Episode 16 - America’s Dream Coach, Marcia Wieder

Transcript

Woman: This program is brought to you by PersonalLifeMedia.com.

[musical interlude]

Peter Brill: Well, hello, and welcome to “The Third Age” with the doctor and the man from Hollywood. The doctor is me, Peter Brill, MD and the man from Hollywood is David Debin. On this show, we turn the myth of aging upside down, we sort out the scientific and the trendy, the medical and the cultural, and we tell you everything you need to know about living in the Third Age. Remember, we guarantee if you listen to us, you will never grow old.

David Debin: And what happens if somebody does grow old? How do we deal with that?

Peter Brill: We give them their money back.

David Debin: Oh, you get your money back. OK. I'm David Debin, the man from Hollywood, and the Third Age usually starts somewhere around age 45 or 50. It could start later, it could start earlier. It's the time when you start to feel a strong desire for deeper meaning and fulfillment in your life. Your first age is your childhood, your second age is building career and family, and the third age is a major change. You're transitioned to a whole new set of problems, values, opportunities, and gratifications. So join us as fellow explorers in this journey to discover what brings passion and purpose and joy into this unchartered time of life.

The support for our program is growing! How about that? I could have told you that.

Peter Brill: You bet, you could have.

David Debin: Absolutely.

Peter Brill: If you want an ordinary life? If you just want to be comfortable and numb or one day feels like the next? Or do you want to find something that gets your juices going that makes you feel like your life is special and that you matter. It all starts with finding and living your dreams. Often, people in the Third Age feel it's too late to dream or they can't afford their dreams. Rather, it's a time to find new dreams and live them to the fullest.

Our guest today, Marcia Wieder, American dream coach is going to tell us how to find our dream and bring them into fruition. Don’t dream of missing this show.

David Debin: Oop, that’s a [xx] there. They’ll be down there, [sp] [make sounds].

Peter Brill: We have something left over from a previous program.

David Debin: What?

Peter Brill: We had someone who’s calling in here now. Hello, are you there, Sylvia?

Sylvia: I am.

Peter Brill: OK. Do you want to give your whole name or just Sylvia enough?

Sylvia: Sylvia [xx] was fine

Peter Brill: OK.

David Debin: Sylvia?

Peter Brill: That’s not your whole name?

Sylvia: Yes, it isn’t.

Peter Brill: Well, it turns out that I made a mistake on this show, is that right?

Sylvia: No, no, no. You didn’t make a mistake, you didn’t tell the whole truth.

Peter Brill: I didn’t tell the whole truth. My wife tells me that all the time.

Sylvia: Well, we were discussing the word “crisis” and you made a statement that it was a combination of danger and opportunity. The actual fact is as follows: the word “crisis” is made up of two symbols.

Peter Brill: Well, can you show them to us?

Sylvia: Yes, yes, I'm showing them to you right now. It's made of two symbols. The word “danger” is made of two symbols and the word “opportunity” is made of two symbols. One of the two symbols in the word “crisis” also appears in the word “danger” and the other symbol appears in the word “opportunity”. So the American motivationalist [sp] of this have made a big deal of that. The Chinese have sort of pooh-poohed it. But actually, the word for crisis is--just a second, let me get my note here--is wei and then the second word is ji; and the word for danger is weixian and for opportunity is jihuay. So, what the American motivationalist, as I said here, the wisdom of the Chinese philosophers is that when crisis appears, there is danger and there is opportunity and it depends upon your attitude which you confront.

Peter Brill: Well, thank you so much. I stand corrected.

David Debin: We're all taking notes here, seriously.

Sylvia: By the way, at first, when I heard the rumor, I went to a Chinese restaurant and I had the Chinese waiter, who was just over from China, draw these symbols out and it's amazing.

Peter Brill: I thought you found them in a fortune cookie.

Sylvia: No.

Peter Brill: Well, Sylvia, thank you very much for your call.

Sylvia: Thank you for your program.

David Debin: We're having a crisis now. What's the opportunity?

Sylvia: Whatever you make of it.

Peter Brill: Thank you, thanks for your call.

Sylvia: God bless. Bye.

David Debin: Well, I think that’s a critical point to get across to everybody.

