145 | From Abuse to Advocacy: Maxwell Leadership Mentor & Entrepreneur Marissa Nehlsen's Journey to Empowerment

About the Guest

Marissa Nehlsen is a renowned financial strategist, transformational coach, and motivational speaker recognized for her journey from impoverished roots to managing billions in assets. Born into generational poverty and raised in a home rife with trauma and dysfunction, she forged a path of resilience, later becoming a powerhouse in the financial industry. Beyond her role as a financial expert, Marissa is a member of the John Maxwell leadership team and an author of the book "Live Life Rich." She is passionate about empowering others through her journey of overcoming adversity to achieve success and fulfillment.

Episode Summary

In this compelling episode of "Becoming UnDone, host Toby Brooks dives into the extraordinary journey of Marissa Nehlsen, a financial strategist and transformational leader who rose from adversity to success. From enduring childhood abuse and poverty in North Dakota to becoming a mentor in the John Maxwell team, Marissa's story is not only inspiring but profoundly educational. This episode explores themes of resilience, empowerment, and overcoming challenges to find purpose and change lives.

Throughout the conversation, Marissa recounts her harrowing experiences from childhood, highlighting the pivotal moments that steered her towards resilience. The episode richly showcases Marissa's transformational journey, emphasizing her belief that adversity can be a stepping stone to one's highest potential. Discover how Marissa's faith, philosophy of living victoriously, and her endeavor to redefine 'wealth' interlink across her life story. Her narrative beckons us to consider how our pasts shape us, but do not define us, and how we possess the power to rewrite our destinies starting today.

Key Takeaways

• Resilience as a Driving Force: Marissa underscores the potency of resilience in rising above adversities and transforming obstacles into stepping stones for success.
• The Power of Choice: A central theme is Marissa's belief in choosing victory over victimhood, as instilled by her mother during times of hardship.
• Redefining Richness: Learn how Marissa redefines 'rich' beyond monetary wealth, encompassing emotional, relational, spiritual, physical, and financial richness.
• The Role of Forgiveness and Boundaries: Essential tools in her journey, Marissa shares how forgiveness and boundaries shaped her path to personal and professional fulfillment.
• The Importance of Vision: Despite losing her eyesight to Stargardt disease, Marissa illustrates the profound difference between sight and vision, advocating for a life led by purpose, not limitations.

Notable Quotes

1. "Get up, you've got to get up right now." - Marissa Nehlsen recalling a pivotal moment in her childhood that taught her resilience.
2. "You can choose to be a victim, or you can choose to be victorious. What will you choose?" - Marissa's mother's powerful words that shaped her outlook.
3. "Remove from me what is no longer for me." - Marissa's guiding prayer that illustrates her understanding of growth and necessary change.
4. "People don't follow you because of your eyesight. They follow you because you're a leader.

Transcript

0:00:03 - (Marissa Nehlsen): This is becoming undone. I remember so my dad, I had an interaction with my dad that when I was nine years old when he was beating me and I had forgotten to put towels in the dryer, was nine years old and he caught up with me in the laundry room and just I, I got it good. And I remember this voice saying, get up, you've got to get up right now. And I got up. I just remember feeling like I could even barely stand because, you know, you get kicked with big steel toe boots and you're thrown up against the wall. It's a difference maker. He was beating me and I hear this voice and the voice said, get up, you've got to get up right now. And I got to my feet and I put my finger in the air and I said, you hit me again, you kick me again, you better just kill me.

0:00:51 - (Marissa Nehlsen): You better just kill me here and now because I'm going to tell everybody what you're doing here. And my mom has been an amazing, amazing just model for me to follow of what endurance and strength looked like. I just feel so incredibly blessed and fortunate that I got to learn from her on what it looks like when you are in impossible situations, what you think are impossible situations, and what perspective can do if you call out the right perspective.

0:01:22 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I am Marissa Nielsen and I am Undone.

0:01:31 - (Toby Brooks): Hey friend. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to another episode of Becoming Undone, the podcast for those who dare bravely risk mightily and grow relentlessly. I'm Toby Brooks, speaker, author, professor and performance scientist. I spent much of the last two decades work as an athletic trainer and a strength coach in the professional collegiate and high school sports settings. And over the years, I've grown more and more fascinated with what sets high achievers apart and how failures that can suck in the moment can end up being exactly the push we needed to propel us on our path to success.

0:02:00 - (Toby Brooks): Each week on Becoming Undone, I invite new guests to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. I'd like to emphasize that this show is entirely separate from my role at Baylor University, but it's my attempt to apply what I've learned and what I'm learning to share with others about the mindsets of high achievers. I'm back for at least one more this year as I would have liked to crank out a few more, but alas, we are moving again.

0:02:35 - (Toby Brooks): Since relocating to Waco to work at Baylor, we stayed for a few months in short term university apartments awaiting the sale of our home in Lubbock. When it finally sold. We were planning to build but costs kept going up and up so we decided to rent and we've been in this little place in Hewitt, Texas, South Waco since April. All was good when I saw an opening for faculty and residents at Baylor, which is a cool program where faculty get to serve students by living alongside them.

0:03:02 - (Toby Brooks): Long story short, we have a three bedroom apartment now and 240 plus Baylor freshman guys awaiting us in Martin hall, so by the end of this month we have to move for the third time in less than a year. It's a huge blessing and a wonderful opportunity, but December is shaping up to be a real one. In the meantime, I just finished the two classes I took this fall and if all goes well with my finals I should be a year and a half away from another Master's degree.

0:03:30 - (Toby Brooks): I can't tell you how many times in the past week I've had to answer the question of why I'm pursuing another degree. I'm a firm believer in lifelong learning and if it's there for the taking, why not go after it? This semester I had a musculoskeletal exercise physiology class and a human performance research methods class. Some familiar stuff, some new stuff, but honestly, all good stuff. It's been fun to be on the other side of the classroom again, even if I'm old enough to be dad to some of my classmates.

0:04:06 - (Toby Brooks): This week I want to ask you what if your biggest breakdown became the blueprint for your breakthrough? In this unforgettable episode of Becoming Undone, I sit down with the incomparable Marissa Nielsen, a powerhouse financial strategist, transformational coach, and unapologetic truth teller whose story reads like a masterclass in resilience. Born into generational poverty and raised in a home marked by trauma and dysfunction, Marissa learned early how to survive.

0:04:34 - (Toby Brooks): But survival was never the end game. She was built to rise. From picking up aluminum cans in North Dakota to managing billions in assets today losing our eyesight to gaining unshakable vision, Marissa's journey will leave you breathless and inspired. We talk about the real cost of reinvention, the power of purpose driven leadership, and how your past doesn't get to write your future, you do. Before we begin, I need you to be prepared.

0:05:03 - (Toby Brooks): This episode contains discussions of childhood abuse, trauma and personal loss that may be distressing to some listeners. Please take care as you listen and prioritize your own well being. If you need support, don't hesitate to reach out to a mental health professional. That said, the moments ahead are powerful and impactful, raw and revealing. If you've never felt undone by your circumstances, this conversation will remind you you're not broken, you're becoming.

0:05:31 - (Toby Brooks): And what you build from the rubble might just be the most powerful version of you yet. I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Marissa Nielsen in episode 145. Let's get into it. Greetings and welcome back. Becoming Undone is a podcast for those who dare bravely risk mightily and grow relentlessly. Join me, Toby Brooks, as I invite a new guest each week with where we examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. And it feels like a broken record. I say this every episode, but I am so excited to bring this one to you. And this is a new friend I'll call her, who took the stage and took the room by storm with her story. Marissa Nelson joining us today, who is the latest and greatest Maxwell team leadership mentor.

0:06:16 - (Toby Brooks): I have a picture with her. She didn't know me at the time, but part of that process is you get your picture made with John, you get your picture made with the mentors. So joining me tonight, Marissa, thanks so much.

0:06:26 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I am so excited to be here and to just get to meet you. Like, these are the highlights of my life, to get to go moments and do things like this. So. And big shout out to you, all of you listeners, because you came to the right place at the right time to get the right stuff. There is no, there's no other reason that you should be here than you were absolutely meant to be in this room.

0:06:46 - (Toby Brooks): Love it. Love it. I actually shared this with a team member today. I said, I don't believe in coincidence. I believe in Providence. And so this was the time for us to have this conversation. I always start the interview off with a little bit of a softball question. Take us way back. What did you want to be growing up and why?

0:07:03 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Well, there's a couple things I wanted to be growing up and why. So I really wanted to be like a missionary. At one point in my life, I saw like some. I grew up in a family that was faith filled and lots going on in that family. A lot of madness, a lot of abuse, a lot of crazy stuff. But also my mother was just such a strong woman of faith. And I just remember, like, having this, knowing that my faith was going to really guide and direct my life in such a way. And I wanted that for others.

0:07:37 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And so then I saw this thing years and years ago. So I'm gonna date myself a little bit. Okay. But there was a time when there was this thing in China that occurred called Tiananmen Square. And I saw this on the square and I was like, I must go there. Right? I must go there and I must help these people. And I would have dreams about it. And then, then from there, I wanted to be an advocate. I wanted to be an attorney, and I wanted to really, like, make laws that protected people, because I did grow up abused, and I grew up in a kind of a challenging home life with that which, you know, is. Is what it is now. It's given me all these rocks to stand on, but I want to be an attorney, and I really wanted to help people with that and, like, make laws that did that. Right. Like, that really would be part of that construction of advocating for people and actually doing something that made. Made sense to really, really serve them.

