This show was syndicated on the Primal Blueprint podcast. The main man of primal living, the mayo king of Miami joins the podcast again for more reflections about his wild entrepreneurial journey and how to leverage the concept of Mental Flexibility to live long and live awesome.
Mental Flexibility is one of the four pillars of longevity covered in our new book, Keto For Life. This book takes the conversation further than the typical boilerplate of eating the right foods, doing the right workouts, and getting enough sleep to be healthy and fit. Mental flexibility entails learning how to go with the flow in life, and have the courage to change course when it’s time to move forward and grow, instead of remaining stuck in a rut. Mark loves the term “pivoting,” particularly in the context of his career ambitions. He was able to leverage seemingly disparate pursuits into continual personal growth and pursuit of new opportunities.
If you are interested in thinking outside the box, taking advantage of exciting career opportunities, and especially learning how to not get stuck in personal or professional ruts, this will be a very informative show for you. We also extend the conversation into the other elements of the Mental Flexibility, including: the dangers of rumination and FOMO and how to reject the cultural momentum that pushes you in that direction; how to tap into gratitude when things get stressful and you most deserve a fresh perspective; the incredible importance of live, interpersonal social connection (Biology of Belief author Dr. Bruce Lipton calls it a “fundamental biological imperative”) and the perils of hyperconnectivity and distractibility.
Mark’s first show, The Ultimate Mark Sisson Interview, was one of the most popular downloads ever on the Get Over Yourself podcast, so please give that a listen too. We know him as the founding father of the primal/paleo diet and lifestyle movement, but this conversation will give you a fresh new dimension into some other areas where you can transform your life. If you’re into symbolism and spirituality, you are going to trip out when Mark relates his childhood in the rockbound coast of Maine where he would hop from boulder to boulder running along the beach – a parallel to his entrepreneurial journey where he learned to pivot and leverage past experience into new opportunities.
Mark then shares his go-to when he’s feeling down, sad or stressed: journaling, particularly gratitude journaling. We then touch on the tech overload and discuss the alarming stats regarding loneliness in America as Mark expresses his sadness at seeing so many people constantly glued to their devices. This leads into a discussion about the health benefits of human connection and social interaction, especially touching and hugging, which is ironic now, considering current events. Mark comments, “It doesn’t make me feel great about the future, if we can’t pull back and start to understand how important human connection is on a one to one basis.” Sure, we’re going to need to hold off on the hugging and touching for some time, but how lucky are we to live in a world that makes it easy to stay connected to our loved ones? Now more than ever, it is clear that human connection plays an integral role in our health and happiness.
TIMESTAMPS:
Exercise and diet are the easy part. Mental flexibility is the more difficult part. [05:36]
What does Mark mean by “pivoting”? If something gets in the way of your goal, pivot into a different direction. [07:30]
Mark’s entrepreneurial journey went from shoveling snow, to construction, to yogurt and on and on to the guru of ancestral health. [12:05]
The common thread is passion and purpose. [17:46]
It’s okay to go along with your passion, but how do you pay the rent and support family? [21:59]
Business is just a roller coaster. [29:33]
The ability to move on after a tragedy is a form of pivoting. [33:49]
If you can pursue your goal and not the ego caught up in it, it works better. [37:49]
If it didn’t go according to plan, it is not a failure. [39:46]
Mark has had a huge effect on people’s health. [41:42]
Productivity is measurable, not so much the hours one puts in. [45:04]
LINKS:
QUOTES:
- “People today tend to put too much time on the clock and not get enough done.”
- “Our thoughts are at the root of our well-being.”
- “Pivoting means the ability to see a situation that’s not working for you, and to be able to, with ease and grace, move in a different direction.”
LISTEN:
Get Over Yourself Podcast
Brad (00:00:00):
Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author and athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balance that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go. .
Brad (00:03:05):
Let’s give you some Mark Sisson, the legend of the primal paleo ancestral health movement. He’s been talking for 12 years now about how to get your diet right, your exercise, your lifestyle, your sleep. But he’s got so much more to say and so many interesting insights on other topics, especially the peak performance mindset, the entrepreneurial journey, which is so popular to reflect upon these days. And it was just really fun to kind of relax, hang out in his home and turn the mic on and get him talking about things that are kind of off the boiler plate off the template. So I think you’re really gonna enjoy the show coming on the heels of the ultimate Mark Sisson interview, one of the greatest episodes of all time on the get over yourself podcast.
Brad (00:03:54):
So go back and search for that. It was one of the early shows, but here he focuses on uh, one of his favorite words, his favorite concepts of pivoting, especially as it relates to your career pursuits, things that you put your heart and soul into and you’re so committed to. But sometimes you got to wake up and reassess and realize that it’s time to change course. And we also get into numerous other topics featured in the book, Keto for Life, and the third pillar of longevity, which we call mental flexibility. So we talk about pivoting and then we transitioned into topics like the dangers of rumination and FOMO and how to avoid it, how to live in a state of gratitude and access that wonderful tool of gratitude when you need it most when you’re struggling. Uh, the importance of social connection and the, uh, the disastrous effects of hyper-connectivity, uh, overstimulation these days. Reminiscing about the days when we didn’t have the portable device, but how to correct things and just be the best you can be. Prioritize relationships and pursue Mark’s wonderful stated goal of living. Awesome. So here we go with my main man, my mentor Mark Sisson. Enjoy, listen to the Sisson on her back in the hot seat. Thank you for joining us on your own primal blueprint podcast.
Brad (00:05:25):
That’s a little weird, isn’t it? Yeah, no. Here we are in my, uh, dining room and um, which we used to call the, uh, the podcast studios in beautiful downtown Malibu and now they’re in downtown Pacific Palisades.,
Brad (00:05:36):
Whatever, wherever it takes. We chase you down man, anywhere around. So we did a great show on the new book, Keto for Life with the four pillars of longevity and I thought that would be fun to focus on that pillar number three, mental flexibility, uh, and the various attributes in there because it is representing sort of a extension of what you’ve talked about for 12 years and hammered home so hard that you shouldn’t eat grains and sugars. We’ve already heard plenty of that, but these new insights and how they tie into living awesome and promoting longevity are extremely important.
Mark (00:06:14):
Absolutely. I mean, I think the diet and the exercise are the, are the easy parts because the information is pretty finite accessible and with a little bit of discipline you can make them happen. I think the more, the more difficult part of this would be the developing the mental flexibility. Because a while it sounds like it might be easy in concept a, you know, our brains are pretty, are pretty wired to chatter all the time and to uh, and to worry and to fret and to feel guilty and to, um, take things personally and all the things that we, you know, we know we at least intuitively we should not be doing, but we tend to do anyway. So the mental part, uh, is worthy of discussion and going into a deep dive today. So let’s do that.
Brad (00:06:59):
Well, I have my top secret, a little Sisson note pad of, of life changing insights that I’ve gathered over the years, uh, with great privilege here and there you drop a bomb and I have to go think about it for days on end. And one of them, uh, one of the concepts that you’ve represented so well is this ability to pivot in this, this mindset of being able to go with the flow. And I think particularly because your entrepreneurial journey is so, uh, you know, representative of that, I’d like to, I’d like to focus on this concept of pivoting and what the word means to you.
Mark (00:07:30):
Sure. Well, I mean at its, at its basis, it just means the ability to see a situation that’s not working for you and to be able to, uh, with ease and grace move in a different direction. Um, but, but you know, there are lots of nuances to this. In the personal development personal coaching world they talk about the difference between having a growth mindset and a fixed mindset and a fixed mindset. You might say, well, um, I’m a, I know what I want to do. I’m passionate about it. I have my plans, I had my goal set and I’m going to go down this path and nothing’s going to keep me from doing it. And you see a lot of this on the internet today. Uh, you know, you just, as long as you work hard and as long as you grind it out and put in 18 hour days, you know, you will be successful.