Peter Brill: I just want to say a couple of things about dreams. I mean, there is no question in my mind that people living out their dreams is the right way to go. Didn’t you in your life, David?

David Debin: Yes, I did, I lived out my dreams. Unfortunately, they were finished real fast.

Peter Brill: You were done by 10?

David Debin: Everything came true and then I was…

Peter Brill: You didn’t know what to do next.

David Debin: I had to reinvent new dreams.

Peter Brill: Yes. Well, that’s what people don’t know. Now, do you have a dream yet, Marissa?

Marissa Sgobassi: Not completely.

Peter Brill: Not completely, yes. I had several and I have many, many more.

David Debin: You do?

Peter Brill: Oh, yes.

David Debin: What's one?

Peter Brill: What's one of my dreams?

David Debin: Yes.

Peter Brill: One of my dreams is to be able to play in a band, play the piano, watch by other people.

David Debin: Are you studying piano?

Peter Brill: Yes, yes.

David Debin: When did you start that?

Peter Brill: I’d do it off and on.

David Debin: Oh, great!

Peter Brill: Looks like the guy who says if he gives up a smoke every night.

David Debin: Oh, I see. So now you're going to wear like all kinds of crazy clothes or tassles and you're going to let your hair grow long and do all that?

Peter Brill: Yes, absolutely. I'll be that.

David Debin: You'll look like Cliff Richards.

Peter Brill: I mean, your humor is great but don’t know what time it is.

David Debin: I know, it's time to inform our audience about the new story for today. Well, folks, a lot of you know this but it's rare to find kosher ham. It's rarer still to find it carbonated and bottled. Did you know that the Jones Soda Company which is the Seattle-based purveyor of off-beat fizzy water said Friday that it was shelving its traditional seasonal flavors of turkey and gravy this year to produce limited edition theme packs for Christmas and Hanukkah. In other words, you just can't get the turkey soda or the gravy soda this year.

Peter Brill: I'm so sorry.

David Debin: I hope you stacked up.

Peter Brill: Have you ever had a turkey soda?

David Debin: Yes, I enjoyed it. It's fabulous. I only like the dark soda, I don’t like the white one.

The Christmas pack will feature such flavors as sugar plum, Christmas tree, eggnog, and Christmas hymn. The Hanukkah pack--no, this is Hanukkah, Hanukkah pack--you have to have a [xx] though. Well, they have Jelly Doughnut, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins, and Latkes. By the way, Jones’ products feature original label art and frequently odd flavors. Last year’s seasonal pack had Green Peas, Sweet Potato, Dinner Roll, Turkey.

Peter Brill: Are you doing a commercial or what?

David Debin: I just find this is wonderful. I've always wondered why they didn’t make chicken-flavored ice cream and stuff like that. Every time I go into Baskin and Robbins,

Peter Brill: Every time I go there, they got exactly the same.

David Debin: Why don’t they have it here? These people--listen to this, he makes Perspiration, Dirt, Sports Cream and Natural Field Turf and they pride themselves on the accuracy of the taste.

Marcia Wieder: That look kind of disgusting.

David Debin: Wasn't that fabulous, the Jones Soda Factory?

Peter Brill: Kind of disgusting.

David Debin: I think it's great, I think it's wonderful. Somebody’s out there letting us know that anything is possible.

Peter Brill: Our show today is about dreams. We have America’s dream coach here on, back by popular demand.

David Debin: Not the sleeping kind of dreams.

Peter Brill: Not the sleeping kind.

David Debin: No, no. The waking dreams, the waking fulfillment of your life’s “purpose and passion” dreams.

Peter Brill: Do you want to hear my dreams from last night?

David Debin: Well, I don’t know if anyone’s ready for that.

Peter Brill: All right. We have on with us Marcia Wieder, the CEO and founder of the Dream University and she is leading a dream movement over the last 20 years coaching, training, and speaking experience. Her inspiring message, style and wit has touched audiences from 50 to 5,000 at companies such as AT&T, the GAP, and American Express. She's spoken internationally, has been on “Oprah”, written several books and met with three former Presidents.

David Debin: Wow!

Peter Brill: Wow! Welcome to the show, welcome back to the show.