0:08:33 - (Marissa Nehlsen): So, yeah, that's where. That's where I. That's what I really. When I very. When I go all the way back. Yeah, Yeah. I was never in there sewing or doing, like, I can't bake a roast to save my soul. Like, I. I still have challenges with that. I call them up.

0:08:46 - (Toby Brooks): Well, I love that question because it gives me some insight into a person's heart. And the common thread that I hear is that you had a heart for service even from an early age. And I'll never forget you sharing a photo of you growing up. A bunch of kids hanging out on a combine. Grew up decidedly blue collar. You've been tremendous in kind of sharing your story of growing up in a trailer court in North Dakota to now managing billions in your work. And, and I'll tell you honestly, I struggled with your introduction. Like, I mentioned the John Maxwell, but you're an author, you're a speaker, you are a coach.

0:09:22 - (Toby Brooks): There's so much to your story. So you've gone from picking up cans in North Dakota on a farm to managing billions in assets today. What was the first moment when you really believed that your life could be different?

0:09:35 - (Marissa Nehlsen): That's such a great question. You know, I think I've had great glimpses of this and then reminders of it. I had a glimpse at first, and then I had a reminder of it throughout my life. One of the. One of the moments that I think, and it's kind of a tough moment to share, so I'm just going to be. If you're listening to this, just take a deep breath. This is not a stop story on purpose. Like, this is just my story. And, And I think, you know, when you come from a Place of authenticity and then also transparency. That's.

0:10:01 - (Marissa Nehlsen): That's where transformation can actually begin when we come from this no judgment zone. So I'm just gonna share, like that first moment for me, I remember. So my dad, I had an interaction with my dad that when I was nine years old when he was beating me and I had forgotten to put towels in the dryer. I was nine years old. He was a deacon in the church and he was supposed to be part of this funeral. He came in from the field.

0:10:26 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I forgot to put towels in. There was no towels. And he caught up with me in the laundry room and just. I got it good. And I remember this voice, like literally as audible as it was then all these years later, I remember this voice saying, get up. You've got to get up right now. And I got up and I put my finger. And when I say this, he had a belt that he ran through the middle of his. This belt that he would wear. And it had like these metal kind of shavings that ran through it on both sides of it. And so he'd take that off and he'd whip you with it. And then he had big steel tool boots. He was six foot eight. He's a big boy. Six foot seven and a half actually, to be exact, but he's a big guy.

0:11:10 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And you know, I was nine with scrawny pigtails. You know, there's nothing there that but bones and lanky at that point. And I just remember feeling like I could even barely stand because, you know, you get kicked with big steel toe boots and you're thrown up against the wall. It's difference maker. So anyway, he. He was beating me and I hear this voice and the voice said, get up. You've got to get up right now.

0:11:37 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I got to my feet and. And I was like. I put my finger in the air because he's like tall and I'm little and. And I put my finger in the air and I said, you hit me again, you kick me again, you better just kill me. You better just kill me here and now, because I'm going to tell everybody what you're doing here. I'm going to tell everybody who you are and what you do to all of us. His eyes got all big and he took like this moment kind of a little bit forward, but his eyes got all big. And then he backed up and he turned around and he walked out.

0:12:10 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And he never again touched me. He never again hurt me. He used to beat my mother every day. My brothers, my sisters, they have scars that I can't even imagine on their bodies. I have no scars, you know, external scars.

0:12:27 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, right.

0:12:28 - (Marissa Nehlsen): But I. I will say, like, just that was the first glimpse that God put a hedge of protection around me that day and that there was something for me, there was something powerful in my words. And that's where that advocacy for people came from. Because my mom left and came back so many times because she couldn't do life without resources. She just couldn't do life like. And everyone would say, well, you just gotta go back to him. Cause you got eight kids and you got no money and you got no education and you're a farm wife. You gotta go back. Right? And she did.

0:12:56 - (Marissa Nehlsen): When the real. When the real power came was maybe six months later. And, you know, you're living in fear, right? And fear is a big driver. He was beating my mother in the kitchen and he had taken a piece of toast with grape jelly on it, and he was choking her and smashing it all over her face, rubbing it in your face and just, you know, demoralizing her. And I got in the middle of it and I. I literally stood right there and I said, you need to stop right now. You need to leave this place. You must stop right now. And I pointed my finger in that same way that I did for myself just six months earlier.

0:13:36 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And he left. He literally left the room, turned around, left the room. My mother is laying on the floor in a puddle and she's looking it up at me and she's like, how did you do that? And I was like, I don't, I don't know. Like, how am I not dead? And I realized, honestly, I just, I'm.

0:13:54 - (Toby Brooks): Just being really real.

0:13:55 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Like, how am I not dead in this moment? Because he could have just as well thrown me across the room and cracked my skull. But that was my real moment of knowing that I could use my power and I could empower others with it and I could help others with it. And so I would step in the middle when he'd get out of control. Like, I'd step in the middle between him and my mom and situations with my brothers and sisters. And it's just wild to me.

0:14:23 - (Toby Brooks): This is one of the most powerful, impactful, and tragic moments I've yet experienced on this show. And it's all the more remarkable that some decades later, Marisa can recount it with both a clarity and even lighthearted joking about her gawky nine year old lankiness. What she discovered in these moments of sheer desperation and horrific abuse was that in her circumstances, her words held power. Her father was a mountain of a man, an imposing figure who physically abused his entire family daily.

0:14:56 - (Toby Brooks): However, Marisa managed to summon the strength to both figuratively and literally stand up to him, likely risking her life in the process. He relented, never again hurting her. And while such cannot be said for other members of the family or other victims of abuse, where an act of such bravery and defiance might very well lead other abusers in other circumstances to heighten their rage, for Marissa, thankfully, it does not.

0:15:25 - (Toby Brooks): And it's in these moments that she begins to see that her words hold power, and not just for her, but for others. Being an advocate, she recognized that she could make things better. They were lessons that would follow her for the rest of her life.

0:15:41 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I knew something was different then, and I knew that I had power and I could start using it. I was nine.

0:15:47 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, incredible. I'm picturing little Lucy Pevensy with her little dagger, holding it up, you know, to fight the fight. And though you be little, you are fierce. Just you actually kind of took me to where I was heading with the next question. I mean, I really appreciate the transparency. So often there's shame surrounding these things, and there shouldn't be, especially, I mean, for a victim, you're the victim. There's. There's really absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. But by not talking about it, we don't give power and we don't lend agency to people who maybe are struggling with that themselves. So thank you so much for being so transparent about that.

0:16:27 - (Toby Brooks): I guess related to that, I mean, lots of dark moments. And although you were nine, it's not like you were absolved or somehow magically protected from similar trauma down the road. What carried you through those darker moments and what do you think those experiences taught you about your own identity?

0:16:46 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, this is so good. So the link for me came when I was 14 with my mother. We had moved into the trailer courts in Minot. That was Minot, North Dakota. It was a little, tiny, little, tiny town. We were building the biggest cities in North Dakota, by the way, because there's 700,000 people in the whole state. And you know, if you got 40,000 people in your town, like, that's a big, big city. So. So don't laugh at you for all yous that are living in places where there's 3 million people and you're going, my God, where did this woman come from?

0:17:15 - (Marissa Nehlsen): But I, I remember we had moved into this two bedroom trailer in, in Minot. It had that first year My mom was really proud she didn't want to do and, and my mom has been an amazing, amazing just model for me to follow of what endurance and strength looks like. I would just feel so incredibly blessed and fortunate that I got to learn from her on what it looks like when you are in impossible situations, what you think are impossible situations and what perspective can do if you, if you, if you call out the right perspective. So 14 years old, moved into this trailer court, didn't have money because my mom would not go on food stamps or assistance. Back then they don't call it food stamps anymore, but back then they called it food stamps and they'd actually give you these little pull out things you have to go through the lines with at the grocery store.

0:18:05 - (Marissa Nehlsen): My mom said I'm not doing it, God will provide. And so we move into this place, we have no heat that first North Dakota winter and we got an old in North Dakota by the way, if you don't know, it's like up north, middle of the United States. We're about an hour from the Canadian border. We used to have this old kerosene heater and my mom took quilts and blankets and towels and nailed them to the windows and then down the hallway so that we had this one space right in the living room. And she made a campfire for us. Right now we had fished out an old brown couch out of a dumpster.

0:18:34 - (Marissa Nehlsen): My mom was sleeping on the couch. Somebody gave us old black and white TV with those bunny rabbit ears where you had to adjust them so you got your three channels, cbs, NBC and abc. That's what we got. And then you had it adjusted right, just right. We get PBS so we'd be lucky and get four channels. We were like woohoo, we're in it. But the, but those channels would go off at like one o' clock in the morning. And right before that they did these infomercials and they would have these save the children things where you'd send money to save the children.

0:19:00 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I in my righteous indignation like looked up at my mom and the kids are all sleeping, I was 14. And point my finger at her, which never, never by the way do to your mother. And I said mom, we're like those poor people on tv, but we're not just poor, we're like really poor because they have food and they have heat and people are sending them money and we're over here, blah blah, blah, blah blah. I'm just, just you know.

0:19:26 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And she, you know, she waited till I stopped my ramble of righteousness, and she looked down at me and she sat up and she said, you know what, Marissa? You're right. We are poor, but we're safe. We're poor, but we're safe. And you have a choice to make. You have a decision to make. You have a choice here, and you have a decision to make with it. You can choose to be a victim, or you can choose to be victorious. What will you choose?

