with learning what it takes to turn dreams into reality. I started my company back in

the day with no clue, no connections, no money, and over time grew it into something spectacular.

I created the award-winning show MarieTV, was named by Oprah as a thought leader for

the next generation, and wrote the instant number one New York Times bestseller, Everything

is Figureoutable. I've helped millions of people transform their

businesses and lives, and every week, I'm going to help you take action and make the

difference you were born to make. But please do not expect anything about this to be traditional.

We've got songs, we've got weird sound effects, the occasional F-bombs, maybe some fart jokes

if you're lucky, and anything else that makes me laugh. It is all fair game because this

is the Marie Forleo podcast. If you're a book lover or a book writer or

some kind of creative human being, today's episode is for you. We're going to talk about

our love of books today, and specifically, books that have helped my team and I overcome

some creative challenges like perfectionism, imposter syndrome, or just that general feeling

of not being good enough. So think about this one like a little bit of a virtual book club

between you, myself, Team Forleo, and our entire community. I want you to put on your

cozy pants if you got them, or you can just take off your pants, who cares, no one's going

to see you. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, a glass of red or sparkling water, whatever

floats your beverage boat, and settle in for a very special episode that we're calling

#ILovedThisBook, creativity edition. But first, a word from today's sponsor.

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if you still didn't hear it, rewind the damn podcast.

One of my earliest memories was when I was about four years old. I was sitting in the

grammar school library in Iselin, New Jersey on the floor, surrounded by piles of books.

My mom was volunteering for my older brother's class and the kindergarten teacher, her name

was Mrs. Krusin, was keeping an eye on me. I remember feeling intoxicated by that special

smell of books that libraries always have and just feeling mesmerized by it all. I felt

like every book was this window into an entirely different universe, and I would trace the

words and the pictures with my fingers working so hard to figure out what it all meant.

One of the first books that I got obsessed with was Harold and the Purple Crayon. Do

you remember that one? I loved the colors of the book, but I think the thing that really

got me was the fact that the entire story was about a child who had the power to create

his own world using his imagination. He wanted to go for a walk in the moonlight, but there

wasn't a moon, so he drew one in. And then after walking along this straight path for

a bit, he realized he wasn't getting anywhere. So he took that crayon of his and he drew

a new, different path, which led to a lot more adventures.

Books have always been, and I predict they always will be, a huge part of my life. Every

single thing that I've done or overcome or learned usually ties back to something I figured

out or got inspired by in a book. People still ask me all the time. They say, "Marie, what

books do you recommend?" In fact, somebody just asked me on YouTube, they said, "Hey,

Marie, can you do a video on the top 20 books that made the biggest impact on your life?

Your must-reads." If you've listened to this show for any amount

of time, you know I often interview authors about their books, but given everything that's

happening right now, I thought it would be fun to curate a little reading list just for

you specifically about creativity. You can find the full list of all the books on the

blog if you google, "Marie Forleo books to read on creativity."

Now, if you're wondering, why are you guys picking creativity as the theme for this one,

here's the reason. Right now, most of us have to be even more creative than we've ever been

before and we have to do it fast. We all have to change the way that we're living and working

and doing business and even moving about our lives, which requires tremendous creativity

and imagination, and a bit of determination. I want to share with you a little passage

right now from one of my all-time favorite books about creativity. It's called The War

of Art and it's written by my dear friend, Steven Pressfield. The title of this section

is called Resistance and Fear. Steven writes, "are you paralyzed with fear? That's a good

sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have

to do. Remember our rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more

sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear. The degree of fear

equates to the strength of resistance. Therefore, the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise,

the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our

soul. That's why we feel so much resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no resistance.

Have you ever watched Inside the Actors studio? The host, James Lipton, invariably asks his

guests, 'What factors make you decide to take a particular role?' The actor always answers,

'Because I'm afraid of it.' The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch.

He takes on the assignment that will bear him into unchartered waters, compel him to

explore unconscious parts of himself. Is he scared? Hell, yes. He's petrified. Conversely,

the professional turns down roles that he's done before. He's not afraid of them anymore.

Why waste his time? So if you're paralyzed with fear, it's a good sign. It shows you

what you have to do." That's the end of the passage from The War of Art.

Now, why do I love this one so much? Because every major breakthrough in my own creative

life, before I do it, and even as I'm doing it, I've got to be honest, I'm terrified.

I remember feeling so afraid when I gave my very first personal development workshop when

I was about 24 years old. I was also terrified when I decided that I wanted to do a different

kind of book launch for Everything is Figureoutable. It was an idea that I had that had literally

never been done before. I thought to myself, what if a Beyonce concert and a TED Talk had

a baby, and then threw a block party? And if you've been following me for a while, you

know this, we did it. It was amazing, and it was scary the entire way through.

