Live Life Rich

Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast, Special edition. Now, it’s not just special edition because it’s coming out on a different day. It’s not even just special edition because I’m sitting in a recliner like a chair a la Z Boy, I may take a nap during this. It’s actually special edition because I am bringing to you today a concept, an idea, a thought that will radically change you. It’ll change your leadership, it’ll change your money, it’ll change your wealth. And I’m super excited about it because here at Maxwell Leadership, we started a publishing company several years ago. In fact, with me today, I’ve got Jared Cagle. Jared is our vice president of content, Vice president of publishing.

Mark Cole:
Get to see a lot of content. And today we’re going to talk about a piece of content you’ve been working on with our guest and, and we’re going to share it with you because that’s what we do here. We add value to you so you will multiply value to others. So I’ve just got to go ahead and tell you on the front end, this is a podcast about you, about adding value to you, but also about challenging you to think about your money differently. And here to do that is author. She is also. Marissa Nielsen is not only an author, but she is a faculty member of Maxwell Leadership Certified Team. She is a speaker around the world.

Mark Cole:
Marissa is not only all of that to me as a friend and as a co leader, but Marissa runs an eight figure financial services firm that literally has $1 billion under management. And now as she has written her book, Live Life Rich, she is now an author. And Marissa, I am so glad you’re here. There’s so many reasons and so many things to celebrate, but today is about you and a book that you have written. Welcome.

Marissa Nielsen:
Well, thanks for having me today. And today is actually about every listener that came to this room today, because at the end of the day, here’s what we want to do. We want to add value to you. We want to get you thinking on a different level. And really why I’m here and why I wrote the book is to do exactly that, to help you live life rich in all areas. And I want to talk a little bit more about that as this podcast goes on. So thanks for having me. Appreciate you both coming to work today.

Mark Cole:
Thank you. And Jared, you’re getting to just see a lot of manuscripts these days. And here you are seeing yet another one, our imprints on it. Gang. Look at this. Maxwell Leadership right there. That’s Right. This is the book.

Mark Cole:
This is the book. Not that’s my notes. This is the book that we’re talking about. In fact, some of you are so bottom line leaders, you’re like, tell me what to do, Mark, because I already know I want the book. LiveLifeRichBook.com is where you go. But don’t miss the podcast to do it. Do it at the same time.

Mark Cole:
Those of you that multitask. But, Jared, you excited about this book?

Jared Cagle:
I’m thrilled about this book. One of the things that we’ve worked with Marissa for a number of years now, but you’ll learn very quickly. She has a passion for adding value to people, but she’s also very contagious about that. She oozes our values and the way that we operate. And so it’s not just an author we’re working with today. It’s truly one of us and someone that we believe is a part of our family to see the world transformed. We do get to read a lot of manuscripts, which is a great honor, Mark, that people would trust us in this way. Marissa is certainly one of our very favorite, and we’re excited to build with you.

Jared Cagle:
So today’s thrilling for me to be a part of this.

Mark Cole:
Yeah. So I’m going to jump right in, Marissa, because. And I’m not jumping in with chapter two, but I got to go ahead and talk about chapter two because it’s one of my favorite chapters. This idea of repairing or preparing and talking about putting that into a freedom plan. And you’re big on freedom. You’re big on that concept. We’ll hear that multiple times throughout today. I love that chapter, gang.

Mark Cole:
Chapter two is worth the price of the book, I promise you. What I do want to do, though, Marissa, kind of to start our time together, you open the book with a line. You are more than enough and never too much. Why did you start with that statement in a book about money and entrepreneurship? What’s the point of starting that way? And then what does that mean to you? That sentence?

Marissa Nielsen:
Yeah. You know, I grew up really poor, and I would walk into rooms, and sometimes I would feel like I was not enough. And I would look at the kids that came to school with actual gas in their car, and I would. I grew up. I grew up single mom, eight kids, trailer cartoon. And what I learned during that time is, is we don’t always look like who we are or where we come from. And that. That for you are.