0:19:53 - (Marissa Nehlsen): My mother at that moment, snapped everything into place for me. And from there on out, every single struggle I've ever gone through, every challenge, every moment, I feel like I am the most fortunate woman on the planet because I had someone at a very early age in my life. Speak absolute like, if you're a parent in this room, if you're a grandparent in this room, if you're a caretaker, if you're a coach, if you're a teacher, if you're an educator, if you're anybody that has influence on anybody for the next generation or generations, I'm telling you, you have the power to speak life and death over their future.

0:20:33 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And in that moment, my mother spoke life over mine with the right question that made me ask the question over and over and over again. Will you be a victim or will you be victorious? See, I don't count myself as a victim on anything. No matter what it's been. No matter what it's been. Everything that was used to kill, steal and destroy my faith, my joy, my peace, my love, my hope, everything that was put out there to kill those things in me, I now take it as a rock. I stand on.

0:21:04 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Come and hit me. Come and get me, right? Because I'm looking back on all the things that I've gone through over my life. And I look back and I go, but I'm still here. I'm still standing, baby. I'm still moving. So, my mother, victim or victorious? What will you choose? Like, you know, as you're sitting here listening to this, I know people are facing lots of challenges. Like you might be facing someone in your life that is going through really awful stuff. Cancer. Or maybe you're in the middle of a infidelity situation or a divorce or a drug addict, you know, family member or abuse in some way, some medical thing that you just never could control. It wasn't your fault. It just happens and stuff like that happens.

0:21:49 - (Marissa Nehlsen): But. But I. I really believe that this has carried me through. And I'll just tell you, every single one of these things I've mentioned are my story I've lived through every one of them. Every one of them. And I remember over my son's bed as he had OD'd a second time. I was in the ICU in the hospital with him, and I'm praying over this kid that started drugs when he was 16 and it was just not. It was just not good.

0:22:16 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I remember being in that ICU with him and literally praying over this boy and saying, I trust you, Lord. I am not a victim. He is not a victim. Whatever you choose to do in this moment, I trust you. I trust you. I trust you because I know. I know that. I know that. I know that you work all things together for my good. The good, the bad and the ugly. All things and all things means all that junk that I was just talking about for you and for me, it's all things, man. It is all things things. And we have to declare that better over our day because that's when the enemy of your soul gets in and gets to steal from you because we didn't declare it in the way and then walk in that way.

0:23:01 - (Marissa Nehlsen): So I'm really. This is an area where all day long and twice on Sundays, I'm grabbing my water pistols and I'm going to take you out of that hell that you're living in. We need to grab our water pistols.

0:23:11 - (Toby Brooks): Tremendous. There's so much strength and power to that, especially given your platform now and the work that you do. Had you been neutralized at 14 into that victim mentality, none of the impact that you're making, and we'll call it out for what it is. I mean, at the kingdom level, the impact you're making wouldn't exist had you taken the victim mentality. Instead, you've taken the victorious. And for a lot of folks, it's justifiable to see yourself as a victim. For you, I mean, huddled in essentially a makeshift campground in a trailer court in the North Dakota winter. I mean, if that's not the acceptable reason for seeing yourself as a victim, as you rightly did as a 14 year old, seeing yourself in that advertisement, just the wisdom in your mom's answer and the power that she spoke into you, just incredible. Well, your work today is tremendous. You've built multiple businesses, you've coached countless leaders.

0:24:16 - (Toby Brooks): What inner work had to happen for you in order to be able to lead at scale and with authenticity? A common theme in this show is, yeah, we can be destroyed. We can have adversities and setbacks and even our own failures. But that imposter syndrome can Creep in. Like, how can you use my story to help me with these people who have done such and such? So talk to us a little bit about your personal journey, getting to where you are today and how you sorted through those humble upbringings to the platform that you have.

0:24:50 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Well, there's a lot to unpack there because that's a lifetime of learning for me. And I'm learning now. Like, I'm learning now. Like, every day I'm getting up and I'm working on my values, and I'm working on my. I'm working on my priorities, and I'm working on what's for me today. Like, the newest prayer I pray every day, which I've learned to be, is one really, really painful sometimes. Just so you know, you pray this. Don't send me letters, okay? Do not send me letters.

0:25:18 - (Marissa Nehlsen): But, you know, one of the things I pray every day is remove from me what is no longer for me.

0:25:27 - (Toby Brooks): Before Marisa tells you about this prayer, I want you to think about it a little bit. Marinate on it for a second. Let it sit. Marissa says, quote, remove from me what is no longer for me. End quote. I can tell you that there have been things that I have held onto for way too long. Those things and those opportunities and those people and those blessings in one season of life can sometimes become burdens if we let them.

0:25:57 - (Toby Brooks): We're in the middle of moving again for the third time in about a year. We have a storage unit filled to the brim with stuff from a previous season in our life. Now, I know there are some irreplaceable things in there, but there are also some things I really need to part with. Last time I was there, I saw a stick that my kids had fashioned into a sword and played with for a while. The box. The box that my son's custom bat that we ordered for him for his senior year came in was in there an empty box.

0:26:27 - (Toby Brooks): There are plenty of things that were important for a time, but now, not as much. I just haven't been able to part with them. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that you throw out all your kids stuff or cut off every person who's no longer serving you. There's a discernment to be had in here. There's also wisdom, freedom, and a prayer for God to do the removing of whatever or whomever from me that is no longer for me.

0:26:57 - (Toby Brooks): This is a prayer of bravery and maturity that I'm not sure I'm ready for just yet. But for Marissa, it's been a game changer and a key to phenomenal growth.

0:27:09 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And you have to really have faith to say that because he has removed people, he has removed provisions. Sometimes, like, there's been a pruning in my life. It had to go through a season of forgiveness. I'll just tell you two of the most powerful things. If you can learn to harness this. Forgiveness and boundaries go hand in hand. Like my dad today, I 100% only have a sorrow for his soul, and I only wish for him to be healed so that he can become the man that God wanted him to be. And I know that that sounds like people are like, how can. I mean, if you hear, like, the Paul Harvey version of this story, the rest of the story, there's a lot, too.

0:27:55 - (Marissa Nehlsen): You know, I have siblings that are still really, really struggling because they took the other path. Like, really, really struggling. And I. And I look at that now, and I go, man, thank you. Thank you. Thank you that I was able to hear it. Thank you that my mother did it. Thank you that she said it. Thank you that you did the hard thing. Right?

0:28:13 - (Toby Brooks): Right.

0:28:13 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Thank you, mom. And. And thank you for things like personal development along the way. When I was going through, you know, just a few years later after that situation, I was. I was 17 years old now. I was a good girl. I'll just tell you, I was a good girl. I wasn't. When I say good girl, I wasn't out doing a bunch of crazy stuff. I. I was. I was doing Friday Night Alive, these little church services, and I was really into youth group, and I met someone at 17, and I was looking for love in all the wrong places. I had some daddy issues, right?

0:28:43 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I got pregnant. And when you're pregnant at 17 and you're Baptist, so what you do when you're pregnant at 17 in the Midwest and you're Baptist, is you get married, because that's what you do. So we got married. And then I moved in two doors down from my mother in that trailer court, and I looked at my baby girl Lexi, who became a catalyst for me in those businesses and why I was walking through ditches next to that trailer court, picking up cans, getting together the money for resources so that I could buy personal development resources, things from people like John Maxwell.

0:29:19 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I was listening to John Maxwell on a Walkman back in the day when we used to use these things called cassette tapes. So all of you that are under 30, you have no idea. Just Google it, okay? It's. It's a fun learn. Fun learn. But, you know, I believed if I could just learn and grow. And my aunt was a, like, this was, it was so integral that my aunt was also positioned in the way that she was for my story and who, who and how I've been able to serve because of her.

0:29:50 - (Marissa Nehlsen): So I would pick up that Walkman and then go through that set and I would look at my baby girl and I, I just said to her, one day, you will not live this life. I will do this for you. I was 18 and a half, almost 19 years old, and I'm like, whatever I gotta do. And I remember putting myself through my senior year of high school literally, because I would go. They had this thing called the alternative school, because pregnant girls could not mix with, like, pregnant girls could not mix with the other girls that weren't pregnant.

0:30:16 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Even though the other girls that weren't pregnant, they were just the smart ones that actually knew how to do things without, know, getting in trouble. And so I, I, it was, no.

0:30:25 - (Toby Brooks): Can'T have that spreading, though. That, that's contagious.

0:30:27 - (Marissa Nehlsen): It was like a, it was like a disease. Right. Now, keep in mind, I am a good girl. So this is. There, There are two people that go there. Pregnant girls and drug addicts. That's who got, that's who went like, and fighting kids, kids that got into fights, which I was not a drug addict, nor was I a fighter. And so I'm like, what am I doing here? So on the first day of school, I, I said to the teachers, I was like, hey, I really need to graduate before my baby's born, which is the first week of November. And they're saying there's no way you can do it because that's literally two months of classes. And you've got advanced algebra, you've got calculus, you've got, I mean, I've got some massive courses I need to take in order to graduate. Um, and I said, I, I said, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna formulate a plan. I'm gonna come back and if I can get a plan that works for this, will you allow me to do it?

0:31:14 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And so I actually requested a meeting, which is hysterical, with the principal and said, I've got a plan laid out for you guys in order to get me there in two months. So I'm going to take home the educator's book, I'm going to take home my book, the student's book, and then I'm going to go back through, I'm going to teach myself those things, and then you can test me out, right? And they're like, it's not going to happen. But if you think that's the way you can do it, sweetheart, go for it. Right? They just kind of went, good job, lady, little girl. Right. And anyway, I did it and I went home and I, I would go to this school, this alternative school, and I, I was doing 1415 hour days of study and learning and I, on the day Lexi was born, I took my last test and I, I tested out of my entire senior year with all my credits and.