Marcia Wieder: Thanks, guys, it's nice to be with you, talking about this very important topic of dreaming.

Peter Brill: Of dreaming. Tell me, what is the difference between a dream, a goal, and a fantasy?

Marcia Wieder: Perfect place to start. A dream is simply something that you want, and we could say at one level, where dreams come from is you make them up. Some of them are based on need, some of them are based on desire, and the dreams that are aligned with your purpose and mission are usually, the most profound but we can revisit that. Often, people would say that a goal is a dream with a due date, and for me a fantasy is like winning the lottery. The difference between a dream and a fantasy is that in a dream, you can design a strategy or a plan for getting there.

And interestingly, in my travels around the world, what I'm seeing is it's not that people don’t go to strategy but they rather go to strategy too quickly and often compromise their dreams down to what they think is realistically possible. So in a nutshell, for me dreaming is about getting in touch with your passion, your desire, the things that really are important to you, and then taking action to make those dreams a reality.

David Debin: I have the feeling that there are a lot of people out there who had the feeling that they were meant to do a certain thing and then they tried it and then in the way of the world, it's tough to do anything in life, maybe they were unable to get it going, unable to do it, the other responsibilities interfered. They had to bring up kids maybe, get married, whatever something came along and it just they failed at what they thought they were meant to do. When I say failed, it didn’t come true and then they went and took up their lives in a new way, they’ve fulfilled all their responsibilities. How do you get somebody to come back to that when they have that kind of negative view of it?

Marcia Wieder: I don’t know of anybody that hasn’t had failures or set backs or shortcomings and disappointments. The challenges, how do you [xx] or demonstrate that you're more committed to your dream than to any doubt, fear, or reality that might be telling you it's a bad idea or you failed before and you might fail again. One thing I want to say is that not all dreams need to be Mother Teresa dream. Thank goodness, we have people that have save-the-world dreams, but your dream of spending more quality time with your family and friends, your dream of doing something that you really love is important as well. Sometimes, we make these dreams to be like the Holy Grail, and my gosh, it has to be like “the dream”.

I think living your dream come true [xx] is about having the courage to say no more to what's no longer true, so that you can say “Now, what?” to what really matters. Sometimes, to know more we have to say no more to, is that inner critic--what I call the “voice of the doubter” that comes and gives you a laundry list of why your dream is a bad idea. It really is possible to sort of turn up the voice of the vision and turn down the voice of the doubter. We can talk more about that as we get into talking about doubts and fears. So what I would say is many of us what we have to do is sort of feel the dreamer inside of us. It's like, “OK, well, I have a dear friend who’s a wonderful coach who says that failures just feedback.” Like, “What didn’t I do right or didn’t I do well or how would I do it differently now?”

I think the amazing thing about second half of life is that we make choices and decisions about our dreams, goals, and desires based on a whole different set of criteria than we might have had before when we had to make--maybe the sacrifices were too great and we had to put many other things before we put our own dreams into play.

Peter Brill: Let me give you an example of someone that came and we talked to, and I just want to--this is a lady who is 60 years of age, very talented, of many, many talents. She had worked much of her marriage, unfortunately, there was a family tragedy there and as a result of that and other factors, the marriage ended and she was really without very much money at all. Now, she was able to support herself by doing certain business deals but just at the level of what her income require her to have to live. She wanted--her dream was to put away $5 million for retirement within three to five years, but also to be able to be outdoors and to be able to be flexible about her time.

Now, what do you with somebody like that?

Marcia Wieder: Yes. I think it's interesting thing I'd be asking about that $5 million. That was the piece that kind of went tweaky inside in my head.

Peter Brill: Well, that’s what she calculated. That’s what she calculated was going to take in order for her to retire to standard of living she was living at.

Marcia Wieder: It's an amazing thing. I have seen people go further in life with their passion commitment, with their intention and their dreams, and sometimes it's skills and experience, and may I add, gabs [sp] of money. I think what we often do is we start to do the “About what if?” We project our fears and doubts and our needs into our dream and then we somehow make it either so big that we can't obtain it or we put our worst fears into it and every time we take a step towards it, it takes us into our worst nightmares then we won't do it. So I think there is something about separating out a little bit, what is it that I really want.

