Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I have finally got the amazing Marci Hopkins on the show. How are you doing, Marci? I'm fantastic. Thanks for having me. Yeah, this is great. Sometimes schedules align. And for those of you listening, I think you're going to get some great content today and some things. So you may be struggling, you know, whether it's stress, anxiety, addiction, recovery, whatever it is. Let me give you a quick intro on Marcy because she is a sought after keynote speaker, but she's an award-winning TV host, executive producer of Wake Up With Marcy, a streaming show, but also the creator and host of the Wake Up With Marcy podcast. She's written the book, a number one Amazon new release in, you know, addiction recovery called Chaos to Clarity, motivational speaker, keynote speaker, but really a top mental advocate. She's getting awards all the time for, and a voice for mental health. So Marcy, you have got an amazing background. I want you to just take a minute real quick and help everyone understand who you are and what your story is before we jump into some like amazing strategies and tactics. Give them a little bit about what brought you to this topic. Well, I myself have lived this experience. So growing up, I had alcoholic parents, was moved around a lot, had a lot of trauma. And then I also had sexual trauma. And I started using alcohol to cope at a very young age. And through my adolescence and then adulthood, I struggled. I struggled. I drank about every day of my life. I was in negative relationships. I had very low self-esteem. And my nervous system was on overdrive, which is what happens when you live through trauma and you thrive in the chaos because that's all you know. And in most cases, when you have trauma, you seek to use a negative coping mechanism, whether that's food, drugs, alcohol, whatever the case may be. And so what's interesting is I actually ended up graduating at the Art Institute of Houston. I had a long lived experience and career in television. I worked for the Fox Cable Group, started off when it was Liberty Sports Communications, then Fox merged. So I worked in operations for the Fox networks, then I was in programming. And then I moved to L.A. and ultimately became the director of on-air promotions for FX. When I was in L.A., I got married, ended up moving to New Jersey and had two children. And, you know, life looked pretty good, but I always had this drive to do something. While raising my children was so important, I brought my past into raising my children, meaning I had a lot of abandonment issues, so I never wanted to feel abandonment. But I did want to do something for myself. And then what I did in my 40s was I went off after a lifelong dream of getting in front of the camera. And I started in commercial print, commercial acting, and indie film acting. But that is when really my self-confidence was at an all-time low, because the roller coaster of that industry is crazy. because just imagine going on a job interview every day, trying to perform, trying to get the job, waiting on the job. Did I get it? Why didn't I get it? You always feel like you're being judged, right? And at the same time, I'm trying to balance my kids. My husband's working all the time, and I just, but I didn't want someone else to raise my kids. So life was extremely chaotic during that time. And so my drinking elevated because I started using alcohol, wine to be exact as Liquid Courage going in for the auditions and then maybe after. So then it just came to a head October 3rd, 2015. I ultimately went on a gig, drank, and I got a DUI. And I needed that major consequence for myself because I was living in such a victim role, feeling so sorry for myself. and that's what happens a lot of times, right? When you are a victim of trauma, you are a victim and it's everyone else's fault. And you have this ability to look at yourself that you contribute to any problems in your life. And that was a big one for me. So I went to bed that night. It was my husband's fault because I wouldn't be living this life the way that I was if he were around more, right? It was always someone else's fault. Everybody else, yeah. Yeah, it was everyone else's fault. And I woke up that next day. And it was just like my higher power stepped in and I finally surrendered. And I had to fully surrender and make that choice on my own to get the help. And I admitted on that date, October 4, 2015, that I was an alcoholic. And I didn't know at that time that it's called alcohol use disorder because it is a disease, which I've learned so much more about it. But I went downstairs and after I admitted to myself that this was going on for myself and I needed help, I sat down with my husband and, you know, there was so much fear that he was going to take my children and leave. But what he ultimately did was embraced me when I finally admitted I needed this help. And he got behind me and it was the first time I felt love because I never really felt love. I didn't know. I knew I wanted it in my life. Yeah. Yeah. is what I was always seeking, but I didn't know how to give it. I didn't know how to receive it. I didn't know what healthy love looked like. And so in that moment, it was like everything that I'd always been seeking in my life at 45 years old, I finally saw it. And it was like the weight of the world came off my shoulders. And I started my healing journey. And for me, that was going to the 12-step program. And then through that 12-step program, I started