Episode 009 – Marta Spirk

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Richard Matthews

Okay, and we are live! My name is Richard Matthews. Welcome back to The Hero Show, and today I’ve got Marta Spirk on the line. Marta, are you there?

 

Marta Spirk

Hi. Yes, I’m here. Thanks for having me.

 

Richard Matthews

Awesome! So, Marta, I hear you are a certified success coach for moms, originally from Brazil–which is a long way away from here.

 

Marta Spirk

Yes.

 

Richard Matthews

And you’re a mom to triplets! You’ve got three-year-olds; they just turned three last January.

 

Marta Spirk

That’s right.

 

Richard Matthews

Awesome. You’re a language teacher, interpreter, and translator for 20 years. Motherhood opened up a new doorway for you to encourage other moms to find their passion and purpose. Getting out of their own way and creating a fulfilling life and successful business. Which sounds like a really cool business.

 

Just like we do in all these shows I want to start off with what you’re known for, like what your business is like today–who do you help and how you help them. Give us a picture of what it is that you do.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah. So I guess you could say that I am known for empowering and encouraging moms. That’s what I found to be my biggest gift. My passion is just helping moms see that they’re not alone in their journey; to build a sense of community by sharing my story and what I’m going through and having other women–other moms and Mompreneurs–share their story to create a sense of, “You’re not alone.” and create encouragement, especially around what you’re doing as moms.

 

Marta Spirk

…making you feel like you are enough–like you’re doing a great job. That doesn’t mean you can’t aim for change and being even better, but starting from a place of pride and acknowledgment of how amazing you already are. So that’s like, first and foremost, how I feel.

 

Richard Matthews

That’s a good message.

 

Marta Spirk

Yes. The way things are working for me right now, I have a couple of different coaching programs for helping–specifically–mompreneurs get their messaging right by creating more clarity on their passions; because–sometimes–moms, they get involved with network marketing, or maybe the family business. But it’s not necessarily what they love or they don’t know how to express based on their expertise. Do you know what I mean? They just follow what everybody else is doing. And that’s hard to stand out and to build your business. My job is helping these moms dig deep into their story, into their past, into their childhood–the things that have always lifted them up so that they can continue to do that. Because moms are known for taking care of everybody else, and not saving a whole lot of time for themselves.

 

Richard Matthews

That’s so true. I actually have a supplement company on the side. One of the things that we have, one of our hardest products to sell is the women’s multivitamin because the women won’t take their own multivitamins. But our prenatal one sells great because it’s also for another human being. Yeah, they’ll take care of the baby first.

 

Marta Spirk

That’s right. That’s just how we are. And while it’s great and very honorable, and noble, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” right? That’s like the best quote. And my follow up quote is, “You can’t wait for anybody else to fill your cup for you, you have to do it yourself.” So, it’s just helping moms understand how important it is to look inside themselves. Especially if they’re wanting to start a business, you have to know yourself so that you can have a clear message and have your ideal customer resonate with you and know exactly what you’re offering. So that’s one of the coaching programs that I have. And the other one is just straightforward for any mom or any woman really, that wants to know the different ways they might be sabotaging themselves and keeping themselves from achieving success. And helping them create their own definition of success. Because again, I feel like women depend a lot on others to validate them. And they look to others to define what success and happiness mean instead of figuring that out for themselves.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Yeah, I know. I even have that problem sometimes. Just working with my clients is like, you have to define where it is you want to go and what success means to you. So you can build a business that supports that instead of a business that takes over your life.

 

Marta Spirk

Exactly.

 

Richard Matthews

So it’s an important thing. So anyway, that’s really cool that you’re doing that. My wife and I have discussions like that all the time, about understanding that you are enough, you’re doing a great job, especially because she is homeschooling our children. And you know, she basically runs the whole household so I can run the business and she does a great job. If it wasn’t for her, I couldn’t do what I do. It’s a good message that you have. I want to flip that and go all the way back to–you know, the show is about heroes, and every hero has an origin story, right? It’s where you started to realize that maybe you were different–that maybe you had superpowers of some kind that you can use on other people. When did you start to develop or discover the value you can bring to this world? Tell us a little bit about your origin story. What puts you on this path?

