Jen (00:00):
This is Jen from grace for single parents where your parenting and God’s grace collide. Welcome today. I have Angela Marshall, So welcome Angela.
Angela (00:17):
Hey, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Jen (00:20):
So today I’m happy to have you on, so we’re going to talk about what you have for us about the four D’s on how to be successful in life. So, first of all, though, could you take a moment to introduce yourself?
Angela (00:30):
Absolutely. Again, thank you for having me. I’m truly honored. I am Angela Marshall. I am a woman on a global mission to positively impact and influence as many people through my words, words of wisdom. Along with that mission, I teach people the 4 Ds, which is Decide Deal Determination and Defeat as well as how to live vicariously through themselves. Cause I think along the way, whether you’re a parent, you’re a corporate employee or whomever, you know, whatever your path is in life. I think sometimes we kind of get off of that path. And I think it’s important that we get back to living vicariously through ourselves, because that is where the true happiness and the true inner man is just, you know, able to blossom into succeed.
Angela (01:20):
So that’s who Angela Marshall is. My 4da, as I mentioned briefly, is a pretty hot topic right about now because a lot of people ask me constantly, they’re saying, you know, well, how did you decide that you were going to beat this? Or you were going to be a writer or an author, or, you know, how do you succeed in life? And it’s almost as if they’re waiting for this osmosis type answer for me to say something that they’ve never heard before. And I said, it all begins like everything else with the decision. So the first D is always decide. You have to decide if you want to be a good parent. If you want to be a good wife, a good, you know, a good entrepreneur, a good employee employer, whatever it takes a decision. And then of course with that decision, along with that decision, you’re going to get a lot of stuff that you will have to deal with.
Angela (02:13):
So that’s why the second D is deal. It’s not like, you know, you make a decision. I tell people being a motivational inspirational speaker. It’s not like I wake up and every day, I’m this perfect peppy person. And I’m able to just motivate people across the board. I have to deal with life issues and certain things that I go through from time to time. And I deal with those things every single day. Sometimes it’s minute by minute, sometimes it’s second by second. So after you decide you deal, and then you have to be determined that nothing is going to throw you off your game no matter what, whether it’s something that you brought on yourself or life or other people, you know, the outward circumstances, because one thing about it is anything that is happening. You, you can absolutely turn every stumbling block into a stepping stone, but it just takes that deciding, dealing determination. And then ultimately you defeated. So that’s the last four D is defeat, which we all like that. But I tell my mentees, I have a group of young ladies that I’m a mentor for ages 13 to 17. And I say, well, once you do those four days, you do know that it’s like, you have to keep doing them over and over again. It’s not like the feeding one problem. And then there’s no more problems is going to be a lie, a lot of stuff that you have to deal with.
Jen (03:34):
So what led you to coming up with these four Ds, because I’m assuming that you had something happened in your life that led you to this road and made you become such a motivational person.
Angela (03:49):
I had a lot of things happen to me and I still have a lot of things happening to me. You know, I was just speaking last night on a talk and I, where I was saying, you know, a young lady was asking me about finding your authentic self. How did you find yourself? I’m still finding I N G it’s not like I’ve found myself. So yes, I had quite a few and still have quite a few things that I have to implement those four Ds, but it was more so just me being tired of being the victim, you know, I am a play on words of sorts. And so, you know, one person said to me, I guess it was some years ago. And they were like, well, you know, a lot of people, sometimes their circumstances turn them into victims and I’m like, no, I’m going to turn my circumstances into victories. So from there, I just started, you know, on this journey to where I would take societal cliches or just anything that appeared to be slightly negative in my life and just turn it into something positive so that I would have something to look forward to when I was able to, you know, defeated or concrete. So that’s how that’s, that’s how that came about.
Jen (05:03):
So how do you stay so positive throughout all of that? Even when, you know, you feel like, I mean, sometimes we do feel like we’re a victim, so how do we turn that around? How do we get ourselves back into those forties and stay positive?