Mark (00:08:18):
Uh, and I, and I, I take somewhat, uh, exception to that comment because shit happens. Things happen along the way. So if you have this fixed mindset and you’re, and you’re really all in with your, with your plan and your program and your goal, that’s great. But when things happen, I think it’s important that you have the, the willingness and the ability to be flexible and to understand that, uh, maybe where you’re headed is not, uh, something that you want to beat your head against. Uh, maybe you have truly come up against something that’s insurmountable and you need to walk around it or pivot or make a new, a new plan. Uh, and so the, the idea of pivoting for myself, I mean, look, my life has been, uh, just about nothing but o.
Brad (00:09:04):
ne pivot after another. He doesn’t play basketball,
Mark (00:09:07):
But it’s, you know, in retrospect, they all make perfect sense. Like one thing led to another, right? One door closes and two doors open is what they say. Um, so I’ve always been geared toward, um, having a goal in mind. Um, whether it’s a business goal, uh, you know, where, uh, I try one business and it isn’t exactly what I had in mind. And so I try another business, uh, whether it’s an athletic goal where I try one sport and it doesn’t work out the way I intended. So I, I try another sport. I’ll give you an example in that. Uh, you know, I started out, uh, as a miler and two miler on track team in college, and I just didn’t have the speed. Uh, and I found out that as I got, as a distance got longer and longer, I was more proficient against the rest of the crowd. So when I got finally got to the marathon and I realized I’m pretty, pretty good at this, I can, I can make myself hurt for longer than most people around me.
Mark (00:10:09):
I can participate and, and get a race at a certain level that allows me to finish in the top 1% or 0.1% versus middle of the field in a mile or two mile. So that was one of my first pivots. I just, I just evolved into a different, uh, arena there. Uh, I did that for five years. I became, I finished fifth and us national championships in the marathon in 1980 but I got injured. I got, I got severely beat up from all the training. And my choice was to either retire from competition entirely or pivot. Um, now when you say well pivot, I mean I could have found a new sport, I guess I could have gone and played golf, but not at the level that I was participating. So, so my pivot in athletics was, um, I started riding a bike and learned the rudiments of swimming and, and was able to start participating in triathlons with using, using the endurance capacity and using the cardio vascular system that I had built, but now applying it to a different set of variables and leg muscles on a bike.
Mark (00:11:15):
And, and yes, a little bit of running too, but uh, but it was mostly the combination of three. So that was a, that was a way of pivoting. Uh, so I was able to keep my focus of being an elite athlete and participating at a high level, but not being so rigidly adhering to the one goal of being a top marathoner. Uh, because that just, there was a point at which I recognized it was not going to happen. I was too, you know, I had the sorts of injuries that would not allow me to run 120 miles a week. Um, but those injuries would not keep me from riding 220 miles a week on my bike, you know, and running 30 or 40 miles off of that, which was enough to allow me to continue to participate, to participate at that level. Um, you know, in business I’ve just done nothing but, uh, pivot from one business to the next.
Mark (00:12:05):
I was, uh, you know, uh, I bet I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. I’m just going back to when did it start? It started when I was shoveling snow as a 12 year old on, on school days. On snow days in Maine. Uh,
Brad (00:12:18):
instead of going to school or,
Mark (00:12:19):
yeah. Well, snow days. You stay home, stay home, and.
Brad (00:12:23):
I wasn’t familiar with the snow, snow day,
Mark (00:12:24):
you stay home because it’s, there’s so much snow that people can get out. And so you go get your shovel and you make 80 bucks, you know, as a, as 80 bucks as a 12 year old is a 12 year old sixties. Oh no, that was a week’s pay. It was more than a week’s pay for, for most people in my town. So, uh, that was, that was, uh,
Brad (00:12:42):
blinged out when you’re 12.
Mark (00:12:44):
About that. But, um, and then, you know, I started mowing lawns and so I was, you know, I was again, 12, 13, 14 in the summers mowing, mowing lawns, 40 hours a week, you know, not, not just part time in between, you know, playing outside with my friends, but no full on 40 hour week job. And then from there I started painting houses. Um, I just learned how to, I went, spent a summer working for a contractor, learn how to paint and decide I would, I could do it, I could make more money doing it myself. And I did. And I put my self through school painting houses. Uh, and then, uh, I, after I graduated college, I had a painting contracting business and I made a lot of money for a guy as a painting contractor. And it enabled me to travel around the world and participate in these athletic events.
Mark (00:13:31):
Uh, so the, the, the business enabled my, my hobby of trying to become an elite athlete. Um, at some point I realized, uh, I didn’t want to be painting all the time. So I, uh, hooked up with, uh, with a college buddy of mine and we opened a frozen yogurt shop in Palo Alto in 1981, Cool Licks frozen yogurt. And, uh, it was a amazing success. We actually bought a barbershop. We went in, we couldn’t get, we couldn’t find a lease. So we, uh, we bought out Herardo the barber for $17,000, took over his lease, um, gutted the place. And then, because, because of my background as a contractor, we built this beautiful, uh, frozen yogurt emporium. Uh, we were one of the first places to have, this is 1981. We had, uh, uh, an overhead projector shooting, uh, music videos, which were big disks in those days onto a screen, uh, above the counter.
Mark (00:14:29):
Anyway, it did very, very well. And so we got excited about opening more of these things and we, uh, we found a location down in San Jose, near Apple computer, uh, in Cupertino. And we leased that place, but it was a very big place and it’s gonna cost a lot more money to build it out than we thought. And we thought, well, let’s just not just not just doing yogurt, let’s just do, we’ll do frozen yogurt, eight flavors of frozen yogurt. We’ll do a salad bar. We built a 50 foot long salad bar that was refrigerated from underneath we a soup was, there was a place called Souplantation that had just opened up and we were sort of emulating what they were doing. And then Mrs. Fields had just started baking homemade cookies. So we had, we had soup, we had salad, we had frozen yogurt, we had homemade cookies.
Mark (00:15:13):
And, um, we borrowed money at 17 and 3/4 percent because that was the best deal. You could get in those days and completely, completely lost, you know, our minds. I mean, the first year we, I mean, we had to make a $10,000 a month profit just to pay it our debt service down. And if you don’t anything about restaurants, they don’t, they’re not necessarily profitable in their first year, let alone their first couple of months. So that tanked. Uh, and from there I pivoted and went to, uh, Los Angeles to get into sportscasting and, um, couldn’t find a sports casting job. But, um, my agent said, you know, why don’t you just take some acting classes and some singing classes and some, um, uh, uh, dance classes. Uh, and then I did the Groundlings. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Groundlings, you know, the improv classes.
Mark (00:16:00):
And at the end of a year, while I didn’t have a gig as a sportscaster, I got a bunch of gigs as, as an actor. So I did some acting jobs. I did some commercials. I did, uh, you know, had some, had some minor roles. I was on Dynasty. Uh, if you remember that TV show Dynasty.
Brad (00:16:17):
where the guy in the background that was serving the champagne at the party, that’s exactly what Mark Sisson was,
Mark (00:16:22):
exactly what it was. Anyway. So, um, I realized I didn’t, I didn’t want to be an actor. I wanted to be myself. I want to be a sportscaster. So, um, I sort of, uh, gave up on that whole thing and, and shifted away. I was coaching, um, uh, top athletes at the time,
Brad (00:16:39):
young hardheaded triathletes.