Marissa Nielsen:
You are. I am. I have learned to do the IMs for this is part of my, this is part of my daily, this is part of my daily do the I ams. I am always enough because of how I’m created and who created me, how I’m created and who, who, who, who created me. So I unapologetically tell it, tell people, just take a, take a breath, take a pill. I’m not here to convert you, but I am a person of faith. So I live out of that space of saying I’m always enough. Whatever room I walk into, I was supposed to be in that room.

Marissa Nielsen:
And I’m never too much because I was created for that moment to serve them to whatever amount they needed. And that’ll flow through me to the people that are in that room that I’m there to serve. Right. I believe every day I wake up above ground, I get an opportunity to make a difference in the world, be a territory taker, take back the night, grab my water pistols, charge hell and go help people, actually serve people, actually do something that’s practical and tactical, that will move the needle in their world. And so I wrote the book and I started there from that space of a quote that I had heard from Eleanor Roosevelt many years ago when I was living in the trailer court two doors down from my mother as an 18 year old girl, I was pregnant with my first baby and I had made some mistakes then and didn’t start life in the best circumstances. And sometimes we don’t always start from the best place. Right. And I heard this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that said, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Marissa Nielsen:
And so I decided, I decided I was just shy of 19 years old. I would never again, as a child of the king, walk into a room and be inferior.

Mark Cole:
Wow. You know, I’m sitting here just as a quick follow up, I’m going back. Just 24 hours ago, just 24 hours ago, you and I are on a call called the Financial Wisdom Call with John Maxwell. And this, this incredible woman came on here and she had within the year, lost her husband. She was working through a significant financial challenge and boy, you just spouted off this information. I mean, Marissa, you have so much life in you and you just spout it off. And after you gave her the details and she’s furiously writing notes, you just stopped everything, slowed your pace and just spoke to the human on the other side of that zoom camera and shared with her in such a way that you literally wrapped your arms around her. In some parts of this book.

Mark Cole:
I don’t know if it’s just me, Marissa. But in some parts of this book, I feel like you do the exact same thing. I can tell there is a substantive story behind your illustrations and your principles. You’ve done that really well with the book. For this to be your first book and for you to get the human feeling element of it, I just got to tell you, you did a great job. I’m sure that was intentional.

Marissa Nielsen:
Thank you. You know, I think you can’t really connect until you’re authentic. And I believe really strongly in speaking with authority over the things you’ve overcome and putting your hand out and saying, come with me if you’re there. Now, I’ve been there, done that. Let’s go together. Let’s go together. And so, you know, the leadership side of where I’m at, which is. Which is.

Marissa Nielsen:
Encompasses kind of everything I’ve been part of. You know, you talk about being part of the Maxwell family. I feel like I’ve been part of the Maxwell family for, you know, 29 years. Right. I’ve been reading. It’s ingrained in me. I’ve been reading and living out these principles. They have made me who I am.

Marissa Nielsen:
And when I think about those leadership principles, what I wanted to do in this book is give people really what John Maxwell gave me, which was practical, tactical things that I could apply. One of my favorite books in the whole wide world is Today Matters. Love, love, love that book. If you do not book, please go buy that book. Please go buy that book, because I promise you, if you read that book and you apply that book and you do it every year, your life will change and it will be better. And that’s what I wanted for this book, is I wanted to tell part of the story of just so you, you know, it wasn’t just some money woman talking about, hey, these are some practical, tactical things that you could do with your freedom plan and get your. Get your finances in order and, you know, become an entrepreneur that can change the world. Because entrepreneurs, we solve problems.

Marissa Nielsen:
We take territory. We solve problems in our communities. We solve problems in the world around us, because the things that flow to us flow through us and make a difference in the world. When you think like we think, which is, we can do better, right? We can do better than yesterday, we can do better tomorrow, right? So when I think about that woman that you are sharing with, I’ve been there. I’ve held my fiance in my arms as he took his last breath. And so I know what it feels like to lay in bed and just wish you could turn back the clock. And get one more minute with them. Not even a day.