Angela (05:16):
Is all a state of mind. I start out every single morning with meditation and affirmations. Like I really have to pump up Angela, just as much as I pump up Everybody else. We’re so good at that. You know, every last one of us, we pour into our children, our spouses, our, and our colleagues, our friends, we send them cars just because flowers and we just, Oh, you’re so great, but you forget to do it to yourself. So every single morning, I don’t look at it as being vain or egotistical anymore. I pump Angela up because if I can’t pour into Angela, then I can’t affectively pour into Jen. It just doesn’t happen that way. So I would say definitely pour into yourself and you know, it’ll come, it’ll get easier. As far as being able to overcome that mindset, that defeating or damaging or destructive mindset, that’s trying to take you out and say, Oh, this problem is so big.
Angela (06:15):
Or this issue is just, you know, one that you will never be able to overcome. I also have a journal just for that. So I write out my problems, what it, what the day, the date, the year. And then I also write out or chronicle in there, the date that I overcome it. And just looking back at that book all my gosh, like I’m truly a winner, truly a champion. I have overcome a lot. It’s all of us, you know, can say that, but I think it’s just something about, and maybe that’s just the writer in me. It’s just something about being able to look at it on paper and see, you know, flip back and say, Oh my God. Yeah, I did go through this. And 1999, 94, 2008, 2013. And see that at that time, it was a really big problem to me too, but now it doesn’t impact or affect my life.
Jen (07:09):
I have a journal that you can just write a few lines every single day, but it’s stacked up so that you go to the same year. So like, for example, February 13th. You know, for, you’d go back and every year you would write on February 13th. So you can see where you came from on February 13th for the past five years. So you can really kind of go back and see what you’ve accomplished or what you, where you’ve come from. So what you just said reminded me of that. So, yeah.
Angela (07:41):
Yeah. That’s I would like to have that. I just have, it’s just a composition book. And like I said, I just write up, but that would, to me, that would probably be a little bit more effective because it’s like every year, you know, like you mentioned, you get to see on that same day different things that you were facing and how you, you know, the outcome. So, yeah, that’s right.
Jen (08:02):
Yeah. Okay. So I have a question about, you have written an autobiography called reality of rags to riches, the story in life of an ex NFL wife. And one thing that was interesting about that is I don’t know if it’s the tagline or just what’s written on the back, but it says that you struggled through a lavish, but sorely lacking lifestyle. And I thought that it was interesting because so many of us think that if we just get to this status or this next thing, that that’s going to be, what makes us happy. So can you tell us a little bit about that?
Angela (08:36):
Yes, absolutely. I get that question a lot, which is another reason another bullet point that led me to write the book. So my ex and I, we actually were in the football league from 1992 to 1998. And during that time, of course, you know, you have your, your family members that are so in awe about your lifestyle. And they’re thinking that it’s so different from theirs, which, okay. Yes. The NFL national football league, being able to, you know, I guess like rub elbows with your John Elways, people that you see on TV. You think that that is this lifestyle that is exempt from problems. And it’s not. I tell people the only issue at that time that we did not have was financial money, that’s it, but every other one from social, emotional, mental, spiritual, you name it, we had, and we still had to deal with those things and you can’t just throw money at it and think that it will go away. That’s not how it happens. So I just, I guess I got tired
Angela (09:43):
Of this whole assessment that my life was supposed to be so amazing just because I was a, at the time NFL wife. And then now, even when I feel that question, I can see it in their eyes like, Oh my God, if I had that, you know, that lifestyle or that money or whatever. And again, this is not a knock against the national football leagues and I’m not going against my ex husband at the time or that lifestyle. It’s just that me, for me personally, I was not really hard because I had not done the work to define Angela and we were relatively young, but to me, not so young to where I could not have, or should not have at least have some sort of definition for myself to be able, you know, just to be a little bit more mature, I guess.