Mark (00:16:41):
Not, not quite yet at that time, but I was, nobody was, as a matter of fact, I was coaching, I was coaching you at that time. And then I got offered a job, uh, to go run the triathlon Federation, Colorado Springs in 1988, 88, 89. So I went up to Colorado Springs, ran a Triathlon Federation for a while. Of course, two weeks into that job, who calls me ESPN, they want me to be a sportscaster for triathlon, for the Bud Light triathlon series. You were able to do that. And I did that. I was able to do it. That’s good. But I mean, it’s just, I’m rambling about my story but, but you know, one thing led to another and pivoting and all these twists and turns and all these things that happen and at the end of the day you still wind up sort of following the original path, you know, whatever that, whatever that looks, it just doesn’t look when you finally achieve it. It doesn’t look like the vision you had from day one, but you can still consider yourself successful for having identified these opportunities to pivot and make a shift.
Brad (00:17:46):
Yeah, I mean, they’re seemingly unrelated. And guess, uh, one common thread I’m picking up is that you didn’t give an F, you didn’t get discouraged and you just jumped to the next thing with incredible enthusiasm. And I guess maybe that was the way that you leveraged all these things, success or fail, uh, with the salad bar, you had the success with the yogurt shop and then you, you pushed out to the outer limit as you’ve been known to do throughout your life. And I guess then we’re able to pull back. But I mean, is there a common thread that you identify that pushed you to the next and the next?
Mark (00:18:18):
Well, the common thread is passion and purpose. It’s basically waking up in the morning and, and you know, it’s, it’s like I tell people, if you, if you’re, if you, if everyone followed their passion, we’d all, we’d all own an ice cream shop because when we’re 12 years old, like tasty licks or whatever, you want to have an ice cream shop. But our passion shifts as we learn more about life and as we get interested in things, as we find out what we’re good at, uh, and where our, you know, our, our own secret sauce is. So a lot of people are very, very passionate about a job that they never envisioned themselves doing, but they’re good at it and they’re serving people and they are excited about getting up every morning and, and, and exploring what that new world looks for them.
Mark (00:19:01):
And I mean, I think that that’s the key is to be excited about, uh, whatever the opportunities are for what you’re doing right now at that time. So, as for me, as I, you know, as I shifted from one position to the next, it was always because, um, you know, I saw, I saw an opportunity that interested me and some of the interests stemmed from my previous experience. So the frozen yogurt shop to the restaurant, um, athletics into the,
Brad (00:19:30):
into the leadership role in athletics, athletics into,
Mark (00:19:33):
into writing books about athletics, um, writing books about athletics, into writing books about health and fitness and athletics. So, so training elite athletes and training to become an endurance athlete was just a little bit this far away from average people who wanted to lose, lose weight and improve performance in the gym. So that was an easy transition, an easy pivot. Um, coaching elite athletes to becoming interested in the, in the antidoping movement and getting drafted to write the antidoping rules for the sport of triathlon and having written those rules for triathlon.
Mark (00:20:07):
Then becoming the antidoping commissioner for the sport of triathlon worldwide for 12 years. So I oversaw all the drug tests. They all make sense in the context of athletics, interested in performance, interested in legal performance enhancing substances. And the difference between the two. Um, writing the anti-doping mind thin, finalize the digital. I mean, then I started a supplement company. I started a supplement company because I was so interested in enhancing performance legally that I realized they didn’t, you know, the kind of supplements I wish I’d had as an athlete didn’t exist. So I started making those, um, I started selling those to athletes and then I realized pretty quickly athletes don’t really care that much about supplements. And so I started my same supplements, resonated with little old ladies who were living on a welfare check. But we’re reading a lot about how I can about longevity.
Mark (00:20:59):
And they were watching a TV show called Know the Cause that I was appearing on as a guest. And next thing you know, my entire business pivoted once again away from selling these high performance athletes, very specific multivitamin, multimineral, uh, antioxidant compounds to addressing a much broader market of people who were interested in anti-aging. And so my whole anti-aging bent started at that point. And then as I started thinking about that, I started, you know, I have a lot of research on anti-aging. Let me put that down on a blog. And that became Mark’s Daily Apple of course, before the blog was the TV show, I thought, I’ll do a TV show on anti-aging called Responsible Health. Um, shot 52 half hour episodes at that health show, aired it on travel channel, uh, 8:30 every morning and lost a million and a half bucks before I pulled the plug on that one. So, I mean, I’m sorry to be rambling here, but, but all these things,
Brad (00:21:56):
they’re all, they’re all connected in ways that if you look back, you go,
Mark (00:21:59):
Oh, that was, uh, you know, that pivot, uh, not only made sense because you’d run up against a barrier that was not going to be possible overcome, um, but open a door that was probably even more lucrative than, than the original decision or the original intent.
Brad (00:22:17):
Uh, right. So you said that word opportunity along with passion. And it sounds like you always had that in the background. I mean, you’ve had to support a family for the last 30 years or what have you. And so if we’re not just supposed to follow our passions, how do we manage, uh, you know, uh, putting the opportunity into the equation and then thinking of the, the opportunities that way or the choices.
Mark (00:22:41):
Um, I mean, I, look, I, it was important to me that I, that I maintained, uh, a relationship with my wife and my kids and that I, and I fed my,
Brad (00:22:50):
yeah, well, shoot, I shouldn’t laugh because there’s seems like there’s a few examples out there that we know about where someone just pursues their passions. Um, what was the ice climbers name? Alex Lowe. He just kept climbing these crazy climbs and then he died, right? Yeah. I hope I’m right about that. But that was a tragic story because here’s this guy on top of the world. He had a little wife and kid at home and they would stress every time he’d, he’d leave town.
Mark (00:23:11):
I mean, and you, you know, you hear the famous quote, he died doing what he loved doing. I mean, okay,
Brad (00:23:15):
but could you make that face again for our video watchers? I mean, that’s exactly it. It’s like WTF you die. What you love doing, you still died. Yeah.
Mark (00:23:24):
So, um, I think it’s, you know, it’s, it’s also very important in this context of metabolic, of mental flexibility to, to maintain balance and to say, look, I’m going to be very passionate about my vocation. Um, and, but I’m also going to have a good relationship with my family. I’m going to spend time with my kids going to, you know, I’m going to enjoy the other parts of my life while I’m building this business or while I’m pursuing this passion. It doesn’t have to be people are just building business. I mean, you can be working for somebody else in a, uh, you know, in a, in a, in a creative or senior position. Um, it’s not your business, but it’s still your passion and you still are doing what you are good at and what you can, what you can provide as a benefit or service to the company that you’re working for. But again, in, in all of this, there’s, there is, there are very few circumstances in which I would say it’s worth sacrificing. You know, your families will being welfare and health just because you’re pursuing some, some dream like that.
Brad (00:24:30):
Well, you were talking about that I think off the recording last time we were visiting about this, uh, this reasonable tolerance for risk and how it’s really difficult to, uh, hit it big because it doesn’t make sense to, you know, mortgage your home, uh, to try to open a frozen yogurt shop.
