This is episode 156 and today I have with me one of my all-time favourite people to have a really important conversation, so get your ears listening and enjoy it.

If you want to do things differently but need some help making it happen then tune in for your weekly dose of coaching from me, Maisie Hill, Master Life Coach and author of Period Power. Welcome to The Maisie Hill Experience.

Alright, hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. I have a very special guest with me this week who we are determined between us to have a successful recording because things keep happening that prevent us from recording well. So I have with me today, the wonderful Mars Lord. And she’s already been on the podcast. We had a great episode that I really encourage you to go back and listen to on The People of Influence series because that was a very juicy conversation that I know so many of you have benefitted from listening.

And today we’re having another conversation, kind of an ongoing conversation that she and I have and that is very central to Mars’ work because you are a coach for Black women. So we want to have a conversation about the importance of Black women being coached by other Black women and being in safe spaces where there is cultural competency. So we’re going to be having a conversation about that.

Now, for my fellow white people listening I just want to give you some tips for listening to this episode. I would love for you to note, and this is a great tip all round, I would say. We use it in coaching a lot but if you’re listening to this episode and there are places where you notice yourself having a response and you’re getting defensive or just having a reaction and maybe just wanting to argue a point in your head that you are hearing. When that happens I would love you to sit with that and to get curious about what that is actually about.

And I want you to be willing to be wrong, just as you’re listening just think, I’m willing to be wrong about whatever my brain offers me as I’m listening to this. And instead of that, I would love for you to accept and believe what it is that you are hearing. So that’s my tips for my fellow white people listening. Now, let’s talk about why this is an important topic. Why is it important that Black people, Brown people, people of colour have access to coaching by other Black, Brown, BIPOC people?

Mars: One of the reasons why I love coaching Black, Brown, BIPOC people is because I know that they can feel completely safe in this space. And I know that they can bring anything to me. And it doesn’t have to be about race or ethnicity. But because all of our lives are totally covered with that extra layer of ethnicity and race in everything that we do, the nuances can change. Now, I always laugh because I know that people think, white blooded people think that we’re talking about them when we’re in our spaces on our own.

But respectfully, if I want to be respectful, you’re just not that important. And we’ve got other things going on that we need to be doing and that we want to be doing. So when we are in these spaces, when somebody Black or Brown is being coached in one of these spaces, they don’t have to activate their hypervigilance. So hypervigilance is when we walk into a room and say, “Who’s in this room? Am I safe in this room? Is this room going to be the room that really keeps me open and honest and safe?”

But why would people think, well, sometimes, the best way to do it is to do examples. I was in a conference for fertility. And whilst I was at this conference a white man came up to me whilst we were all sipping champagne like you do. And he said, “But your lot, the fathers never stay, do they?” And then he walked away. And it’s like, what, how is this your thought? How, when we’re talking about fertility and the importance of fertility for people, is that your thought? Now, this was just one man in a huge room full of several hundred people but that’s why we’re hypervigilant.

We want to see who is going to be that someone who is going to cause us harm. So when we coach in my container for example, in a safe space. You don’t have to worry that some idiot is going to come and say something completely stupid because it’s just you and me. It means that if you are thinking there’s something I really, really need to talk about, but will Mars get it, the chances are that I will. Now, listen, I’m not a monolith, no Black woman is a monolith for anyone else.

Maisie: You mean you’re not all the same.

Mars: And so because no one person is a monolith, of course there’s going to be different things. But when we coach, when we talk, we’re going to talk about what’s important to you. And if you say to me, I don’t know, they did this thing and I’m feeling kind of hinky, I’m going to say, yeah. I’m not going to say, “Explain, what do you mean, what does that mean to you?” I’m going to give you the opportunity to say the thing that you want to say, to feel the thing you want to feel without worrying that I’m going to judge it. Because we all know that isn’t racism till the white nice lady says it’s racism.

And so when you’re coming into this space you just bring everything. I’m not looking for anything. We’re not looking to make things seem better. We’re going to look at the reality of the situation. And coaching, I adore coaching and one thing that I always think about when I think about coaching is, there are things that we can change and move our minds in, but we cannot change our minds about what is and isn’t racist. We can decide how we walk through it, and we can decide how we are.

