#132: Knowing Your Truth And Vision With Mark Hattas

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So, please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm feeling incredibly blessed this morning as I do pretty much every morning. I've started this new routine. I have a new ritual in the morning after I say my 4 words, the 4 words I've been saying for the better part of 10 years now. I've added a question right after that. And that question is, I wonder what miracles are coming today? It's a really interesting question to sit— for me, to literally lie in bed and put that out to the universe, put that out to the space of all that's infinite and just limitless. And knowing, and really, really knowing that a miracle can be everywhere. It's just everywhere. So, I don't pay attention to them enough. I don't acknowledge them enough, I feel. And now that I've started to ask that question, you know, I guess it begs the question, are there miracles showing up in my life because I asked the question? I wonder what miracles are coming today. Or were those miracles there all along and I just wasn't paying attention to them? Hmm. I also feel really incredible because I get to spend time with a friend and a colleague and somebody that I've been I've known for a while now, and I feel blessed to be able to share this gentleman and his work, his teaching with our community. You're going to enjoy, I think, finding out more about his story. We'll have full show notes at the end. You can find out more about the books he's written and the work he's doing, which I think is really cutting edge, pretty out there, and something that I support and I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of people really be moved by his message. So, I will get right into it, give you his name. His name is Mark Hattis. He is an author. He's a thought leader. He may not call himself that, but I believe he has this access to information. Maybe he'll share a little bit of the way he sources that information, but he has access to information that really has the capacity to move people, move organizations, move large organizations. He has already achieved a certain level of mastery that I think is, as a teacher, is something that I really admire. One of the books that I was just actually talking to him about before we hit the record button is this book called Awakening the Optimal Leader, which begs the question, for me anyway, what is an optimal leader? What does it mean to be in an optimal state of being? And in fact, he He even has programs, I believe, that are coined with that phrase, optimal being. So, we may dig into that a bit today too, but he's got a profound pivot story. So, without further ado, Mark, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you here today.

Oh, thank you. It's awesome to be with you.

Yeah. You're in Chicago, right?

Yeah, just west of Chicago. It's a beautiful sunny day. It's warm.

I

was just out enjoying the— I've got a beautiful garden in my front yard and My wife planted these flowers this year and they're just booming. They're so beautiful. So I was just enjoying those before joining you.

Yeah. What a diverse environment the Midwest is weather-wise.

Oh yeah.

Right? I mean, literally you can get 3, 4 seasons in a day sometimes, right?

We've had those.

You've had those.

Yeah. You can feel it. You could be outside, it'll be 80 degrees and you'll feel it drop 20 degrees. Like, whoa, what just happened?

What just happened? Isn't that just like life too, huh? I want to use that as a segue in the moment I feel called to say, you've had some seasons, you've had some sort of 3-season, 4-season days, haven't you? Personally?

Yeah, I sure have.

Yeah, as we all have. I think your pivot story is really profound and maybe we'll dive in there. You can start sort of any place you like, but you are very successful, have been for, I'm guessing now, probably the better part of 20 plus years, you've been a very successful entrepreneur. How you got into business? What was that? Was that something you dreamt of doing when you were a kid? Was that the calling that you had from the time you were 8 years old to like own, operate, sell businesses? That's your deal?

You know what? There's 2 stories there that kind of merged together into that leap because it's a leap to go from employment. I was working at GE. medical systems prior to kind of heading down the path of entrepreneurship. And I would say the first is my grandfather, who was in the Navy during World War II and apparently a great athlete in his day. After the war, he started a carpet business and he actually carpeted a lot of the homes in Chicago. And so my mom grew up in that environment. She would talk about that and his business was still going on when I was a very young boy. And I just thought that was, gosh, you must be brilliant, a genius to be an entrepreneur. And I felt so unworthy because I didn't have a real high view of myself at the time that I could ever be an entrepreneur. And so, I'd hear these stories and just admire my grandfather, but still feel kind of— and I loved him so much, but felt this distance between what I viewed in him and where I was. And then the second story was that it was around 6th grade or so. Come down the stairs in my home, it's a 2-story colonial kind of house. And my mother, who is a strong woman, has her head down at the roll-top desk around the corner down the hallway. I sense that she's crying, very rare to see. And I went up and said, well, Mom, what's going on? And she— My dad had been out of work and she said that she just didn't know how they were going to pay for groceries that month. And I had earned some money and stuff. I said, well, I've got $100 in my room. I think that helped her cry more. You could imagine your kid doing that. But she's like, you know what? That actually would really help. And she promised, I'll get it back to you, but that would actually help. So I gave her the $100. I went back to my room and I said this prayer. I said, God, if there's a way that I could never be in that position ever, like maybe retire before I'm 40, that would be really cool. I think the merger of those 2 led to that desire. I saw that entrepreneurship, much like sales in my early career, would lead me to the wealth that I would need to not have to work. That was my number one goal.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. It's interesting, Mark. First of all, I love the story. Thank you for sharing that. You and I have known each other a while. I've never heard that story before. No, you haven't. Yeah. And that is a catalyst in many ways, right? The idea that you've seen, you had an example that was sort of a model for what that kind of pain looked like, that level of whatever you want to call it, just frustration and exhaustion and even shame, I suppose, just the The idea that, yeah, I couldn't feed the family that week. And so to have said, to put those words out, was that the first time you can remember saying a prayer, putting out that sort of an intention?

