation is very external. Everything that you’re driven by is outside of you. Everything that you’re trying to reach, measure, validate, outside of you. But there is a whole interior relationship that you’re not even cultivating, that you may not even be aware of, or for those of us who’ve been aware of it, but we’ve been too busy to nurture it, it was like, “Okay. Enough of the excuses. It’s time to come home.”

And so the mandate to go home and then stay home had everything to do with the ability to tap into our inner wisdom, to tap into our sacred self-relationship, our sacred source relationship however you all define that. Right? Whatever source is for you, right, and our ability to develop a new capacity of being able to listen and engage that guidance and that wisdom. I’m saying this because we are disempowered when we expect that, which is outside of us, that which we cannot control, to deliver us. You will never be delivered by anything outside of yourself, except your relationship to source. Deliverance happens when you get with the highest expression and the highest vibration of that, which you come from, which you are sourced by, however you define it.

So what I want you to know is regardless of what your circumstances are, your situations are, you still have access. That’s the beauty of it. This is an equal opportunity equation. You have access to the riches that live inside of you, and your opportunity to tap that, to get quiet with that, to be in stillness with that, whether you sit on the meditation pillow or you walk in nature, when you do yoga or you just stretch. Whatever you do that enables you to suspend this reality and come into the truth of yourself, that is where the riches are. That is where the riches are.

I tell people, “Don’t stress over the business. Take a walk. Take a bath. Go play something that brings you joy. Go do something that raises your vibration because that’s where the insights will come.” I have a deep journaling practice. I know we’ve gone a little long in this, but this might be important. I have a deep journaling practice, right? I get up, you all, and you don’t have to get up at any particular time. I’m just telling you what time I get up, right, because source is always there, but I get up at 4:30.

I get up because everybody else is sleeping, and it’s really quiet. Sometimes I can be hardheaded, so I need to have the voice a little louder for me. I get up, and I journal, and I’m in communion with my higher wisdom. I’m in communion with my source, and I ask, “What should I do about this product launch?” Then, I listen. “What does my audience need to hear from me right now?” Then, I listen. So I’m bringing it very, very, to a very, very simple pragmatic place because I want you all to know that that level of dialogue is available, and the guidance is forthcoming if you allow it. When you touch this place, you are automatically healed. When you touch this place, you are automatically renewed. You are coming back to your source, which is your power. And so your creativity blossoms, and flourishes, and flows because you’re in your power. So that’s the rule.

Marie Forleo: I love you. I’m sorry. I had to just drop an “I love you” because I love you so much.

Rha Goddess: You know how I feel. Right back at you.

Marie Forleo: If I interrupted you, just jump…

Rha Goddess: No, no, no, no. Right back at you. I feel the agony, right, Marie, to your point. Right? Whether we’re experiencing our most successful year ever or whether the rug has been ripped out from under us, we all got stress, and that has to tell us something that like no matter where you are in this equation, if you are feeling the stress, it means that the you is not being nourished. The you, which is central to any equation, has got to be fed. It’s got to be nourished, got to be cared for because that is your greatest source of power.

Marie Forleo: You’re the best. I’m going to go for another highlight. I’m going for another highlight. Originality, authenticity, and courage. These are the qualities it takes to stay true and pursue your calling. So let’s get into this moment, Rha. How come this is the moment for us to either discover anew or get realigned with our purpose?

Rha Goddess: Yeah.

Marie Forleo: I have been trying personally lately I think over these last few months… First of all, I just need to give a little tangent side out, a shout-out to a documentary that’s on Netflix right now called The Social Dilemma. I’m already on my third watching of it. I have been absolutely…

Rha Goddess: I’ve heard about that.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: I’ve heard it is a must-watch.

Marie Forleo: It’s a must-watch, a must-watch, and I have radically… I mean, I was not someone who spent a lot of time on social as it was. Most of my audience knows that about me. It’s just not my thing.

Rha Goddess: Me too.