Marissa Nielsen:
I would have said, can I just have one more minute? Right. Just one more hour, please? And I wanted people to understand. I come from where real people come from. We all have challenges. And in spite of those challenges, we can live with joy, we can live with peace, we can live with love. We can lead our lives in a way where we can make a difference in the world. And if we can master this area of money and wealth building. Wealth building was never taught to me.

Marissa Nielsen:
If we can master this area of wealth building and we can harness that tool. It’s just a tool. It’s nothing to worship. It’s just a tool. We can harness that we can do more, better work in the world. We can solve problems, and we can end suffering. And I’m on a mission to end poverty. Emotional poverty, relational poverty, spiritual poverty, physical poverty, financial poverty.

Marissa Nielsen:
I’m on a mission. Like, I’m getting up every day and every day. Every day I look at that and I go, how do we help people live life rich? And I actually named it Live life rich to. To kind of poke the bear a little bit, because people say, well, why would you pick that? Why would you pick rich? It’s kind of like a bad word, right? And I said, well, I said, it’s a word that I think will grab your attention from the standpoint. Are you living in poverty with your mindset? Are you living with a rich poverty with a wealth, poverty with an abundance? You know, abundance versus poverty. Right. Like, where are you at? Where’s your mindset in those things? But then apply it to the practical, tactical, what do I know? What do I need to learn? And then what do I need to do with it? So that’s where it comes from.

Jared Cagle:
Oh, it’s beautiful. And one of the things that I’ve always loved and respected about you is how clear your mission and vision is. I’ve heard you sort of say this phrase a lot. It’s in the book. When the vision is clear, the decisions are easy.

Marissa Nielsen:
Yes.

Jared Cagle:
Speak to the leader out there that’s listening to us today and just the importance of clarifying that vision and why you wrote this book to help them do that.

Marissa Nielsen:
Yeah. It’s either here’s the bottom line for all of us leaders that are here, and it’s all of us in the room. It’s all of us. It’s either a distraction for your day or a direction for your day. And we must set that in our day. But if we don’t know where we’re going if we don’t know what kind of the end game looks like. There was a quote by Stephen Covey many years ago that said, begin with the end in mind. And so I’m thinking about what, what the end in mind looks like.

Marissa Nielsen:
If you go to the last chapter of this book, this is what I wish for you more than anything else. That’s what I wish for you is the last chapter of the book. And so when I think about when the decisions are, if the decisions are if your vision is set in place. You know, I have a visual impairment, an eyesight disorder, but my vision is really clear. I am really clear about what is set before me and what is for me on this planet to do. And every day I get up and do that thing to go solve that problem. And so when I think about you as a leader, the question I’d ask you is, how come you’re here? Has your purpose and your values and your vision become aligned? Because when your purpose, values and vision align, now you have a mission. Now the people start showing up.

Marissa Nielsen:
Now. They start. Now you get into the communities where people are alive and they’re moving. Now you’re going to be a territory taker. And maybe you need to take the territory just today for your family. Maybe you need to get out of debt. Like, maybe you need to be working through some of those things to help. Help.

Marissa Nielsen:
Help solve that problem in your family. Maybe you need to change a generational poverty mindset in your family. Maybe, maybe your business is the answer to someone’s prayer for a job today that will feed their family, help them pay their mortgage, help them sleep at night, help them pay for the health insurance that helps their husband or wife or kid through cancer today. Like, that’s what entrepreneurs do. See, we’re unicorns. We get up and we think every day. We are unicorns in that we have a belief system for me, for people like me, we’re hope dealers. We want to help other people evolve.

Marissa Nielsen:
That’s a clear vision in my mind. Now, how do you do that is with practical, tactical steps to carry that out daily. But your vision is the very first step of where you need to start. Why am I here? Who can I help? Who do I serve? Why was I put on this planet? And what gifts or talents? Because everybody has one. If you’re listening to this, I promise you, you have at least one. Some of you got 10. And I just go, she got 10. Good for you.