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah. Obviously becoming a mom turned everything around, and especially to triplets! So that’s, like, a huge part of the origin story.

 

Mart Spirk

But even before that, I feel like I already had this entrepreneurial spirit in me, because I’m from Brazil and I started tutoring my friends from school and from the church. I started tutoring English when I was 14. So I already started a business just teaching private classes and getting paid for it. And it’s all because of my obsession with American culture–with English. I’ve always been really interested in other countries and imagining how’s life in this other place. Of course, especially in Brazil, there’s a huge influence of American movies, American music, that’s what we listened to a lot–and watch. I just grew up with that. My mom is a pastor, eventually, she got connected with American churches. And they started coming to Brazil to teach in our community. And I started interpreting for them. So here I was this 14-year-old girl standing in front of a huge crowd interpreting the message into Portuguese. And that’s how it began. And I realized how much of a passion I have for teaching, for being in front of people, and motivating them even though it wasn’t my message. I had to get the emotion in there and mirror what the person was saying.

 

Richard Matthews

It’s a good message too.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah. It was all about encouragement, and empowerment, and really finding your gifts. Because that’s a lot of–especially in Christian Church, we talked about having a calling and having gifts put in your heart from birth and I still really believe in that. That’s a very big part of my message. Like I said, helping moms find those gifts and find how they can make an impact in the world. So that’s the origin story. I was working as a teacher and an interpreter for this entire time until I had my kids and then we were living in Brazil at the time, then we moved back to the US and they were nine months old. And I was like, “I need to do something outside of motherhood.” Like I already had that in my head that I needed to continue on working somehow. And then coaching…I came across coaching online. And I thought, “This is great because I can empower moms.” I’ll be empowering and encouraging myself as I go through this crazy triplet journey and encourage them to say, “I have triplets and I’m still finding time…creating time for myself and working on myself. You can do it too. Anyone can do it if you really want to.”

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, so a couple of follow-up questions. One, is English a second language for you?

 

Marta Spirk

Yes.

 

Richard Matthews

That’s amazing because you have almost no accent. You must have been speaking English from a very young age.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah, yeah.

 

Richard Matthews

My second question is, why do you think having children was such a catalyst for wanting to get into coaching?

 

Marta Spirk

I feel like the heart of my message too, is saying that motherhood is like a blank slate. It’s your opportunity to figure out who you are, which is crazy in so many ways. You think, “Now I have a lot on my plate. Why am I going to add something else to it?”  Especially me with triplets, you know. But you really find the strength inside of you that you didn’t know before. It takes becoming a mom to understand this. I mean, it takes going through certain experiences, to have certain feelings and to learn certain lessons. And I feel like going through motherhood opens up this door. I usually say in my bio, for you to look at yourself in the mirror and be like, “who do I want to be from now on?” Because now I’m responsible for others to what do I want to show these little kids? What do I want to show the world? What do I want to be known for? And that’s not to say that moms that don’t have this need are wrong or anything. I feel like everyone is very different. But we do have gifts, we are born with inclinations and passions. And depending on what your gift is, you could be changing people’s lives. So by silencing that, you’re actually doing a disservice to people that could use your help and reaching your best, your best potential, your ultimate self, and teaching that to your kids. So there’s a lot involved that goes with deciding, “I’m not going to learn who I want to be, or who I really am.” And that’s the message that I’m spreading everywhere.

 

Richard Matthews

One of the things that I always loved about being a parent, I’ve got three kids myself, a fourth one on the way is that you mentioned that motherhood–the blank slate and the other thing–I think, similarly, your children are a blank slate. They come out, they’re like messages that you get to send to a time and place you’ll never get to see. So the things that you know, the things that you educate them and teach them and everything that we get to do as parents is a part of our legacy. The impact we make on the world is how we raise our kids. Being able to tie that in with entrepreneurship and understanding your value I think is a really cool message.

