Transcript
Luisa Hogan: What if the success you're chasing isn't really growth at all, but fear in disguise? Many leaders drive themselves into overdrive, convinced that they are growing when in reality they're anchored to fear and a fear of failing. Today we're going to uncover how to spot the difference and what it takes to move from proving yourself to truly becoming yourself.
Luisa Hogan: Welcome back to the Second Voice Podcast, where we uncover the conversations that leaders don't say out loud. I'm your host, Louisa Hogan, and today we're diving into the hidden anchor of fear in leadership and how it masquerades as achievement and how choosing real growth can change everything. And my lovely guest today is a wonderful, wonderful human being. And her name is Marielle. And she is a midlife reinvention and confidence coach and the founder of mindbreeze.ae. And she helps women in midlife rebuild their confidence, realign what matters to them and design a next chapter that they're excited to say yes to. And I don't want to delve into her story too much because I'd love for you to hear it directly from Marielle.
Luisa Hogan: But thank you so much, Marielle, for joining us today. It is such a pleasure to have you here. And I can't wait to have this discussion with you because you are a real joy to talk to.
Marielle Speetjens: Thank you so much, Lou. It's so nice to speak to you face to face because we met, we we know each other for some months and it's amazing now to be just with you here in your podcast.
Luisa Hogan: You're very welcome.
Marielle Speetjens: Thank you for inviting me.
Luisa Hogan: Thank you so much for joining me because I'm so interested to hear about your self-talk and your journey. So let's start there. Tell us a little bit about your journey and what brought you to the coaching and the work that you do today.
Marielle Speetjens: Okay, of fool I have to go back a little bit. um I'm a midlife reinvention coach, and I'm i'm in midlife.
Luisa Hogan: you.
Marielle Speetjens: So if I go back to coaching, I have to go back to more than 25 years where I started my own coaching business as a young professional, coming from an international career in management and a consultant.
Marielle Speetjens: I discovered that I didn't want to work with projects. I wanted to work with people. I think that's that's what I felt doing from a little girl onwards. I knew certain things when I was really small and I figured it out in my early 30s and started my own coaching company, which was called Mind Breeze.
Luisa Hogan: Thank you.
Marielle Speetjens: um But when I met my husband and we had ah ah children, um i lost my little girl um very suddenly and I wasn't able to continue with my business. I just was not able.
Marielle Speetjens: And I made a big shift. We moved countries and lived on a boat and I dedicated my whole to to my family and we had more kids and we lived on a boat and we started homeschooling and all of that kind of was controlled by fear and we can get later into that as well or was initiated by fear. Let me let me say it that way.
Marielle Speetjens: ah Now, fast forward, um I don't live on the boat anymore. My kids have finished school and um my nest is emptying.
Marielle Speetjens: And I was like, I'm not done, right? Suddenly my roles were all gone. What's my purpose in life? And I didn't really want to go back to coaching because I thought that's some that's a past station.
Marielle Speetjens: you know i'm I'm older now. I've grown. I'm wiser. What am I going to do now? But you know what they say.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Marielle Speetjens: Sometimes you just can't. you can't You can't ignore it. That's what I needed to do. That's what I want to do. That's what I get i think I'm supposed to do. So I recently revived Mindbreeze.
Marielle Speetjens: And I'm focusing on women in midlife now because that's closest to me at this season in life. And that's what I do.
Marielle Speetjens: And um I'm really happy doing it.
Luisa Hogan: Amazing.
Marielle Speetjens: It's fulfilling and it's it's wonderful to be back. Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Well, I'm so glad you did because um getting to know you after over the last few months, you are such a calming presence. And I know for a fact that your clients would get so much out of working for you and with you.
Luisa Hogan: So tell me, like i want to know more about that fear, you know, because this is a podcast about self-talk. You know, what where was that fear coming from? where What was the self-talk at that time? What was controlling you?
Marielle Speetjens: Well, I think, like you, um Lou, I've been in competitive sports my whole life. I used to be a swimmer, competitive swimmer.