Marie Forleo: Now, it’s literally I’m like, “Maybe once a week. Maybe if I have to and not even that.” So in this moment, originality, authenticity, and courage. When there’s so much noise coming in and most folks are intaking so much information and media from all different sources.

Rha Goddess: Yeah.

Marie Forleo: Yeah. Where you at on that?

Rha Goddess: Yeah, yeah. Ooh, ooh lots to say there. I’m going to talk a little bit about… I’ve talked about the sacred pause and the three invitations, right? Come home to yourself, get your house in order, right, and realign with your truth, right, of who you are and what you’re here to do. There were three sacred practices. I’m just going to touch them because we’re in this soulful conversation, and I’ll come back to the originality piece.

So the three sacred practices that we invited our community into was, one, be very mindful of your sources of information. Right? There’s an old African saying, “Be careful whose lap you lay your head in.” I have revised that to say, “Be careful whose ground you put your ear to.” There’s a fine line between being informed and being sucked into sensationalism and being emotionally manipulated by information that does not have your best interest at heart. Right?

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: I want to say that to you all. We have got to learn how to develop that tuning fork within us where we are honoring of what feels true and what simply does not.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: What feels uplifting and what simply does not. What feels forwarding, and useful, and progressive in the sense of moving one’s self forward, and evolutionary, and what does not, and to practice the discipline of fasting from those things that are not good for our health.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: I know it’s difficult. Trust me. I know. They put chocolate around it, and sprinkles on top, and… Do you know what I mean? All the things, and the temptation is great as a result. But when you look at what’s good for your health, mental, spiritual, emotional, financial, physical health and what enables you to stay wisely informed versus what takes you all around the mulberry bush and get you all out of whack, you have to develop that discipline. Right? You have to develop that discipline.

Your work, right? So practice number one, pay attention to your sources of information. Be clear about what is trusted for you, what aligns for you. Be informed, but don’t get sucked in. Practice number two, keep your vibration high. What you consume, everything from what you eat to what you read, to conversations you have, to people you surround yourself with, you all. Sometimes we have to fast, even when we love people. Sometimes we have to fast, right?

You have a responsibility, and I really want you all to hear this. As leaders, as business owners, as rockstar women, and men, and souls, you have a responsibility to protect your enthusiasm, to care for your joy. There is something about having a capacity to face, because it’s not about putting your head in the sand, but this is also about what you want to co-create with, what energy you want to co-create with. Do you want to co-create with despair, or you want to co-create with love? Right? You want to co-create with recession, or you want to co-create with, “Oh, brand new economy. Let’s do it.”

The opportunities are endless right now. The possibilities are endless. So now, I’m going to why should you be considering your purpose. Why is originality important? No one is ever, ever, ever going to do what you do ever the way you do it ever, and every single one of you has a calling. I know because Marie and I were laughing about this. A lot of us have purpose and calling anxiety. We are fatigued like, “I can’t find it. I’ve gone to the bottom of my sock drawer. It is not there. It is not there.” Right? “I’ve turned the hamper upside-down. It is not there. It is not in my kid’s closet. I don’t know where whoever put it put it, but damn it, I can’t find it.” I just want to say to you go to where the love is, where your passion is. Go to what makes you laugh, what brings you joy. Pay attention to what pisses you off.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: There’s great information in that, right? Great information in that, right? These are all of the places, and then you just play. Hang out. Hang out where you have joy. Examine and start to really observe what distresses you. Right? Pay attention. What’s that about? If you can have your way, how would it be different? Because those are often the places where your greatest opportunity is to really bring what you bring. Hang out. That’s where they hang out, so just go be with them, and it will evolve. It will continue to find you. If you just even start to say yes to your own joy, and happiness, and fulfillment, it will find you. Trust me.