 

And you specifically said that motherhood is like a blank slate. You become a mom, and it’s not like a thing that happened once–you became a mom and that’s done. You’re a mom for the rest of your life!

 

Marta Spirk

Yes.

 

Richard Matthews

The journey changes every day! You’ve got three-year-olds now, but in 30 years, you’re gonna have, you’re gonna be a mom of, you know–they’re going to be dating and getting married. The journey changes. It’s different, like, I still call my mom for advice nowadays, for everything–from laundry, how do I help with my children? So, like, her journey is still going as well.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews

So like, it’s a lifetime journey that you get to help.

 

Marta Spirk

Exactly, yeah, and I love what you said about my kids are going to be sending my message to places that I’ll never go because they’re individuals, right? That puts a whole other level of responsibility into raising a human being.

 

Richard Matthews

What do I even want my message to be, to pass on to them? So, figuring that out?

 

Richard Matthews

Absolutely. Which I think is a good transition to the next question, which is your superpowers. Which is, what do you do or build offer this world that really helped solve a problem? What are the things that you use to slay the villains? To help moms slay their villains? If Superman has super strength, what are your superpowers?

 

Marta Spirk

I guess it really goes back to motivation and helping moms find purpose. So many times after we have kids, we feel like we need to be 100% grateful and happy. When that doesn’t happen, we feel guilty and we feel shame. “Why am I not so ecstatic to have a kid? I should be.” And then you feel guilty? Because it’s like, you’re unwanting that child and no, that’s not what you feel! You don’t know how to explain those feelings. Therefore, you don’t talk about them because it’s kind of taboo. Then you just live with that in silence. I just want to help moms not suffer in silence. Talk about what’s going on and work through those thoughts and feelings. Where is this coming from? Is it something that happened to you in your childhood? And helping them go through these things because I feel like–in terms of the blank slate too is, once we have a child, we go back to our childhood whether we want to or not because we start thinking, “This is what happened when I was five, I kind of remember. This is what my mom did and I want to do it differently.” or thinking, “Oh, my gosh, this is exactly what my mom did. I don’t want to do this. Why am I doing this?” And going back into, “I want to change the way I do things and understanding your own behavior.” So really helping moms figure out motherhood but not telling them what to do. Just helping them with that they will do them themselves. So I don’t know how else to explain it. But like, it’s like, the superpower of empowerment. I help you empower yourself.

 

Richard Matthews

Absolutely. Yeah, it’s interesting. You mentioned that feeling as we get into parenting. And we’re not always 100% happy. I noticed when you talk, especially on social media, if you ever bring up parenting. If something unfortunate or negative happens when you’re raising your children, people always pipe in and be like, “Oh, don’t forget to appreciate your children. It goes by so quickly.” Yeah, and you’re like, Well, sometimes you don’t appreciate it. And sometimes it’s just not positivity. Like, how do you deal with those kinds of emotions and deal with those kinds of thoughts? Because it’s hard. It’s not always baskets and random rainbows and unicorns, right? There are hard parts to parenting, especially if you’re parenting and trying to run a business and be an entrepreneur because other people depend on you for your business as well.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah. That’s one of the things that I talk a lot about. I’ve recently released an episode on my podcast saying, “I don’t enjoy being a mom sometimes.” And I got so much positive feedback of moms saying, “I know exactly what you’re saying.” Whereas the others, there was some backlash of moms saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is crazy. Like, you have to be grateful.” And as a follow up to what you just said, there are certain moments that are going to be harder for you to be grateful. And even when I look back, I don’t do a lot of this now that my kids are not babies anymore. And even like, going through pictures of them being little and thinking, “I was so overwhelmed, I was so exhausted, I wish I had cherished more. I wish I had taken more pictures.” And now I’m understanding what I did is in the past, but I can use this moment right now to cherish those moments and be grateful for those moments right now. It doesn’t mean that I was always so hard on myself. Like, I didn’t do my best, then I’m not doing my best. Now that creates a terrible future. So you have to use, you know, “right now”–to be grateful for what you have right now but also for the past, even if you feel like you didn’t do that great of a job. It is understanding that you did what you could with what you had. And today is an opportunity to change that. If you take on new skills and learn new things, but you can’t just, you know, live in this regret and resentment for yourself. Just give yourself some slack and give yourself some credit because every parent is doing the best they can.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, I know how that goes.