Marielle Speetjens: And swimming is hard. I think, what did you do? You did something very hard as well, right? Was it... a
Luisa Hogan: ah did dr I did dance drill, yeah, like, yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: But that's not like that. you have sports that you can do three times a week, but this is the sport you need to do every week.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: every day of the week and racing and weekends, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: So that already gives you a certain drive to want to do things in a certain way, right?
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Marielle Speetjens: You have the discipline, you have the goal, you have all of that. So that has always been kind of my go-to place. So when I do something, I want to do it well.
Marielle Speetjens: it's It's a good thing and it's a bad thing. So the fear of failing or the fear of not doing well is always there.
Luisa Hogan: Okay. Hmm.
Marielle Speetjens: kind of You have to start working on that already when you're very young. So I did that. So when I lost my girl... That fear, i you know, I was also wanting to be a the perfect parent, right? The perfect mom, the perfect. I was so excited. We had twins. Oh my God, I can do this.
Marielle Speetjens: Two babies, I don't care. You know, i'm I can do this. I'm strong. I'm ready. i'm And I lost one.
Luisa Hogan: Mm.
Marielle Speetjens: So that installed a fear in me that was so overwhelming. you know And it it it it um established, ah I don't know how to say this properly, but it i I was also, as mom, I had to kind of prove myself over and over again to myself that I could do this. I had more children. I have three beautiful children. But I put everything aside for my children and my family, everything.
Marielle Speetjens: And here also comes in the ah performing over becoming, right? i And i' I don't regret it. i have no regrets. We built a wonderful life after that because... um we We lived our life on our terms, um in our timing.
Marielle Speetjens: We moved to a boat. I homeschooled the kids. I probably would have never done that previously, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Because my priorities changed. My values changed. Everything was different. And I was also lucky to be able to do that.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Marielle Speetjens: But, you know, with, you know, with my husband made it also, you know, we we were we were able to do it together. But this um this fear, and this was driven from me. It was not a fear that was driven from the outside.
Marielle Speetjens: Because, you know, in the in the world we live in, everything becomes manageable. Everything everything becomes makeable, right? we We can fake it. We can do... This was my my fear that made me do these things. And it was my journey to deal with that fear.
Marielle Speetjens: And to always be thrown back to myself inside and see, why am I doing this? How am I doing this? Is it bad benefiting my kids?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah,
Marielle Speetjens: Right? Because you can ask yourself, you have a young child, right?
Luisa Hogan: yeah. Yeah,
Marielle Speetjens: You can ask yourself, being 100% focused on your kids is not always the right thing to do, right? It's not.
Luisa Hogan: yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: but You have to find balance in these things. And yeah.
Luisa Hogan: It's so hard though, because I totally get it because I'm also the recovering perfectionist from the competitive sport that told me I had to win all the time and achieve and achieve and achieve.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Luisa Hogan: And that was the goal every day is you practice to achieve, to win. um And, you know, it's it's really hard not to bring that into your motherhood. And I can only imagine what it must have felt like for you to go through what you went through and then, you know,
Luisa Hogan: then focus all of that drive and energy into making sure that you're the 100% wonderful mother, you know, and which I am certain that you were, right? But then, as you say, there comes a time when, you know, you've got to look at that and go, is this is this good for me for the rest of my life, right?
Marielle Speetjens: yeah
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: and so it I mean, also for your kids, right?
Luisa Hogan: So tell me more. Oh, sorry, carry on, carry on.
Marielle Speetjens: We talk about helicopter moms or whatever they call them, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: It's not trying to do the best you can is not always beneficial, not for yourself and not for the others, right?
Marielle Speetjens: Because it almost sometimes might get a little bit obsessive, you know, if you try to be perfect.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Just be yourself, connect with yourself. I guess that's the A little bit the secret, yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. A hundred percent. That's, um you know, being instead of doing, you know?