Mark (00:24:49):
Yeah. And when I did that, by the way, I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have a wife. I didn’t have a girlfriend. I didn’t have kids. And so my, my risk tolerance was much higher. I had literally, literally nothing to lose. And this, I think this is a common thread that you’ll see in people who started businesses, um, that have been wildly successful over the years. In many cases, they didn’t have anything to lose. They didn’t, they weren’t married yet. They didn’t have kids yet. Um, they, you know, they, they weren’t going deeply into, uh, the kind of debt that was, that was going to ruin them. They, in many cases, they borrowed, you know, they used other people’s money. They raised money from venture capitalists or private equity people. Uh, so there’s a, you know, and every person has to figure out what their risk tolerance is. And, um, and I had, uh, I still would say have a fairly low risk tolerance.
Brad (00:25:35):
You’re kidding.
Mark (00:25:35):
I had a low risk tolerance in those days. It’s just that I, I had, um, I had a certain, uh, you know, confidence that I could make something happen. And I also had a certain confidence that it did that if it didn’t happen, I wasn’t going to be thrown off the deep end and put into serious harm. So when I lost, um, you know, when I lost a million and a half bucks on the TV show and I didn’t have a million and a half to lose, what clearly I did because I lost it. Then I quit and I didn’t go into debt. But I mean, I, you know, I recovered, I pivoted, I came back and started Mark’s Daily Apple. And from that, it, you know, that that grew into, um, a very viable platform that ultimately was probably more powerful than a TV show that I could have had.
Brad (00:26:19):
You’re saying you don’t have a high risk tolerance?
Mark (00:26:22):
I mean, I really, I don’t compare to other people like who,
Brad (00:26:28):
it seems like I’m just trying to, um, get to the bottom of this because you know, my picture of you is like, you know, the, you have an amazing ability to, uh, put yourself on the line and, and roll the dice unlike almost 99.8%.
Mark (00:26:45):
What’s really interesting you say that because I understand where you’re coming from and I would say, look at Alex. Speaking of climbers, Alex Honnold. Okay. He’s got risk tolerance. He’s got risk tolerance and yet he puts in his, like he puts his skills on the line every time he climbs. Yeah. Because one mistake and he’s dead right now. I don’t have that kind of of risk tolerance might, but I, but if you scale it back, I know my limitations. I know, um, you know, uh, the likelihood of success. And I also know, um, pretty much what’s going to happen if I fail. And I think that’s a lot of, uh, what happens with a lot of people in business is they don’t, they don’t, they look at, they dream about what will happen if they succeed, but they don’t. They don’t look at, okay, if I don’t succeed, you know, uh, what’s my realistic situation?
Mark (00:27:35):
Uh, you know, am I, am I have, I borrowed all my parents’ retirement money to start this, you know, dream shoe repair kit or something business that I, I thought was gonna make it big and then failed miserably. And now, not only am I, I have no money, but you know, I’ve, I’ve taken other people down with me, so I don’t, I don’t do nobody. I mean, people do that and that’s big and that’s not the kind of risk that I would take. Yeah.
Brad (00:27:59):
So that’s like the delusional sociopath that, uh, you know, begs all his friends for money and then spends it cavalierly.
Mark (00:28:06):
Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of that in business. Yeah. So there’s a, you know, I think there’s an obligation to an entrepreneur to, to assess risk, uh, to evaluate the, the business that they’re about to embark on. Uh, is it a good business? Like, like even if it’s wildly successful, will it be a good business? Uh, um, versus, uh, you know, starting something and saying, well, in the best possible, you know, I’m going to have a million dollar company, you know, uh, and that’s the best it’s always going to ever going to be because that’s the sort of the market that I’m in the marketplace.
Brad (00:28:43):
Here’s our projections. Mark, would you like to invest someday if everything goes well? Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, taco stand is a great business, but you know,
Mark (00:28:50):
taco stand in one city, one taco stand, you know, doing a million bucks a year and somebody say, well, that’s a very, that’s a very successful business. But unless you franchise it or put more of them out, that single taco stand doesn’t scale beyond that. So I’m getting into the weeds here a little bit, but I think the, the ability to measure risk, uh, to understand, uh, whether or not you have a great business idea in the first place.
Mark (00:29:12):
Um, and again, look at it in terms of where am I in my life right now? If I have a family and I have kids and I have, you know, mouths to feed and, and, and a roof that I need to put over people’s heads, what is, uh, what are the limits of, of my, uh, behavior that would become inappropriate if I risked everything and lost it.
Brad (00:29:33):
Yeah. Borrowing, borrowing from your buddies who are on a budget or what have you done, you know, something like that.
Mark (00:29:39):
Yeah.
Brad (00:29:40):
Okay. So your example of pivoting was jumping from rock to rock starting at age 12.
Mark (00:29:46):
Yup.
Brad (00:29:46):
I wonder also if it applies to,
Mark (00:29:48):
that’s funny, we talked about that a long time ago.
Brad (00:29:51):
The rock to rock race. Oh, the symbolism.
Mark (00:29:55):
No, it’s digital.
Brad (00:29:56):
Did you just think of that just came up man jumping fell again.
Mark (00:30:01):
I was as I was a kid growing up in Maine, Maine has no beaches. It is literally quote the rock bound coast of Maine and all it is is a collection of boulders from, you know, small.
Brad (00:30:11):
ancient times.
Mark (00:30:12):
to uh, car sized boulders. And uh, quite often we would, we would run along the coast jumping rock to rock and you sort of have to, you literally pivot. You cannot, you can never run the rock bound coast of Maine in straight line. You have to pivot, you have to, and you have to always be thinking three steps ahead, right? Because your, your momentum from one jump to the next. You still have to know what the next jump is after that in order to get to get good at this,
Brad (00:30:38):
you’re digging that symbolism.
Mark (00:30:40):
I’m going to do something with that.
Brad (00:30:42):
It reminds me when, uh, we were in Starbucks, I was just recovering from this horrible bout of vertigo. It left me in bed for like nine days straight. And then I was complaining about my debts. And you said, so you’re upside down and you have vertigo. I’m like, yeah, what about it Mark? Oh shit. What the hell? Yeah.
Mark (00:31:00):
Yeah. You’re the one who said upside down. Yeah. I said the words upside down and then we continued the conversation.
Brad (00:31:05):
You go, so Brad, you’re upside down and you just, yeah. Okay. So I have symbolism there. Oh, so the other, uh, aspect of the other application of pivoting, let’s say, could be that you’re a resolute that this Primal Kitchen mayonnaise thing is the way to go, but they ran out of avocado oil and now you have to pivot, but stay focused on the end goal. How does that weave in as a different description than jumping from rock to rock?
Mark (00:31:32):
It’s not different description. It’s, they’re very similar. It’s just you have to, you know, if you keep your eye down downfield and you think you have, I mean, I had a vision for the food company and it was based on avocado oil and the event that avocado oil was, you know, found to either not be so fabulous for you or, uh, you know, we were exhausted in the world supplies of avocado oil. Um, I would have had to come up with another, another solution, another choice, another, another raw material to use. Uh, thank God we didn’t. Uh, and you know, we continue to be one of the largest suppliers of avocado oil in the world. But, but those are always the sorts of questions that you have to keep, you know, you have to be ready to address them because the other thing is every entrepreneur out there knows, um, business is just a roller coaster.
Mark (00:32:23):
It’s the most amazing highs. When you make a big sale to a company or, uh, you know, or you come up with a new product and it’s, and it succeeds and it, and it works. And then the, you know, then the horrible lows where you run out of money or the product didn’t work or you have a whole manufacturing run that, that, uh, you know, that doesn’t turn out the way you want. I mean, you and I, and in publishing, you know, we’ve had a run of 10,000 books,
Brad (00:32:48):
fantastic book. I can’t wait to get it to market.