working those steps. and I found spirituality. I found self-acceptance. I recognized the role that I had in the relationships and the things that I was doing wrong and the fact that you only have control of changing yourself, nobody else, or the outcome. And I learned forgiveness, forgiveness of myself, forgiveness of others, the practice of gratitude, giving back. So there were all of these things that I was learning and then changing my brain, right? The neuroscience, the neuropathways, just what they say, rewiring my brain through these practices that I was doing every day. And I started experiencing so much joy and peace, something I'd never had in my life before. And with this change became my purpose. So I turned that pain into the purpose and the mission that I have today, which is helping others to find the peace and joy in their lives And how I did that was launching my show Wake Up With Marcy was sharing stories of hardship and triumph to share hope And then ultimately writing my book, Chaos to Clarity. It's a memoir self-help book. So it's not only my story of how I got through the trauma and the addiction and then the recovery, but how I shifted my mindset, how I broke generational cycles, how I started to recognize the signs from the other side, right? And change my relationship with what God is, or God was taught, right? A different way. And through that experience, I started public speaking. And I have to tell you guys, there was a time, I don't care that I was director of on-air promotions, I could barely go into a meeting room and speak. And so it's finding this courage and this confidence within myself and the self-love that I didn't have that gave me the power to and the capability to start moving forward and doing all of these things that I now do today. And so helping others on stages and then now I ultimately have another book coming out called Wake Up, You're Not Broken, What to Expect, The First 30 Days of sobriety. I've worked with Les Brown. I've worked with a lot of great names. Yeah, you've had a huge background. Yeah. So it's just these 10 years, I've just celebrated 10 years of sobriety, October 4th, and it's just been life-changing. And I want people to know out there that they can change their lives. They just start where you are and let's get moving. And that's what I want to do. I want to help people to do that and to love themselves and live a joyous life. I love it. I appreciate you giving us that landscape because I think a lot of times people are out there that have such success. You're a keynote speaker. You're on demand, things like this, so people listen. But I think it's important to have the context. I mean I really think that what you went through and how you went through it is what sort of qualifies you to talk about what you do. But now you've gone on to have a lot of success with it. And people hear that, you know, that message that, you know, like your message or how you can share. But you've done a phenomenal job of being able to relate to the people that you're trying to connect with. And you look, you deal with people that feel stuck all the time. And I think a big part of that is people are trying to learn how to reinvent their identity when they have crisis like this. So walk me through when you talk with people or when you're around people that you're helping. what is the first strategic step someone has to take intentionally to reinvent their identity before, you know, mindset or motivation can even come into play? What's the first step they need to do? I think first thing is to get real with yourself and recognize what is your story? What is keeping you stuck in where you are right now? And why are you feeling the way that you're feeling? Is it because of trauma that's happened in your past? Is it because of a divorce? Is it because someone has passed away in your life that you love? Or is it just the ongoing self-talk? Where are you with that? Right? And then to know that you're not alone in this, you're not alone, and that we can start making those steps forward. But it's just that self-realization of where you are and acknowledging and accepting your story because yeah yeah well you know realization is important right because you just said as an example and i think this is common to a lot of people a lot of high functioning high achieving adults specifically um don't realize and they have these identity traps they're functioning at a high level even though they might not have confidence, even though they might not be doing things, they're functioning at these levels. And what, I mean, you talk to a lot of people, you host a lot of shows. What are some of the common sort of identity traps that people fall into? Or what keeps people from doing, because you're pushing so hard and you're confident, you are doing all these things and you still have these confidence issues and things that were problem you were using wine to kind of keep, what is it that, and how do you identify those identity traps? How do you identify that if you're a high functioning adult and you just have not had that self-awareness yet? Or what have you noticed when the people and the conversations you've had are common? Yeah. Well, I think one of the big ones, especially when you are at a high level, is that imposter syndrome, right? You're not trusting yourself. You're not believing that you should be in the room. But why don't you believe that you're in the room? Because a lot of times we don't think about how highly our past and the things that