But when you’re coaching with me, what we’re going to talk about is how not to lose your authentic self so that you become palatable, other people get to see you and say, “Yeah, I agree that that’s racism. I agree that that’s not nice.” And so I want people to be able to show up as their true selves, being and doing the way they want to be and do. So it’s a long winded way of saying, yes, this is why, Black bodied people, BIPOC people need safe spaces to coach in.

Maisie: Yeah. That issue of safety is paramount. And we’ve spoken about this before. There was a community that I was part of, and it was a community for membership owners. And we would be talking about the various processes, features of our memberships, that kind of thing. And I can’t remember why I had posted about it, but I had mentioned that we have the BIPOC only coaching calls. So for anyone either in the membership or just listening, we have two calls a month in The Flow Collective that are just for BIPOC members.

White people do not get to come to those calls, they do not get access to the replays and Mars coaches on those calls. And someone had commented, because they were aware of my work and what the membership’s about, they were like, “But given how much you prioritise wanting to create a safe environment for all of your members, why does there then need to be this extra layer?” But it’s interesting, even the idea that this is extra rather than no, this is just basic care, this is what’s essential and needs to be happening.

And just that kind of lack of, I mean lack of so many things, I’m kind of at a loss for words of what it is a lack for. But just that, well, like I said at the start, that instant kind of arguing against it and seeing it as an extra that isn’t really needed. I think you’re kind of going above and beyond what’s necessary.

Mars: And why is that a problem to go above and beyond?

Maisie: Well, yeah.

Mars: And who gets to decide if it’s necessary? And once again it’s not racism till the nice white lady says it’s racism. And so I have, actually I have very little patience for people that say that. I was going to say something really nice about them and now I’ve got no patience for you. the fact that it’s needed, the fact that it’s necessary is the question you should ask yourself. It’s not the question that they should ask people that are creating the safe spaces. What is it about me in that space that makes that space dangerous?

I’m the one that makes that space dangerous. I’m the one that’s got some work to do here on me, so that I become a safe person to be around.

Maisie: I just want to say, for everyone listening, I just think that’s a question to ask yourself. All of us white folks, if we just asked that question, not once, on an ongoing basis, we have to do that.

Mars: We do. It’s part of the ongoing journey. People say, “Yes, I want to prove, show, explain how non-racist I am.” Well, yeah, but how are we being anti-racist? And you’re being anti-racist by doing the regular work, by asking yourself the questions again and again and again. It’s just the way it is. So for those of you that do that, thank you. For those of you that don’t, what’s keeping you, what’s holding you back? But in the meantime and probably even after you’re doing the work, we will still keep the safe spaces.

Because I was talking to someone about code switching the other day and code switching reminds me, when I was talking to them, because they are neurodivergent, it reminds me of autistic people masking. This is how I have to appear in this situation so that I stay safe and whole. And that I get out of here still feeling myself. And so a very, very simple example of code switching is my mother. So when she worked as a receptionist for North Thames Gas many years ago. And she’d be working, and we’d phone, and she’d say, “Hello, North Thames Gas, can I help you please?”

And we’d say, “Hi, mum.” And she’d say, “[inaudible]. Hello, Jim, yes, take the elevator to the third floor, that’s absolutely lovely.” And then she’d come back and be Jamaican. So she would have what we would call her speaky, spokey voice and then she’d come back to us, “Why are you bothering me at work, you terrible children?” And it’s like that, walking into a room, walking into a restaurant, how am I supposed to look, how am I supposed to behave?

And lots of people will say, “Well, I recognise that because I do that myself.” And so then I just add the line that I always add. Now add a layer of Black, now be Black and realising that there are so many spaces that you are actually actively not welcomed in. Where are you from? I’m from the UK. No, but where are you really from? Well, London. No, but where are you really, really from? And I’ve seen people, white bodied people say things like, “Well, people ask me because my surname’s unusual and I don’t mind it.”