0:32:05 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, so two months and some change.

0:32:07 - (Toby Brooks): There were signs, there were signs of the Marissa to come, even at that early age. Yeah.

0:32:13 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Well, when you got something at stake. So the question I'd ask you is this, what do you got at stake? That you're willing to trade Netflix for that you're willing to trade comfort for that you're willing to trade your current conditions and circumstances for what's on the other side of the trade. And I ask myself that question every day. What's the trade in this day? Because rich people and broke people have the same 24, seven. And I'm not just talking about money.

0:32:38 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, rich people and broke people have the same 24, 7. We just use it differently.

0:32:44 - (Toby Brooks): That's right. One thing that definitely stood out as you were talking at IMC was your relationship with money and how coming from a place of lack, you're pre programmed with notions about wealth, about what it means to be a person who is rich. And I even struggle with that. Like it's one thing to say a person has wealth, that, that's like a little bit more removed, but to say that you're rich, like to own that as a human.

0:33:15 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, like there's an ick to that even in my soul now, because I was programmed with a poverty mindset, with a scarcity mindset. This idea that the only people that had resources either lied, cheated or stole their way to that. And now their job in life is to keep me from it. Right?

0:33:34 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:35 - (Toby Brooks): So as someone that's navigated that personally, talk me through kind of the psychology of transforming from someone growing up in a trailer court to someone who's managing multiple businesses worth billions with a B. Dollars.

0:33:50 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah. Okay. So that's, that's not a five minute journey, Right? That's not a five minute journey. There's no magic pill or magic wand that will do this. It's that you've got to do the work. So let me talk about the work that goes into that. First, I actually wrote My book Live Life Rich. And I use that word on purpose so that people could begin to redefine what does rich mean? And I really, I'm going to challenge you to redefine what does rich mean? And some of those money belief systems that BS that we've grown up with, the BS that we go, what did I hear? Because what I heard was money doesn't grow on trees.

0:34:27 - (Marissa Nehlsen): What I heard was there's only so much to go around. What I heard was what did they do to get that? They took it from somebody. Right. That's what I heard. And I still go back to that trailer court now. I'll just tell you every time I'm there with my children. My daughter travels with me extensively in my work today. And I take Danielle back and I drive slowly through the trailer court. I just recently had a film crew that wanted to interview me and, and we went back to that this last summer, to the farm where I grew up, to the place where I come from.

0:35:03 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Because I believe our roots and our wings are connected. Our roots and our wings are connected. And that's so good.

0:35:10 - (Toby Brooks): That is so powerful.

0:35:12 - (Marissa Nehlsen): So those learns from back then to think about what the word rich means and where I come from with it. I wanted to redefine that. It's why I wrote my book. I wanted to have my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren see books. I learned this from Maxwell, John Maxwell. He's got things that will literally create legacy not only in his own family, but in, in my family. I could not write my story and leave him out Today Matters, which by the way, is one of the best, best books I've ever read in my life.

0:35:42 - (Marissa Nehlsen): It's. It is, it has changed my life today. Today Matters. I've practiced that book. It's not a book you read, it's a book you do.

0:35:50 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:35:50 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I wanted to write a book that you do. And so when I wrote the book Live Life Rich, part of, part of that was what I define in there is what does it mean to be rich? And let me, let me share with you how I define that.

0:36:03 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:36:04 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Emotionally rich. When I look in the mirror, I'm not the woman back in 2010 and 2011 that was 65 pounds overweight, realized her spouse was having an affair, looked at her children and said, you worked your way into this crazy great business, but no life and no self care and you hate yourself when you look in the mirror. That's where I come from. I come from the place where I look in the mirror back in 2011.

0:36:39 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I ask the question, is this all there is? Is this what I just traded my life for and my youth for and my time for and my energy? And I have no energy left, and I'm exhausted. See, when you get real exhausted, you get tired or you get hungry. That's when the enemy sets into your head. So emotionally rich is where I want to live, because I can't give from a place of depletion. I can only give from a place of abundance.

0:37:05 - (Marissa Nehlsen): What place are you giving from today? And if you're exhausted today, you're giving from a place of depletion, which means you're not giving your best. How do we. How do we right now break that cycle? How do we do that? Well, first we have to make a decision. Who do we. Who do we want to be and what do we want our life to look like? I'm. I'm pulling one from the Spice Girls on this, right? Like, now tell me what you want. What you really, really want, right? Like, really, what do you want? Right?

0:37:30 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah. And I'm having a little fun with it, so just relax. Everybody who's listening to this and going, God, that woman should never sing again. I know, I know. So there's five core areas that I want to be rich in. I want to be emotionally rich. I want to be relationship rich. When I leave this room tonight, I'm going to go out and I'm going to. It's real farm people stuff, so just relax. But I made some tater tot hot dish this afternoon.

0:37:54 - (Marissa Nehlsen): We're going to sit down, we're going to have some tater tot hot dish. We're going to have a little banana cream pie. Yes, Grandma did that today. I live with my big fat Greek wedding family. We all live together in this big house in St. Petersburg, Florida. My son, the grandchildren, my daughter, my mate, his. My son's wife, just brand new wife. They just got married. He was a single dad for many years. And I've been raising those grandchildren since they were 1 and 2. And I want to. I want to go from tater tot hot dish to playing uno to singing Jesus loves me and doing prayers with them.

0:38:25 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And that is my life. Yeah, I get all the little fancy things that we talk about. What I. What sometimes you see in people. We don't look like where we come from, and we don't always look like who we really are. And so I want a real life, like a real authentic life where I'm doing the dishes tonight, right? Yeah, yeah.

0:38:47 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:38:47 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And could I hire someone to do that 100%. Could I teach my grandchildren something different? Could my family work together in a different way? Where says, hey, Gabe is sweeping the floor. Danielle's clearing the plates. Hazel and Luca, that's the grandbabies, they're. They're scrubbing those down and put them in the dishwasher, or they're hand washing them because they really like that. That's real life for me. So relationship rich. When they walk in the door, they go, grandma.

0:39:16 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:39:17 - (Marissa Nehlsen): When my mate walks in the door and he puts my face in his hands today and he says, wow, how was your day? You look beautiful. I look like total junk, right? I'm wasted at the end of the day. I'm just totally depleted now because I gave everything I got. And he's just like, you look amazing. Right? And. But I. I learned to recog those moments because for 20 years, I didn't. And when my mate would come in and ask me about my day, I'm like, I don't have time to talk right now. I got 15 things to do. And you can either help me or you can get out of my way. Okay?

0:39:47 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And then after I divorced, I went through a period of time where I met someone, and I was dating him and later had agreed to marry him. And he, two years later, was laying in my arms, taking his last breath from cancer. And I remember him saying to me on Christmas Day, he gave me one of these greatest gifts I've ever received. He said, baby, you were, you were. You were born to change the world. And I need you to not spend five years in a bottle. I need you to get up and live every day. Live, live.

0:40:20 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Really live. Make me a promise. You're gonna live.

0:40:25 - (Toby Brooks): The way Marissa tells her story so vulnerably, authentically, and matter of factly is refreshing and honestly, maybe for me, a little jarring. Through recounting childhood trauma and abuse and her ability to see herself as a victor. Through the encouragement of her mom, she shows her roots and her resolve. After her first marriage ended in divorce, she found herself in search of clarity and purpose and physical restoration after she realized she'd been neglecting herself in search for accomplishment and success.

0:40:58 - (Toby Brooks): Just as plainly, she mentions how she found love again, only to have that significant other's life cut tragically short by cancer. However, in his final wishes, he blessed Marissa with what she calls the greatest gift anyone has ever given her. An admonition to really live. So often on our journey, we are willing to do for others what we can never muster for ourselves in that dying wish. And through tragedy, Marissa got a clear assignment. To strive for impact, for purpose.

0:41:32 - (Toby Brooks): To not only stay alive, but to really live and to impact as many lives as possible in the process. To be sure, it was a bittersweet blessing, but it's one that has set the stage for the life that she leads today.

0:41:47 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And to me, living means I'm living with purpose, intentionality, authenticity, creativity, and above all else, I'm living with love. And so in my relationships, when I say to you, hey, here's my personal cell phone number. You use it, I mean that. I'm not BSing that. There's no belief system behind that that says, oh, that's. No, I'm literally saying, we are all on a human adventure here, moving forward with our good are bad and are ugly.

0:42:19 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And so now I look at that differently because now I take that time and I look into his eyes and I say, ah, thank you. I love you. Let's talk about your day. You want to go on a walk, whereas I would have had 500 things to do before, Right. But when you've held someone you love in your arms and you say, I'll see you again one day, and you make a promise that you're going to live every day, I'm not going to let the enemy steal one more relationship in my life ever again.

0:42:47 - (Marissa Nehlsen): My goodness, ever again. And so every day is a rich day for me in relationships. This is what rich life looks like. The people I love, the people I know, the people you know, do they know it if they were gone tomorrow? If you. I'm a big Marvel nerd, so just be okay with my nerdiness here for a moment. There's one of the Marvel movies in Endgame where Thanos snaps his finger and half the world is gone.

0:43:12 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:43:13 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And the question I'd ask for you is this. Think of the people you love the most. Think of the things that you love the most, the things that you have a grateful heart for. If you just take a few minutes back. And there's always something, by the way, if you're breathing today, you woke up above ground today, you have something to be grateful for. Past, present, future, something. If that was gone tomorrow because you didn't give thanks for it today, how would you feel?