Marissa Nielsen:
Like, how’d you get 10? I want to talk to him. About that one day, right? I want 10, but you got at least one. So when you figure out that thing that sets your soul on fire and you go, you know what, who can I serve today? What problem can I solve in the world? What value can I bring to the marketplace? I promise you, I promise you, at the end of that conversation, you are the answer to someone’s prayer. You will solve a problem when you do that.

Mark Cole:
You talked there just in answering that question to Jared, you touched on a concept you have in the book, direction or distraction. And in the book you talk specifically about how, when you’re looking for opportunities, how do you deal with direction and distraction? How do you keep these young entrepreneurs, these people that see a squirrel and they want to change direction immediately, how do you keep them focused?

Marissa Nielsen:
Well, my mentor John Maxwell, almost 30 years ago spoken to me, consistency is the key. What will you be consistent at? And so the focus part of that focus conversation is there’s so many shiny things that are out there and we want to do the get rich quick thing. We want to be the next one that invests in that thing that overnight becomes the 13 year old that’s playing video games and making millions of dollars on YouTube right now. Like, and those are, those are, those are shiny thing unicorns. So ask, asking and answering that question about in your day, what are some of the things that are distracting you from your mission? So I look at a, I’ll take it through a decision process. Can we do more together than I can do without you? Now that’s a really important question because I only ever partner up and I only ever partner up for impact because I have money. So why would I partner up? I can just buy it, right? I have some resources after, after a long, long time of working really hard, right? Blessings have come and, and I’ve got some resources. So it’s, it’s not the money thing at this season, it’s the impact thing.

Marissa Nielsen:
For me, it’s the impact and everything I’m doing on a day to day basis, who we solving problems for? How are we solving those problems? Are they in alignment with the problems we solve? And so when you talk to a young leader today and they’re chasing shiny things, right, I would ask them to sit down and really focus. When you ask that question about your vision being clear, you are best suited to help the person you once were or the problem that makes you cry or ticks you off in the world, you are most suited for that. So stay in alignment with that thing. Now you can branch out over time and, you know, create different divisions and do some of those things. But the core component of who you are, the question is this, are you really clear on the vision of why you’re here and who you will help and what impact that will bring? Because I promise you, I’ve worked with really, really, really wealthy people. You know, I’ve got 100 million dollar 500 million dollar estates that I work with every day. And I had some of the unhappiest people because they got to this point and they said, well, I made a lot of money, but I traded my life for something that had no value. So here’s the question I’d ask you tomorrow, if you woke up tomorrow.

Marissa Nielsen:
I give you an opportunity to take out your journal today. And you take out your pen and your paper and you say, I’m going to write down all the things that are really important to me. And kind of like, if you’ve ever. I’m a marvel nerd. I’m a big marvel nerd. Like, I’m a massive marvel nerd. So end game. There’s this guy, his name is Thanos.

Marissa Nielsen:
He snaps his fingers and half the planet’s gone, right? If everything that was not on that list that you wrote down today, that you were grateful for, that was valuable to you was gone, how would you feel? So I think about, we don’t leave. We don’t leave valuable things unattended. If you’ve ever been to a beach in Mexico, you don’t leave your wedding ring, your passport, all your cash just sitting on the beach in open air, well, you go hang out for the day, right? You don’t leave important things unattended. This is the same for the young leader. These will become distractions to you instead of a direction if you don’t know exactly what the direction for the day is. So you make your plan, you work your plan, and you do it until. Until you see the results.

Jared Cagle:
I want you to go deeper for a moment, Marissa, especially the young leader, but all leaders. You mentioned $100 million, $500 million, estates that you’re working with all the way up the ladder. Money is controlling, if we let it. And you talk about this in the book, too. How do you advise, how do you coach leaders to not be controlled by money? And you have this thought in the book also about making money your best employee, which I really love that idea. Can you unpack that a little more for us and speak to that controlling aspect of money?