 

And I know one of the things that I’ve always tried to keep in mind is “one day at a time” kind of thing. And whenever I failed my children, something like that. I always try to apologize to them if it’s necessary. I can be a better person today, right? It’s today that counts. I can’t change what I did yesterday. I can change the actions I take now and so many ways, that you can use the past as something to hold you back. Or you can use it as a motivation to get a little bit better every day.

 

Marta Spirk

100%

 

Richard Matthews

The other side of superpowers is your fatal flaw. Every every superhero has a fatal flaw. Superman’s got his Kryptonite. Myself. I personally happened to be an over-attentive perfectionist.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah, I love that.

 

Richard Matthews

I let that get in the way of getting stuff done. And I will constantly–and I still struggle with this–try to make everything perfect before I’ll do anything. Then I never get anything done. Do you have anything like that? Something that you’ve had to work through and your business.

 

Marta Spirk

So to me, I feel like I’m at the exact opposite, which is so funny because everyone around me is a perfectionist. Like, literally. And that’s one thing that I talk a lot about. I don’t know if you have ever taken the Enneagram Test. Have you heard of that?

 

Richard Matthews

I haven’t.

 

Marta Spirk

I that’s one of the things that I talk so much about. You have to get to know yourself. You have to learn who you are and your identity and personality. People ask me, “How do I start?” I say take the Enneagram Test because it’ll tell you so much about you. You’re going to be mind-blown. It’s funny because my personality is the overachiever. I just want to do stuff. So, on the total opposite side of the perfectionist that needs to have everything in place to even do stuff. I just do stuff. I do too many things like, “ready, aim, fire!” I’m just like, squirrel brain. 100%. I have a million ideas going through my head. And I have absolutely no problem executing every single one of them. But I do have a problem in finishing them and sticking with something and staying organized–staying on top of things. That’s definitely what’s been hard for me. Being a triplet mom has challenged me on that front and helped me because I have to be organized. I have to be on time and it takes a lot of planning and the planning is not my forte.

 

Richard Matthews

What have you been doing to help combat that flaw so that you can improve on your business and your life?

 

Marta Spirk

One huge thing is creating a routine and creating deadlines for myself. Bringing people on my team has helped me a lot because when you start a business, that’s a scary move to make. To hire somebody to help you–because you don’t necessarily are making a lot of money–how are you going to afford to pay somebody? That has been huge for me because it has helped me keep myself accountable. While I don’t have a boss telling me what to do. If I have somebody else asking me for stuff and giving me certain deadlines, that has helped me as well. So routine and finding ways of keeping yourself accountable have been huge.

 

Richard Matthews

You know,  what’s interesting is the same couple of things have helped me combat perfection on the other side, which is having deadlines. So I’m like, “I know I have to get this done by this time. So I have to–it can’t be perfect. I just have to get up. Bringing team members on means they’re depending on me to get some things done so they can do their work. It’s interesting that having other people depending on you, for your team, and having deadlines and stuff helps with both sides of that.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah, that’s great. That’s great to know.

 

Richard Matthews

So I feel like we discussed your driving force in your mission quite a bit. It’s to help moms understand who they are. So I’m going to skip over that question because we’ve tied it into everything we’ve been talking about so far. I want to go into some more tactical stuff and talk about your heroes tool belt. Maybe you had a big magical hammer, like Thor; or a bulletproof vest, like your neighborhood police officer; or maybe you just really love how Evernote helps you organize your thoughts, or maybe you build slides in Keynote–something like that. What are some of your favorite tools that you use to make your online business and your coaching business thrive?