Well, you don’t mind it because the question isn’t othering you and telling you, you don’t belong. But the question is telling me that I don’t belong because I have to be a certain something. I can’t be British because I’m Black. And yet if you’re white and you’re born in India, you’re British. If you’re Black Jamaican and you’re born in England, you are British. So you’re not Jamaican according to the same rules that make the white bodied person in India, British.

So when people ask me I say, “London, I’m a Jamaican.” Or sometimes I don’t even tell them the Jamaican because they don’t have the courtesy.

Maisie: And I think that’s the thing is that expectation or not expectation, but I can demand this of you. I can ask a question where you have to justify or explain things for me. It’s not a question that is for you in any way.

Mars: It’s never you. It’s never about you. It’s always about that person that’s asking the question. And so when I’m coaching Black bodied women, there are questions they don’t have to answer. I don’t need to know where they’re from in that same way because I know that we are from the same place, a space of othered. And so when we coach, when we talk, we can discuss, we can talk about how those things make us feel and how we actually want to respond to those things. Because we’re always told that we need to be nicer. It doesn’t matter how nice we are, we need to be nicer.

And then we need to be nicer again. So we never quite hit the standard. I am coaching this beautiful woman who’s talking about her academia career, working as a professor in academia and how hard she has to work to be seen. And so I asked her the question, “What would happen if you worked half as hard, what would happen to the quality of your work?” She said, “It would still be extremely high.” And I said, “So why are you working at this extra level?”

And she said, “Because then they’ll see me, then they’ll notice, then I’ll get.” And so the question that we then explored was, “Why do you want to work extra hard for someone who will never see you no matter how hard you work?” And when she came there, when she got to that place, she said, “Oh.” I mean there as saying, you have to work twice as hard to get the job that mediocre Chad gets. And unfortunately as Black bodied people, it’s something that we’ve perpetuated in our children.

You have to work. You have to work twice as hard, twice as hard, twice as hard, which is why we find it hard to rest. Which is why we find it hard to accept that our B minus is someone else’s A triple star distinction. And so we push ourselves to hit a standard that we’re never going to hit because we’re not allowed to hit it.

Maisie: So when you’re working with your clients, and these are the themes that are coming up. What do you notice shifting in their lives when they are able to drop into that place of being more authentically themselves or being able to rest and those things?

Mars: Their body language changes. I watch the stress leave them and I start to hear him say the things they want to say and to be comfortable in saying them. They stop code switching. They stop checking their language. They just start to speak easily. And what’s really funny is within their work and relationship environments they tell me that things keep improving. And I said, “Well, explain improving.” And they’re like, “I don’t have to say things five times. People are really appreciative of my work.” Or “People aren’t that appreciative of my work, but I know that I did a bloody good job so I’m good.”

And then I see them starting to take their rest more seriously. And the phrase that every so often is demonised, self-care. Because I believe that when you look after yourself, self-care becomes community care. So the people around you are cared for if you look after yourself. So I watch them really just exhaling and just breathing out and saying, “Actually this is okay. I don’t have to do all of the things for all of the people all of the time. I can decide what works for me.” And then it multiplies in their relationships, in their working.

I had a beautiful woman come to me for coaching. And she wanted to be coached on her businesses. She said she had a dream, she had an idea, she wanted to see it take place. And in six months of coaching, we maybe touched her business twice but in six months of coaching her business grew.

Maisie: I know why that is but not everyone listening is going to know why that is, so do share.

Mars: It’s that when you know yourself you suddenly become sure of your decisions. Now you’ve got clarity you can make decisions. Now you can make decisions and go, “Well, that was a shit decision, what would I do differently this time? That was a brilliant decision, now things are changing.” As they take ownership of themselves, which is a really strange phrase, but as they start to recognise, this is who I am, this is what works for me, this is how I operate. It spreads into their business because their business is something that they do, something that they choose to do.

And then they start to question things, trust the answers and maybe make different decisions.

Maisie: This idea of the business is separate from the personal life, and I want to work on this. And actually as we both know through our work you focus on one area in a very intentional way, and it just mushrooms and spills out into all of the other areas as well. So almost, we always say, “It doesn’t matter what you want to get coached on, it’s going to have an impact, just literally pick anything and we will get to what is needed and have that shift.”