0:43:40 - (Marissa Nehlsen): So relationship rich to me is about that. And then from there I go to spiritually rich. I want to be in a place where I have oneness with my creator and I listen. And I think obedience is one of the most beautiful, most tough Most challenging things I've ever had to practice in my life. And I say practice because I'm not very good at it. And I gotta keep doing it every day. Yeah. And I'm not a very fast learner.

0:44:07 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And so obedience is part of that and. And connectedness there because I know where my power and my source comes from. Get up. Get up. Was given to me as a gift. And then from there, my physical. Cause I remember looking in that mirror back in and being so disappointed that I thought I was doing, you know, this thing for my family. But really where I was at, if I really wanna be real honest with myself, I was martyring myself, waiting for everyone to recognize what a hard worker I was and what a great servant I was. And I was showing up to all the youth group stuff and I was baking pies. I hate bacon pies. I'm just telling you, the one I baked today had instant jello, banana cream, and the pre box, the pie crust. But it's all right. Took me 10 minutes. My family still appreciates it. I don't need to make a real crust. We're totally good. Everyone relax. If that's your thing. Totally love you.

0:45:03 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I'd love to eat that pie instead, but this is the pie I'm making for my people.

0:45:07 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:45:07 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And so that physical side of my life, I've gotten real intentional about how I take care of myself physically so that I can serve more people, so that I can help, so that I can be around to grab my water pistols and wake up and all of hell shakes. And they go, crap, she's up. We're in trouble. She's taken territory today.

0:45:29 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah. Isn't that amazing? I think back to 18 and a half year old you, how you're willing to do things for your daughter that perhaps you wouldn't have been able or willing to do for yourself. And this is that same mentality we see carrying over into your physical life. But it is the most selfless thing I can do to take care of my body so that I can serve the people I love. And that starts with how I fuel.

0:45:53 - (Toby Brooks): That starts with how I train. And that's. It's so easy to think of that as being selfish, but if we're really honest about it, like giving of myself to pour into that really is an act of. Of gratitude and of service to those that are counting on us.

0:46:13 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I actually. I love the words that you just used. How you fuel, how you train and how you fight are all connected because that's A circle?

0:46:25 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:46:25 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Because then after you fight, you gotta go refuel, and then you gotta train again, and then you gotta fight again, and it's it for me. My whole life has been another level, another devil.

0:46:37 - (Toby Brooks): So well said.

0:46:38 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And so what's next? So now I. Now I look at that and I go, come on. I wish you could see this podcast, because I'm over here egging him. Come on. What you got for me next? What you got for me next? Cause you thought when James died that would kill me. Ha ha. Guess what happened. I went to Costa Rica and healed. And then God gave me three mountains and a sewing school and a whole eco tourism group and a coffee farm and unbelievable things in Costa. A healing center in Costa Rica.

0:47:09 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Like, you thought his death would mean nothing and would break me. And yet the very thing he said before he passed put a spark inside of me, you know? See, we have these heroes along the way that spark things inside of us. And sometimes we are in such pain ourselves, we can't hear it. We can't hear it, and we can't recognize it for what it is. It is a glimpse from God of the greatness within you that is waiting for you to embrace it.

0:47:39 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:47:39 - (Marissa Nehlsen): See, I don't think territory is necessarily taken. I think it's given. But we have not because we ask not. And there's a piece to that. So those are the five pieces when you look at emotional, relational, spiritual, physical, and then financial.

0:47:57 - (Toby Brooks): So to recap, Marissa's platform is that the world needs us rich in order to not only live well ourselves, but to be able to bless and serve others in the process. I love this. Her model of emotional, relational, spiritual, physical, and financial wealth is one that's easy to say, but harder to live, especially those of us with a skewed relationship with money who were taught things like money doesn't grow on trees and that those with wealth were somehow corrupted.

0:48:25 - (Toby Brooks): We can struggle with teaching like this, but this is no prosperity gospel. It's a mindset shift, and it's one I'm taking with me into 2026. In November, I took a major leap of faith, launching a new website and a coaching business. In addition, my new coaching app hit the market two weeks ago, and my new book will be available for purchase by this summer. And as I'm making this transition from the safety of anonymity to the scrutiny of a more public platform, there are old voices telling me that I should keep playing small, that others with larger platforms are somehow better.

0:49:02 - (Toby Brooks): Maybe, just maybe, I don't Deserve success. And after my conversation with Marissa, I can confidently say that playing small means staying small. That others, frankly, they have absolutely nothing.

0:49:16 - (Marissa Nehlsen): To do with me.

0:49:17 - (Toby Brooks): And if we really boil it down, deserve has nothing to do with it. I don't know about you, but I'm hitting this new year with a goal to bless as many people as I can, whether through what I say or what I write or what I teach or what I give. And those old voices would tell me to hoard the scarce blessings I have because they are hard to come by. But as Marisa teaches, the abundance mindset would tell me that it isn't about what gets to me, but rather what gets through me that matters most.

0:49:48 - (Toby Brooks): It's a similar mindset that Marissa has used to bless people in her own home and now around the globe.

0:49:55 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I believe the world needs you, Rich. The world needs me, Rich. I am solving problems in the world with me, with my teams, with the equipping, with the things that we do every single day to educate, empower, and equip people. The world needs me, Rich. Because those resources, if you just take rich and you combine it with resources, from that standpoint of what does a rich mentality look like? How do you break that chain?

0:50:20 - (Marissa Nehlsen): You asked that question at the beginning, and I wanted to define what rich really looks like first. When you have that priority stack in order for you, and you just got to find your own priority stack. For me, I would tell you, like, for me, my identity starts with my faith identity. Now, when I'm talking to a group, I always leave it in the middle. Yeah, on purpose. But it really is where it starts for me is my faith identity, knowing who I am and whose I am. Because that's the power that I walk onto that stage with. It's not my stage, it's his stage. He goes before me, he stands beside me, he has my back. Whatever room I'm in, I own the room because I know the king who owns the room of every room.

0:50:58 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Every room, every stage, every podcast, every book, every moment, every coaching session, every business, every thing, everything. That's.

0:51:08 - (Toby Brooks): I love how you frame that. Because if we think of rich as financially only, then the world doesn't necessarily need you rich.

0:51:17 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Right.

0:51:18 - (Toby Brooks): Like, there are a lot of unethical people that have resources. And again, I'm kind of showing my poverty mentality. But if you've got someone with that financial wherewithal and they've also got the emotional, the relational, the spiritual, the physical, then that's a dangerous person for the kingdom. That's someone that can make an impact. They can penetrate the world with the cause of Christ. I mean, if that's how we're framing this.

0:51:44 - (Toby Brooks): I often build my model around Luke 2:52. Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God, man, mental, physical, spiritual, social. That financial piece, though, that. That adds a wrinkle to this that I hadn't considered. So I love how you have framed that. Well, you've definitely mentioned some. Some critical life transitions and some. Some things that you wouldn't have chosen. A lot of my listeners are navigating reinvention, identity, loss. I call it a purpose storm. What would you say is the very first step you for someone starting over?

0:52:20 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, you know, I think this is the coolest part. If you're starting over today, wow, I want to double high five you. This is so fun and so exciting. And you're going, what is she talking about? This is so scary and it's totally sucky. And I don't like where I'm at and I don't know what the future holds. And there is no crystal ball that actually works. The first thing I would tell you is, isn't it awesome that you get to write your story from here on out of who you can become?

0:52:45 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And then you can get up every day and play out this one statement. Small actions over time lead to great change. And so if you begin to think about what do you want emotionally, what do you want relationally, what do you want spiritually, what do you want physically, what do you want financially? And that very first step that I'd take, just really, really practical, because I'm a practical kind of person, is I grab a notebook and I'd say, what do I really want? Like, do the Spice Girls moment here, right?

0:53:14 - (Marissa Nehlsen): If you, if you have, if you've recently gone through reinventing of your place or your space or your second season for your job or for your career, and you're saying, well, what do I do now and how do I use what I've got? The first question I'd ask is, are you willing to be a hope dealer? Are you willing to be a hope dealer? And how I define hope is this your second season and you want to reinvent yourself.

0:53:38 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Anytime you begin to serve other people with the actual gift, the thing that you're uniquely qualified to teach or train, the thing that you're good at, any time that you do that, that's not by accident, you are uniquely gifted in this area, and we underestimate the value of our gifts. So I'd say one Thing you want to do is you want to get with somebody and you want to write down, what are my gifts?

0:54:03 - (Marissa Nehlsen): What do you see the things? What do people come to you for if they need advice? What are the areas where you feel most alive when you're doing it? And then ask the next question, how can I best use that to serve someone else? Will I be a hope dealer? Now? Let me, let me define hope dealer. Helping other people evolve. Help them from where they are to where they want to be. Or more importantly, in my world, help them from where they are to where God wants them to be.

0:54:33 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I don't know where God wants them to be, but I'll just tell you. I'm asking, and I'm asking them to ask. I'm saying, hey, have you asked that question? Because that's kind of important one. What are. What are your gifts? What are your talents? What are the things? And if you're starting from scratch and you're saying, actually, I'm starting from worse than scratch, I'm in debt up to my eyeballs.

0:54:52 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I just came out of a divorce. I just came out of cancer. I just came out of losing everything. You got something. You got a story. You woke up above ground today. You got something. If you're 50 years old in this room and you are reinventing yourself right now, or 60 or 70 even, what did you go through and what did you learn? Some self reflection on that is really important. So I prioritize that as part of a real practical, tactical.