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: I'd love to know more. So you've now, you, you realize a little bit of an, almost of an empty nest and you've come to ah ah period of growth in your life asking what's next for me. So what was the self-talk behind that around, okay, this is what I want to do. How did you know for certain, this is where I wanted to go and were there doubts for you? Was there fear in that moment?
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah, that was fear because after dedicating 25 years to my children and my family and, you know, everything around it, right? Building a home, making new friends when you move countries. There it was there was a lot. There was a lot that I could hide behind.
Marielle Speetjens: i was always busy and I kept doing a lot of sports. And, you know, so I was always busy. But I think leave my kids leaving the nest... really confronted me with you know losing my my main role.
Marielle Speetjens: And um what was your question again?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, ah the the the thought process behind that and what were the doubts for you?
Marielle Speetjens: Exactly, because you know I had not been in the in the in the real working field for years. um so I had so many doubts about the world has changed all this technology now i had not been on social media for years because it was kind of confusing me i didn't want to be distracted by it you know and and again you talk about outside and inside it was like affecting my inside so I
Marielle Speetjens: I wasn't on socials for many years. And I knew if I want to go back to coaching, you know, I have to face all this. And it made me very insecure, very insecure.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: And I was, again, focusing on these outside things and not the the the strength I have inside.
Marielle Speetjens: It's funny how these stupid little technical things make you feel sometimes like like like a nobody, right? Because also nowadays, look, and I feel for my my kids who are grown up with social media and they see all these people do perfect things on the outside, right?
Marielle Speetjens: Well, they don't show you how they're doing on the inside. So yeah, that made me very insecure. It made me very insecure. So I... When I decided to go back to coaching, I found a coach myself.
Marielle Speetjens: And that helped so much because, you know, you learn step by step and I'm a big believer in little steps, especially when you feel lost or you feel insecure.
Marielle Speetjens: You know, taking big steps is usually a lot and scary, but taking little step and see that it makes a difference. um that helped me a lot. And that's also what I'm what i'm teaching.
Luisa Hogan: Wonderful. It resonates with me so much. Mariel. And even in um one of, you know, I've got, um you know, little courses that I do with people and I coach myself. And one of the things that I do is sometimes if you want to remain steady in your leadership, it's not asking all the things you need to do. It's like, what's the next immediate step in front of me? Just the one.
Luisa Hogan: What's the most urgent thing that needs me right now?
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Luisa Hogan: Not everything, just the one. And then you take that one step and you get success and then you take another step and you get success, exactly what you're saying. And I'm sure that's the journey you've been on. But tell me more about the insecurity because some people will feel those insecurities, Marielle, and then they hide away and then they don't ever rise above it.
Luisa Hogan: what What have you done to rise above it and how do you help your clients who may come with those same insecurities? How do you help people I mean, you can't ignore insecurity, but you you they take some courage, take some courage to override it. What do you do?
Marielle Speetjens: I do several things. um i am I'm amazed, you know, we talk about women, right?
Marielle Speetjens: Not so but much about men. And we I can't believe, and I see it all the time, how women talk to themselves.
Marielle Speetjens: including me, probably including you, right? Or we we we we we have been training ourselves to stop talking in the way we used to talk to ourselves.
Luisa Hogan: Definitely.
Luisa Hogan: Yes.
Marielle Speetjens: And it's not nice. It's not nice. We are so hard on ourselves. And Now, almost every woman, i you know, and I've been training myself to catch myself, right?
Marielle Speetjens: Whenever I say, oh, this is I cannot do this. I think, no, I'm learning. I'm learning this new thing. And I maybe cannot do it now, but I can do it tomorrow or next week, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: It makes such a big difference. It makes such a big difference. So that's one way of every time I feel like a little bit nervous or a little bit panicking or even,
Marielle Speetjens: Very simple thing. And this is something also my husband, my husband is very good at this. Like, you know, you're running late, right? You get in the car. It's 10 minutes before you need to be somewhere. And it's a lot of traffic and you get nervous and you might make, you know, you you you're sitting in behind the wheel like, ohh you know, I'm going to be late and I don't want to be late. I want to respect other people's time and da, da, da, da.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: But you're not late yet. You are not late yet.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: So this is how I kind of talk to myself. I said look, take it easy. Me getting all nervous now is not going to help anybody. It's not going to help my driving.