Marissa Nielsen:
Well, yeah, I mean, we see it all around us. Money is power. We see it in the news, we see it in social media. You know, we see when it has been wielded as a sword for what I’d call kind of evil things that can happen in the world. Now, I see money as a different level. I see it as a tool where the more I make, the more that flows to me can flow through me to the things in the world where I can solve a problem with it, right? I can give more to this organization, to this group. I can feed people. I can challenge people.

Marissa Nielsen:
I can equip people with those dollars. I can train people with those dollars. So when you’re starting out, you got to feed your family. When you’re starting out as a young leader, a young entrepreneur, you’re starting out and you’re saying, hey, I just need to pay my mortgage this month, Marissa, right? I just need to get out of my student loan debt. I need to send my kids to college. I have all these financial stressors. The thing is, I think the enemy of your soul uses those financial stressors as a distraction for you. When we begin to get the tools, the real practical tools on.

Marissa Nielsen:
You know, you just mentioned make money. Your best employee, for example, if you’re an employee in the room today and you’re saying, hey, income minus expenses equals a little bit of excess, that’s for every employee in the room. You work a W2 job, you go to work in corporate America and you say, hey, I want to be better in this area, but I want to give more, I want to serve more, I want to do something more past that, but I got to take care of my family first. So a portion of that goes to you and lifestyle, A portion of that goes to what you’re going to seed things into. See, I’m a farm kid from North Dakota, and I learned about you reap what you sow. So the question for the young leader is this. What seeds are you planting today? What tree will your kid or your grandkid or your great grandkid sit underneath because you planted that tree? That’s the same with your business. So if you’re the entrepreneur in the room today, revenue minus expenses equals profit.

Marissa Nielsen:
Where do you position your profit today to get that money to go to work for you? So there’s another section of the book where I talk about the eight streams of income. I love charitable organizations from the standpoint that I love to come alongside them and show them how to get acquitted in this area, because I don’t think we don’t. I don’t Think we always need to have donation dependent ministries. I think we can create generational wealth plans with those who think like we think to allow those dollars to continue to produce cash flow. And what happens in, in many foundations and organizations today, they spend every dollar down to the last drop, right? You know, they’re, they’re, they’re working out of empty instead of out of excess. That’s because they don’t have a money plan. So whether you’re a director of an organization today, whether you’re the director of your household, you’re running your own family business, which is your household W2 based employee, you’re running your own family business or you’re working as part of a business, as an entrepreneur, we must have a plan for where our money goes. Income minus expenses equals profit.

Marissa Nielsen:
Where will you position that profit? Practically tactically, right? Short term, expenses intermediate, long term. And then where are we gonna, where are we gonna get that to flow? So we’re planting seeds. See you, you won’t start planting those seeds at 70 if you didn’t start at 20. So hear me now. Hear me now. If you are in this room and you’re making $25,000 a year, you start with five bucks a week. If you’re in this room today and you’re making $50,000 a year, you start with 50 bucks a week, right? Wherever you’re at, you start. And you put that into a donation plan, you put that into a gift plan, you put that in.

Marissa Nielsen:
And I’m going to call it seeds. You take those seeds and you start planting those seeds. Because your something and my something and her something and his something, we pool all those things together and then there’s enough where we can go do something with it. Don’t wait until you have it. Do it now.

Jared Cagle:
Powerful.

Mark Cole:
So we’re talking to Marissa Nielsen. She wrote the book Live Life Rich. And that’s really a statement. And it’s three words. You pause on every one of them. You want to live. You want to have life, you want to be rich. And so you can go to LiveLifeRichBook.com you’ll be able to pick up that book.

Mark Cole:
Now at the end of this podcast, we’re going to talk a little bit about how you can pick up a couple of copies, multiple copies, and so we’ll talk more about that. But you make a bold statement, Marissa. I love this statement. I paused for a moment because I’m a preacher’s kid, remember? You said the world needs you, Rich. Love the statement. You unpack it in the book, but unpack it for us. Now, what do you mean by that? And then how do you navigate that statement with faith driven or purpose driven type leaders?