 

Marta Spirk

So this is something recent that I have been working on that I thought for the longest time I didn’t need, which was creating a brand for my business, “Mom Does It All” creating a logo for it, looking into my colors, understanding what is the vision that I want to…

 

Marta Spirk

…spread into the world exactly. And I thought that I didn’t really need that because I am so action-oriented. It’s because so many times you feel I have to have a website, I have to have this to be legit–to even talk about my business. For me, I went the other way. I don’t need any of that stuff. I’m just going to start. So for the longest time, I felt like that would be a waste of time but I’ve been doing this for over two years. Then I came across a course that if you develop this stuff yourself instead of paying $5,000 to a designer to do that for you, which I don’t think is bad. I know, there are lots of amazing professionals out there. But depending on where you are in your business, that’s not something that you necessarily want to invest in. And so, this is something that was a lot more affordable. And the whole proposition is, you’re going to be looking at this for a long time. I mean, it’s your business. You have to like what you see. So you get to pick the colors, you get to pick the fonts with a professional, guiding you through and show you different tools online to help you with that; and showing you how to search for stuff on Pinterest and all that. So that has been huge for me because it’s something that I didn’t think I need. And now that I have, it’s given me so much more confidence to post stuff online because I am creating something cohesive on the brand.

 

Richard Matthews

That has probably given you some clarity too.

 

Marta Spirk

Yes, yes! Totally. That has helped me a lot. And another thing that I like so much, I don’t know if you could necessarily call it a tool, but I really love podcasting. That has been one of the best moves in my business, seriously, because I’m such a talker. I didn’t feel like adding captions to my posts or going live once in a while was doing my message enough justice. Being able to interview other people that are doing similar things, and putting my thoughts out there has been so therapeutic for me and it’s been helping other people. So it’s a win-win on so many levels.

 

Richard Matthews

I want to comment on both of those things. First off is the branding stuff. I like that it’s not a tangible thing you could use like software. It’s an intangible thing.

 

But it’s a tool in your business. It’s a lever that you can pull.

 

Marta Spirk

Yes.

 

Richard Matthews

…makes your brand–makes your business–more powerful, and stand out more, and connect with people more.

 

Marta Spirk

Yes.

 

Richard Matthews

So it’s interesting that you can consider that a tool in your business. Because I think a lot of people don’t consider branding as a tool. They consider branding as a baseline thing. They either ignore it, or they have it but they don’t ever put thought into like, “How is branding a tool for my business?” I like that approach to thinking of branding as a tool. “It’s gonna help me move my business and they give me clarity, it’s going to give me confidence, it’s going to give people something to connect with.” So I really like that thought from the branding standpoint–that branding is a tool. It’s something that I’ve struggled with in my business to where it’s just like nailing what my brand is and what it looks like. I think I’m getting closer to it every day. And it’s not something that is not set in stone. It grows with you just like your children, almost.

 

Marta Spirk

Right. Exactly. Your branding is a process.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, always changing doing things. So I really like that. And then the other one–podcasting. It’s such a cool, cool tool. And it’s one of those like I just read recently, podcasting is, I believe, last year surpassed radio for consumption in the American public.

 

Marta Spirk

I wouldn’t be surprised

 

Richard Matthews

Which is huge.

 

Marta Spirk

It is. Yeah!

 

Richard Matthews

And it’s on a major growth trajectory. And I got a lot of clients that we help set up and build their podcasts and build some of those things. I had a client who was doing podcasting, YouTube show, and Facebook live shows, he was doing all those things. And we were tracking where business was coming from. And he had, I think, 20,000 YouTube followers and several thousand on Facebook. And I think his podcast had about 1000 listeners. It’s his thousand podcast listeners that produced more revenue in his business than every other marketing channel we had combined.

 

And it was an order of magnitude smaller. I’ve been trying to figure out for the life of me why that is. And here’s my theory, maybe you can see if you agree or not. My theory is that when you’re podcasting, a lot of people are going to listen to your podcast in audio form, right? Which means they’ve got their headset on, they’re at the gym, they’re driving in their car, and you’re literally in their head.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews

When you put your headphones in, you hear the voice right in the center of your head. It’s a very intimate type of communication.