Marielle Speetjens: I might create an accident. I might, you know, it doesn't. And then I get there and I'm all like this.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: It doesn't work. So I talk a lot to myself and I change the way I talk to me. And I help women do that as well. And then there's a lot of reframing, right?
Marielle Speetjens: ah
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: um Beliefs that people have about themselves from even when they were small, right? That they still believe are valid today and they're not.
Marielle Speetjens: And they never ask themselves, hey, is this what I believe about myself? Is it still true? You know, you can reframe it. You can... turn it around and look at it from a different perspective.
Marielle Speetjens: And i it's very, very helpful.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Marielle Speetjens: And it's very, honestly, it's really simple things, simple techniques that make a big difference.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I hear you. And it's like, it's it's simple things, but people shy away from them. But when they find out with support with coaches such as yourself, or, you know, I was one of my other podcast guests I spoke to just yesterday, and was talking about a very similar topic around the beliefs that we have and, you know, how...
Luisa Hogan: self-doubt and imposter syndrome is actually outgrowing that belief and then feeling like you're not that person anymore, but you're just, you're telling yourself that you you shouldn't be in the space that you're in.
Luisa Hogan: It's really, it was really interesting reframe on what imposter syndrome was.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And um yeah, and it's, it's very often, as you say, it's a simple little reset, right? It's a simple reset. Yeah. But I find it interesting that you say things like, oh, I can't do this.
Luisa Hogan: When you, I know, because you've told me, have done two half Ironmans. Am I right? Yeah. yeah the ah And this is what I love about self-talk because ah ah like other people, i look at, I run marathons, but I look at an Ironman and I'm like, those people who achieve that are something else, right? And I find it so interesting that our self-talk can help you go through something like an Ironman, but at the same breath can say, I can't do this.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: who
Luisa Hogan: It's a very fascinating thing.
Marielle Speetjens: I think the proving to yourself that you can do it is, and it's not about the metal, right? It's the proving to yourself, hey, if I can do that, that really scares me.
Luisa Hogan: and
Marielle Speetjens: i can do a lot of other things as well.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: So it might come when I when we moved to Portugal, everything changed and we started living in a house instead of a boat. We the kids went to big building school instead of homeschooling. I had to make a new community, new friends, all of everything changed.
Marielle Speetjens: And I was i didn't prepare myself for that. I wasn't aware what a big shift that was. And I really felt lost. I feel i really felt, okay, i'm what am I now? I'm ah an expert wife who goes to lunch every day. with you know i was like, ah, this is not, that what am I going to do?
Marielle Speetjens: and I actually went to a Tony Robbins event. because i I love Tony Robbins. and and And that made me realize, hey, I have to do something totally out of my comfort zone, something like that. And in the place where we live, there was the first the first ever half Ironman that year, and I signed up.
Marielle Speetjens: And I'm like, I'm a swimmer. You know, the Ironman, I think it's the hardest. The swimming is the hardest if you're not a swimmer because we swim in the ocean, and which is scary as well, you know, for a lot of people, scary as well. So I thought, okay, I can do the swim. I'm Dutch. I can bike.
Marielle Speetjens: And everybody can run, right? ah Everybody can run. And even if you don't run, you can walk.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: plus But being um competitive, athlete, you know, that's inside of me, I'm like, I'm not just going to finish. I want to finish well. So, and i I was scared to hurt myself because I also know with these things, you can take it too far and get injured and all of that. So I took it seriously. I trained for four months.
Marielle Speetjens: I knew I could do it. My husband supported me because he had to do more things with the kids, right? Because I was on my bike or running or doing whatever ah much more.
Marielle Speetjens: And um um yeah, I i over, my my finishing this Ironman was ah big victory for me personally, telling me that, you know, what am I going to do next?