Marissa Nielsen:
Yeah. So I think for many years, I was sitting in places in the world where they had this thing. If you had given everything away, then you were noble, right? If you had just given it all to an organization or to a church or to a place. But there was a mindset behind some of the things as I sat and listened. And one of those was, what did those rich people do to get that? Like, they had to do something bad in order to get that amount of wealth. And then I began to, like, challenge that thinking and say, well, wait a minute. I know there’s some really good people in the world that are really making a difference. They’re showing up with places like Envoy of Hope or Equip or Samaritan’s Purse.

Marissa Nielsen:
They’re showing up in organizations. And I’m not promoting any one of those organizations. I’m just saying, like, all three of those have touched my life, right? They’re showing up there and they’re meeting a need. And then there are organizations like Equip, right? They’re showing up and they’re saying, hey, we’re gonna. We’re gonna do leadership in a different way. We’re gonna equip people so that these systemic issues can actually be met. Where people aren’t getting fed, where people aren’t getting clothed. It’s the different.

Marissa Nielsen:
It’s a. It’s a different model. It’s different ends of the spectrum, right? And so when I think about the community that has been raised on what I would call a poverty mindset. See, I know my father, and I know that my father has everything I need. Everything. Everything. And I know that part of that is we have not, because we ask not. We’re given some real clear instructions here.

Marissa Nielsen:
One, live a life worthy of the calling you’ve received. That’s a real clear instruction. Two, write the vision and make it clear. Where there is no vision, people perish. We got to do. That’s why I start with when the vision is clear, decisions are easy. Because when there is no vision, people perish. Right? So just real practically here, like, we were given some practice guides here.

Marissa Nielsen:
So when I’m. When I’m talking to communities that say, using this word, rich, I’m not talking about driving a Lamborghini. Cool if you do. Great. Good for you. I drive a 2018 Tahoe. I really like it. I really like my Tahoe.

Marissa Nielsen:
Right now, it’s not a fancy one, but it gets me to and from. And cars aren’t my thing. So, okay, everybody’s got their thing. What’s your thing? But what my thing is, is when I look at the mindset of being rich, it’s really about creating a flow for your life in five areas. Emotionally, when you look in the mirror, when you look in the mirror and you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? I see a work in progress. I see grace and grit and God working through me. I see what was broken and is now a solid masterpiece to go take territory. What do you see emotionally, relationally, when you walk in the door at night and you look at your spouse, your children, your dog or your neighbor? Right? What do they see when you look in their eyes? Do they look at you like the hero or the zero? When I come home at night, I’ve intentionally set my life that the world needs me, Rich.

Marissa Nielsen:
Where my little hazel bug and my little Luca, those are my grandchildren. We all live together in my big fat Greek wedding house. Here they come in, they hug. Grandma. Grandma was so glad to see you. Relationship rich. I am relationship rich. The people who love me and I know I love them, and they know it.

Marissa Nielsen:
You know I love you, and I don’t leave a room without thanking you and letting you know I’m grateful for you. The easiest way to do that is just to thank someone for coming to work today, because we don’t get thanked for that. And yet half of the world I live in doesn’t want to show up for work. So I’m like, hey, you showed up for work today. You get a fist pump. Well done. Spiritually, Rich, am I connected to something beyond me? What am I connected to? That’s not just for today. This is past, present, future.

Marissa Nielsen:
This is where are we going and what’s flowing through me to my family? What are my family values? What are the values? That’s a spiritual connection. When you connect to values in your family, what are your family values? What are your company values? What are your personal values? What are your friendship values? What are your relationship values that you have today? That’s a spiritual connection. These are all connected physically. You know, I struggled with this for many, many years, and I’m still a work in progress here, man. I love me a Dairy Queen like you cannot imagine. I love Dairy Queen, right? Just you send me a Dairy Queen gift card. I am your friend, right? Like, I just. Somebody knew me, right? But.

Marissa Nielsen:
But. But physically, I have to be better. I Have to get up. I have to take care of myself. I gotta, I gotta. I gotta do the muscle workout. I need to be strong. I need to be fit.