Peter Brill: Let's go a level deeper. So what happens then if she says, “I'm afraid if I don’t have enough put away money when I reach 70, I don’t have any retirement fund, I don’t have anything and I'm going to be living hand to mouth.

Marcia Wieder: Yes. And I will say the biggest obstacles that certainly pulls off our dreams, interestingly, it's not time and money, it's fear. It's the fear that about what if? I would say that this is even true for me. I'm in my 50’s and I started thinking, “How many more years do I want to work, that conversation we all have and how much do I need to make between now and then. I had this $5 million number that she had as well.

Peter Brill: There you go. She's smart, this lady was smart. She knows about how much she takes.

Marcia Wieder: But you know what? When I sat down with the financial planner, I actually needed half of that. It was shocking to me because what he showed me actually, is as we grow older, we actually spend less. There were many things that he showed me and it was a real revelatory moment for me and it changed how I'm living my life now because instead of working myself to death, thinking, “Oh-oh, 10 years, I better put away half a million dollars every year so I have $5 million in the next 10 years.” So there is something about the appropriate place for reality. I always say it's important to know where we are so that we can design the appropriate realistic strategy for where we want to go. But the question is, also, what has being realistic costs us. When we're overly realistic, we often kill off our passion and our dreams and I think it is a balance. We do need to plan for our future but not at the cost of not living our life in the present.

David Debin: Pay attention to the appropriate place for reality. That’s something we should discuss.

Marcia Wieder: Yes.

David Debin: How is reality interfering with people fulfilling their dreams?

Peter Brill: Well, like I would say about reality, I only go as a visitor.

David Debin: I've actually met you there.

Marcia Wieder: Do you have time for another quick story?

David Debin: We can have a break right now and we will come back and get another great story from you, Marcia. This is “The Third Age” with David Debin and Peter Brill.

[radio break]

Peter Brill: We're back with “The Third Age”. I'm your co-host, Dr. Peter Brill, I'm here with the man from Hollywood, David Debin, and Marissa Sgobassi. Our guest today is Marcia Wieder, the CEO and founder of the Dream University. She talks all over the world, leads course, writes books, and talks to former Presidents. Hi, Marcia.

Marcia Wieder: Hi. Can I mention I had a brand new book that just came out this week?

Peter Brill: You can mention your book, your website, and if you want to give out your personal phone number, you can.

Marcia Wieder: Well, I'm very excited because I have a brand new book that just came out called “Dreams are Whispers from the Soul”.

Peter Brill: Wow! What a great book.

Marcia Wieder: It's very exciting. Finding your purpose and passion in life and people can find it if they go to my website DreamCoach.com and I want to tell you a story that’s in this book.

Peter Brill: Wait a minute. Before you do that, you're going to give out something free if it's in your website. Right?

Marcia Wieder: Yes. There are a couple of things I want to say to people. One is if you're interested in all kinds of free resources, ebooks, audios. This morning I just interviewed Michael Gelb whose new book is called “Innovate like Edison” and that audio link is on this website. We have a community called AmazingDreamers.com and just go there and you can sign up, go into free resources, tons of goodies there. Then, while I'm on roll, I'll also mention that I turn all kinds of programs, everything from becoming a certified dream coach to how to become an inspiring speaker. We have a visionary leader intensive coming up. If anyone is interested in any of those programs, our main website is DreamCoach.com, and under Workshop, if they sign up for any program and put in their--what's the easiest word? We want to give a special discount to your people.

Peter Brill: Third Age.

Marcia Wieder: Third Age. That’s what I thought, Third Age, we'll give 10% off on [xx] workshop.

Peter Brill: There you go, people.

Marcia Wieder: They’d love that.

Peter Brill: OK. So, let's hear your story.

Marcia Wieder: There you go, DreamCoach.com for the book or the workshop.

In the “Dreams are Whispers from the Soul”, my favorite story that I've--it's sort of a signature story and the first story that I'd start out which is called “It's Never Too Late”. There was this amazing woman who came to one of my Dream University programs named Bessie, who at 70 years old, announced to me and she said, “I want to become a professional photographer.” She said “I actually want to be a world famous professional photographer.” She’d been an amateur for about 20 years. Of course, the difference between a professional and amateur is money. This is a good transition as we were just talking about money before the break.