Marielle Speetjens: What is it, right? Because I did this, I can do. And the sport, I think, gives you a rhythm, gives you a routine. And routine is also so important if you feel lost.
Marielle Speetjens: Because if you wake up and feel lost and you don't start with a with a good morning routine or with some kind of program that steadies you during the day,
Marielle Speetjens: the day just vanishes and and and you go to bed and you say, oh, what did I do today? Right. And you feel bad about yourself. So the the routine and the rhythm and the that helps as well.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, for sure. Was there after the Ironman though, did you, did it, did it feel like it completed you or did you go back to a sense of loss again?
Luisa Hogan: How, how did you grow out of that too? Like, how did you use that to grow or did you realize that there was more growing to do?
Marielle Speetjens: um Yeah, there was more growing to do. it was But it established me and in my new environment. So I became the president of the Kids Swim team, which was and a very international team with 20 plus different nationalities because all the people, you know, we were traveling with the team. i i All my kids were swimming there. i i was swimming. It was it gave me um a purpose again. It was still in the name you know for my kids and for my family, but it it it brought me into like a semi-professional environment again.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: ah where I could show my leadership, where I could show my my vision, where i you know, all of this.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: And eventually brought me back to to my coaching.
Luisa Hogan: Amazing. ah you you talk You mentioned earlier, you said proving and becoming.
Marielle Speetjens: the
Luisa Hogan: ah And I really like that phrase. Can you tell me more about what that is and how people can tell the difference between proving and becoming? Because I hear from your story that there was fear and there was this need to prove yourself in many ways.
Luisa Hogan: So explain to me what proving versus becoming is.
Marielle Speetjens: Proving is kind of, um
Marielle Speetjens: you know, like having a certain norm, having a certain level that is acceptable and proving that you fulfill that, you know, that you're there.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Marielle Speetjens: And I think becoming, becoming is being honest and vulnerable. um sharing your doubts and your insecurities with other people, which makes these other people usually also vulnerable and sharing their, you know, and and gives you a feeling like I'm not alone. You know, I'm not the only one who's dealing with it. I think it's a big issue also in parenting.
Marielle Speetjens: I don't know how you feel about that, but I feel that nowadays, and it wasn't like that when I grew up. I grew up in the South of Holland in a Catholic environment, but you know, there were kids who weren't good in school.
Marielle Speetjens: There were kids who couldn't play sports. It was like, okay, he's into music. He's not into, sport you know, oh, he has to redo a certain year in school because, you know, he's not, there was, it wasn't an issue. It was just something. I feel nowadays as a parent, your kids almost have to be good at everything, you know, and that's the norm, right? And everybody is trying to, to reach that norm.
Marielle Speetjens: and hide everything that is not up to that norm
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: And it's not, it is not, it's not true. It's just not true. Everybody who tells me only positive stories, I know something is going on, right? there there there It isn't just all pink and glitter and beautiful.
Marielle Speetjens: It's not. And by me sharing a lot also about my how i i'm how I'm a parent and how I deal with my kids' struggles and how I deal with my struggles being a mother um gave me great insights into how how other people do it and how other people deal with things. And it also gives you great friendships because it sharing is caring. It really is.
Marielle Speetjens: But not sharing the good stuff because that makes people envy you, not trusting you, all these these kind of things.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: So, yeah, I feel it's like, um be honest, um which doesn't mean you have to share 100% of what's going on in your house.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: but
Marielle Speetjens: But we're not perfect.
Luisa Hogan: No.
Marielle Speetjens: We are not perfect. And everybody's trying to be perfect these days, right? Which is intimidating.
Luisa Hogan: It's so true. It's so true. I think it harks back to what you said earlier, which is, um you know, social media is feeding that. in ah In a way, you know, just reflecting on what you're saying, I feel like there's a little bit of in the old, in you know, in and our childhoods and our parents' childhoods, there was a little bit more of ignorance is bliss.