Mars: That’s so true. I cannot tell you the number of women that I’ve coached who have, and this isn’t what I coach, who have made decisions to part from their partners.

Maisie: Yes. When you told me about this, I was like, “That makes so much sense.” Okay, so again, let all the non-coaches listening, although I do hope there’s plenty of coaches listening to this conversation and really thinking. If you’re a white bodied coach, really thinking about the topics that are coming up. But let’s return to this phenomenon of you coaching people and then they’re ditching their partners.

Mars: What happens is they start to really know themselves or I say that advisedly because I think most people do know themselves, they just don’t listen. They just don’t want to actually know. So as they start to know themselves and hear themselves and say, “Actually, yes, this is what I want.” Then they suddenly go, “Hold on, but this isn’t what I want.” And so they start to make changes. And in the changes that they make, as they start to look at themselves first.

They say, “No, this thing that I’ve been unhappy with, this thing needs to change. And if it’s not changing then I’m going to make a decision about that and it’s about me.” And I’m not saying they go and have acrimonious divorces, etc. They all seem to have divorced quite amicably. And I do remember calling you one day going, “Oh, my God, another one of my clients has just said she’s divorcing her husband.” But I think it’s because they know themselves and they’re suddenly honest with themselves and what they want and what they want further down the line etc.

I have one woman, not divorced, for those of you that are like, “I’m not going to coach with Mars because I love my husband.” I have one woman who, after about three or four sessions, as things were really getting deep, she would show up to the call, but she would always have her camera off. She couldn’t have her camera on. And her camera stayed off for about three months and then one day it came back on. And we came through that coaching, and she started to build herself a business but her self-esteem had gone through the roof and everything about her was just coming to the fore.

Fast forward to now and she’s come back for more coaching. And now she wants coaching on her exit strategy. So she’s building her business, she wants to know, what do I do to come out of the other end and have more me time? How do I set up my business so that I can hand it on, other people can be working, I can have a team etc. And we talked. And I said, “Isn’t it amazing?” And she said, “Though I think that’s going to be really hard for me to do.” And I said, “Do you remember when you didn’t used to turn your camera on?”

And she said, “Oh my goodness, yes.” And then she said, “Well, if I could come through that hard thing, well, this hard thing is no biggie.” And that’s what coaching does. It starts to put things into perspective. So that what seems huge and enormous suddenly becomes imminently more manageable.

Maisie: I do think you have a talent for bringing that out in people because like you said, it’s already there in them. But the way that you hold space for people, and I think your willingness to be in that space and to ask the questions that require honest answers that maybe are uncomfortable to acknowledge. But they’re already there in you anyway so you may as well just take a look at them. But this is what happened with us, our first meeting.

I will just point out, I am another one, I mean I wasn’t your client, but I am another person in your life that you basically coached even though you didn’t know you were coaching me then. But you basically coached me and helped me to name and say out loud, my marriage is ending. Yeah, so yes, you do have a track record for this, which I think is wonderful. I think it’s a great thing.

Mars: It’s really funny, I remember someone said to me once, “I know you don’t like to hear all of the long story before you coach. But I just need to tell you this.” And I said, “Hold on, I don’t mind hearing your story, but you get the option. You can spend all of our time together telling me this la la story or we can just cut to the nub, and you can tell me what’s going on, and we can coach on that and spend the entire time working our way through that bit.” I’m not going to be the coach for everybody. That’s why I call myself the no bullshit coach.

Because, no, I haven’t got time for 100 stories about the same thing. I had a client that I coached today. And by the time we’d been speaking five minutes she said, “Yeah, I already know what I want to do.” She said, “I came to coaching thinking this was going to be huge and immense. And actually you’ve reminded me that I do know that I don’t want to do that thing.” And I’m like, “Excellent. What else shall we coach on?”

Because I know that people tell their stories and there’s a time for people to just tell their story. Which is why when you have a 6/12 month relationship with me, you get to tell the whole story. But each story, there’s one bit that you just want to coach through. There’s one bit that you just want to tease out. So you need to leave time to tell the rest of the story. But if you tell the whole story in one go, you’re quite overwhelmed yourself anyway because no wonder it’s big. I’m like a pair of tweezers, “Let’s just look at this thing. Is this the thing?”