I said to her, “What's stopping you?” She said, “Well, I think I need credentials but I don’t want to go back to school at this age.” I was listening between the words and I could hear that there was some sadness in what she was saying. So I said to her, “Bessie, what's really stopping you? What's the trigger? What's really stopping you?” She said, “Everyone in my life is telling me to be realistic.” There it is again. “They're telling me that I'm too old.” I said, “Well, that’s nonsense. What's a step that you could take to demonstrate you're more committed to your dream than to their doubt.” She thought about it and her eyes lit up, she got really excited about this simple but very potent step she could take. She said, “I could enter a contest. I've had the applications sitting in my inbox for months. There's this Kodak International Snapshot Contest, I'm going to enter. I love what she said, she said, “That will demonstrate to me that I'm not just talking about, I'm actually doing something about it.”

She took a beautiful photograph of a man playing the saxophone [sp] with red and golden tones reflected back. She sent it off to this Kodak competition with 500,000 other people. She won first prize.

Peter Brill: Isn’t that wonderful?

Marcia Wieder: She won $10,000 [xx]. She said, “I ran out and got business cards printed.”

Peter Brill: Absolutely.

Marcia Wieder: Her photograph toured around the world with the “Journey into Imagination” Exhibit. She got the whole dream and when I asked her, I said, “Well, [xx] what you share with me. What did you learn from that whole thing?” She said very clearly, “It's never too late to make a dream come true.”

Peter Brill: Oh, I love that message. We've been trying to tell people that.

Marcia Wieder: Forever and ever.

Peter Brill: People think that the world and social reality is concrete and absolute and it's not. Everyday, someone emerges who sees things differently, wants to do something differently and has a passion to make it happen and the whole world just molds right around them.

Marcia Wieder: I have to say, this is what I love about your show because you're giving to your listeners inspiration but also practical, usable stuff to demonstrate that you're more committed to your dream than you are to your reality requires that you do something. So the fact that people are listening in to the show that they might go and visit my website or they might go to the library and take out a book and take that next step.

Peter Brill: Exactly.

Marcia Wieder: It's so critical.

David Debin: I just have one question, to go back to that story again, if somebody comes to you and says they want to be a professional photographer, that’s a real dream. That’s something that you can say, “What's your next step?” Now, when somebody says to you, “I want to be a world famous professional photographer”, what do you do? Do you tell them that there's a step that you can take to become world famous? Isn’t that something that happens on its own?

Marcia Wieder: One of the things that I love in the dreaming process is you put everything into the dream that you want and you leave out what you don’t want. It's much more powerful to move towards what you want like health and fitness than to move away from what you don’t want. People are more motivated to be sexy, healthy, physically fit, by [xx] than they are to lose weight.

David Debin: So there's no element of disappoint there because they don’t become world famous. You just include everything and see how far you can come to the bull’s eye.

Marcia Wieder: What I have found is that we tend to compromise our dreams before we ever fully explore the possibility.

Peter Brill: That is true, that is so true. People are so afraid to dream.

Marcia Wieder: And world famous could mean that somebody in a foreign country has seen your work and was touched and inspired by it. In our community AmazingDreamers.com, we have about 3,000 people from around the world. So if somebody said, “My dream is to be a world renowned poet.” They could put a up in this community and ask for feedback, they would hear from people from India, China, Africa. I mean, I do think it's important to open up to possibilities before we go down to “How do I realistically accomplish this?” That’s the difference for me between dreaming and goal setting.

When I announced to my family and friends I was closing my marketing business in the National Press Building in DC and moving to California to help people achieve their dreams, they rolled their eyes and they said to me, “You know, Marcia, you used to be so credible.”

Peter Brill: Same thing happened to me, three different times when I built three different national companies from [xx].

Marcia Wieder: Well, there you go. Exactly. I don’t have a little coaching practice, I've certified close to 700 coaches worldwide, many second half of life people.

Peter Brill: That’s wonderful. So both of us, all of us are saying, “Get out there and do it.”

Marcia Wieder: Get out there and do something. Life is short, moments are precious. What are you doing today to actually live your life? I think the secret to living a joyful fulfilling life is to do simply, is to simply to do more of what you love everyday.