Marissa Nielsen:
I need to be ready. Because I cannot do the work with the stamina. I need to do the work in unless I’m physically there. I need to be working on this. And I’m not perfect. I’m a work in progress. But, baby, I’m taking territory. I’m taking territory here because I know I want to live.

Marissa Nielsen:
I want to. I want to. I want to go to where my Grandma went at 91. At 90, she’s still out baking pies for the community, seeing the old people, helping care for the sick old people. She’s 90 at that age. She’s doing it. What? Yeah. Can’t even see over the steering wheel, right.

Marissa Nielsen:
It’s crazy. And then financially, and this is an area, the last one, financially, is this. I believe it’s my obligation to be a good steward of every dollar that flows through me every hour I get on this planet with the skills and gifts I’ve been given to make it, keep it, multiply it, and pass it with purpose. That’s what financially rich looks like. Not only how do I make it, how do I keep it, how do I multiply it, and then how do I pass it with purpose? So that’s financially rich for me. That’s financially in a place where I say, those are the things I want to teach my team. Those are the things I want to teach my children. Those are the things I want to teach those around me.

Marissa Nielsen:
Those are the things I want to go take some territory out in the world and say, you know what, guys, we do not need to live live in lack. We don’t live in lack. We live knowing where it comes from. So come on, baby, flow through me. Because I will be a great steward of every dime you give me. Every dollar you give me is going to be positioned to do these things right. And you have to fill in your. Your blank.

Marissa Nielsen:
What are the things that you will be a good steward of? All a steward is. Is somebody who care takes for someone else. They care take those dollars for someone else. I am a caretaker for every asset, every dollar, every income stream, every relationship. I’m a steward across the board. And that’s what I wanted to encourage people to begin to think about. If this wasn’t yours and you were reporting back to somebody, how would you steward this? And one day, I believe I will. And I don’t want to get there and go, man, you messed that up.

Marissa Nielsen:
You had an opportunity. I gave you everything, and you messed that up. So time, energy, money, these are all connected. What we do with those five core areas, emotional, relational, spiritual, physical, and financial. They roll off my tongue because they are part of me. And that’s what we’re going to go take territory in with this book. We’re going to help people live life rich and live it in a way that’s so intentional. You cannot be ignored.

Marissa Nielsen:
You cannot be ignored.

Jared Cagle:
Let’s go, Mark. This is who we want to be, right? Rich in five areas. Emotionally, relationally, spiritually, physically, financially. I love that only one of those is about money. And I love that even the only one that’s about money is about giving that money away at the end of the day, how we can pass it with purpose. This is the type of leaders that we want to be and build. I love this. As we’re kind of coming to a close today.

Mark Cole:
Yeah. I’ve got so many more questions to ask you. Marissa and I will get to ask you because we’re teammates. We’re teamed up for how we’re going to look at financial focus in the Maxwell world. And so I’m very excited about that. What I will do is I want to close with one thing before I let you just say anything additional about the book first. I’ll say, when you gave me those five, I knew you were going to give me a bullet list because you and John Maxwell, what I love about your book, open the book, flip the book, and boom, there’s a graph. Flip the book.

Mark Cole:
That’s right, there’s a graph. What I love is how tangible you make principles in here. I’ve been around you now in the world of finance now with a book. This is the third expression. I’ve watched you speak, I’ve watched you consult, and now I’ve watched you write. And every one of them is tangible and they’re quantifiable and they’re actionable. This book is no different. And I’m telling you, yesterday you saved me tons of money just in opening my awareness about tax strategy and tax planning.

Mark Cole:
You’ve got a whole chapter in here about taxes. We don’t even have time to get there. So before I let you kind of sign off on the last thing you want to say about the book, the one big nugget that you want to make sure everybody knows how is your role as a Maxwell Certified Team member. You’ve come from team member in the mid-20s, teens to now you’re a faculty Member now, you’re going to be helping thousands of people with your financial principal concepts. How has the Maxwell Leadership certified team kind of played into your journey?