Mark (00:32:50):
Well, not only that, I mean we’ve had those, we’ve had the duds, but also just you print the book and you realize that somebody in the, in the chain of custody of the artwork forgot to change the ESPN barcode on the, on the last one before it went to print. And I have to take them all back and unbox them and put a new barcode. Those are, I mean, but that’s just the stuff you have to be, that’s business. You have to be, you know, not just ready, willing and able, but you have to like not even think twice about, about, you know, Woe is me and how bad things are. And that it kind of gets us to, um, the, the concept of pivoting from a longevity and a, uh, and a, uh, um, you know, uh, the point of view of this ability to roll with the punches and to maintain wellbeing, mental wellbeing along with physical wellbeing. Uh, the idea that if you look at all the Blue Zones is a good example of a, you know, a book that talks about longevity and looks at the different factors. Certainly there’s the food factor and there’s the exercise factor.
Mark (00:33:49):
But one of the main factors in, uh, in people who live to be a hundred years old is their ability to roll with the punches, their ability to adapt to huge, uh, life crises, the death of a spouse or a child. Uh, the loss of a job, um, catastrophic loss of through, you know, fire, earthquake, uh, car accident or whatever. The ability to recover from those and not, you know, to move on. Uh, and that’s a form of pivoting that is essential and it’s just an essential skill, uh, for life that conveys some amount of longevity on people or reduces the risk for early, early demise.
Brad (00:34:28):
How do you feel you’re doing on that, that objective?
Mark (00:34:32):
Well, I’d like to think, um, you know, I’m doing better. Um, but I still, you know, I still have, that’s probably my weak link in, in all of my pillars is, is that part of the metabolic place moving on of not,
Brad (00:34:46):
don’t hit solid diet, solid , pull ups, you know, making,
Mark (00:34:52):
making a living, making money solid. Um, but, you know, just stopping the monkey chatter in my brain is, is the toughest one
Brad (00:34:59):
I asked you off off camera. Um, if you thought maybe you know, you, you’ve had this drive, which anyone can understand. A 12 year old on a, on a snow day, shoveling snow instead of a playing.
Mark (00:35:12):
Well, they didn’t have video games, sorry.
Brad (00:35:13):
Or instead of staying home, reading a book and making brownies with his mom. Uh, so you’ve had this, you know, this insatiable competitive instinct, which has gotten you a long way in that sense. So, uh, does that go hand in hand? You say you’re getting better, which is, which is nice for the audience to hear. Uh, but I don’t know about, you know, do you feel like you’re capable now of turning that volume the way down to a 0.5 instead of 11?
Mark (00:35:40):
I don’t think so. I think right now, like I’m, I’m now I’m, I’m looking for the next thing, you know. So I sold Primal Kitchen a year and two months ago. where you’re in a month ago,
Brad (00:35:48):
I thought you were just paddleboarding every day.
Mark (00:35:51):
I was going to go apply for a paddleboard teaching job in Bali.
Brad (00:35:57):
But they rejected your resume to have experienced. Um,
Mark (00:36:02):
no, I mean, I’m looking for the next thing. It’s because it’s, I think, uh, I feel compelled to, um, to take this gift that I have, such as I perceive it to be, and I’m not even going to be specific about what it is. I happen to think that it’s identifying information in the world that’s useful to people and then packaging it in a way that appeals to people, but also identifying products that I think are, are better for people.
Brad (00:36:26):
Disruptive, uh, Pdisruptive would be, would be a great, you know, a great, a great, uh, adjective for that. But I, um, and, and since I’ve been unburdened with running the day to day operation of Primal Kitchen, I’m sort of like, okay, you know, what is it about today that has me compelled to, and passionate, uh, to go, you know, hit the ground running and get something accomplished and, and work toward the next goal and be willing to pivot from there.
Mark (00:36:56):
Um, and it’s been a real, uh, challenge. It’s not a challenge. I mean I’ve got, if for, if anything I’ve had too many ideas, is now the challenge is like focusing on whatever idea it is that I’m going to, to really, um, hone in on and, and develop a,
Brad (00:37:10):
so do you notice sort of a, um, a shift in your disposition now that, let’s say you don’t have the economic pressure, uh, that you or, or, or the drive that you necessarily had before?
Mark (00:37:23):
A little bit, but not much. Pressure’s always there. It’s, it’s, it’s a weird thing about having money. It’s, it always just, you just, there’s the pressure just sort of goes along in different ways. Different.
Brad (00:37:35):
That’s your choice. But it might be a positive rather than,
Mark (00:37:38):
I don’t know. I don’t know that it is, but it’s, it’s definitely a, it’s a choice. Um, you know, I would say that it, that it’s, uh, I th the better choice would be to not worry about it cause I don’t have to,
Brad (00:37:49):
but then continue to put the hammer down and do all the stuff, but not worry about it, but not worry about it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let’s, let’s pause here and take a breath because that is, I mean, that, that’s sort of the, um, the secret to probably being being the best you can be in all ways. And I tried to capture that thinking back to, you know, we were both athletes in our racing days and very caught up, cause you have to be in, your ego’s going to be a little bit fragile when you’re out there training with people who are gonna kick your ass one day and the next day you’re, you’re back in the pack. And it’s pretty tough from that perspective. But if we could just, you know, pursue the goal and not get caught up and not have the ego involved and not have this, uh, unnecessary pressure that causes stress, maybe that could open up more doors. That’s why I’m asking the question. Like, now Mark, you’re, you’re going to be okay. You know, you’re going to be able to pay for your home mortgage. Oh, you don’t have a mortgage, whatever. You know, like you’re going to be okay. Yeah. Uh, so now you can, now you can have that relaxed mindset. And then the edge can be entirely toward, yeah,
Mark (00:38:52):
that’s, yeah. I mean, I think that that’s, I don’t want to, you know, um, overplay that, but, um, I’ve gotten to that point where, you know, that part of the security is handled, uh, the, the part of the brain that wants to have a secure future and know that everything’s gonna be okay. On the other hand, I think our brains tend to, you know want, uh, the chase, the hunt, the game, the challenge to overcome. I think it’s a human, the human condition is to overcome. So there’s this little interplay between, um, being accepting of whatever happens. And that’s the pivoting the, you know, while you’re in the game chasing. And so, so I mean, a lot, again, life coaches or you know, uh, Instagram, uh, gurus will say, you know, if you’re not, you know, if you’re not growing, you’re dying. Or if you’re not learning, you’re whatever,
Brad (00:39:44):
you’re not watering the plant.
Mark (00:39:46):
It’s dying something. But, but you know, there is a, there is an element of truth to the fact that I think it’s important for everybody to always be sort of moving ahead, uh, and, and, and not being stagnant and complacent with where they are. Um, and I don’t know what that looks like. It’s different for every everybody, but for me it’s like I need, you know, I need to have something, some project that I’m working on, some plan that I’m working on, some, some business ideas, some book that I’m writing, whatever. It is something that is taking me in a direction that allows me to continue to grow and to continue to, to serve. And the pivoting comes in is in, in that if, if I’m headed in that direction, and again, it doesn’t, it looks like it’s not going to work. I don’t just go, okay, I’m done.
Mark (00:40:37):
I quit. Okay, now, now I’ve, okay, I see now this is more of interest to me. Or this is maybe a better way to do it or a better idea. And, um, and I think that that’s, that’s again, that’s the growth mindset that we talk about. Primal Health Coach Institute and we have a, you know, a lot of primal health coaches who are coaching people in their achieving better, uh, health through diet and exercise and then sleep. Um, the, the whole idea of a growth mindset is one of being again, open to open to new information. Um, not so rigidly tied down to a business plan that you stick with a plan or else, you know, uh, or else everything is considered a failure if we didn’t, if we didn’t do it according to the plan, it’s a failure. No, in most cases the plan is just a nice little starting point to be open to ideas and to be able to pivot and to be able to make changes and to be able to wind up at some point in a position that you think is that you feel, uh, satisfied, very satisfied with, but may look nothing at all.