Peter Brill: So what is your process that you go through?

Marcia Wieder: If I had to sum it up really, really quickly here, instead of giving people the ABC’s, will give them the CBA’s. Very simple.

Peter Brill: [xx] put that in order.

Marcia Wieder: There you go. There's other steps, too, starting with setting intention and living with an integrity and finding your purpose. But the core is, get clear, see, get clear about what it is that you want, most of us don’t know. We're so mired in reality and so busy living from clocks and calendars that to stop and say, “What is it that I do well? What is it that makes me happy? What is it that will help me feel fulfilled and bring meaning to my life?” It's also a confronting question because if you're someone who practices living with integrity and you ask the question, “How do I want my life to be?” The next question must be, “What am I going to do about it?”

That takes us into B. B is about believing, believe in your dreams. When I was on “Oprah”, we went to a commercial break. I was on a couple of times as the passion expert, I was on once talking to people that have starting the wrong business. During the commercial break, Oprah came over to me and she said, “You know something that I know.” I kind of had this moment of, “Oh, my gosh! I'm having a moment with Oprah.” I said, “What is that?” She said, “It's all about believing in your dream.” Oprah said if she had to attribute her success in life to any one thing, it was that she believed in her dream even when no one else did.

Peter Brill: Exactly.

Marcia Wieder: What I had to Oprah’s wisdom is this, sometimes there's no evidence that your dream is a good idea or that it is the right time to do it. But the question is--and this is the core tenets that I teach--where are you looking to decide whether or not you should believe in dream? You don’t look in your checkbook. Don’t look at the stock market.

Peter Brill: It's too late, do it quickly.

David Debin: No, no, we're going to take a break right now and then we're going to come back. Don’t go away.

Marcia Wieder: [xx] to come back with us.

Peter Brill: We're coming back, we're coming back.

David Debin: We're coming back real soon. Don’t go away.

[radio break]

Peter Brill: I'm back. Peter Brill, you're listening to “Third Age”. I'm here with David Debin, Marissa Sgobassi. Our guest today is Marcia Wieder, the founder of the Dream University and the leading dream coach.

So, we needed A. We did C which is get cleared. B, believe in what you're doing, and what is A?

Marcia Wieder: Wait. I just have to say the place to look to decide whether or not you believe in your dream--remember, not the stock market, not your checking account--it's in your own heart. This is the core tenet, can you believe in something because it matters to you, not because there are any guarantees or assurances or promises. So C is get clear about you what you want, writing it down, talking about it, and getting it out or your head help. Go to AmazingDreamers.com, you can get some ideas for new dreams there and get some ideas on your dreams. B, believe in your dreams because they matter to you. Then A, demonstrate that you believe in your dreams by taking action. That’s it, because if we're just thinking about our dreams and talking about our dreams and not doing anything about them, they will remain just dreams.

Peter Brill: So how can people rekindle their passion when they feel drained and empty?

Marcia Wieder: I talk a lot about that in the new book because, like I said, it's finding your purpose and passion. I often recommend going on what I call “passion quest” taking the period of time--it could be a weekend, it could be a week, a month you don’t have to put the rest of your life on hold but really following your heart. For me, when I decided to close my marketing business and I didn’t know what was next and I was burned out and tired or living life in 15-minute increment like so many of us, hopefully, used to. I one of these passion quests and it lead me to the Make A Wish Foundation where I was doing volunteer work and I was so inspired and moved by who these people were that that’s really where I found my mission and purpose in life. So take a period of time with your antenna up doing what you love with the intention of discovering or creating new dreams.

Peter Brill: Great.

David Debin: Yes, I'm taking notes here, Marcia, that’s what I'm trying.

Marcia Wieder: I'm glad, thank you.

David Debin: You're giving me a lot of good ideas. You mentioned visioning, you mentioned the word before, visioning. Is that something like the secret where you decide what you want to have and you picture it and then it comes true?

Marcia Wieder: I think the more clarity using [xx] on a dream, the more passion that often comes with it. Certainly for some people, the more fear and freak out factor that comes with it as well. But then, this process of being able to separate out what I call the “soup up separating up the dream and the vision” from the doubts and the fears, I think, as some of us are visual and we tend to see things with images. Some of us had sensation, some of us through words. I think whatever the gate is that’s going to help bring the dream alive for you.

