Desiree East Studios

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how i was influenced by marie forleo and the b-school community

"What exactly have you been up to, Desi?"  Well, to answer your question: I have been working my buns off, of course!

Sure, Brendon and I are enjoying living the adventurous life in Bali. BUT we did come here for other reasons, as well. Behind the scenes of perfect, glassy waves and magical sunsets, you can find us stooped over our laptops attempting to make sense of how we can grow our business(es) online.

Yes, I know...what you really want is to see pictures of Ubud (and yes, it was beeeautiful!)

But, truth be told, it wasn't all vacation (at least not for me), because I was working on a scholarship video --- Do you know how long it takes to produce a little 2:00-minute video??? Foooooorevvver....no joke.

I am just ONE of the thousands of huge fans of Marie Forleo, and I have been following her for the last couple of years. If you have a chance to visit her at MarieTV, you'll see why.

Marie was giving away a Scholarship for her very-well known program, B-School. So I thought, "What the heck? Why not go for it? I have to at least try...It is Marie Forleo, after all!"

With only a few hours of daylight left to shoot and less than 48 hours to edit, I was stressin'. BIG time. "Oh man, what am I getting myself into? What should I say? Should I talk about how our business took a hit and how we lost our home? How we are tired of slaving away? How we are in Bali to stretch our dollar, AND because we are following our dreams? Do I really want my face to be plastered all over YouTube? This is way more work than I thought..." and blah, blah, blah...excuses, excuses.

But I did it. I focused. Made sure to breathe. Made sure to laugh, and not take it too seriously. And with a lot of love and encouragement from my dear husband, I powered through the night...

Ahhhhh, done! I had a chance to view other applicants' videos, and WOW. What a movement. Whether I won the scholarship or not, scales in comparison to what these amazing women are doing to better the world. I think we can all learn from them. If I took anything away from this experience, it would be the sense of community and inspiration that all of these wonderful people have --- more importantly, the positive influence they potentially have on a GLOBAL level. With the magic of the world wide web, these women are forces to be reckoned with.

As of this afternoon, Marie Forleo's Scholarship Recipients have been announced. As I was reading down the list of names, I thought, “Oh yeah, I remember that ONE…oh yeah, and I LOVED that one…and this person, too!!!”...… So a huge, HUGE congrats to all of the scholarship recipients! Very well deserved.

And a little note to all of the other B-School applicants: I was also going down the list, thinking, “Oh so-and-so didn’t get it…or…Where is so-and-so? I'd thought, for sure they'd get it...or...I’m surprised such-and-such person didn’t win…” The goals and intentions that everyone else put out there were extremely inspiring…I want to see more, so keep please sharing the love with the world!

What this has done for me: I had never in my life posted a YouTube video (at least not with the camera pointed at my face), nor have I ever been interested in doing so. As a business woman who is trying to up her game in the online world, this process has inspired me to take the act of posting videos online to a whole new level --- AND more importantly, networking with like-minded entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in people's lives.

I couldn’t have done it without the support of the B-school community, and especially, without my dear family and friends who continually express their love and support.

Thanks to each and everyone of you, and Thank YOUUUUU Marie for being such a significant influence in my entrepreneual life and lighting a fire under my you-know-what!

Cheers!