 

Marta Spirk

It is.

 

Richard Matthews

And you’re in their head when they’re doing other things: when they’re cooking, driving or working out. And I think it creates a level of trust that a lot of the other platforms can’t do.

 

Marta Spirk

Yes.

 

Richard Matthews

Just because of the type of content that it creates. So what do you think of that?

 

Marta Spirk

No, I totally agree. And I feel like just what you described. It’s so much more intimate because it’s just a voice in your head. And it’s so much more convenient because you don’t have to stop what you’re doing to watch. It’s just going in there. It’s almost like when you listen to Audible, right? For a book. It’s so much more convenient. You don’t have to sit and pay attention and read. It’s not to say that you’re not paying 100% attention because you’re doing other stuff, but it’s a lot more convenient. So I wouldn’t be surprised that, just like what you said statistically, something that attracts people a lot more than having to sit down and watch videos. I mean, even me, when I watch videos online, I can’t watch any video if I’m not speeding it up. Because it’s like, all right, I can’t sit there. Do you know what I mean? And even sometimes the podcast, I can’t just listen to the thing at a normal speed. Because we don’t have time. That’s one of the things people don’t have…time for anything.

 

Richard Matthews

We have things to do.

 

Marta Spirk

Yes. And that really helps. I feel that it’s one of the reasons why I love the podcast so much too, is that it’s so much more practical for the person doing it. Because you don’t have to look a certain way. You just have to be somewhere quiet. And then you can start, you know, recording it and nobody needs to see what you’re looking like. It’s a lot easier to add it. So it’s very convenient in so many ways. And it’s a great tool. I love it.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah. See, I’m just making more work for myself by recording it. So I have a video and audio version of the podcast.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah, yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  28:03

But it works. I’m the same way. I had someone, one of my contacts the other day reached out. They were like, “Hey, how do you feel about a live broadcast?” I was like, “I can’t watch live broadcasts, because they’re in real time. And real-time means I have to stop other things that I’m doing. And I have to watch it that way.” Whereas in podcasts, you can speed up, right? So you can listen to it one and a half or 1.75 or two times their normal speed. So it takes less time during your day. You can still consume the content and you can do other things while you’re doing that, right. You can listen to them on your drive to the grocery store and other things. So like you can, you can multitask and still improve yourself with other people’s knowledge and information. So anyway, I love about podcasting as a tool as well. Hopefully, if any of our audience is listening to that they should look into doing a podcast for your business. It’s a great way to do that.

 

Marta Spirk

It really is.

 

Richard Matthews  28:58

Okay, so next question is your own personal heroes. Frodo has Gandalf. Luke has Obi-Wan Kenobi. Robert Kiyosaki had his rich dad. Who were some of your heroes? Were they real-life mentors? Were they speakers or authors? Were they peers who were just a few years ahead of you? And how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far, in your business?

 

Marta Spirk

So I feel like the mentors that I’ve had have closely helped me a lot into growing. I feel like they are heroes in a certain way. Of course, there are people that I haven’t met that I’ve just been following. So one of my very first mentors directly was Angie Lee, I don’t know if you’re familiar, she has a podcast, and she works a lot with marketing and helping women–female coaches–market themselves online. Like, that’s her huge thing. Now she has her own CBD line and launching different products and everything like that. And she really was the reason why I started a podcast. I had never been a big podcast listener. When she had a course inside the mastermind that you could take that was for starting your show, and like ABCs, you know, the hosting site, and how do you create your cover and all of that. And I was like, “Oh, I’m not even going to look into that, because I’m not going to get to do a show.” And I was like, “Hold on a second. I really love talking. Maybe this could be a thing that could attract people to me and help me grow, help me figure out what I want to do with my business.” And that’s exactly what it did. So I’m really, really grateful for her. And then other mentors that I’ve had that I claimed as my mentors. I have Brendon Burchard. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, I’ve heard of him.