And yeah, I kind of do have a bit of a talent for that. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a mum of five or because I was just born wise. My blessing and curse is my wisdom. I don’t know if that’s what it is. But I do know that when you start to speak, it’s nearly always the thing that’s whispered away. There’s a Kevin Hart skit, a meme. And he says, “You’re not just going to skip past that like you didn’t say it.” And that’s what happens when I coach. I listen to people drop a little truth bomb and then scoop. And I’m like, “Hold on, wait, whoa.” “I need to tell you this story.”

I’m like, “Yeah, but before you tell me the story, that little thing that you just said there.” “Oh, no, I don’t want to think about that.” I said, “And that’s exactly why we need to coach on it. This is the thing that is the foundation to your story.”

Maisie: And it’s so often a thought that someone has shared, a belief that they have but to them it’s fact. And I think that’s partly why they just go past it because they just accept it as that is the truth of whatever it is, move on.

Mars: The many different women that will say to me, “Well, I’m just not good at that.” I said, “Really? You’ve just given me all these examples why you are good at it, so tell me why you’re not good at it.” “Well, I’m not getting the recognition.” “Okay, why aren’t you getting the recognition?” “Well.” And I’m coaching Black women and Brown bodied women, nine t out of ten it’s because the white people in the room don’t think I’m good at it.

I’ve got one who’s currently having her work stolen and it’s like, “Oh, that’s racism.” Yes. Okay, now that you’ve named it, now that I’ve pulled a name out of you, now we can work on it. Because we’re taught, you’re not being kind, you’re not saying it right. If you did all of these things perfectly, then you would get the recognition that you want. You do all of the things perfectly, you don’t get the recognition. And instead of saying, “Wait, you gave me the rules, I followed the rules, and I haven’t got the result.” You say, “I must be doing something wrong.” And I love coaching on that.

I love coaching on, what if you’re not doing anything wrong at all, what will you do now?” And that’s great to see. That’s absolutely great to see.

Maisie: You are such a good coach. I’m so lucky that you are my very good friend.

Mars: Yes. I love coaching inside your membership too, the BIPOC members. They just bring me joy. Every time I switch on, oh my God, I love this. Even if I’ve had a day when I’m like, “God, I’ve got to coach later.” And then I switch on the screen, and I see them and I’m like, “Oh my God, I love these people.” I love Black women. People say to me all the time, “Well, why do you do what you do?” And I’m like, “Well, it’s really easy. I love Black people. I love Black women.” I will do everything in my work to centre and uplift Black women.

I haven’t got time to play around with anything that’s going to damage or destroy them or take water from a poisoned well to give them. I haven’t got time for that. I love Black women. I want to see them rise. It’s why I train Black and Brown bodied doulas. It’s why I’m a life coach predominantly for Black women.

Maisie: Yeah, so you say predominantly. Do you accept applications…

Mars: From white women?

Maisie: What’s that amazing phrase that you use? Melanin depleted, what was it?

Mars: Melanin redacted.

Maisie: That’s it, redacted.

Mars: Melanin redacted women. Yes, I do actually. And I’m coaching one at the moment, I do. When my books fill then priority will always go to Black bodied women, Brown bodied women. But yes, I will coach white bodied women. And no, you don’t need to worry about whether or not I’m going to be judging your racism. I am simply going to tease out, what’s that thing that you’re building the foundation of your belief on.

Maisie: Yes, I note that one down. Yeah, and you also coach the members as a whole in The Flow Collective as well.

Mars: I do, I do.

Maisie: And they love you.

Mars: I swear, I’m going to bring out some merch because I’m always talking about, you want the two Mars devils on your shoulder, the fuck you and the horse he ride in, devil, and the, have you seen me, I’m bloody amazing. So get out of my way.

Maisie: But I think it’s just so powerful for all of us to have that modelled to us. And I think that’s often the thing that doesn’t really come up in conversations around coaching is the modelling that happens. So whether that’s in your one-on-one work with your clients, whether it’s on group calls that are either BIPOC ones or open membership or any of the other coaching that you do. It’s that, in the same way, when I’m coaching as well, sometimes our clients will be thinking, but in this situation I don’t actually know what my options are in terms of what I could say, how I could behave.