Marie Forleo: Another question. In this year like no other year that most of us have experienced in our living lives, are there any new capacities that we need to develop? I agree with you. We’ve had so many private conversations about really being awake and discerning in terms of where you get your information and who you allow in your head, in your heart, and aligning with that truth inside. I’m curious if there’s other capacities that you’re seeing from your work because you interact with so many leaders and so many incredible people. I know you and I were talking. We’ve always talked privately. It’s like we need to develop that resilience and that inner ability to be uncomfortable over a sustained amount of time. So that. We can go there. We can go anywhere.

Rha Goddess: Yeah. Yes.

Marie Forleo: I’m curious of other capacities. I know for me, personally, one of my capacities is that I’m working on developing. It’s actually where we started a little bit at the top, which was continuing to recognize… I’m a fairly conscious person, but when you’re talking like the top of 2020, we’re all going at it. Right? We’re busy. For me, when we had our beginning of our great pause, it was like, Rha, when you have the air conditioner on for so long, you don’t recognize the hum.

Rha Goddess: Yes. Yeah.

Marie Forleo: The moment the air conditioner is off and you’re like, “Oh, that’s what real silence is like.” I’m continuing to peel back to see like, “Whoa, how much has been on autopilot?” So my capacity to see anew and to see how much of my internal conditioning in terms of push, push, push, push, push. Then, I’m like, “That is not necessary anymore.”

Rha Goddess: Yeah. So good. So good, Marie. I mean, this is all of what I’m in the midst of right now. So there’s a couple of things I want to say about that, that piece. Right? You want a stillness practice because you’re touching it. So I just want to underscore. You want a stillness practice because you need the ability to see newly every single day and really, every single moment of every day. Dare I say that the minute you think you know you got it, look out. Right?

This is humble. We need to stay in what I call enlightened humility. We need to stay in enlightened humility, which means I know some things, which I do, and then there’s this whole other world that keeps revealing itself to me through people and situations, and circumstances, and experiences. I need to remain open to that. I need to remain fluid, porous, right, nimble with that, right, because it isn’t just me. It’s me meeting the times, meeting the moment, meeting the reality that I find myself in.

So the third sacred practice. Interestingly enough, I’ll touch that. Then, I’ll go to the new capacities in a minute. The third sacred practice was to learn how to sit in uncertainty so that we could develop a whole new level of trust, which is about how we have faith in what we cannot see and what we can’t control. How we believe and recognize our relationship is that when you’re co-creating with something bigger and that there’s a higher wisdom operating that we may not understand at any given moment. But our job is to show up and do our part, whatever we see as being our part in a moment. There are times where I show with spirit and I’m like, “Okay. What we doing today?” Spirit will say to me, “Ha, rest. Go take a nap.”

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: I’m like you all, me and my little overachieving self will walk around the table four or five times like, “Ha, I didn’t hear that right. I got my to-do list over there on the down low. I know it’s Saturday. List, come on. I said I was going to chill today, but I’ve got my little to-do list over here. So maybe I’ll just do like one little thing. Let me just check in with spirit again because I’m trying to pretend I’m obedient over here.” You feel me, right? So I do want to say, and I understand that there is a nap ministry out there. Shout out to the nap ministry. Rest is a revolution for us, especially in this new capacity. I want to name our ability to rest. That’s a new capacity, to be still, to be quiet. Rest.

I’m going to touch this real quick because I know we may have other places to go on. I’m mindful of our time, but I’m starting to talk about economy. This is one of the downloads that came for me, and I’m not an economist at all. I’m with you, right, Marie. I geek out like I’m… I’m even feeling like a little… I got some feelings going on because I don’t have enough time to geek out in all the way I want to geek out because I know they’re going crazy right now because, listen, our economy is unraveling. Let’s just call it what it is, but it’s not like we didn’t know this, you all. We knew this system doesn’t work.