0:55:18 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Then I go from, what do I have that I've learned? What do I have that I could teach others? Because you're going to underestimate that gift. So you want to get somebody around you who loves you, who says, hey, if you actually considered this, that's the power, by the way of a coach. This is why I love working with guys like you. I love it. I love it because you're a coach.

0:55:37 - (Toby Brooks): Marissa Nielsen just called me a coach, and I've never been prouder. Carry on.

0:55:44 - (Marissa Nehlsen): So you know, the right questions to ask people, to really help them get out of their own way and figure out who they are and what they want. Clarity. Clarity is beautiful. So the Bible says, you know, they talk about, you know, I don't want to ask for clarity. In fact, Mother Teresa said when somebody said to her, this isn't a book I just recently read, someone came and asked her, hey, Mother Teresa, I just really, what I want you to pray for me for is clarity.

0:56:12 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And Mother Teresa replied, I'm not praying. For clarity. I'm going to pray you got wisdom. Yeah, I'm going to pray you got wisdom. And I'm praying for wisdom every day. Wisdom in my choices and my decisions that I make with using what I've got. And you have something. I guarantee you everybody on this planet was given at least one gift. Now, there's some people like you. You got a bunch of gifts, like, you're smart, you've done lots of different things. You're. You're super smart.

0:56:39 - (Marissa Nehlsen): But everybody that's listening to this has at least one gift. So let's. Let's work on what are you good at. Let's start there. What do you. What makes you most alive, what gets you going, what gets you exciting. And then getting around people that will start speaking that out with you and helping you figure, what's the next step in the plan, really, practically on putting that life together. How do you get out of debt?

0:57:01 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Well, there's 8,500 courses right now you can take on how to get out of debt. You can Google this, you can watch a YouTube video. You have resources more than ever before. But what you don't have with those is you don't have accountability. So you need a team of people that will help you stay accountable, that love you enough to call out your bs, your belief systems, whether that's a money belief system or whatever it is, and they'll say to you, hey, where did that come from?

0:57:30 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Because they'll listen to it different and they'll say, does that lead you with a small action closer to where you want to be or farther?

0:57:39 - (Toby Brooks): We all need that spoken into us, because you're absolutely right. You called it belief system. But it's also a little bit of the traditional definition of bs, too, that we try to get over on ourselves. It's harder to look someone else in the eye and say, you know, I reverse engineered this. And I said I was going to do this to be successful, but I didn't do that this month. That's a different conversation.

0:58:00 - (Toby Brooks): I love. I love how you frame that. Well, you recently became the newest member of the John Maxwell leadership team, and I'm currently working through that financial certification course that you built. I see your book behind that just launched. Talk to me a little bit about what it's meant for you to be on that side of the Maxwell team. I know you've been on the receiving end for years, and now you're on the other end. So talk to us a little bit about the new book and your new work. With Maxwell.

0:58:27 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah. Well, it's interesting how that all came about because I've been, you know, I've been part of the team since 2014. I've been to. This was my third international Maxwell conference. And they say, man, you just so dumb. You didn't get it the first 22. You had to go back. I was like, no, it's because I'm getting something new every year. And I have. Some of my best friends are in the world, all over the world because of this team. World leaders, you know. One of my dearest friends just retired from the United Nations. I met her through Maxwell.

0:58:55 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I've got friends that are leaders in England and Ireland and Switzerland and you name it, all over the United States, all over our country, all over their. All over Europe and South America and Central America, you name it. It's crazy, but how that came about is I was actually asked to sit in for Jamie Kern Lima, who was supposed to do this financial wisdom thing with John Maxwell, where he was coaching X number of people through on a monthly call.

0:59:23 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Anyway, Jamie had a situation and they called and they said, hey, could you pinch hit for us? Because it's finance. We know you're good at this. We don't really actually know all of what you do, but we know you well enough to know your DNA and you're us. Would you help me? And I said, you know, John Maxwell calls, and then what you do is you say yes, because it's John Maxwell. Just so for all you that don't actually know him, if John Maxwell ever actually calls you, what you do is you just say yes, right?

0:59:49 - (Toby Brooks): So if I ever get that call, if I ever get that call, I will definitely say yes. I'm not holding my breath.

0:59:54 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, they do. Well, you never know. You never know. So. So I get in the car, I go over, I'm in the studio with John, and I'm in the first session, and John's taking notes like crazy. And he looks over at me in between the two sessions and he says, hey, I have things here that I've never heard before. I need your help. Now, this is Dr. John C. Maxwell. He's got resources to every leader on the planet, right? Like, there's nobody who doesn't take this guy's call.

1:00:18 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And he said, so what I'm going to need you to do is I'm going to need you to. I need you to mentor me and my children and my grandchildren. And I'm looking at. I was like, are you for real? Literally, I literally said to him, are you for real? You know, because I can't help myself. I apparently have some kind of version of foot mouth disease that's just ridiculous. So he goes, yes, I am for real. And I need your help with this because there's stuff here that we have not done and I need to do. And I know that these resources, I want to get my team organized.

1:00:49 - (Marissa Nehlsen): You know, when you ask the question, when's the last time your accountant, attorney, financial advisor, insurance person, coach, mentor, banker, the people that you work with every single day got in the same room and talked about your plan, built a holistic generational legacy plan. I need to make sure that this is done not only for me, but he's like, I'm good. My brother Larry and I, we've been doing this for years together.

1:01:11 - (Marissa Nehlsen): But he said, there are parts of this that I can get better in. And he said, not only that, but he said for the first time, he said, God actually spoke to me when you were talking. And God said, she is the one. And he said, all these years I refused to speak about money and finance because it wasn't an area of expertise. I'm a leadership expert and it's something I didn't want to get backed into a corner with having the wrong person and the wrong motives and all these things. But he said, I know, you know, like John actually did the forward for my book.

1:01:40 - (Marissa Nehlsen): He knows me, I know him. And he said, we gotta talk. And so then they approached me three, four of my times after that. And then they flew into my home because I. It was in between Christmas and New Year's. And he said, hey. I said, I'm not traveling. Like, I'm with my family. I said, but the grandkids go to school from like 9 to 3. So I said, if you can come from 9 to 3, I can meet with you guys. And they're like, what now? I said this earlier.

1:02:12 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Maybe I didn't say and I just thought it and I was going to go through it with you. But I will tell you some of the things that I've really learned is boundaries. And one of the boundaries I have that it was a never again moment is when James was in the hospital, my late fiance. And I remember standing outside his door and I remember him talking with this 30 year nurse that was working with him, the cancer nurse. And she said, james, you have the worst cancer I've seen in 30 years. And every single day you get up with this incredible attitude and you are so happy and you are just, you just like you seem like you're. You're just all over this thing. And I know you're in tremendous pain. I know it because I'm giving you the pain meds, and I know how much I have to give you so that your lip doesn't quiver. And I'm standing outside the store. I'm suiting up because I had to. He had a medical thing where he had to suit up. When you went in, doors open. I hear him say, are you kidding me?

1:03:02 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I would never get this much time with her.

1:03:07 - (Toby Brooks): Oh, goodness.

1:03:08 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Oh, yeah. I would never get this much time with her if we were at home. This woman's a hundred miles an hour with her face on fire. She's taken territory. She's doing stuff every day. You know, she's answering the call. She's doing stuff in the world. And what I realized in that moment, guys, is someone I loved so much had to get cancer and eventually die in my arms for me to recognize that boundaries surpass opportunities.

1:03:39 - (Marissa Nehlsen): If it's the right opportunity, it will come to you, and you do not have to trade them for it.

1:03:47 - (Toby Brooks): Goodness gracious. One of the reasons I'm a little slow getting this episode out is because I spent most of last week in Florida visiting my mom and dad at their home that I'd never even seen before in Port Charlotte. Even though they'd lived there for years. I'd always justified it by saying, you know, I'm really busy. I usually work two or three jobs at a time, and now I've got two podcasts and they're both retired. If they wanted to visit, surely they could come see me, right?

1:04:17 - (Toby Brooks): Last month, I got a dreaded text that no one wants to see from a family member. My mom got her test results back. It's what she's been dreading. She got the definitive word. Lung cancer. Stage four. And just like Marissa recounted, a diagnosis and a treatment plan like that makes people take notice. Things I'd been putting off would need to wait. I booked a flight later that week. As I've shared many times on this show, I'm an athletic trainer, and ATS don't take time off, and they sure don't do it for personal reasons.

1:04:53 - (Toby Brooks): So I struggled a lot with missing nearly a week of work to tend to a personal matter. I drove from Waco to Dallas. I flew from Dallas to Tampa, rented a car, and drove two more hours to my parents place in Port Charlotte. And I did the best I could to spend those days Fully engaged, listening, trying to help out around the house, trying my best to honor my mom, as tragic as her diagnosis has been for her and the family.

1:05:21 - (Toby Brooks): Truth is, without it, I probably wouldn't have gone. And what an absolute shame that is. Marissa's words are a convicting reminder. Sometimes it takes a setback to make us take notice and do what really matters before it's too late.

1:05:40 - (Marissa Nehlsen): So when I said to them, because it sounds arrogant, until I tell you the rest of the story, right, I'll never again trade a commitment to my family for an opportunity that will still be an opportunity a week later if it's the right opportunity. Now, God leads that with me. I'll just tell you, I'm looking at, I'm walking obedient with this deal. And this is sucky sometimes. Like, because there's some things I'm like, that sounds fun. I really want to do that. You know, like, how do I get in on that deal?