Luisa Hogan: Like other parents didn't know how other parents were parenting. It wasn't splashed all over social media. You didn't talk about it. And also there was nothing out there educating you 24 seven. Like when my daughter was born, Your access to the internet has changed how people parent because now like your baby's born and then, you know, oh she burped funny. What does this mean? And then you Google it and then you've got all of these answers at your fingertips of what you're doing wrong and what could be wrong with your baby. And like, I just feel like the amount of information that we have access to
Luisa Hogan: is not helping us in many ways. it's it's It's a hindrance, it's a curse and a blessing because we can access the information, how wonderful our wisdom can grow and we can be better parents. And on the flip side, it creates this pressure to be a certain way because now you know that that's the level of perfect, right?
Luisa Hogan: And, you know, I just think there was this, the there was a, The complexity a while ago was very different to the complexity we have today. The world is so complex now because of the information we have access to, but in the old days, it was complex because it wasn't so easy to do things, right?
Luisa Hogan: You couldn't just Google something or find out where something was. So it's really, it's an interesting time. And that's why I like your concept of proving versus becoming, because I think when we were children, we were becoming, right? But now it's more about proving.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah. And I love it that you say this because I think, you know, something we haven't touched upon yet is um intuition. Right? The fact that we Google stuff means we're in our heads.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: We don't sit and think like, what, what does, what, what do I feel? What is the best way to deal with this? We don't do it. And I have a very, it just happened last Saturday.
Marielle Speetjens: My son is my son is a swimmer who would have in the U S on a, on a, on a, you know, as as an athlete, student athlete.
Luisa Hogan: Of course.
Marielle Speetjens: And, uh, he called me last Saturday and it was my mom's birthday. So that's why I'm also in Holland and i couldn't hear him.
Luisa Hogan: Thank you.
Marielle Speetjens: And I wanted to hear what he had. to say So I went to a quiet room because there were some people and he said, mom, I have to tell you this. And he's in his last year, in his senior year, he will graduate this year.
Marielle Speetjens: And he said, mom, It's my last season, but I got the best professor, the best subject this year. And you know, mom, what he and he's he's studying finance with a minor in philosophy.
Marielle Speetjens: And it's a finance course. And he's actually not that much into finance, but a lot into philosophy. Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Mm-hmm.
Marielle Speetjens: He said, this is a Wall Street guy who worked his life on Wall Street. And you know what he what his perspective is and what he tells us the first thing. He said, mom, the best skill, deep the the most important skill you need to have to be successful on Wall Street, to be successful in this area, to be successful in the finance business is um
Marielle Speetjens: trusting your gut.
Marielle Speetjens: trusting your God. And I was like, that's amazing. You know, because for him, you hear that from a finance professor, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: It's, it's amazing. And I believe that trusting your God, trusting your intuition is the most important skill in life. Right.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Right.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: It's life. and and And also we forget that by by by Googling, by looking things up, by trying to be perfect.
Luisa Hogan: yeah
Marielle Speetjens: We try to do the things that don't come from inside of us, but they are presented to us from the outside, which doesn't always make it work, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: yeah And also again, coming back to the fear, right? Why do we do it? Because we're afraid. We're afraid of failing. We're afraid of doing it wrong. And because the answer is out there, it's so much easier to find the right answer than to allow yourself to sit with the discomfort.
Marielle Speetjens: yeah
Luisa Hogan: and sit with the discomfort of not knowing and maybe not getting it right, but it's okay. And listening to the intuition, right? Like I agree, like intuition is is a huge one. I don't think people, I think we've turned into a very strategizing world where we strategize more than we intuit. And I think there's a place for both. and but it's also that feminine and masculine. The masculine is all about strategy and plans and outcomes. And the feminine is all about intuition and sitting with those feelings and everybody, it's not about being male or female, but it's everybody needs both of those energies, right?
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: And we've we tend to have tipped over into this masculine energy world. And I see myself doing it all the time, all the time. Like in that masculine doing, doing, doing, and not allowing myself sometimes to just allow that feeling to come through me and not act on it, just feel it.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah, exactly. Pause and feel it. Pause and feel it.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: we are we're We're learning so many new things now, like, for example, also in midlife. You know, the way you do exercise, the way you eat, the way you... you Everything we knew until recently was based on research with men.