And now I'm actually starting to work on my next book, and there's aspects of this one

that have me totally twisted up. But as I've learned, and as Steven shares, you have to

trust the guidance of creative fear. As I like to say, fear is a GPS for where my soul

most wants to go. And I bet the same thing might be true for you too. Now, some of Team

Forleo are here to share their favorite books about creativity too. Have a listen.

I'm Marian and I'm a copywriter. I chose Bird by Bird by the incredible Anne Lamott and

this book, she wrote it years ago, and it's about creativity and writing, but from a personal

angle, which I think is one of the reasons that this book resonated with me so much.

It's not a how-to about writing, it's musings on writing life but not douchey, because I

realized that sounds really douchey, but basically Anne just talks about her journey as a writer

and the struggles and the advice and the things that have gotten her through the writing life.

I think about this book all the time because I write all day for my job and I do a lot

of personal writing. The single idea that changed my life was in this book, and the

idea is Lamott's take on the shitty first draft. So basically, just sitting down and

getting something out. Because I have always found on the days when I just don't want to

write and things feel terrible, or when I'm working on my novel and I don't know where

it's going, or I'm trying to write an email and it's just coming out wrong, that if I

just get the shittiest version out on paper, it is infinitely easier to edit, and it feels

so much freer once there's something on the paper.

And I think Anne, who is this incredibly talented writer, talking about the garbage that comes

out the first time she writes something, makes me feel better because I think she just has

this really funny way of talking about how basically even the best writers that you know

have no idea what they're doing until they've done it. And nobody just sits down at their

desk with their beret and their cigarette and churns out this beautiful sentence, that

it takes a ton of work and a ton of workshopping and a ton of editing. And knowing that has

made me feel so much better about the writing process. So I talk about and I talk about

this concept all the time. This is my favorite part of Bird by Bird and

it makes me laugh every time. So here we go. "The first draft is the child's draft, where

you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is

going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of

you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters

wants to say, 'Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?' you let her. No one is going to

see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you'd

let him. Just get it all down on paper because there may be something great in those six

crazy pages that you would have never gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There

may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you

just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you're supposed to be writing

about, more or less, or in what direction you might go, but there was no way to get

to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages."

My name is Louise and I am Head of Storytelling. I chose From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil

E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg. This was one of my very favorite books as a kid, perhaps

my favorite, and it still is now. It really impacted my life. I related a lot. I read

it probably way earlier than I should have, and I related a lot to Claudia Kincaid, the

main character, in her desire for adventure and to kind of shake up her life. I never

thought about running away, but I admired her desire to do so and to choose the Metropolitan

Museum of Art in New York City as the place to go. I think it definitely intensified my

determination to live in New York City, which I do. And I actually read it out loud when

I was pregnant with my son Griffin a few years ago. I just decided to read it, and it probably

took me about a month to get through it, but it was one of the things I read out loud.

I just picked it up. I don't know why, probably because I have such a love for it.

I'm going to pull up the section of the book that has always sat with me. Claudia and Jamie

have met Mrs. Frankweiler and they're talking to her about learning something new every

day. And she said, "I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a

great deal, but you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell

up inside of you until it touches everything and you can feel it inside you. If you never

take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle

around inside of you. You can make noise with them but never really feel anything with them.

It's hollow." It is a beautiful book with thick mystery

and intrigue and the map of the museum, and everything I've ever read about the book and

I guess they did a 50th anniversary thing at the Met for it, everything about it is

talked about, like the adventure and the intrigue and the idea of living in a museum for a week,

and all of these cool things that would happen from that. And where would you sleep and what

would you do when no one else was there? But I think the biggest thing is about the idea

of learning and knowledge and absorbing and that you have to take the space for that stuff

to fill you and change you, because otherwise, it just washes over you. It rattles around

inside of you, as she says, and it never really sinks in and becomes part of the matter of

you that then brings whatever you're supposed to do to the world.

I'm Jayasri. I'm on the Customer Happiness Team. We really support our customers through

B-school, The Copy Cure, life and everything that MarieTV brings forth and people's hearts.

I chose Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. I chose that book because I remembered

reading it at a time, I was a teenager when I first read that book, and I had lost my

father. Needless to say, it was a really difficult time. And this book is just so comforting.

It's a collection of 10 letters from the poet Rilke to another young poet, really giving

life advice and so many nuggets of wisdom about the creative path and the journey. And

it's so much about going inward and trusting the process and trusting our path. So it was

so comforting for me and I thought it really connected to the topic of creativity in a

unique way. I would say that one of the things that has

challenged me the most personally, creatively, is having so many different interests and

really wanting to explore different creative outlets. I've been so hard on myself about