have happened to us do affect how we feel about ourselves. Because for me, I know that I was in a survival mode. I was going to prove to everyone that I was going to make it and nobody was going to tear me down. Right. So we have these walls up around us and we have this survival. And as my boss would say, the president of the company like you have this fire in the belly why how do you have that right so you may have that fire but you're still broken on the inside and you're just pushing through and pushing through and you're not looking clearly at yourself and saying but i'm pushing down my past so i can just push forward right so yeah you're not aware of it you're just pushing forward you're not thinking about it how much of this is really like you talk about rewriting personal narratives so So besides awareness and identifying the problems that are happening and why and the reasons, you talk about rewriting personal narratives. How do you – maybe walk us through that. Like what do you mean when you say that and what kind of a personal narrative do you need to rewrite? How do you do that? Well, you've got to rewrite how you talk to yourself is a big part of it, which is how you think about yourself. This is how you show up. And we for so long most times talk so negatively about ourselves. Most of us do. Even if we are in a high position, we're still not good enough. We're still not doing enough. We're still not seeing enough. We're still not making enough money. You know, nobody's respecting us enough. It's about knowing that self-worth and self-love, really. And so when you have when you start changing that narrative, you start changing the story, start changing the way you feel about yourself and start changing how you talk to yourself. There's many steps that go into that. It's not just one thing. Right. Yeah. There's a process to this. And so, first of all, I'd say for me, the biggest change for me was how I showed up for the day when I woke up in the morning. Right. Because this is when your subconscious is the most open, which we are running on that subconscious, about 95% of what we run. Autopilot. Right. So you think about that, you think about it like a computer, right? So that been programmed by our parents the relationships the values that we have the beliefs that we have These are all things that we been told And this is how we storing all of this information in our brains And so this is how we start running We start thinking about ourselves how we start how we treating other people how we treating ourselves and so on. So we've got to start changing that. And so the first step of doing that is how you show up for your day in the morning. So there are multiple things that you can do. The first is if you talk to anyone that is in any, any way has transformed their lives and are living a joyous and full life. And they're out there talking is gratitude, right? Well, how can I be grateful, right? Look at my life. Well, let's look at your life. What do you have? Do you have clothes on your back? Are you able to feed yourself? Right? You may not have the life that you exactly want, but we've got to find the gratitude in the little things. And that takes time. that's reprogramming right so we start waking up and we start thinking about the really small things i mean maybe it's just freaking that you have a cup of coffee and you get down on two feet and stand up right what is it yeah i like what you said though it's not just a state of gratitude it's a practice you need to work at it you got to work at it and then you also it's really important that you have a higher power or higher self. And that doesn't have to be what we're taught God is, right? I mean, it can just be that something bigger than you is helping you along, right? You're not alone in this. And that could be your higher self. So connecting with yourself first is so important because for me, I always went outside of myself, right? Because it was always about how did my parents feel about me? How did the coaches feel? How the teachers feel? Then how did the bosses feel? How does my partner feel? But it's never about how do you feel about yourself, right? Yeah. And we're always outside of ourself for that validation. And so you have to go within, within. So that's that getting quiet, that meditating, connecting with yourself, which yourself is connected to that higher power. And I think of the divine as this mass of just of energy and love. And we're all connected by this love and energy, right? Because we're all connected by energy. But we as humans living this human experience are cutting each other off. We're cutting ourselves off from it. And so it's just really connecting to that. It's not this big guy in the sky that's damning us, right? So I think- I do love that. I think it's, and do you think it, I mean, it probably is both, but is it the idea that you're not alone in the battle or is it also just this fact that you have to be able to surrender a bit to something outside yourself, even though you're trying to look inside yourself? I mean, maybe it's a combination of both, would you say? I'd say a combination of both, but surrender is a big thing, right? A lot of people have real difficulty with being vulnerable, surrendering. Especially high achievers, right? It's a sign of weakness. Honestly, you show up as a leader being vulnerable, you show so much more power. People connect to you, and they want to help you, and they want to be on your team, right? Because they themselves feel that