Let me just lay this out for you, and stay with me. Tell me if you all agree. In the last 20 years, we’ve had three portal opening moments, what I call portal opening moments, right, around life, around what’s important, and dead on sure around economy. First portal opening moment in the last 20 years, 9/11. It’s the first time we even developed the language of a new normal. Right? There was no conversation about the new normal. Right? But when Wall Street started leaving the office at 3:00 because they wanted to be home for dinner with their kids, right, because they became profoundly connected to what was important, right?

Marie Forleo: Mm-hmm.

Rha Goddess: It’s a portal opening moment when we actually started to see each other. I remember walking through the streets of New York. Right? You could smell all of that in the air, but people were looking each other in the eye maybe for the first time. Right? Second portal opening moment, the Great Recession of 2008. We’ve got to see that glimpse again like, “Whoa, this is fragile.” I mean, like if businesses can collapse in four days, massive businesses can collapse, therefore, there might be something a little unstable about what we got going on over here.

Portal opening moment number three, here we are, and it does come back to economy. We have all this conversation about capitalism, Marie, but what we really need to be talking about is economy. Economy. I was in a conversation with a beautiful indigenous leader. Shout out, Waleah. She was saying, “In my tradition…” She’s Navajo. She said, “In my tradition, economy equates to home.” Everything on my arms stood up. “And the way in which we care for that, which we call home.”

So I want to give you all a little taste of what I think are the new capacities and really, the new economies that I want to invite us to start consciously injecting into our current economy so that maybe we can get something where a little bit more of us can thrive and prosper on. One, the economy of love, which is about our willingness to rise to a new level of generosity. In order to do that, we’ve got to be sourced by something different than obligation, depletion, perfection, right, and the pressure to perform.

We got to be giving from a different place inside of ourselves, and this generosity isn’t just what we give out into the world. In other words, we give the best of ourselves. We also give the best of ourselves to ourselves so that the generosity is a 360-degree proposition, which means that the giving and the receiving is abundant and it is resourceful because we are giving from a resourced place and we are sourcing from a resourced place. And there is no pain. There is no hurt. There is no harm, right, to ourselves or others in our giving and in our receiving. The economy of love.

Second economy is the economy of truth, and this is about embracing a new level of ownership and owning the fullness of who we are, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unspeakable. Now, in the good, a lot of us are not owning, Marie. When people say to me, “Oh, I got this money thing going on. I’m struggling with it,” I’m like, “Because you’re not owning the fullness of who you are.” So if you’re not owning the fullness of who you are, how can you receive that fullness?

We must own that we come with so much capacity to do good in the world. We come with so much capacity to solve challenges. We come with so much capacity to change lives, and too many of us are hiding out. So if you want to know why the world looks the way it looks, if you want to know, like if you really want a better world, stop hiding. Stop hiding. Own your greatness. Own your power. Own your brilliance. Own your majesty. Let’s go.

Second part of owning. We have a history that has not enabled so many of us to thrive. I was in a conversation with somebody last night, and they said that the top 26, top 26 people, if you combine their wealth, their assets, it equals the entire bottom half of the world. In other words, 26 people are holding the wealth of 3.6 billion people in their portfolio. Now, here is the truth. I’m not mad at making money, but they will never live to spend all of that money and their legacy beyond legacy, beyond legacy, beyond legacy. You feel me?

Marie Forleo: Mm-hmm.

Rha Goddess: If you notice, the movements to start giving this away is because many of them are starting to understand that. They’re starting to go, “Oh my god, what am I…” This is the honest sufficiency conversation. “I have more than enough. This is ridiculous. I need to give it away.” God bless them because there’s a way that they’re coming into an alignment and integrity within themselves. Right? But I also want to say that all of us participate in an economic system that does harm.

Marie Forleo: Mm-hmm.

Rha Goddess: We all have to own our part of the equation in that, and we have to ask ourselves in our own ecosystems, in our own little economies, “Are there ways that I can earn, and spend, and share, and offer, and support that provide more good than harm in the world? How do I tell the truth of myself about that? How do I start to realign with that? How do I start to move from that place?”