Marielle Speetjens: How men, how it works best for men, not for women. You know, we are not little men, right? And there are some great women out there now.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: you know telling us this. But we have always been kind of been brought up like you know them as with man as an example because they were always a little bit here and we were here, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: So we we were trying to to to to to a bridge the gap.
Luisa Hogan: Close the gap, yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah, bridge the gap. but But we can do things our way, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah, it's important.
Luisa Hogan: Plus that confidence and letting go of the fear, again, it sort always comes back down to that fear.
Marielle Speetjens: won
Luisa Hogan: i mean, what what impact do you think having that fear and listening to that fear has on your relationships, your work? You know, and we've touched on it a little bit, but how did it impact you? you were going through that fear and anchoring yourself through um you know, anchoring your identity as a mother, but did did it impact your relationships? How did it impact you?
Marielle Speetjens: You mean my relationships were in my family or with friends or with everything?
Luisa Hogan: Anybody, did it impact anything in your in your life in that way?
Marielle Speetjens: I think it made me,
Marielle Speetjens: because I shut down a way of of living, you know, i I shut down a lot of influences from the outside. And it made me realize that, you know, listening to my intuition and doing things my way, no matter what anybody else was doing,
Marielle Speetjens: um was what worked for me best, right? So we homeschooled on a boat, three children, off grid. um And we were surrounded by people who thought, oh, they're crazy. Or are they hippies? Or how can you raise kids like that, right? I also come from a country where homeschooling is not allowed in the Netherlands. It's not like in the US. I don't know. I think in Australia, it's it's it's allowed, right? I'm not i'm not sure.
Luisa Hogan: It's allowed with with some regulation, you know, there's lots of laws. It's not like the US.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah, so in in the Netherlands, you know, people around, they were like, hu this is weird. How can she make sure that her kids are, you know, how is that? Because it's a right in the Netherlands. It's not like a, you know, you you you take away the right of your kids to go to school.
Marielle Speetjens: So this this fear, and i was i was like, no, we travel... we We go around the world. Our kids are exposed to so many things. They had so many friends because because we kind of lived in one place. We weren't just, we were traveling on and off. And they got exposed to so many more things. Plus they were not exposed to a lot of What are they wearing in school?
Marielle Speetjens: A lot of things that disrupts their being a child in schools these days, right?
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Amazing.
Marielle Speetjens: Girls can be very mean to each other. You know, like things like that. They they were able to just be them.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: They were just dead them, right?
Luisa Hogan: yeah amazing
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah. So, so I think it made me stronger. It made me, my fears of doing things differently in the end made me stronger and made me calmer.
Marielle Speetjens: You say, you say, you know, you feel I'm calm, but I really feel like, okay, I do things my way. I take a break, I reflect, um and I make mistakes, right? But I try to learn from them and ah be in ease with ah my next steps.
Luisa Hogan: Excellent. So if you were to give any listeners out there who would resonate with that or going through midlife or who are going through fear and anchoring themselves in fear rather than actually growing and becoming or stuck improving themselves, what what are your biggest tips, rituals, tips, anything that they can do to start shifting themselves from proving to becoming?
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah, that like we said, there are a lot of ways. And I think it's important that people find ways that work for them. The the way you talk to yourself is an important one. I think everybody can understand that. And i so again again, especially women, they they when I start talking about that, they're like, oh, my God, I'm so harsh to myself.
Marielle Speetjens: Right. So that's a good one. I think gratitude is a great one because you if grateful, everything else disappears, right? Seeing the, smelling the flowers outside, hearing the birds sing, you know, all these kind of tiny little things. I had a woman, I coached a woman and she was really, really, really down.
Marielle Speetjens: And just by doing these simple things, her life has changed totally, completely upside down. And she wasn't used to doing them. She started it because she wanted to change. I think it's also important that people are ready for a change. And then they need to find the things to do.