from you, instead of you putting off this energy of, I am better, I'm in more control, I know better than you, right? And you hear that, you know, don't go into the room being the smartest guy in the room, right? Because we all have our strengths. So how are you leaning on other people to make yourself stronger by the team you have in the people and their strengths. And when you give them the availability or the ability to show you their strengths, they're going to show up even better for you. And you're going to, you're going to look better, right? Yeah. You make a really good point about those daily practices of gratitude and looking within too, because if you think about it, most people, what they want is to be empowered, but they really confuse that with just getting confident or motivated. I want confidence and motivation. What they really want is empowerment. And the only way to do that is to do the work, right? Your daily practices, start your day, win your day, right? Gratitude, look within, you know, surrender to something else. But you said something to me when we were talking earlier, which I thought was really important. There is a neuroscience to this, right? I mean, we have inundated ourselves with programming. Unfortunately, it's probably programming from a lot of things in our environment. And now we're running this program we didn't really create? And is it too late for me to make changes? Can I rewrite my programming? And neuroplasticity is a real thing. Like you can through, you know, frequency and repetition, right? Talk to me a little bit about the neuroscience of this so that people feel like there's, there's real ways to make changes. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, it's so interesting because I've had to learn about this to understand what was happening for me. Cause I think about like my body as this computer now and how it all works together, like our gut, our heart, our brain. Right. And then just how literally like if you're putting drugs or alcohol or bad food into your body, that changes the way that your brain thinks. right you're like yeah all of the time you're the chemicals in your brain the dopamine the reward system the serotonin the melatonin all the things your energy yeah yeah we're changing everything chemically within your body so now you've cleared your system let's say of anything that's like alcohol like me and now that gives me the ability to start rewiring by these actions but there's also like EMDT and CBT. There are quicker, faster ways through therapist and cognitive behavior training and it's BBMT, I believe. I don't remember exactly what that stands for, but there are, do you know what that stands for? Yeah. Like the rapid eye movement method, like EMDR. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I did some research on EMDR and it was like, the idea that your body and eye movement could imprint neurologically things you're trying to learn and grow and change. It made me think, okay, there's like a, there's a science to this. I'm kind of a, you know, a specifics tactics strategies guy. And that's for me, I had to realize to be a little bit more less than that, but yeah, yeah, there's real science behind how to wire and rewire your brain. Right. Because the stories we store in a part of our brain, right? The energy is stuck in our body. And now it's like releasing that and changing the attachment to that story. So whether- And you can't just gut your way through it. Like most people are like, I'm just gonna motivate myself and just, but everything's working against you, right? Yeah, yeah. So it like also big thing for me was forgiveness You know and these are things that I talk about a lot about how forgiveness is not a weakness right You not saying that what somebody else did was okay Or even what you did it's just reframing how you look at what happened, like something that you did. It's like, okay, I've got to, I look at the story, what I did, right? I got to reframe how I look at it. What did I learn from it, right? What was this learning experience for me? And then you got to release it and let it go. Right. And then letting that energy go. And then just what other people did to you, you know, people don't do good things to you sometimes. Yeah. But if you continue in that story and you keep talking about it, you keep thinking about it, you just stay stuck in it. You're never going to be able to move forward. And it's not saying that what the person did was okay. What it has to do is releasing the power that they have over you. And that gives you empowerment because you're taking responsibility and good, better, and different. At least you're empowered to live your and create your life, right? Exactly. Exactly. And so again, there's just, there's so many ways that we can do this through multiple practices. And I actually share, I mean, there's so many practices, so many tools. I mean, it's just, they pretty much are endless, but like in my book, Chaos to Clarity, I mean, I have a toolbox in there of all the things that I helped, that helped me just even like little things. Like if you, let's say like you have a food addiction or an alcohol addiction, right. And then you convince yourself like, no, I'm okay. It really wasn't that bad. Or maybe you think that you're going to relapse, right. You're thinking about that drink, but then you play it out, right? And you could do this with anything. Like before you take an action, play out, how's this going to play out, right? You know how it