1:06:10 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

1:06:11 - (Marissa Nehlsen): But that's a never again moment. And so as the Maxwell mentor, I had a list and I said, guys, I love you so much. I know how you work, I know how often you work. I know what your schedules look like. I'm not doing that. Here's how I'm going to have impact with the team. And I literally wrote the contract for the way I could serve this team best. And I said, you know what? This is what I can do. This is what I will do, and I will give 100% with this can and this will.

1:06:42 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I will also have boundaries and keep my commitments so that I never again have to have someone I love remind me the value of my values. So this mentorship, the fact that they named me as the financial mentor, was an incredible opportunity. You know, we're getting to serve 50 at this time. We have about 58,000 coaches worldwide. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of people that are in the finance mentorship lane with me today, you being one of them.

1:07:15 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And we want to really give principles that you can apply and think about and take action in, because these small actions over time will lead to great change in your life. But not just you, but everyone around you and then generationally. Right?

1:07:30 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

1:07:32 - (Marissa Nehlsen): So how can we get better in that? So I, you know, I just tell you, if there's anything I can do better, please, please, please call me, please message me, please email me and say, this wasn't quite clear. I need this to be better. And I have zero ego with this. Zero. Because I know that I am doing something that God called me to do. He will equip me for. And when I walk into that room, the words that are coming are not mine. They are his.

1:07:57 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And the strategy and the planning and the purpose behind it is so that we can monetize and mobilize a team that will change the world. Your resources that flow to you will flow through you to the things that God puts in front of you that will make a difference and solve real problems, solve real challenges, bring real healing, solve poverty, solve poverty mindset, solve poverty in relationships, solve poverty in marriages, solve poverty with your children, solve poverty in your businesses, solve poverty around you. Because poverty is anything that steals, kills, or destroys what could have been the best of you.

1:08:36 - (Marissa Nehlsen): That is what poverty is. And I'm going for it. I'm taking every bit of it.

1:08:40 - (Toby Brooks): I love it. Goosebumps again. That's like three times in this interview. Marissa. Again, we're talking with Marissa Nelson, author, speaker, Maxwell, Team leadership. Absolutely blown away. Like preacher. There's no doubt that you are bringing it. I remember the emotion in the room as you presented at imc. It was. It was unsurpassed. Like, I. It was my first. That was my first imc. I went there to get my certification, and I knew you were the new kid, and I didn't go there with any expectations, good, bad, and different.

1:09:13 - (Toby Brooks): But from the moment you took the stage, like, I was just riveted by your story, by the practicality of what you shared. And then at the end, when you revealed that you faced vision loss from Stargardt disease, the room nearly erupted. Like, the emotion in that room that here's this woman sharing her upbringing from poverty to just these unparalleled successes. And now she's sharing how she may have lost her sight, but she didn't lose her vision.

1:09:43 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yes.

1:09:44 - (Toby Brooks): How has losing your eyesight impacted the work that you're doing? And I'm just curious how that part of your story has impacted the work that you're doing now and in the future.

1:09:58 - (Marissa Nehlsen): You know, there are some things that have to practicality, change in there. You saw it before we got on this podcast. My daughter was here. She travels with me. She works with me. She is incredible. And, you know, she's wiping my face because I look in the mirror and I haven't seen my face in five years. Well, actually, it's longer than that now. It's about seven years. I've seen a long time. And I will say, at first, let me just. I'm gonna be just really real with you here. At first, when I Got this news.

1:10:25 - (Marissa Nehlsen): This was, you know, 20 years ago now, that I was gonna have this condition, and it would be degenerative over time. And, you know, by the time I was in my 40s, I would lose my sight. My. All my central vision would be gone. And I just have peripheral. I just have peripheral now. Like, I can't see your face at all. You. I know your voice now. So when I see you next time, I'll give you a great big hug and be like, hey, man, good to see you.

1:10:46 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Right? But I. That's really hard when I go into big groups of people, because one, I don't look blind. Two, I've trained myself to not look blind. I will look right at where your mouth is coming from, and you will think, I'm looking right into your eyes, because I look about 2 inches above. So I've got some, like, life hacks that I've trained to help people be comfortable so that I can serve them. Now, when I say that, I know it sounds goofy, but.

1:11:15 - (Toby Brooks): No, I knew it. Say that again. Holy cow.

1:11:20 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, I. I trained myself to do these kind of hacks because I knew at some point something was coming, you know, but God, unless he heals on this earth, I'm getting healed one way or the other. By the way, just so you know, I. I already. I know my future story on this deal, so. But while I'm here and for however long he chooses to allow, I look at this as a huge gift because this actually made me hustle in my business to build a team.

1:11:53 - (Marissa Nehlsen): This made me hustle in my world to build wealth. This made me hustle to really, really focus on what am I here for. Because I knew my time was limited. It's almost like in that moment, and I. You know, when I first found out, I called my sister, and I remember literally laying on the bathroom floor of the. Of the hotel that was near the. The teaching hospital where they had done the diagnosis in Minneapolis. It was the University of Minnesota.

1:12:27 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I was from North Dakota. So I'm eight hours away from home, and my former husband was in the next room, but he was not kind of that emotional support character for me. And call my sister. And I'm just. I'm sobbing, and I'm like, tammy, I don't know one who's going to hire a blind financial advisor. Call my brother later, and I'll talk a little bit about him in just a second. But I can't imagine a world where I can't see my children's faces, where when I walk down the aisle one day, I won't see them.

1:12:58 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Literally, I won't see them. And I call my brother after that because I need a perspective change. See, my little brother went blind when he was 21. He has the same exact disease I have the disorder. And he went blind at 21. And he's the one who spoke life in me. See, these are like little angel moments in your life. They're glimpses of who and what you can become if you hear it. And I guarantee you, if I spent enough time with you, you would be able to identify glimpse after glimpse after glimpse that maybe you heard and maybe you didn't because you were in such pain at that moment.

1:13:32 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Now, my sister said almost an identical thing that my brother said, but because my brother was in it and had gone through it, I could hear it from him. I couldn't hear it from her that night. And so I spent six months in ugly, awful pain. And when my little brother Matt said to me, you know, our mom taught us, you can be a victim or you can be victorious. Our mom taught us that all things work together for good.

1:13:58 - (Marissa Nehlsen): People don't follow you because of your eyesight. They follow you because you're a leader.

1:14:03 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

1:14:04 - (Marissa Nehlsen): They follow you because of your vision and everything. Boom. Another moment in my life where everything changed. And thank God he was there, and he took my hand through it, and he said, you got a lot longer than I did. He went blind in 18 months.

1:14:20 - (Toby Brooks): Wow.

1:14:21 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I had years to prepare. I built teams. I built businesses. I built wealth. I learned how to. I did my makeup. Today I count. It's, you know, eyeshadow. One, two, one, two. Mascara. One, two, one, two. And somebody's got to fix it because I flump it up a little bit.

1:14:40 - (Toby Brooks): You know, but looks tremendous.

1:14:44 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Thank you. But I think about that. That you can prepare or you can repair.

1:14:53 - (Toby Brooks): Say that again. That's so good.

1:14:55 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I was taught that by John in Today Matters years before you can prepare or you can repair. And so when I was able, finally, to hear that eyesight and vision were different, I started preparing. Lord knows I went guns blazing preparing, because I didn't know how long. And I'll just tell you, when my little Luca sits up in my lap today. I've had him since he was 1. He's now 5, and he holds my face. And we're reading stories because Hazel is 6, and she reads, like, at second grade level.

1:15:32 - (Marissa Nehlsen): She read all my birthday cards to me on Tuesday. She said, grandma, I will sit by you because your eyes don't Work like they should work right now. Right now. Did you hear it?

1:15:42 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

1:15:42 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Your eyes don't work like they should work right now. There's a difference between your eyes don't work and your eyes don't work like they should work right now.

1:15:51 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, in glory they will.

1:15:54 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And she's learning. She's learning from me every day. How to overcome adversity, how to use what you got, how to know your gifts, how to walk in faith. Yeah, I walk in faith, not in eyesight. And so she's reading my cards, and she's sitting next to me with my little guy holding my face, going, grandma, I love her so much. I loved your birthday. I love cake. What? I get to do this? So eyesight is irrelevant. Let me just tell you, it is irrelevant. When you have a mission, what's your mission?

1:16:32 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Who matters to you? What do you love? What territory has been taken from you that you must reclaim for your family, for your life, for your generations? I am reclaiming territory for my grandbabies as they sit on my lap and I am praying over them. I am reclaim. Guys, if you get this one piece out of nothing else, I'm so excited right now. I jumped through the podcast come get you, get your notebooks. Let's go reclaim your territory.

1:17:00 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Redefine, Rich. You hear that word and you think it's a dirty word, like the F word. It is not the F word. It has been given to us and we've been given dominion over this, but we have not because we ask not. And there's all these things that get in the way. And first thing I had to do was I had to forgive myself. Forgiveness and boundaries go hand in hand. In my entire life, I've had to forgive myself.

1:17:22 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And I've also had to ask for forgiveness time and time and time and time again.

1:17:27 - (Toby Brooks): So I was meeting with a mentor yesterday for lunch, and I love that you keep. You've mentioned generations in yourself. You mentioned it in John. I heard this. And so ordinarily, I would probably steer clear of this. I know we're. We're close on time, but I just want to share it with you because it was so profound to me. He's first generation college student. He's now a dean at Baylor.

1:17:47 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Wow.

1:17:48 - (Toby Brooks): I'm a first generation college student working on my sixth degree. So we're. We kind of got off and talked about how high achievement for a first generation person is really about resilience. It's about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, finding a way to make it Work, even though you don't have the resources to make it work. And he said the second generation is about protection. That that generation saw how hard it was oftentimes for you to do that, and they want to protect that.