For some of you, that’s just simply treating your staff better. You could really start there, or treating your spouse better, partner better, or honoring the people who support you, right, or work in your home. Right. So it can start very, very small. But in the economy of truth, we are owning all of what we’ve created, what we love about what we’ve created, and what is problematic about what we created. We’re doing the work necessary, the courageous facing, owning, and transforming necessary to reconcile it and ride the ship.

Third, final economy, in this conversation, the economy of we. The economy of we. If you want to know what is going on right now, we are writing the story of us. And we will decide, Marie, if it’s going to be a love story or if it’s going to be a horror picture. Right? Shout out, Kedma Ough. My sister who talks about this all the time. She’s always asking us, “What kind of movie are you in?” It can be a drama. It can be a thriller. We get to decide.

We get to decide how this story is going to go, and part of that is about our own willingness to stand up in our own power and really bring what we’re here to bring to the party. Part of it is about our ability to learn how to work harmoniously, collaboratively, evolutionarily, innovatively with each other. So proactively creating and collaborating. That’s really our way out. If you want to know what our way out is, love, truth, we.

Marie Forleo: Love, truth, we. Love, truth, we. I don’t have tattoos, but I’m like, “Rha and I are going to hang up. I’m going to go get my magic markers that I have.”

Rha Goddess: Yes.

Marie Forleo: Right? I’m going to be like, “Love, truth, we. Rha.”

Rha Goddess: My husband won’t let me get one. I keep promising him I’m going to sneak out one day though while he’s not looking.

Marie Forleo: Yeah. You know what? Maybe we’re going to make some. Maybe we can get some me, and I’ll send some to you, and then you can show him and freak him out, and then be like, “Marie sent it to me. I can wash it off.”

Rha Goddess: I love that. Love that.

Marie Forleo: So so good. One thing that I’ll say, and I’m curious to hear. You might have a different perspective, but I will go so far to say as for me, everything that Rha and I have talked about today, I think one of the things that I’ve noticed that’s important is like keep taking that look in the mirror rather than pointing fingers out to say, “You do this, and you do that, and you… No, you’re doing it wrong. No, you’re doing it wrong. No, you’re doing…” It’s like…

Rha Goddess: Yeah.

Marie Forleo: For me, it’s like, “How…” The moment my mind, if my mind starts going to that place, which again, all human minds. That’s an ability that we have. Boom, right? It starts to go there.

Rha Goddess: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marie Forleo: My practice is go, “Oh, the moment I get into judging, or blaming, or wanting to point that finger out, how can I go take a look in the mirror and say, ‘My business. What do I need to do with my business? Everybody else there, that’s their business?'” I think that can be somewhat controversial in our world where there’s a lot of calling out, or this or that, or account, holding people to account. We don’t have to get into all of that unpacking, but I think that there is just something so rich from a spiritual place of saying, “Let me start with me.”

Rha Goddess: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Marie Forleo: What do you think?

Rha Goddess: I think your number one job is you. I think your number two job is you. I think your number three job… You know what I mean?

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Rha Goddess: Because really, if you do your work, we’re good. I don’t say that because we’re talking about spiritual bypassing and blah, blah, blah.

Marie Forleo: Yes, yes, yes.

Rha Goddess: I’m not saying that. What I’m saying to you is truthfully, when you align with the truth of who you are, you will have no choice but to give. You can’t stop the giving because when you are fully realized, that’s all you want to do is give. That’s all you want to do is make a difference. That’s all you want to do is figure out how you can help things to be better. I do want to say to you all the story of us, like our shredding each other apart.

We have to be careful about righteous competition. We have to be very careful about righteous competition. Right? Part of the wounding and our indoctrination tells us that being right entitles us to something. Being right gives us the right to harm, embarrass, humiliate, fill in the blank other people. What’s profound about it… and I say this with compassion because I understand the intense emotions. I understand also that a lot of those intense emotions have no place to go. Right? So we’re airing them wherever we can, right, because we’ve not been held or nurtured. Right?