And sometimes someone does have an inkling, they do have that inner guidance in them, but they’re just scared to turn up the volume on it and what might happen if they do. But sometimes all of us are just a bit clueless and we’re like, “Oh, God.” Because we, either haven’t been in that situation, we haven’t seen others, we haven’t seen a response in a situation like that. But we think that’s the kind of way I want to be. And so sometimes I think our job as coaches is to actually offer up those examples to people.

And I think that’s for sure, with all the coaching that you have given me. And the kind of non-coaching coaching you’ve given me in our friendship, just in terms of the stories you’ve told me from your own life. I’m like, “I didn’t know that was an option.” And it’s just so wonderfully freeing to have these things modelled to you.

Mars: And I’m so shy. I say to the members, “Just channel your inner Mars.” Because actually sometimes I think for someone to do something the first time, they almost need to be someone else. They do need to be someone else, which is their true self. And I say, “Well, just do it the way I would do it.” And they’ll come back, and they’ll say, “Well, I didn’t quite do it the way you did it, but.” And I say, “Yes, you did it.”

Maisie: Yes, that wasn’t the point, it’s the way that you do it but you’re borrowing my belief and my experience to kind of go there yourself for the first time.

Mars: I just love seeing that in people. But there was something that just flew into my mind that I wrote down, which is kind of off but kind of in. But that modelling and that doing something and taking that first step, it’s a very healing step. And the reason I coach Black bodied women is because I want to see them heal, see them heal from the things that they may not be aware that they are in trauma from. Because with the continual micro aggressions we live our lives in a state of semi-permanent trauma. And it’s my business, all my business is about healing Black bodied women etc.

And watching them just change and stand for themselves. To look at where does misogynoir, which is misogyny that intersects with racism. Where does misogyny lay in their lives? What are the things that they’re believing about themselves that are those misogynistic, misogynoir messaging that’s come from society? What are messages that they are repeating within their own lives, within their own friendships and friends etc? And so if I can model what it means to say, “No, I’m not doing that”, then I feel I’ve done a lot already.

Maisie: I completely agree. I mean knowing that no is an option.

Mars: Yeah. And do you know, there’s a lot of joy in that. And one of the things, so when I coach I always talk to people about celebration, particularly Black bodied people. Celebration and joy, there’s such liberation and freedom and joy. With the continual micro aggressions in life, with the continual way that society keeps pushing back at us and pushing down, pushing us down etc, statistics, left, right and centre showing how much more likely we are to be harmed or to die etc. I like to create space for joy, celebration, celebrating often, regularly, daily.

I now have clients with celebration walls, celebration journals. One almost has a bingo sheet of celebrations. And I say, when they’re telling me something, “This is really difficult, this is really hard.” And I say, “Well, what worked well this week? What worked well in that?” And they tell me. I say, “Well, hold on, wait, we’re not going to coach another minute. Let’s celebrate this.” And at first they’re like, “[inaudible], she’s crazy.” And then they start showing up to calls saying, “Okay, before we get into.”

Maisie: Let me just have my moment of celebration, I’ve got to tell you.

Mars: And that’s so lovely because then that opens up your oxytocin, all of that celebration, all of that love, oxytocin makes you open and vulnerable. And then they start to coach. And now they start to tell me the thing that they want to tell me. And they haven’t had to break through a barrier to get there because their oxytocin levels from the celebration has got them going, “Yeah, wonderful, wonderful. And then this really shit thing happened and I felt.” And there we go, we’re right in there, we’re doing it.

But I think joy, celebration, rest is quite revolutionary for Black bodied women. We’ve been taught for so long that we are human doings, not human beings. We can’t have our emotions if we’re Black or Brown bodied. Why aren’t you smiling? What, I have to be smiling all the time, I have to be happy all the time? You should never cry, you should be strong.

Maisie: Or even in that guise of a compliment, Black women, you’re so strong.