Marielle Speetjens: that feel, make them feel good. Because if you, it's the same as with exercising. If you have a goal, okay, I'm going to run 5k every day in the morning when I wake up and you hate running, you're not going to do it, right?
Marielle Speetjens: You need to say, okay, I want to take these 10 minutes to myself in the morning and I set my day i set myself off for the day. So yeah, I think that's what i what I try to discover with the women I coach first.
Marielle Speetjens: What works for you? What feels good for you? Let's try that. And if it works, we take the next step.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Yeah. And also trying to let go of the outcome, right? It's like,
Marielle Speetjens: It's the process.
Luisa Hogan: That's the process, right? Because, and again, that's that feminine energy, not being feminine, but feminine energy of letting go of the outcome and enjoying the process. And that's, that's the joy in it.
Luisa Hogan: Right. Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: I'm celebrating the wins, the tiny little wins.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: So even having your, you know, doing your thing and then have your morning coffee, your morning coffee might be, oh, yes, I'm looking forward to that.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Or your tea or, you know, I don't know what it, yes just reward. I did this. This is what i'm what I'm looking forward to and celebrate because that's also what we don't do, right?
Marielle Speetjens: We do a hundred things in the day and we go to bed at night and think,
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Oh, I didn't do this. I didn't do that. That's what we do.
Luisa Hogan: yeah I need to show you, I've got a little bowl on my table because I was very bad at this.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: So here's one that you can use with your with your clients too, right? Or anyone listening. I've got a fish bowl on my desk. doesn't have fish on it because sometimes you get so busy in the doing that and not celebrating the small wins that you don't realize how far you've come because you're not seeing big progress.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: So every time I have a small win, I write it on a post-it note and I put it inside the fishbowl. And you'll see over time, this fishbowl gets full of different colored post-it notes.
Luisa Hogan: And it's such a good visual way to show you there's progress and to celebrate it without...
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: you know, forgetting that you still haven't reached this massive of milestone. It's about celebrating the journey and it's a really cool visual way. I've got it. I can't reach it now. I would show you, but it's just this little bowl and it's full of little postie notes and you think, yeah, those are how many wins I've had, you know, it's really cool way to do something.
Marielle Speetjens: Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah.
Marielle Speetjens: Very good one. Yeah.
Luisa Hogan: Yeah. Well, Marielle, as always, a real treat and a pleasure to speak to you. i ah wish I could speak to you more, but then we'd have two hours. I say this with all my guests and then we'd have two hour podcast episodes. Well, might have to bring you back for more discussion. That would be really lovely.
Luisa Hogan: um But thank you so much for joining us today. And, and you know, ah where can people find you? I think that's important too. If people want to connect with you, where can they find you?
Marielle Speetjens: um On socials, um you found most about me on Facebook. I also have an Instagram account and a LinkedIn account, but I'm less on there.
Marielle Speetjens: and You find me under my name, Marielle Spajans. I have a Substack account where I write. I discovered writing while, you know, i I loved writing as a small child and I rediscovered it.
Luisa Hogan: Amazing.
Marielle Speetjens: So I'm on Substack under my name as well. And my ah website it is mindbreeze.ae.
Luisa Hogan: Excellent. Well, I'll put all of those links too in the description of the podcast. So have a look wherever you are listening to the description and all of those links will be in there. But thank you so much, Marielle. I really appreciate your time of being here and discussing your background so authentically And so vulnerably, I really appreciate that.
Marielle Speetjens: Thank you, Lou. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.
Luisa Hogan: Thank you so much. And to everyone listening, I think what I've got most out of this episode is that growth is never about fear or trying to eradicate fear, but it's really about giving yourself the freedom to become who you're meant to be and to allow that to unfold and to enjoy the journey. And I've loved gaining that perspective from Marielle today.
Luisa Hogan: like i said, a real treat. And I know that I've got something so i' beneficial out of talking to Marielle today. So until next time, keep listening to The Second Voice and we will see you next week. Take care.