I think conversations of accountability are important. With dignity and respect, conversations of accountability have the potential to be far-reaching when it comes to progress. But the ripping down, and the tearing down, and the shredding of one another says to me that there’s a place where we’ve forgotten our humanity and a place where we’ve forgotten the humanity of others. Nobody, ain’t met them, perfect. We are all going to make mistakes.

But I also want to say to you that the work that there is to do right now, whether we are talking about COVID/sacred pause, whether we are talking about racial justice reckoning, right, and all of what’s moving in the streets in terms of the movement for Black lives, wherever you’re point to because we have plenty of places to point right now. God knows. It’s a hot mess out there. We are not going to get any place good ripping each other apart.

And dare I say there are certain people who benefit from that in ways that will continue to keep us stuck, you all. It is not okay that such a small percent of our global population is thriving. Small percent, like 3%. 97% we got too much work to do. So here’s the thing. You see something, you want to have a conversation, don’t call the person out. Call them forth. Invite them in. Have a grounded, honest, vulnerable, courageous conversation that leaves room for their humanity and yours. Right?

And before you step to have that conversation, look at the mirror, “What else can I be doing?” or, “How can I have this conversation in a way that forwards the truth and the highest integrity of who I am?” because I know many of you all. You have incredible visions for our world. I want your vision for our world, but what I know is that there’s got to be another way other than blood in the streets. We’ve tried that. How is it working for us? Not so good.

Marie Forleo: I love you, Rha. Thank you so much for your heart. Thank you for this incredible conversation. Thank you for your work, for who you’ve been, who you continue to be. I, for one, am not only so excited about The Calling, but I’m going to be texting you later about this new book. You’re a gift to this world. You continue to be a gift to this world. If anybody wants to learn more, obviously, want to get The Calling, but where’s the best place if they want to come spend some more time in your elaboration?

Rha Goddess: Make me. Mm-hmm. So movethecrowd.me is our site. You’re all welcome to come, and peruse, and look around. Then, for those of you who feel a call to really want to be actively engaging in the shaping of a new world, I hold something called Hai Tea every other Tuesday. I got it from my Vassar days for me. Shout out, Vassar College. 3:00 PM every Tuesday. We would have tea at The Rose Parlor.

Marie Forleo: Love it.

Rha Goddess: Who knew if this is what Matthew Vassar had in mind when he saw us rolling up in there, right, which is so, for me, exciting and titillating. But it is a Zoom room that we called Conversations About Ambition and this new body of work I’m birthing in honor of the new book, and so we will get you all the link for your people. There’s a RSVP thing. You’ll do it. It’s an intimate circle. So just know once that date closes, a new date will open, et cetera. But it’s about this conversation that we’re in, right, Marie. Like what are the new capacities we need to be developing? How can I thrive without burning myself into the ground, or pounding myself into salt, or tearing other people up in the process? If you want to lead and you want to achieve in a much more elegant, and loving, and joyful way, I invite you into that conversation.

Marie Forleo: Beautiful. Thank you so much, my love. Thank you for the time today. I’ll be texting you for our next call. For everyone, I hope you enjoy this. Rha, I love you. We’ll talk soon.

Rha Goddess: I love you, Marie. Thank you for who you are and all that you do.

Marie Forleo: Wasn’t that awesome? I think it was beautiful. Now, Rha and I would love to hear from you. What’s the biggest insight or aha that you are taking away from this conversation? Most important, how can you put that insight into action starting right now? Leave a comment below and let us know. Now, as always, the best conversations happen over at the magical land of marieforleo.com, so get your butt over there and leave a comment now. If you’re not yet, please subscribe to our email list and become an MF insider. We send loving, positive, encouraging emails every single Tuesday, and you don’t want to miss out. Until next time. Stay on your game, and keep going for your dreams because the world really does need that very special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV and The Marie Forleo Podcast.

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