Then let me say, often as we get in touch with the dream, the doubt comes together. They seem to be in a holy relationship together. One of the things that I have found is that if you'd never deal with your own doubt and you meet another doubter on the road, their doubt will magnify yours. But if you dealt with your own doubt--I can talk a little bit about how to do that if we have time--but if you dealt with your own doubt and you meet another doubter on the road, by contrast, it actually becomes the opportunity to deepen your commitment and your conviction to your dream. So we know that it's like our beliefs are never neutral, they're either moving us forward or holding us back but a lot of us forget that we choose what we believe. The doubter will come in and give you your list of obstacles and all obstacles are either limiting belief--something inside of you--or something that requires a strategy or a plan. But sometimes, we can get so taken out by our doubts. Like you brought up earlier, if we had a failure or as set back or a disappointment in the past, sometimes that can color our present or future.

Peter Brill: So, how do people deal with them? How do they do with their doubts?

Marcia Wieder: I really think this process I love. Before you turn the voice of the doubter down to the voice of the realist, turn it up. Go pull out a journal and go interview your doubter. Hear what he has to say. It will give you your list of obstacles but if you try to ignore or, even worse, deny it or brush it under the rug, my experience is it gets louder and more dangerous. It can just really unconsciously sabotage you and take you out.

So interview your doubter. I might write M for Marcia, “I'm going to the Greek Islands”, D for doubter, “No, no, it's too far away and too dangerous.” M for Marcia, “What are you talking about? This is something I've always wanted to do.” Doubter, “Who’s going to run your business while you're away?” You know, the doubter and the realist, they [xx]. The doubter says things like, “Well, how it's going to look to your clients with you being out of the country for three months.” I'm writing, “Well, I'm thinking as a dream coach, it's going to look pretty darn good!”

David Debin: That’s a great way to answer the question that I had coming up, which is that I think in many cases, the problem with dreaming is that there are things in your life--you want to change things and you want to live out your passion and everything--but there are things in your life you don’t want to jettison. When you think about dreaming, you want to have your cake and eat it, too. So I think that what you're saying is interview your doubter and find out, “What are these that you really, really care about?” That’s something that takes a while to do, isn’t it?

Marcia Wieder: You can sit down in 10 minutes. Anyone who’s listening to this call and just say, “OK, I've got this dream. And if you're not sure what your doubter is saying, if your right your dream out, your doubter will usually [xx].

Peter Brill: Will come to life immediately. Right?

Marcia Wieder: That’s not a bad idea. You're too old or you're too young. You don’t have the time, you don’t have the money, all of those kinds of things.

Peter Brill: I'll miss my boyfriend, my girlfriend, my husband.

Marcia Wieder: Exactly. But then if you actually delve in a little deeper, people are often afraid to hear from the doubter. They think it's like the devil or something and my belief is, if it's part of you, it has sacred insight and wisdom and why not use it as an ally? It's just like what we're talking about with the realist, you want to have the appropriate part of you--what has Jim Collins say it, “Right person on the right seat on the right path” in his book “Good to Great”. So there's the dreamer, there's the visionary, there's the dreamer, there's the realist, there's the doubter. These are all different parts of ourselves. We want to use the realist to help drive the strategy but not have the realists or the doubters start to compromise the dream down before we'd even explore the possibilities.

Peter Brill: True words. Let's let you tell us again how do people get in touch with you.

Marcia Wieder: Thanks, I appreciate that.

Peter Brill: And tell us about your book.

Marcia Wieder: If you're interested in attending a workshop, anything from learning how to become a coach, I've got a couple of weekends--inexpensive two-day weekends around the country. Anyway, if you could go to DreamCoach.com, click on Workshops, you'll find out about all the fabulous programs coming up. We had a lot of people in our last “How to Become an Inspiring Speaker” program because second half of life, you have wisdom, you have knowledge, something that you want to teach and speak to other people and you can earn a living doing that. So be sure to put in on the Note section, Third Age, and we'll take 10% off on any of the big workshops. Also, if you go to DreamCoach.com, as I just mentioned, and go to the Story, you’ll see my new beautiful book, “Dreams are Whispers from the Soul”. I'd be happy to autograph that and get that out to people. So if you're interested in ordering that since it's just out, sitting on my desk, perfect Christmas gift for friends and loved ones. Also the community, if you're interested in communicating with me, 3,000 other dreamers, finding ideas, getting help and tons of free resources, please go to AmazingDreamers.com.