played out before. So pop in the tape and take a look at it. You can see the story before you actually live it out, right? And do it again. So, you know, these are all great tools, move a muscle, change a thought. And that's with anything also, like you think you're going to do something, or maybe you're going to react to something, get up, move. Your brain cannot think about two things at one time. Yeah, well, and you said it. There are some things that you have to work through in your mind and emotions, but there are strategies and tactics. There are daily rituals. There are things, which is what I love. I mean, you mentioned you do have a program called Chaos to Clarity. That's great. You take them through a care method. Well, I wish we had a ton more time to talk, but I wanted to ask you maybe just a couple of last questions. What motivated you to now come out with your next book, which is coming out, right? You've got this new book that's coming out. And what's the name of the book again? It's called Wake Up, You're Not Broken, What to Expect, The First 30 Days of Sobriety. And that's coming out, Alcohol Awareness Month, April 7th. Oh, I love it. And so this is like, okay, step-by-step plan. Where do you go? Where do you start? What do you do? What's driving you now? I know you're passionate about the things that you do. You love to be able to help and connect. what is it? Because you've got relationships in your life, success in your life. What is it that's really driving you as an individual right now? And how important was this purpose and passion in your actual recovery and in driving your life to the next level right now? Yeah. Well, first of all, giving of yourself and giving back, there's no greater gift that you can give to yourself because through your healing or through your life, no matter what it is, if you are giving of yourself and doing for others, it takes you outside of yourself. And the gift is really for yourself and the way that you feel. And so through this, I mean, what has become so important to me and I've become so passionate is about breaking the stigma around alcohol use disorder and substance use disorder, because it is a disease. And we need to become more aware and get educated because we're staying in these old programs and stay stuck in the old story where we keep it quiet, we keep it in the house, we keep it in the family. But the reality is, if we do not discuss this, we will stay stuck in and we will stay sick in the shame and in the guilt. And it is it affects everyone. It doesn't just affect the person that has the disease. It is a family disease. And it's so vital that we normalize this conversation, that we have more conversations around it. We have more education, We understand the help that's available and understand that you can get help. You can get help. And it's just how do you get the help and also to know what to do and to also know as a family member or as a loved one that you cannot get somebody else well. You cannot, no matter what you do. I was an alcoholic. I lived with so much more guilt that I could have done more. But just learning about that too, just what you can do as a family member or as a loved one of someone that is suffering with the disease. And just remember, it is a disease of the mind. And we've just got to prioritize this conversation so more people can seek the help that's out there. Yeah. And I think you said it right there. It's not, it's not a conversation you can keep in and it's not one that only affects you. It's one that affects everyone and everything around you. So yeah, I really love your thoughts. I appreciate you sharing with that. Let's say that, you know, somebody's feeling stuck or they're feeling affected by, or have some problems with things. What's the best way for people to connect with you? And I can put some links in the show notes. What's the easiest way for them to connect with you? Well, everything is on my website, wakeupwithmarci.com. Everything I have is under wakeupwithmarci. So just even my email, wakeupwithmarci at gmail.com. Yeah. Yeah. She's a great brand. You got to check it out. Well, I'll put some links in the show notes and, you know, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts because if you're listening to this, you know, you're not alone. You, there are solutions, there are answers and there is help. And we encourage you to kind of pursue that and have the courage to move forward. And do us a favor. If you've learned or any of this has inspired and motivated you, share the show. Make sure that you help to put this message out there so that it does gain a little bit more exposure. People feel like they can get the help. And it's like I always say at the end of our episodes, it's never too late to start creating the life you were meant to live, no matter what your age, no matter what you're doing, no matter how stuck you feel, even if you're on top of your game, but you're really covering it up with some like fake confidence and things like that. It's never too late, but you got to do the work and you got to be willing to take action. So that's our message for today. I hope you have an amazing day. Marcy, thank you for joining us on the podcast. You're awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Okay. Well, listen, guys, hit me up on the Daily Mastermind. Let me know what you're winning at. Let me know what you're struggling with, what we can do to help you. And I'll look forward to talking with you again tomorrow. Have an amazing day. .
