Marion Horan, owner of Live Clean and Thrive in Saratoga gives you inspiration on life, fitness, health, and positivity. I met her by chance at the park with our kids, she instantly gave off positive energy! She is a mother of 3, a business owner, and badass lady! I was able to ask her a few questions about her business, herself and how being a badass woman defines her!
Q. 1 When did the entrepreneur bug bite you?
Marion: I had retired from corporate America in 2010 when my first son Robert was born. When I became a stay-at-home mom and experienced time FREEDOM, I knew that I could never go back to working for someone else. I love being able to call the shot, schedule my day the way I want it to go. It's really a life by my design. When our finances changed and I needed to find a way to financially contribute to my family, an opportunity to build my own business presented itself and I jumped on it.
Q. 2 What is your passion?
Marion: Life! This planet and following the wisdom we receive from it to live a life full of love. Love comes from so many sources and most of all from within each and every one of us. I am passionate about sharing this message! That we are all worthy and deserving of love. And mostly the love we get from clean, unadulterated ingredients from this planet. I get passionate when I talk to people about the dangers they face, the ways love is blind, because to me it's not fair. It's not fair to me that people are not given all the information to make solid and informed choices that have tremendous impacts on their overall health and wellbeing. I'm passionate about empowering and inspiring this love in other people so they can live their lives full of love too.
Q.3 Who were the women mentors that encouraged you or inspired you?
Marion: Rachel Hollis, Brene Brown, Pema Chodron, Tanda Cook, Jillian Sarno Teta, In my business community I also have Kristen Dolan, Sheila Cook, Cecelia Stoll, Donna Johnson, Debbie Neal!! Miranda Burcham, Peyton Scheibner, Ashley Strong, and so many more!
Q.4 Why did you pick your business niche? Was this something you went to school for etc?
Marion: Health and Wellness have always been in my wheelhouse. I always loved reading health and fitness magazines and would gush over all the little nutrition facts contained within. I thought it was fascinating how the earth provides all these nutrients that our bodies use to make cells, bones and do amazing things like fight viruses and make babies. I saw that the key to a healthy life came if we had enough of the necessary nutrients or nutritional support. So after college, I went back to school for a Masters in Human Nutrition. I fell in love with the human body and found that I have this wonderful ability to read the cause and effects that come from the diets we consume. When I became pregnant, I took a step away from my dream of helping people feel good in their bodies to devote my time to raising my own little humans. After I had kids I became restless and searching for more and that's when this opportunity to take a chance on my dream presented itself.
You know that adage, "You don't know how bad you feel until you feel better." When I first was introduced to Arbonne's 30 days to Healthy Living Program I had never in my life felt more energy, mental clarity, focus and literally sooo goood! I had tried other health/detox programs in the past (isagenix, juice plus, juicing cleanses, beachbody, Dr Hymans, Paleo, Keto) but none made me feel the way I had when I had engaged with this program. What's funny is I was just doing it on my own, figuring out how to mix it into my current life. I thought WOW.... even with my education and experience there was still so much I wasn't aware of that was impacting my day to day body functioning/health. I saw the potential it could bring in my Nutrition career and for many loved ones around me. If I could offer this super easy and simple tool then there was nothing that could stop me and....well, here we are today.
Q.5 What do you do for encouragement or to be motivated?
Marion : A couple of things, the communities I have surrounded myself with are quite inspiring. I ride the Peloton just about every day and the trainers are always encouraging and motivational, but at the end of the day, it's My why. Why am I doing this? I always seem to come back to that. When I become distracted (which I do a lot, when you own your own business, you have no one to answer to but your own face in the mirror. It's so easy to put it off or just do one more load of laundry, clean up the mess from breakfast, reorganize my drawers for the 4th time that month.... The personal growth I have engaged with has helped me identify where, when and how I distract myself, and once I catch myself being caught up, I give myself a little nudge of tough love.... " Marion, you're doing it again, time to get to what's important to you."
Q. 6 How do you balance your entrepreneur life with friends/family that don’t understand the challenges we experience?
Marion: Clear communication, self-belief, and appropriate boundaries.
Seeking this new way of life for myself has been a challenge, especially in my marriage. My husband would say he supports me (he came from an entrepreneur family) but his definition of support never really matched what I truly needed/envisioned. He would watch the kids while I was off working and he saw that as enough support. Which it wasn't. Support is much more than financial and time is given, it's believing it is possible and being there to help along the way. And this is where the journey of personal growth really helped me the most. I was able to identify how I was not clearly communicating my wants and needs, I was not being direct. Not just with my husband, but also within myself.
At the end of the day support is belief. Belief that if you take this risk, this chance on yourself, you can be successful. If the people in our lives believe we can do it, that is our support from them. I see how humans are, we often wait for other people to believe us, either by saying yet, buying our products or tell their friends about what we're doing in order to give ourselves permission to seek what we truly desire. But really and truly, it's having our own belief in ourselves. I have learned that I can not wait for external validation in order to pursue my dreams and have the ability to create that validation, permission from inside. I have the power. I need to have the belief that I am capable of this. Which, silly enough, is something we can train ourselves to do. It's just a new thought process, a new narrative, a mindset.
Q.7 What Is the mission of your business/job?
Marion: To reach as many people as I can with this message of love. The message is that you are deserving of love, are worthy of love, and can have this love at any time you choose. That you deserve better than what you previously believed or what society markets to you. You are a pure being, a powerful life force and you deserve nothing but the best things in life.
Q.8 What do you want readers to know about your business?
Marion: That I offer a safe space to explore the choices we have in our day to day consumptions, how these choices impact us and our families and provide a no BS plan to get you feeling from good to great!
Q.9 With many challenges with being a woman in business, what about being a badass woman has benefited you and your business?
Marion: I don't let other people's opinions stop me from living my truth, speaking my mind, or being the person I was destined to be. Badasses don't back down, and like that I will never give up. I am committed, dedicated, and driven.
Q.10 Finally - What is a quote that inspires you!
Marion : I have so many but my one favorite that is my compass: "When you know better, you do better" - Maya Angelou
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