Marissa Nielsen:
Yeah, this is a long answer to this question, so I’m going to try to bullet point it here. I now have resources, true friends, family, in over 100 countries around the world. There’s no place I can’t go that I would want to go. And I could, couldn’t call it a Maxwell team member. What I’ve learned is in my. This will be my 23rd this year, will be my 23rd IMC. And, you know, people would kid me if they hadn’t been IMC before. And they’d say, you know, they’d be joking with me and they’d say, hey, did you not get it the first, you know, 22 times? And I said, what you don’t understand is every single time, when you show up with expectation, you will find an answer to a prayer.

Marissa Nielsen:
You’ve been praying. And so I show up with expectation, what do I need to know? What do I need to learn? And then what do I need to do? What do I need to get out of that room and go apply? And so every six months I’ve been refueling. But I would tell you when Maxwell really changed it for me was in 2016. My fiance had died of cancer in January. I was just heartbroken. You know, I was part of the team already for two years. It was, it was really good. I’d met some friends and they met me at the front door.

Marissa Nielsen:
They said, just come. Just come and be in the environment. This is March. This is March imc. I said, man, I can’t, I can’t come. I can’t come this year. They said, please come, your family, please come. And they met me at the door.

Marissa Nielsen:
And I will tell you, there was a solid 20 of them that, through that week were with me, texting me all the time. They were just saying, we’ll sit with you at lunch. We’re going to meet you here. How you doing? Can I bring you a cup of tea? They know I don’t drink coffee because the world wouldn’t be safe, right? But can I bring you a cup of tea? You know, can we just. Loved on me. They are GAP standards. The people in that room are world changing. Gap standers.

Marissa Nielsen:
They stand in the gap. We, we stand in the gap. And so when a teammate calls me and when I’ve been walking down that hall for 10 years, since that moment, I made myself a promise. I will, I will seek them out. I will listen and I will wait until I hear that prompting. Go talk to her. Go talk to him. I walk slowly through those halls.

Marissa Nielsen:
I learned that from John Maxwell. I learned that from the books. And Mark, you’ve said over and over again, everyone deserves to be led well. That’s not just you. That’s every one of us in the room. We deserve to lead well and lead those well. They deserve it from us. So when I walk in with that, with that seal of approval from this team that says you are one of us, I will represent in that way.

Marissa Nielsen:
I will walk through that hall. I will answer questions. I will lift them up, I will give them a hug. I will serve them as they served me in one of the most broken places I’ve ever been. And they loved me. And I will never miss another.

Mark Cole:
Yeah, just saying that just took me back memory lane 25 years ago when I came into this environment. Wasn’t the Maxwell Leadership Team then, but it was the exact same feel. Marissa, the other thing I love about this place is they pull things out of us we didn’t even know existed. Maxwell certified team will make you an author. And you didn’t even know you had a book in you. Here’s the exhibit A. Oh, Yeah.

Marissa Nielsen:
I started five companies since then. I started five additional multimillion dollar companies in the last 10 years that are all producing, all producing income. Right? So come on, come on, come on.

Mark Cole:
But today is about live life Rich. Go to the website LiveLifeRichBook.com there’s a, there’s a couple of suggestions there for you on how to not only get this book, but get this book for five people. Start a book club with this. Marissa’s hosting a book club. You’re to be able to get all of that at the website. You’ll get more information when you buy five books. You’ll get to be a part of her book club. And so I’m so excited about it.

Mark Cole:
I’m super appreciative of you getting this out. And again, I’ll tell you why, because as many places I’m going to put you on stages, as many people don’t get to talk to you, it’s not going to impact in the same way that this book does because it’s going to walk around the world in places you’ve never been. Pick up the book. It released three days ago. Guys, you’re behind already. Let somebody get their money before you. You want to find the book, you want to buy the book? Go to LiveLifeRichBook.com and you’ll be able to pick up yours. Marissa, I’m proud of you.

Mark Cole:
I’m glad to be standing with you. Way to go. You’re helping a lot of people.

Marissa Nielsen:
Thank you so, so much. Thank you both.

Transcript created by Castmagic.