Mars: Yes. It’s like we are the antithesis of the white woman who’s fragile and weak and needs protecting. Even when she’s strong and doing all of these things, but ultimately, she needs protecting. But we somehow don’t, we need to keep going on. We have to educate people. We need to take up every struggle that’s in the world. We have to have an opinion and a voice on it so that we can teach white bodied people how to do it. No, we’re human beings too.

We need to be able to be in our joy, be in our grief, be in our laughter and our celebration. We need to just be human being who can then decide what they do. And I think one of the hardest things for people to hear is when they say to me, “I really need you to help me.” And I say, “No, I’m not here to educate you or teach you.” “Well, if everybody says that then I’ll never learn.” Well, that’s okay, you’ll be fine. I think you’ll be fine because there are so many places where you can find the thing that you need to find.”

Maisie: If you’re willing to actually be resourceful and look for it. I mean I’m working on a whole series about resourcefulness and help and things like that.

Mars: Good. But yeah, I love Black bodied women. And I want to smash that veneer of perfectionism that they think they need to give to the world. I want to absolutely smash it to pieces so that it can’t be put back together again. Because when we coach I want them to know that they can live lives that feel amazing, lives that they see other people living, that they think looks amazing. I want them to know that this is accessible for them, and they don’t have to fake it. They’re feeling it. They’re living it. They’re in it.

And perfectionism has no space here. It can just be smashed and swept out because damn, if the rest of the world had to operate at the same level that Black women are taught to operate at, I mean we’d be in this most amazing, amazing space. But if Black bodied women, BIPOC women and people just went, “No, this is where I am, this is who I am, and this is what I offer and it’s enough.” Then I think we’ll see a whole shift in the way that they’re treated and the way they show up.

They’ll stop showing up for you because they’re showing up for themselves. And because they’re showing up for themselves they’re showing up for everyone.

Maisie: So on that note, how do people get in touch with you to hire you?

Mars: So I’m a very simple website, complicated, complicated address, www.marslord.co.uk is the simple way. You can find me on social media by just putting in _marslord. You can Google and find me, but you’ll find out all about my birth work etc. Just drop me an email, pop to the website, and I’m right there. We can have a chat and we can talk about where you are and where you want to be and see if we fit together. And I’m the coach that’s going to show you what it really means to rise as a queen.

Maisie: Love it. You know, I love you, but I love being able to witness the impact, the continued impact of your work in all the spheres, in all the spheres. But particularly in coaching because I know just the depth of transformation that happens when you’re working with someone in any way that you’re coaching but particularly in that one-on-one relationship with people, the changes that happen. And it is joyous. It is fun and it’s incredible.

Mars: Thank you. I just love it. I just love it. I tried the other day to decide what else I might do, and I thought nothing, because I just love what I do. And I love the people that I’m working with of all hues. But I particularly love working with Black bodied women. And it just makes my heart and soul sing.

Maisie: Well, speaking of heart and soul singing, that’s how I’m feeling, just getting to spend this time with you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and having this conversation and letting us hear about your work. We will put links to Mars’ website and social media and things in the show notes, so you’ve got easy access there. But I really recommend reaching out, just think about if you signed up to coach with Mars now, where you would be in a year’s time. And I mean we’re talking about transformation in weeks that is continued, who are you as a result of that in a year’s time?

So if you’ve listened to Mars and you’re thinking, I think I’d love to work with her, then just reach out, have the conversation.

Mars: Yeah. and I’m going to be cheeky and sneak in and say, and if you are white bodied and you’re listening to this, who in your BIPOC relationships needs me?

Maisie: That’s a great question. And if you’re thinking, I don’t have any BIPOC relationships, then that’s an interesting thing to think about as well.

Mars: Yes, indeed. Thank you, Maisie, it’s been so much fun.

Maisie: It always is. Alright everyone, that’s it for this week, we’ll catch you next time.

Mars: Talk to you next time, bye.

Maisie: Bye.

Hey, if you love listening to this podcast then come and check out my membership, The Flow Collective, where you get my best resources and all the coaching you need to transform your inner and outer life. Sign up to the waitlist at theflowcollective.co/join, and I’ll see you in the community.