Mark (00:41:42):
Like what you, what you first had in mind. Yeah. I wanted to be a doctor, you know, until I was 14 years old, from the age of six to 14, I wanted to be a doctor and that’s what I was going to do. And I, and I, and I, I lost my way in college and I decided it wasn’t right for me. Um, and here I am at the age of 66, um, and I probably had more effect on people’s health, uh, as a writer and as a blogger than I ever would have had as a doctor. So the vision, you know, was, was of being a physician and helping people in a white coat and a stethoscope as a teenager, but the end result, uh, looks far different from that. And yet it’s a manifestation of that from day one.
Brad (00:42:35):
Yeah. Yeah. You’re just on the other side of the coin keeping people away from their doctor. Yeah. Uh, so you, you, you strike me. I know you’re pretty well, I’ve seen you behind the scenes, uh, that you’re capable of this, uh, this, this badass kick ass stake, high competitive intensity, and then able to unplug and go off on vacation or have a nice evening out and have some sushi and not be consumed, uh, with, yeah. With rice,
Mark (00:43:03):
with rice,
Brad (00:43:03):
Mark Sisson eats rice. He has copped pinch of sugar in his coffee in the morning to, uh, would you, um, I mean, comment on that. What do you think? Can you unplug pretty well when you need to? Oh, sure. Yeah.
Mark (00:43:15):
Yeah. Um,
Brad (00:43:16):
always have been?
Mark (00:43:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, um, that is part of this, uh, balance that I, cause I would say that there are people I know who claim to work 80, 90, a hundred hours a week and never unplugged, uh, and then, you know, go home and sleep a couple hours and go back and do it again. Whether or not they have families. And I think that that’s just unhealthy. Um, all the way around. Now, look, if you’re a young entrepreneur and you’ve got a business that’s demanding your attention all the time and you don’t have a family and you don’t have a relationship and go for it, then you know, burn the candle at both ends for awhile or burn the candle at one end all the way down. I shouldn’t say that. Right? You know, all the way down. Um, but that’s not, that’s not conducive to a long life.
Mark (00:43:59):
It’s not conducive to a happy life that’s just conducive to making potentially making a lot of money at some point. Um, so, you know, there, there are times in my life when I’ve had to grind it out and, and uh, work extra hard. But for the most part, I’ve always kept, uh, this idea that I don’t ever want my kids to hate me because I didn’t spend time with them. Right. Um, and, uh, and to this day they never let me forget the fact that I spent so much time with them boogie boarding and snowboarding, uh, you know, and, and going to their soccer games and coaching little league and refereeing soccer and all this stuff that I did.
Brad (00:44:37):
Yeah. It seems like you can quote have it all in that sense. Like I’m going to argue that all that time with your kids and that that time away from the grind probably helped with creative inspiration a hundred percent. Your health, your energy, your focus when you, when it was time to go to work a hundred percent. Yeah.
Mark (00:44:55):
Yeah. I know. I think people today are guilty of uh, you know, putting in too much time on the clock and not getting enough done.
Mark (00:45:04):
And there’s our pull quote for the episode. Well, I, I’m, yeah, for real people, you know, in Primal Kitchen, we have, let’s to say we have 80 employees at primal kitchen right now and 25 of them work at the office and the rest are scattered around the country as virtual employees, they work out of their homes. Do I worry about them because they’re not punching a clock at eight o’clock in the morning and then punching out at five. No, really all I expect is that they get their job done. They be, they’d be creative with what they do. And so the way I would look at it is I would rather have an employee who, who gives me, uh, you know, two hours of focused, good, productive work every day, then somebody punches in for eight hours and hangs out by the water cooler and is rating the, you know, the cafeteria at the company and playing pool or foosball in the company, you know, a rec room and not getting anything done but, but, but claiming that they put the time in.
Mark (00:45:57):
Right. So,
Brad (00:45:58):
yeah,
Mark (00:45:58):
and we live in a world where that sort of productivity is measurable. Like people would say, well, you know, how do you measure people’s, like at the end of the year, how do you take an employee who’s on that sort of a flex schedule, who has unlimited vacation time and, uh, you know, and how do you evaluate them like they have? We, we are very clear about what we want as a task list from them and they are expected to meet or exceed it. Um, and after that, I really don’t care how they did it. In fact, I, again, I’d rather have somebody wake up at two o’clock in the morning from, from a deep sleep and go, Oh, that’s the answer to this problem. And starting to get up and write it down. Then wait until the morning and jump in and say, Oh, I had a great idea last night, but I forgot about it when I, when I woke up.
Brad (00:46:42):
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well you kind of covered this with your, with your, um, with your discussion prior to it, but we’re trying to work our way through, uh, the mental flexibility chapter and this other thing that comes up is the dangers, the health consequences of rumination say said you’re getting better at it, but that’s, I think what, what the term would be for this running the scenarios through your head and being anxious about where you’re headed and all that.
Brad (00:47:10):
Sure. I mean a lot of people, look, we have, we think about a lot about what we did yesterday or what we did a week ago and wish we could take it back or do it again or have a do over. Um, we think a lot about the future. Like, what if, what if this happens or what if that doesn’t happen? Uh, and we spend a lot of time in, in moments that are not the present time and the present early is all is all there is.
Mark (00:47:35):
Um, you know, I’ve, I’ve said this in the past, um, but the, um, the, the present is a singularity through which an infinite number of possible futures must pass to become a finite past. Um, think about it for a second. The future is an infinite number of possibilities that have to go through the present time to become the past. Uh, and, and, uh, if we can recognize that that’s so much of, uh, our enjoyment of life has to do with our enjoyment of the present moment and, and, and the people that we’re with. Brad, you and I are hanging out again. This is great. You know, we’re talking, we’re chatting, chatting it up here, and we’re, we’re, we’re actually creating some work product and we’re having a good conversation. So we’re, you know, we’re, we’re communicating and connecting, um, versus what we would call rumination.
Mark (00:48:25):
This, this getting caught up in thoughts. And, uh, you know, my, my biggest, um, issue in that regard has always been like waking up at two o’clock in the morning and starting to think about business problems that I have. And I went through a bad business cycle about two years ago for a year where I was just, I was in a bad business deal. I had to get out of it. Um, I was, I knew it was gonna cost me millions of dollars at the very least to get out of. I was making me sick to my stomach and I wasn’t sleeping. And then my wife, she’s, you know, who sort of specializes in this field Carrie goes, look, you just got to get through head that there’s nothing you’re going to do it too. Unless you’re going to get up at two o’clock in the morning and actually fix it and make it and make a decision to start doing stuff.
Mark (00:49:09):
There’s nothing you can do at two, two o’clock or three o’clock or four o’clock. So you have to get into this space to let it go. And her, uh, uh, her, her methodology was to say, okay, just, uh, lay your head sideways on your pillow and just let those thoughts ooze out of your ear into the pillow. And I started sleeping better. Yeah. So, you know, some little, little devices like that.
Brad (00:49:33):
you call this spiritual psychology is her, her field of interest.