David Debin: How do you do all these?

Marcia Wieder: I have more free time than any nine people I know. I had to learn to say no to what's no longer true and because I'm doing more and more of what I love, believe or not, it's like a time management. It gets down faster.

David Debin: That’s good advice. Everything you've told me, I'm playing this with my wife. We're going to listen to this show together later on because we need a little help in our dreams.

Marcia Wieder: How wonderful to create a little dream team with your spouse to say, “OK, let's really focus on what is it that we want. We know that life is short, moments are precious and I will also say it's never been a more important time to go for our dreams, never been a more important time. God only knows what tomorrow will hold.

David Debin: Well, tomorrow will hold something good for our sponsors. We're going to hear from them in just a minute. We'll be right back. Thank you, Marcia. We'll be back on “The Third Age”.

[radio break]

Peter Brill: Well, welcome back to “The Third Age”. You're here with the doctor and the man from Hollywood. The doctor is me, Dr. Peter Brill and I'm here with David Debin, the man from Hollywood and Marissa Sgobassi.

Well, that was quite a show, Marissa. So you were saying it had some meaning to you.

Marissa Sgobassi: Yes, because I don’t really know for sure what exactly my dreams are except for finding something that I really passionate about and going for it especially because I'm going to be graduating from college soon and I have to find that job.

Peter Brill: Right. How much of your time do you spend trying to envision and get clear about what your dream is?

Marissa Sgobassi: Probably not enough, I think. I need to set aside time.

Peter Brill: You know what I do? What she was saying is absolutely true. I try to get clearer and clearer and clearer when I have a dream and I'll start writing about it. I'll start drawing pictures of it and I'll start drawing schematics of it and I'll start doing David’s experiences when we're…I'll keep working on it and working on it until I get clear about what it is and then I'm going to change it because it doesn’t always turn out exactly as you want. But you have to really spend the time, unless you think, “Ah, it’ll just come true.” It doesn’t, you need to get clear with yourself where your real passion and energy is.

David Debin: But that’s why everybody love the cigarette so much, everybody out there you  make up a board with the picture of the house you want, the car you want, the boat you want, the diamonds you want. You put it over your bed, every night you go to sleep, you look at the board that you want and it comes true. That’s what they thought was…

Peter Brill: Let me ask you these questions. There are two kinds of goals in life, there are feelings goals and there are doing goals or concrete goals, things you want a house. But you also have a goal of how you want to feel in that house. What happens for a lot of people is they get the concrete goals r some of them and they don’t get the feeling goals because they’d devoted so much of their lives to the concrete end of it--to the material end of it--they haven’t focus on how it feels, their spiritual part, their emotional part, their physical part. So it's very important to have if you going to dream, to dream not just about the material possessions you want but about the life you want.

David Debin: We're living in a “get it” society. Get it quick, get it all you can quick, get it all.

Peter Brill: It's all material.

David Debin: It's all material and…

Peter Brill: It's all very superficial and it's all faster and faster. One thing that I'm absolutely certain of, no matter how fast you go, you can't chase happiness.

Marissa Sgobassi: That’s true.

David Debin: Did you hear that, Marissa?

Marissa Sgobassi: Yes.

David Debin: I want you to stop chasing happiness. Stop looking for love in all the wrong places.

Peter Brill: No, you can look for it but you can't chase it. You can't catch it.

David Debin: OK. Call us if you want to know anymore about our program 969-9794, that’s the number of The Third Age Foundation. We have groups, we do workshops, and have a website which will give you a lot more information on what it's like to be in this change of life. That is ThirdAgeFoundation.com.

Peter Brill: To achieve your dreams. We'll help you.

David Debin: Yes. So that’s it for us. It's been nice being with you. We'll see you again next time.

Peter Brill: We'll be back next week.

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