1:18:18 - (Toby Brooks): But the third generation frequently is so disconnected. They haven't seen the struggle and they squander it. And he said the power comes when the first generation can instill in the third generation that you've got resources I never had, but you need resilience. And if we can combine those two things, and I've read in your writings and I've heard how you aren't going to just hand things over to your grandkids, they're going to learn the value, and so you're instilling within them resilience with resources, and that's where transformation takes place.

1:18:55 - (Toby Brooks): So I just want to applaud you for, first of all, your resilience, but then second of all, how you've inspired that within your children and your children's children.

1:19:05 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah. The best question I've asked them, I think, in my parenting is, what do you think you should do? What do you think you should do about that? What do you think your next best move is? Which, for years I would go in and I would solve the problem, because I'm a problem solver and I'm a fixer and I get stuff done. And I. I am the epitome of gsd, if you know what that means. I am the epitome of it. Right.

1:19:31 - (Toby Brooks): So get stuff done.

1:19:33 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, get stuff done. Thank you very much. You did not grow up on the farm. Okay, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Well, I.

1:19:38 - (Toby Brooks): No, I know exactly what I would have said.

1:19:41 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just tease it. I'm teasing. Have a little fun. But. But that piece of. Really asking them from a very young age, what do you think you should do about that? What do you think you should do about that? Because it gives them those skill sets. And I think that there's some pieces here that I don't. I actually don't think with AI and all of the world that's changing around us with technology, I think there is a significant turning point. There's actually a couple of books that I recommend around. This one is called Generations.

1:20:11 - (Marissa Nehlsen): The next one is called the Fourth Turning. And I read those books and I've read them several times. And I think it's very, very interesting when you read these books, because for me, I've been doing estate planning for 33 years. I know what you're thinking? There's no way that girl could be that old. And so for 33 years, I've been helping people with generational planning. And, you know, we're all concerned now about this snowflake generation. Right.

1:20:33 - (Marissa Nehlsen): They can't handle it. And. And part of the reason they can't handle it is because we haven't equipped them.

1:20:38 - (Toby Brooks): Absolutely.

1:20:39 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Because we're solving all their problems. And so this is the killer of you becoming great is comfort.

1:20:47 - (Toby Brooks): Absolutely. Yeah. Seduced by the comfort of the couch, as my mentor Neil would say.

1:20:53 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah.

1:20:55 - (Toby Brooks): There's an irony to a generation that hasn't prepared the next generation and then blames them for not knowing how to be prepared.

1:21:03 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yes.

1:21:04 - (Toby Brooks): And I've worked with college kids all day, every day. College, young adults, however you want to couch that. And they're capable of so much. You just have to set the standard and then hold them to that standard, and they will rise or fall. And we can't protect their way to success. So that is heard. I've heard it said that when words aren't enough, you sing. Music can oftentimes express emotions in a way that few other things can. If we were to watch a montage of Marissa's life, what song would you pick to play in the background? And why?

1:21:38 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Man, that's a great question. The very first thing that popped into my head was this song. It's like by a Christian artist. And it's Brave. Brave is the song. I believe that regardless of your conditions and circumstances, that you must be brave enough to step into and through those troubled waters. I am a survivor would be another one. But I actually don't think that that's as impactful, because what I've learned about this, about resiliency is there's ones that are not resilient. Number one.

1:22:15 - (Marissa Nehlsen): There are ones that are resilient but don't change after the situation. And then there's ones that redefine what resilience looks like. And they use those rocks that were used to crush their head, and they stand on them and they build something out of it.

1:22:31 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

1:22:32 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And they build a mountain, and they bring a bunch of people with them. And so I look at those three kind of levels of resiliency, and I think that song for me, would be, are you brave enough to face it and keep moving, but learn from it. Face it. You know, resiliency and reflection and results go hand in hand. What kind of results do you want? And at the end of my life, when I meet my maker, I want Several things. But one of the things I really want is I want to know that I did all that I could with what he gave me.

1:23:10 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Yeah. And that means every person, every life, I want to leave people better than I found them. And so that song of brave is, will you. Will you get up every day and choose? Choose you this day. I don't have tomorrow. I just have today. If this was the very last podcast I ever did, my people would know when they listened to this. Oh, she loved me.

1:23:32 - (Toby Brooks): Yep.

1:23:33 - (Marissa Nehlsen): She left me with something better.

1:23:35 - (Toby Brooks): That's beautiful. So well said. I know. As you're talking, I'm just reminded of how so many times we can be caught up in that moment, that emotion, and. And that why me kind of seeps in. But you are just a living, breathing example of what next. Not why me what next. Like you said, using those rocks that were meant to destroy you and standing on them to reach higher heights. The show's called Becoming Undone, and it's built around this idea that there are times when life feels like it's coming apart at the seams, and it's okay to sit in that for a time. But then we realize we've got a purpose left unaccomplished. We have work left undone.

1:24:20 - (Toby Brooks): So what for Marissa Nelson remains undone.

1:24:23 - (Marissa Nehlsen): You know, I start my day with asking certain questions, and the three that I think are. And I shared these actually at the International Maxwell Conference. One of the questions I start with is what if? It's a possibility question. What if? And I'm paying attention really strongly to the possibilities and the opportunities around me. And what for? You know, what for? Is my next question. That's a purpose question. Is that in alignment? Because it's not just opportunities, but it's opportunities with purpose. What for? And then I'm asking the movement question, which is what's next?

1:24:56 - (Marissa Nehlsen): What's. What's undone for me right now is I am building out certain things in Costa Rica. God has given me not one, but two, but three. With my most recent in February of this year, mountains there in the Chinampas Mountains in Guanacaste, in one of a five blue zones. Now, I don't. Let me just tell you, never in my entire life would I have thought that possible. And we're building a retreat center where I believe the leaders will come to this mountain to be healed.

1:25:25 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And the reason I believe that is because this same scripture was given to me and my team at different times. And we all came back together with the exact same scripture. Micah 4:1 and. And there's so many reasons why. But we are building that retreat center today and all the housing that goes with that, where people can come and they can take those moments of being undone and ask the question, where am I now?

1:25:54 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And where does God want me to be? Where I can fully carry out every gift that's sitting in that box in heaven and I can call it out and bring it here and move with it with the fluid and the flexibility and the ability that he has given me to fully define it and refine it and move in it, move in it, and I that is undone. I believe so strongly every day when I wake up that God has positioned these resources to come to me through me and for this in such a way that when you come to this place, you cannot leave it unchanged.

1:26:40 - (Marissa Nehlsen): And that your mind and your body and your soul and all of these pieces that have been hurt and broken and challenged and changed by just life, sometimes that you could see by you being undone in this area, it was actually making space. Because the right thing cannot enter the space that the wrong thing is occupying. So sometimes things are removed from us on purpose, for us. And nothing, nothing, nothing in my life has happened to me.

1:27:13 - (Marissa Nehlsen): It has happened for me, and it has happened for those around me. That I can impact, influence, and help serve Hope dealers.

1:27:22 - (Toby Brooks): That is so powerful. I think so many times I'm my own worst critic. And I think about ways that maybe I've stitched the thing together wrong. And sometimes that unraveling allows the Lord to work in my life in a way so that it can be stitched back together right on. Sometimes it's choices I've made. Other times it's things that have happened. But your story is so powerful and it is so inspiring. And I want to thank you again for taking the time out of your day to join us today.

1:27:53 - (Marissa Nehlsen): I am Marissa Nielsen, and I am undone.

1:28:09 - (Toby Brooks): Marissa's story is a living, breathing reminder that the things meant to destroy us can actually define us many times in the best way possible. Her journey from poverty and pain to purpose and power isn't just inspirational, it's instructional. She didn't wait for permission. She didn't wait for perfect conditions. She just decided. She rebuilt. She became, if you're listening today, feeling stuck in your own undone moment or purpose. Storm of your own.

1:28:38 - (Toby Brooks): Let this be your call to rise. You don't need to have it all figured out. You just need to take the next courageous step. Like Mercenary said, your past might be part of your story, but it doesn't get to be the final word that is yours to write. I'm thankful to Marissa for dropping in and I hope you enjoyed our conversation. For more info on today's episode, be sure to check it out on the web. Simply go to undonepodcast.com

1:29:05 - (Toby Brooks): ep145 to see the notes, links and images related to today's guest, Marissa Nielsen. Some quick updates about the show we are back in the top 10 on Apple for both education and self improvement. Currently sitting at number seven in the world. Yay us. And currently we are sitting at number 170 in Apple's top 200. So for those of you listening who helped make that happen, my deepest, most heartfelt thank you.

1:29:41 - (Toby Brooks): My goal for 2026 is to at long last crack into that top 100 for all shows across the board. With your help we can do it. If you'd be so kind as to share the show with a friend you think would love it, maybe even leave a comment or a review that would be most appreciated. Coming up on the show, I'm going to take a brief break to celebrate the New Year. I'm working on a new whole person development series where we'll focus in with experts in mental, physical, spiritual and social growth.

1:30:11 - (Toby Brooks): But before that, hoping to bring you one more wrap up Word to the third to finish out our best year ever on the show. There'll be plenty more where that came from in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. There's some more coming up on Becoming Undone Becoming Undone is a Nitrohype creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. Tell a friend about the show. Follow along on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn becoming undone pot and follow me obiebrooksphd on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

1:30:39 - (Toby Brooks): Check out my link tree at linktr.ee tobybrooksphd. Listen, subscribe and leave me a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Till next time. Keep getting better.

1:31:00 - (Marissa Nehlsen): Sa. Sat.