Marie Poulin

Introduction

I discovered Marie’s work when most of my geeky friends tried to persuade me to switch to Notion. None achieved their goal, but Marie succeeded — without even knowing it.

Marie’s videos, and her Notion Mastery course, helped me to see Notion as a box of Legos, and everything started to flow. At the time, I thought it was only because of her non-prescriptive approach and engaging communication. Later, I would discover it was also something more profound; a sense of identification “different people” feel.

What follows is not an interview about Notion (although we talk about it); it’s an interview about Marie, who happens to be a Notion expert. It’s an interview with someone who thrives on her own terms.

Marie is vocal about having ADHD, which triggered my interest to know more about the topic and led to another pivotal moment in my self-discovery journey. But this is also not an interview about me. The important lesson here is that exposing yourself to the world will help you to understand who you are.

I hope this interview empowers people who feel different from the rest to embrace their quirks — and realize they have superpowers.

Bird’s Eye View

Can you give us a glimpse of your life story?

I grew up in a vibrant and chaotic household with a big blended family consisting of my mother, father, older sister, younger brother, grandparents, and uncle.

I was a very shy, sensitive child, often feeling overwhelmed by all the people and personalities. I was perfectly happy to retreat to my room and draw, play video games, or play with Legos for hours.

I developed a deep love for art and design, which led me on the path of pursuing a graphic design degree at York University in Toronto.

Admittedly, I didn’t fully understand what graphic design really encompassed at the time, but from what I knew, it seemed like the most realistic career path to utilize my interests and strengths.

After design school I went on to work at a handful of small design studios for four years until I decided to become independent, and have been self-employed ever since!

How does having ADHD reflect on your life and work?

I was only diagnosed with ADHD at age 37, and it’s interesting to look back and have greater context for the ways I struggled in my life but didn’t have the words to articulate.

For most of my life, I’ve struggled with self-esteem and confidence, despite any success I experienced.

I was put into a gifted program when I was in school, but I also really struggled with math, sequential processing, memory, and impulsivity.

Getting out of bed in the morning and getting to school and work on time has always been a lifelong struggle.

I often felt chaotic and impulsive in my energy and thoughts, which led to a lot of social anxiety.

I have often been told that I have a “calming presence,” but it also takes a lot of energy and mental effort to calmly and succinctly express my thoughts and ideas in a way that doesn’t overwhelm others(or myself!)

As a result, it took a long time to feel a sense of confidence as a teacher.

Over time though, it became interesting that a large portion of my students also have ADHD, and in many ways it gives me a unique perspective that I can bring to my teaching.

Learning and Reinvention

What does learning mean for you? And how do you learn?

Learning is an essential component of my life. I am a very curious person by nature, because I never felt like I fit in, so other people’s behavior was always very fascinating to me.

I took night school and summer school during high school so I could squeeze five years of high school into four years, which would allow me to graduate early and leave home (where I was majorly struggling). I believe part of that experience led me to subconsciously connect “learning” with “freedom.” I always saw learning as a way to level up and open up opportunities, whether it be our own personal development and peace of mind, or work/career/financial opportunities.

Even in our tiny company, learning is mandated! We expect that each member of our team is actively working on their own personal development, and using a portion of company time to learn new skills or improve our edges.

I love to learn by looking under the hood and seeing examples, especially visual examples.

I take online courses, hire coaches, read, and watch videos. When I’m taking an online course, I typically like to dip in and out of the content at my own pace. I do love structure and accountability, but also find live courses draining, so I like courses that give me some options, like the ability to consume core material at my own pace, along with options for live events with the instructor.

Being a serial course-taker, what are your criteria for picking the next course?

I try to only take one course at a time, and the course has to be related to skills I’ve decided to focus on for that quarter. I typically decide each quarter what my skill focus is, and that becomes a filter through which I decide if I should buy a course. Sometimes I’ll add a course to my wishlist and keep it in mind, but only purchase it when I know I can commit the resources to complete it properly.

How do you see yourself in the spectrum of generalization/specialization?

I mostly consider myself a generalist with a few areas of specialty. After 15 years in business, I’ve done everything from web design to print design, web development, digital strategy, workflow consulting, online course consulting, marketing consulting, coaching, teaching, product design, SaaS marketing, customer interviews, sales page design, copywriting, email funnel writing… the list is almost ridiculous!

But the thing that has always endured is systems; whether teaching my clients how to think in systems, or setting up systems for them to keep things humming along, or teaching people how to use Notion to improve their day-to-day workflow.

How do you cross-pollinate knowledge from one field to the other?

I think everything I learn automatically goes into my toolbox, and I’m always asking myself how I can apply concepts from one area to another. For example, I did a permaculture certificate and diploma, and even though a large focus of the certificate was garden systems, I couldn’t help but think about how applicable the concepts were to business as well.

Basically, I think this is something I’ve always done, and I’ve heard is often a superpower of folks with ADHD to connect seemingly disparate ideas!

Creators Economy, Notion, and Course Creation

Unlike most well-known people in the creator’s economy, you don’t share content consistently. Care to share your thoughts on that?

My energy is precious and fleeting, and I can’t always summon the motivation or discipline to share content, so I don’t.

I’ve spent 15 years not following all the “shoulds” of business and it’s worked out so far, so I figure, when you hear from me, it’s because I have something to say!

What would you do if you woke up one day in a world without Notion?

I would probably start teaching more about systems design and building resilient businesses.

You run one of my favorite online courses — Notion Mastery. What advice would you give someone creating a course from scratch?

Start small, and focus on solving a specific problem first. Launch a pilot first, and write the sales page before you build the product! It sounds crazy, but creating the sales page forces you to get really specific about what pain you’re solving or what transformation you’re promising. From there, you can start collecting people’s emails and testing interest before throwing tons of resources into creating a course you’re not sure if people are willing to pay for.

Start small, and run a highly discounted pilot with 10–20 people, and be really hands-on in the first version before you even think about doing an evergreen or self-study version of your course. You will learn so much by running it imperfectly first with a small group. Get feedback and continue to iterate until you have a mature product. Often your beta students are the ones that share the course with other people, so they become your super-supporters.

Past and Future

Can you share some of the major lessons you’ve learned in life?

Nobody is paying attention to your stuff as much as you are. It’s more likely that the judgments you fear are coming from your own head, and not someone else’s. Learn how to manage and work with your fear and judgment, and you will be unstoppable.

Embrace your quirks. Those weird things that you’ve been criticized for your whole life? The things you think are weird about you? Those are likely part of your superpowers. Don’t fight your weird edges; they will make you stand out.

Learn how to have difficult conversations. Conflict is inevitable. We are going to face challenging situations throughout our lives. Don’t avoid these difficult situations; they have so much to teach you about yourself and others. Be willing to admit when you were wrong, and be willing to see that there are more than two sides to a story.

Which big questions do you have on your mind currently?

What might our business look like if Notion didn’t exist? What is our legacy and what do we want to be known for? How do we build more resilience into our business?

How do you face the future? Do you make plans for it?

I keep things loose in terms of long-term planning. I love to theme my year, then decide on a quarterly “focus” or theme, which then guides decision making (what to learn, what projects to take on, etc.). I typically only really plan a quarter at a time, while keeping a general eye toward who I want to be, what I want to achieve, and how I want to feel.