Mark (00:49:37):
It’s a little bit more, uh, it’s more general wellbeing as a result of, uh, how we think. So the recognition that our thoughts are at the, at the root of our wellbeing. And uh, and so many of us, you know, are not well simply because of our thoughts, even though we’re eating right or exercising or doing all the right things, you know, we’re still not emotionally in a state of wellbeing because we’re pissed off at our neighbor, our spouse, our kids, our boss, uh, you know, we’re worried about the future or the past, whatever. Uh, so that’s, that’s sort of what, what she specializes in.
Brad (00:50:15):
the Carrie Sisson Blackboard at the house with the, uh, the daily or the weekly saying your thoughts are the source of all your pain. It’s what you think about what happened to you, not what happened to you that causes the pain. And it’s, it’s nice and cheerful to read that. But then to take that an executed every single day in life is, is the challenge. But at least we can open up to the idea and acknowledge that it’s, that it’s true and that we have the power to do it. It’s pretty, pretty awesome.
Mark (00:50:40):
Well, I mean that’s, but that therein lies the challenge because I think everybody intellectually understands, Oh yeah, that makes sense. And then to try and actually make that happen and to try and on tether yourself from those thoughts is, is a whole different situation. But my thoughts are different.
Brad (00:50:58):
You know, my, my problems are problems.
Mark (00:51:01):
Exactly. Yeah. So you don’t understand. And you know, we can talk about people who are, who are, uh, incapacitated in pain, um, uh, have no money and are happiest could be because they’ve got this whole wellbeing thing figured out. And all that matters is, are they happy at the end of the day, right. What matters is, are you happy? Right? Is this, you know, this, this wet, massive fat in your head, you know, churning, churning happy thoughts versus miserable thoughts.
Brad (00:51:37):
So what has worked for you in terms of putting that into action besides the oozing of the it? Was it pus colored ooze or was it just a clear liquid? Clear. Okay.
Mark (00:51:50):
Yeah. No, I mean what, um, what works. It’s, and it’s interesting because there’s not like a exercise that you can do. Our process, the only thing works is recognizing it and going, Oh, I’m having these thoughts. You know, these thoughts are causing me pain or problem or discomfort. Um, I could, just like that, change those thoughts. Now maybe it’s, I’m going to come back to those thoughts, but, but just the recognition that that’s what’s going on is, is, is the light bulb. That’s the aha moment. If you, if you can get that and observe in real time that you’re having those thoughts and go, Oh, that’s interesting. You know, I got really pissed off at something my wife said. Um, and you know, that that wasn’t right or wrong or good or bad. It was just, you know, her reality wasn’t, and I didn’t share that reality, but for her it was a hundred percent real and a reality. And, and, and yet, you know, I took it personally. I whatever, just the recognition is, is the starting point.
Brad (00:52:55):
Our buddy, Dr Ron Sinha author of the South Asian Health Solution expert in rumination because his high income patients in Silicon Valley suffer from it to the extent that he’s identified metabolic values associated with their, their flawed thinking. It’s incredible. And he says, if you catch yourself ruminating, you identify it like you just said. And he said, if it keeps happening, you just get a bowl of popcorn and pretend like you’re watching your own movie. You just sit back and let it, let it run out, but have that distance from it.
Mark (00:53:24):
You, what’s funny is the term rumination, one of the quotes that Carrie put on the Blackboard is from Rumi. Oh, he’s from Rumi.
Brad (00:53:32):
Rumi doesn’t like Rubin nation roomy and.
Mark (00:53:35):
Ron Sinha is from the nation that Rumi comes from. So he’s from Rumi nation, roomy nation.
Brad (00:53:43):
Oh, well I love it. You’re good with those word things. When, when Paul Saldino came in, you started the podcast going, so your name salad. I know. Yeah, yeah. Fun times. Kicking it off. Uh, so then we got to this concept of journaling. I know Carrie’s big time into that scene and you’ve been, uh, dabbling in it, uh, increasingly, and I wonder what’s worked for you along those lines or, uh, do you, uh, do you have your own little process to connect with gratitude, which is I guess one of the main attributes of journaling?
Mark (00:54:15):
Well, so in terms of journaling, my journaling is basically writing ideas down for books. So I don’t, uh, I write, I carry a spiral or a composition notebook with me, but I don’t,
Brad (00:54:26):
it was found at LAX recently. I heard, Oh no, no. Okay. Yeah, your notebook.
Mar (00:54:31):
Oh, I mean, cause I lost that his face is going and they go back, they go back a ways.
Mark (00:54:38):
Um, but that’s the extent of it journaling. I do, I should probably do more and I’ve tried some over the, over the years. I just, I don’t, I’m not disciplined about it that way. Um, so, uh, um, and what else?
Brad (00:54:51):
Well, you’re connecting to gratitude is one of the high recommendations of journaling
Mark (00:54:56):
that, you know, literally on, on a off moments. Like, if I’ve, that’s like my, my go to, if I’m feeling down or bad or, or, uh, or stressed, that’s, that’s my go to. Um, because it’s, uh, uh, sort of a technique I learned in the meditation world is one of the, one of the ways to get set into a meditation is to start by, you know, uh, expressing gratitude, like three things you’re grateful for and that kind of gets you into a, into a state of, uh, um, um, readiness to accept.
Brad (00:55:32):
Yeah, Lower stress hormones in the bloodstream. All that. Yeah. So you’ll do that as needed is a GoTo, is that what you’re saying?
Mark (00:55:40):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s my, I don’t have a regular, um, time of day for it. Yeah. It felt when I was doing it for a while, it felt like I was, um, having to do it and coming up with, you know, with things that, that didn’t, uh, I had to, cause I was forced, it was homework, right. It wasn’t homework and it was like, okay, this is okay. I feel myself going down there. Okay. What am I grateful for? Right, right. This moment, you know, what do I do? And that’s kind of what force it. Yeah. Now it’s like, instead of being forced, let me see, let me see. I’m feeling pretty good. I’m sitting here. It’s a cup of coffee. It’s, it’s, it’s a gratitude time, you know, it was going to be, versus when it’s forced upon me, it’s like, okay, what around me, what, you know, what immediately I grateful for right now without having to make stuff up. Oh yeah. Yeah. Grateful that my car got me to this spot right now. Didn’t run out of gas cause I was wrong. Grateful. You know, that, uh, you know, that, that the, that the, um, my feet are, um, are healthy because they were hurting the other day and I don’t, I don’t feel them at all right now. It’s, you know,
Brad (00:56:42):
yeah. You, um, you, you wrote a nice post or I liked the direction where you said there’s no rules and you can, you can be grateful for your bad ass new car that you just bought and also for your arches not hurting. And it can cross over from the material world to the spiritual. You’re grateful to be here breathing the air in, in South beach and the sun shining on your bronze skin. You know, it can go all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, um, journal if you, if you wish people, it’s highly recommended. Uh, we, we put in there about the experts, but I also, uh, can embrace that idea that you don’t want to force it and just, you know, when you’re ready, might be 20, 21, who knows. Yeah. And it’s all right.
Mark (00:57:25):
I carry a book around with me, a composition book and I like to write it mechanical pencil, huh? Yeah, yeah.
Brad (00:57:33):
Like dr Seuss, I guess he wrote all his books, uh, by hand on legal pad and he would get on an airplane. He was from San Diego and uh, he’d fly to New York city and hand the manuscript over the one and only copy. Imagine if like someone left it in the seat pocket in front of you or something. But that was his, that was his way. He didn’t do the machines. Right. Because for whatever reason, it’s just, I just read all, Oh, the places you’ll go to a Jacki this morning. Oh, cute. That’s your grandson.
Brad (00:58:03):
How old is she?