Angela (10:28):
So I wrote the book to tell my story, to tell my truth. And it Chronicles the reality of everything that I faced, starting from a little girl, from a little child, different things that were in me that I had to work through with counseling and some other things in order to understand why I was even, you know, behaving or some of the different things that I was going through. It took all of that, you know, me unmasking and unlayering a lot of that stuff to get to my rags part. So the reality is just facing myself. Rags is forcing myself to deal with everything that, you know, I found out about myself and still to a certain degree, still am finding out about myself and then ultimately the riches and the riches. I labeled that as anything you cannot replace is a true rigid if I can replace it is not, you know, and then, you know, those, aren’t the most valuable things or the prices things to me, and those are friendships, his family, his faith, it’s just being able to foster really good connections and networking to help you be your blessed and best self.
Jen (11:41):
What kind of advice do you have to the single mom? And You’re a motivational speaker and you’ve been a single parent, right? Or you still are.
Angela (11:54):
Yes, I Still am. I did not remarry. And I also have grandchildren. So that’s why I say it. Like, I’m a sideline now.
Angela (12:03):
Well, for your audience, I would just say, you know, don’t beat yourself up so much when you do make a mistake because you know, you get an opportunity to write it. And when the child sees that he or she actually is a better person because of it, I was notorious for any little thing that I did, or I felt like you know, I wasn’t on the right path that my child was, I was such a bad mother in which I wasn’t. I realized that now because them being able to see certain things, and I’m not saying, I know it has to be age appropriate on that saying, you have to open up this box, Pandora’s box to your children and talk to them about every little adult, you know, situation. But I think that it’s important for your child to see you’re happy. You’re sad, your emotions, your expressions, maybe not the so heated ones or the ones, you know, like my role raised that I used to have back in the day.
Angela (13:02):
So a lot of things I wish that I could do definitely could do differently from, in front of them, but it made me a better person and it’s making them a better person also. But I would just say, don’t lose sight of yourself either. You know, we pour, we tend as single parents, we tend to pour a lot into our children and making their dreams come true. But what about yours? Don’t lose sight of yours. You know, it’s important. You can actually do both. We can, you know, help them along their path and their journey as well as your path and your journey. Because I think a lot of times we forget about ourselves, whether it’s the self care or just different things that we want to do, whether it’s hobbies or, you know, just different aspirations. And then it turns into just a little bit of either depression, anxiety, or resentment.
Angela (13:54):
And I went through all three of those things. So I would say, please, please do not lose yourself. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. And when you make mistakes in front of your children own up to it, they comprehend a whole lot more than we think I have my son. He is, he’ll be 31 this year, but he recalled a situation that my ex and I went through when he was five, five years old. I mean, verbatim told me the situation, the words that was exchanged and everything. So, you know, they get it. And I wish that I had been a little bit more in tuned with my children at that time, because I think it’s definitely important that when they see things or they hear things, or, you know, we’re not energy is low, that we be able to verbalize that to them. And then also, you know, them being more importantly than being able to see us overcoming it because that’s, you know, that’s just as important.
Angela (14:53):
I tell people I’m not a motivational inspirational speaker that just talks about bullet points about, you know, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad. This is a stumbling block. This is a stumbling block, but more so I want to discuss your trials, but I want to discuss the triumphs too, because that’s just as equally as important. So please do not lose yourself in this parenting thing because eventually they will, you know, they’re going to grow up and they’re going to move on with their life. And then, you know, you may be stuck feeling some type of way, which I was. And that’s why I realized that I had to reconnect and just reset refocus and do a lot of things. And I’m not saying that I would have just totally put my children off to pursue writing. Cause I always want it to be, you know, a writer. I would not have done that, but I just would have learned how to balance it a lot better, a lot better. Because as single parents, we do tend to be imbalanced. We put everybody first, we put everything first and then, you know, put ourselves on the back burner and that’s not good at all.
Jen (15:55):
I completely agree. It’s very easy to do. Yes. Yep. Great advice. So where can listeners find out more about you?
Angela (16:03):
So I am on every social media outlet outlet from for me, Facebook to LinkedIn, to IgE as well as my website is www.inotherwordsbystone.com. I’m also for all of you, amazing Googlers, if you Google and Lamar. So there are quite a few links that will come up that will give you a little bit more research where you can research and you can review me and my books and, and anything that I can do to be in service. I am just a phone call or I’m an email away.
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