Meet Marina Paul

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marina Paul. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marina below.

Hi Marina, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
Confidence, to me, is being cool with yourself and genuinely loving the person who looks back at you in the mirror, no matter the context.

I come from a sports background, and like sports, developing confidence and self-esteem comes with daily, even hourly practice, especially when building something. I have to have unwavering faith in myself, in order for my company to work. I don’t always have confidence and good self-esteem, and in fact, I started this journey when I suffered from depression and debilitating eating disorders.

I lean on my past achievements, not necessarily the awards but the growth from where I started to how I arrived at where I got to. This is proof that i can do it. The one truth I know, its that my resilience – every day practice, failing and getting better – is how I achieved any success in life. I know that I never start great, but I always finish really well. And because of this, I know that I have to just start.

I use what I know to be true about myself, lean into that, and use that to fuel my confidence. And I work my butt off to achieve excellence.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Hey everyone!

My name is Marina Paul. I really like to build things, write about things and play sports!

I’m the author of Becoming a Superhero, a book about how to find deep connection with yourself, discover your superpowers and inspire the magic in others. I wrote this by documenting the lives of the world’s most successful women, and connecting those lessons to my own life traumas and successes.

My book and my experiences as a female athlete led me to build SPRHRA (like Superhero with an ‘a’), a sportswear company designed to give female athletes the Freedom to Perform. I was a college soccer player who felt like I didn’t fit the sport because my sportswear was so uncomfortable.

It turns out, so many female athletes felt the same phsyical and mental restriction from our sportswear. So I moved in with my parents and built SPRHRA in Downtown LA, using the feedback from 150+ female athletes.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The 3 qualities and skills I’ve learned that are most helpful, are skills I learned early on in sports. These apply to nearly every context of my life

– Learn how to trust yourself. The lowest times in my life have been because I didn’t trust myself. I was too scared to live in my own body. By learning how to trust myself, I know believe that my only limit is really what I believe I can and can’t do. This is your gut… you intuition. You have to create space for it, in order for you to listen to it.

– The point of most resistance is usually the greatest opportunity. Be open during these times, rather than discouraged. When people say, there’s a reason why everyone does it this way, but it doesn’t feel right to you (you feel huge resistance within you), question it and go build what you think.

– Feedback is a blessing. As a failed perfectionist, feedback was really hard for me to take, because I was so hard on myself. But the more you receive it (from the right people), the better you will become, and as a result, so does your business. This requires incredible listening and reflection.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
My sports teammates, and it’s because of them, that I’m building our SPRHRA community and products the way I am.

I get chills thinking about the loyalty my teammates and I have with one another. It’s the type of loyalty that (in a non-threatening way), says, “if you think I’m a lot, you don’t know the pack that I have behind me.”

My teammates are the crew who I feel the safest with. They’ll never leave me, not matter what type of weenie joke I say. Even if I don’t accomplish all I want to, even if I don’t [insert thing]… I have the deepest trust they will always have my back.

I am often alone in building SPRHRA, and I am never lonely because of them. How cool is that?

The winningest team I have been on was not the most talented. But we loved each other and had the most loyal bond. We won as a result.

This bond taught me that true female friendships—I call it Sisterhood—are critical to our health, and our SPRHRA-ism.

True Sisterhood—an army of women who support you, challenge you, laugh with and at you, and relentlessly fight for you—is how I’ll build SPRHRA.

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