 

Marta Spirk

He’s huge. And his book, “High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way” was actually what got me into this new different direction for my business into figuring out what my passions are. What do I really love? I want to stand out. The message that I have now all started because I started reading his book. And he talks a lot about finding joy in into what you’re doing. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, something needs to change and using joy as a compass. He’s been huge for me in his book, his podcast, all of that. And somebody else who was not a mom, but I love her stuff. Her name is Kathrin Zenkina and she’s The Manifestation Babe. So she talks about the law of attraction and I just love her. She’s so real.

 

Marta Spirk

I’ve claimed her so these are the people that I swear by. If you are needing guidance, if you’re needing motivation you can tune into any of them and all of them have podcasts.

 

Richard Matthews

We’ll make sure we put those in the show notes for people if they want to add some more podcasts to their repertoire.

 

Awesome. So last part here. Let’s bring it home for our listeners. It’s your guiding principles. It’s what are the top two principles or actions that you use regularly today that contribute to your success and the influence that you enjoy in your business. The one that you wish you had known when you first started your hero’s journey several years ago.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah, so first and foremost is gratitude. Which I know has become played out today because it’s all about, “#grateful, #thankful, #blessed, whatever.” But it’s a basic, simple principle that you can’t really ignore. The more you appreciate the things you have now, the more of that you attract into your life. That’s just basics. And because you create your thoughts and your emotions, when you think of something positive, that’s what you’re bringing into the forefront of your mind.

 

Richard Matthews

And that’s what you’re manifesting.

 

Marta Spirk

Essentially! And that’s why I love all things, manifestation, all of that because it’s so true. But another thing that I added

 

Marta Spirk

That has been huge for me when you think great gratitude you’re usually not in the list. You usually think family, grateful for friends, grateful for things that you have, but you don’t add yourself in there. A practice that I’ve added and that I have encouraged my clients and everyone listening to me to add is to do a brag book. So what are the things that you’re proud of accomplishing? So that’s all you, right? It’s nobody else. So it could be small things or big things. So maybe you-you got a degree, that’s huge, be proud of yourself. It took years, you had to study, you had to take tests, you had to pay for it, or it could be something small, I did laundry yesterday. And it has been a hectic week, I wasn’t able to do it. Really acknowledging how amazing you are.

 

Richard Matthews

Got it all done, right? You got it folded and put away, right? Got it all done in one shot.

 

Marta Spirk

Exactly. It’s something to be proud of because it’s especially something you struggle with.

 

Richard Matthews

If you’re not a parent, you don’t have any idea how big of a luxury it is.

 

Marta Spirk

It is!


 

Richard Matthews

That’s like a big deal. So that’s actually really cool. I’ve never heard anyone talk about that before. It’s something that I’ve discussed a lot with my clients–I call that one the imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is this idea that you don’t feel confident in your skills and abilities. So you second guess yourself, you don’t ask what you’re worth, you don’t actually go out and take the actions you want to take because you’re suffering from imposter syndrome. Now, imposter syndrome can actually be legit. You could actually be trying to do something you don’t have the skills or qualifications for. But if you do, then you shouldn’t suffer from imposter syndrome. I talked about the same thing. It was what you need to do to overcome an imposter syndrome. If you actually have the skills and results, then look back to the things that you’ve accomplished and reminded yourself of those things. Look at the things that you’ve done and the results that you’ve gotten for people. Whenever I get testimonials from people online when they comment positively on something that I posted in social media or they leave me a nice review or they send me an email that says, “Hey, I really enjoyed our call today.” or anything like that. I take screenshots of them. And I have a book about it. I have a set of like–here’s all the things that I’ve done, and it’s not really for anyone else. Maybe eventually, I’ll take some of the testimonials and put them on my website. But it’s just for me. When I’m having a bad day or I feel like I’m suffering from Imposter Syndrome, I can pull them up and read through them all. You’ll feel so much better. And it’s the same kind of thing, right? I like that idea a lot.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah, I think that’s great. I know. And that’s something. It’s reminding yourself of how great you are through other people’s words. That’s even more effective. Well, I feel like both are good because like I said before that moms wait so much for people’s validation. We all love compliments, but also coming from a place of, “What have I done that I am proud of?” Not expecting somebody else but you come up with the things yourself? Yeah, that’s great to build confidence.