Mark (00:58:04):
Five months. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Brad (00:58:06):
So her eyes are open,
Mark (00:58:07):
but I read it for my own edification. Yeah.
Brad (00:58:10):
Oh no. It has an impact as the, as the brain brain research shows, she’s getting those words in her head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, then we get onto, uh, kind of the final closing section of the, of the, uh, of the chapter and the podcast today. Thank you for your time. But this is the importance of social connection and the disastrous consequences that we’re seeing in the digital age of loneliness and isolation. The stats we put in there were pretty scary. We’re both going, Holy crap, is this true? And we had to dig deep and find out that 26% of Americans are now, uh, you know, identified, classified as lonely. Uh, this is, this is very interesting cause you know, you and I can both relate to half of our lives or whatever that was lived without the digital world. And now we’re in this new scene,
Mark (00:59:00):
more than half of mine for sure. Growing up, all I had was my, I had my friends and, uh, you know, we hung out all the time and we played together and, and, and, you know, went on triple and quadruple dates together and it was, you know, there were, there were groups of six, seven, eight people that would do stuff all, you know, all the time together. So yeah, it really had that, that tribe, um, effect and that tribe concept, uh, many of those people are still friends of mine. Now, you know, my roommate from prep school was still one of my closest friends and we, we stay connected all these years. Meanwhile, people today seem to, you only have 5,000 Facebook friends and you know, a hundred thousand Instagram followers. And yet they don’t really know any of them. And worse than that, most of their friends don’t know them. They think they know them, but they don’t. So I think this, this, um, you know, human connection is, is, uh, it’s wired. We need it. It’s part of our psyche. It’s part of our DNA and our genes expect us to be in close contact and, uh, speaking directly to an eye gazing and touching and hugging and all the things that we, you know, we, that we recognize this sort of human be human behavior at least, um, historically have gotten kind of subsumed and put to the side as we have this digital world of connection.
Mark (01:00:19):
And like, I want to cry. I go into a room and I see eight teenagers or even millennials sitting around in a semicircle all in their, on their devices. Um, you walk down the street and everybody is, you know, tuned to to their phone. It’s, it’s beyond ridiculous. It’s just, it’s sad and I don’t know, uh, you know, if there’s going to be some massive backlash against that at some point, I, but I, you know, I, yeah, it’s, it’s not, it doesn’t make me feel great about the future if we can’t pull back and start to understand how important human connection is on a one to one basis.
Brad (01:01:04):
And you personally, are you fighting this battle? Do you notice, uh, in your daily life the need to have boundaries or what a reduction in attention span? Like I wrote for myself.
Mark (01:01:17):
Oh yeah, no, I have, I have a dramatically reduced attention span.
Brad (01:01:21):
What wer we talking about,?Oh yeah,
Mark (01:01:22):
I know. Um, no, I look at it and it started with my work. I mean, you know, I’ll do some research for an article and I see, you know, I am going down rabbit holes talking about pivoting. Um, you know, we can do this and link it to that and link it to this. And the next thing you know, I’m um, um, miles away from where I started. But God it is interesting. You know,
Brad (01:01:41):
you’re, you’re referencing a really good positive aspect of technology, the exchange of information, you know, uh,
Mark (01:01:47):
but you know, you start out looking at, uh, you know, the origins of, uh, of global warming and you know, 44 links later, you’re looking at what happened to the 40 celebrity child celebrities from the 1970s. It’s like bizarre. How, how, you know, that, that chain of that, uh, that link chain goes. So, uh, it does take discipline. And it does take some thinking about it and go, you know, I think, you know, we have to find time where we just completely a disconnect from the devices of all devices. The tools that you would, um, that we talk about in the book. I mean, you know, allow yourself an hour a day to actually be involved in email and then nothing else cause nothing comes into your email that, that demands your attention sooner than 24 hours for the most part. Um, uh, you know, don’t get so connected with, with, uh, you know, your, your Instagram persona. It’s not who you are. That’s the thing that’s kind of going around now. I think a lot of the people on Instagram are recognizing that that’s not who you are. And so, you know, so now people have gone the other way and they’re taking really ugly unposed shots of themselves and saying, Oh,
Brad (01:03:03):
nice.
Mark (01:03:04):
This is the real me, not the,
Brad (01:03:05):
I didn’t know that. I can have to step up. Yeah, okay.
Mark (01:03:08):
Anyway, yeah, no, just say we just need to spend more time, um, with real people connecting. Uh, you know, go to a, I mean, that’s go to a pub and have a beer with a friend, have a gluten free beer with a friend.
Brad (01:03:24):
Uh, and then, uh, as a part of that conversation, we identify that the love relationship is number one. It’s probably the number one make or break longevity aspect when you compare a really a happy successful one with a dysfunctional one.
Mark (01:03:40):
Yeah. So, exactly. Going back to the blue zone concept and longevity and centenarians, uh, the long people in longterm relationships, longterm healthy, happy, loving relationships, live longer than people who don’t have relationships or who are in not so loving toxic type relationships. So it’s not just like be with somebody, it’s like be with somebody.
Brad (01:04:05):
And now you’ve been at it for 30 years with Carey 30 plus. Yeah. Right. What’s, what’s some of your reflections?
Mark (01:04:13):
Um, no, it’s tough. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s oftentimes, it’s very easy for couples to say, you know what, that’s enough. We’re done. Let’s go.
Brad (01:04:23):
Especially today with the distractability potential.
Mark (01:04:26):
So, you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve hung in there and we’ve, you know, we’ve worked through some, some things and we’re great now. And, um, you know, we respect each other’s, um, boundaries and personalities and, um, so we work, we work well together.
Brad (01:04:41):
Yeah. Yeah. And you feel like, um, I think you guys have some, a nice balance between independence and then connection. And it seems to be important. Dr. John Gray said that you have to kind of make yourself happy and then you can have a relationship to make you happier.
Mark (01:04:58):
That’s, that’s exactly, uh, the realization we came to was it, you know, it’s up to each of us to make ourselves happy and then we can build on that with the two of us.
Brad (01:05:09):
And what’s next? Mark? Your, your next thing is top secret. Uh, you want to talk a little bit, a little teaser about the next book. It’s kind of exciting to us anyway, that we’re, uh, kind of cutting through this nonsense and this, uh, the diet wars, especially with in the, in the age of, uh, propaganda and documentary, uh, mind, mind washing. Uh, what’s the solution man?
Mark (01:05:34):
Well, eating, less, eating less food.
Brad (01:05:37):
But how do you do it? Because could you speak it to the microphone eating less food? Mark says, yeah.
Mark (01:05:43):
Um, no, that’s what it is. It’s eating less food. The challenge is how do you, how do you get to the point where you’re okay eating less food and you’re not hungry and you’re energetic and you’re, you know, you have all of the positive aspects of enjoying food, um, enjoying every meal, every food, every bite you eat and eating less of it. And uh, so that’s the book we’ll deep dive into into that.
Brad (01:06:08):
Love it. Yo,
Mark (01:06:09):
it’s a little bit of fasting. It’s what we would call intermittent eating versus intermittent fasting, but um, all strategies on how to make it work for you as a lifestyle, as a life strategy, not just as a short term fix,
Brad (01:06:22):
intermittent eating, new vocabulary term, shifting the cultural mindset away from intermittent fasting. Huge difference there. Yeah. All right. Good stuff. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening to everybody and watching on YouTube.
Mark (01:06:38):
Thanks for having me on my show.
Brad (01:06:44):
Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves cause they need to. Thanks for doing it.