 

Richard Matthews

Some of those are just going to be internal things, right? Like, if you’re working on something like, go back to the parenting stuff that we’ve been talking a lot about. Sometimes, you know, children can be very irritating and you have a short fuse. I realize that I do sometimes. And you’d be like, “Hey, I didn’t have my short fuse today with my child. It’s not something that someone else is going to know. And I’m going to help them out beyond that.

 

Marta Spirk

Right. Exactly.

 

Richard Matthews

I was able to manage myself a little better. So, you definitely need to have some of that internal dialogue. Here are the little things that I’m working in my life. Maybe it’s like, when you finish your, you’ve got the dishes put away. It’s something you’ve been working on–tiny little things that you’re improving in your life. I think people don’t realize how powerful just little changes can be, over time. And what that does to who you are, right?

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews

It brings me to a whole new level. So anyway, I really like that idea. The brag book.

 

Richard Matthews  37:34

Cool. So last part of the show is what I call The Hero Challenge. And the challenge is really simple. Do you have someone in your network that you think has an interesting Hero’s Journey and interesting Hero’s Story that we should talk about on this show? That you might be able to introduce to the show, and we can challenge them to come and share their story?

 

Marta Spirk  38:00

Yes, I actually have. She’s a business coach, somebody that I’ve connected with recently. We have a lot in common. It’s like one of those crazy things when you meet someone, and you’re doing the same things. We think the same way. She is the same type on the Enneagram Test. So it’s like, we have so much in common. She’s recently gone through a divorce. She has a one-year-old boy and she is a hero in my eyes because I understand where she’s coming from. Because we’re so similar. And she’s just really doing what she loves. Figuring out what she loves, regardless of what people think, which is a huge part of my message. Not caring so much about what others think, especially as women we tend to rely on other people’s opinions a lot. And her name is  Kelsey. And I don’t know if she’s changing her last name or not. But I can give you her information. She’s from Canada and she’s doing amazing work, helping moms build their business. And it’s just been great connecting with her.

 

Richard Matthews

Awesome. I’ll reach out to you after the show. We’ll get connected for having Kelsey come on. Because that’s part of our plan for growth. The HERO Show is finding more and more hero stories so we can lift them up. And I think, personally, The reason I build this show and do this is that I hold very strongly the belief that entrepreneurs are the people who hold up our world–who make our world a better place.

 

Marta Spirk

Totally.

 

Richard Matthews

And yeah, so the more people we can get on and share their stories with the world, the more I think we can encourage entrepreneurship. And for me, like I want to encourage my children to become entrepreneurs in the future. And I think, you know, getting on and just making sure that my kids have heroes they can look up to, and that’s not always celebrities and musicians and stuff like that. It’s some of the people who are actually doing really good work out in the world.

 

Marta Spirk

Yeah, it’s great. I love your show.

 

Richard Matthews

Thank you. So last bit is thanks for being on the show. Obviously, thank you for coming out and spending some time with us. And where can people find you? If they want to check out your coaching programs or check out your podcast where should they go? What should they look for?

 

Marta Spirk

So the name of my businesses, Mom Does It All. You can find that across the board on Instagram: Mom Does It All. I have an account for the podcast too: Mom Does It All. So you can find the podcast as well: Mom Does It All. And I have my website it’s martaspirk.coach, you can find me on Facebook as Marta Spirk, and I do have a community for women. It’s called Mom Does It All Community. So anyone can join and take advantage of sharing your business in there and connecting with other moms. It’s great.

 

Richard Matthews

Awesome. So I’m going to spell your name for people to so they can find you. It’s M A R T A S P I R K. martaspirk.coach is where you can find her website. She’s got some cool stuff on there. I spent some time this morning looking around at it. Anyway, thank you so much for being on the show today, Marta and I look forward to connecting with you again in the future.

 

Marta Spirk

Yes, you too. Thanks so much, Richard.