Yeah, I grew up, I'm a cradle Catholic and grew up Catholic grade school, high school, Jesuit college. And so I was taught from a little youngster About prayer. But it's not like we'd sit around holding hands praying or anything in the home. We'd just go to church on Sunday and I'd go to school and it was kind of a nuisance to me. So I'd say the rote prayers, but not— and yeah, I would say that I was kind of a needy prayer at the time. When I would need something, I'd pray. And otherwise, I'd just kind of go through the motions. And so I would say that nothing quite that extraordinary. In terms of feeling so determined, but certainly consistent with how I prayed at the time.

Yeah. What would you say was different about that? And this is an interesting— to me, an interesting conversation because I pray and I believe in the power of prayer and not in a religious sense, not that I have any issues with people that pray in a religious context. I just believe in a source, an infinite source of divine Everything. Love.

Me too.

Yeah. And whatever we call that, I really feel that that's not outside of us. I don't believe it's something that's external, that it really is something that's within us and that we can all tap into and are a part of. But there's a lot of times, I think, where prayer has that sort of obligation tied to it because it is part of training that we receive in certain contexts growing up. And you said you're a cradle Catholic, so I'm I'm sure you had your training for certain, as you say, rote prayers. So what was different about that prayer, do you think? Well,

there's— I think there's 2 things that I want to share in context. One, and I'll share one quick story about my grandfather to give this context. Same grandfather, in the war, he was a mechanic for the Navy. And so he and some buddies, they loved playing football. So they all agreed, hey, let's do our maintenance on the planes and then we'll go and play some ball. And he couldn't get— there's a carburetor part that wouldn't go back in. It just wouldn't fit right. It was really unusual because it would just normally drop in. So the guys are all done. He's like, look, I got to finish this. Go ahead without me. And they were getting into an airplane to fly off to this field where they would go and land and play ball. So he couldn't go, obviously. plane takes off, as soon as the plane takes off, this part just drops right in. And that plane crashed. All the men on board died. And he raised my mother and his 8 children with the context that, look, we know not what a thing is or what it's for, but trust even those moments that might be frustrating. He wanted to play ball. The holy divine Essence, source, whatever you want to call it, it's there. The angels, they're guiding, and trust that. Because the fact that that didn't go in means that I'm here, you know, that my mother's here. That all went into motion because he didn't neglect his obligation to complete his tasks to go play ball. So that's one element of the kind of household you can imagine I grew up in. So my mom grew up with that, praying and getting answers, and she would receive insights when she would get the answers. I mean, she would see the prayer go out and the answer come back. And so I knew that was possible, and I was jealous, honestly, as a little boy. I'm like, what the F? How come I pray and I don't see the answer come back?

Hmm.

Well, when we get to the rest of the story later, the answer to that prayer That day comes back before I'm 40 years old. I just couldn't see the answer when I was in 6th grade or 7th grade. I got to look back and see exactly when it was, but it was— I didn't see the answer then immediately. But yes, it was kind of like that desire was so strong. There was so much desire there that it just shot out and like universe kind of collected everything that needed to happen and I got into position to receive that answer. And when I saw it, it was just, whoa, what else am I putting out there?

Yes, that was really where I was feeling— what was— I was curious, what's different about that prayer than some of the other prayers? It's like not every seed takes, and that seed took, and we're going to get to that in a second. So it wasn't a needy prayer. Is that the distinction? Was it just the

It was almost like I was in this state of peace, but I wasn't experiencing what my mom was, right? She was experiencing this tension and all the things you had mentioned. And I was just like, hey, I'm glad I've got $100 and I don't want to be in that situation. Hey, if there's any way to not have that happen, to have something like to retire before I'm 40, that'd be pretty cool. It was very relaxed. And yes, it just— but there was a lot of Yes, I know, I don't want to do that. So it was a big contrast, right?

Yes.

Didn't mean it was all healthy along the way.

Hey, let's not sort of gloss over the fact that anything that we're going to talk about today has, especially when it comes to the success of a business, it's a long road, it's a winding road, it's an up and down thing, and it's in many ways Well, why don't we get into your story rather than my summarizing that? What did it look like for you to get out of a stable job? You're working for GE. I mean, gosh, Jack is your man. You know, he's running—

I love it. He's at the helm.

This guy's, you know, epic leader.

He was there. It was awesome. They were just doing Black Belt. Six Sigma was just a new thing.

Yeah.

I was in sales. I was telling my son yesterday, like, as an engineer out of school, you know, engineers kind of got jobs and then they'd get little raises along the way. I doubled my income within 12 months because I was in sales and was making a lot of money. And in fact, it's fascinating because I was in Kansas City. My wife and I had just gotten married. We had just gone through a loss of a pregnancy and decided while she was going through her recovery, it was pretty intense. It was a twin molar pregnancy, which led her to be in the hospital for a month. And I said, talk about prayer. At that time, I said a prayer. I remember being outside her room and they told me that they were doing a biopsy because they thought that the cancer cells that had produced from this molar pregnancy could be malignant.

Hmm.

And I'm on tears constantly at that time. And I just remember hanging up, talking to my dad at the payphone, slunk down into this chair outside her room. And I said, hey God, just help her get well. You know, I'm yours. Like, I'll do whatever. I was kind of— I was making a deal. Yeah, right. You give me her, I'm yours. There are a couple times where I did that, and what happened was—

Bartering with God, is that what you're saying?

Attempting.

Attempting.

And the call came, by the way. I got called on it. I'll share that in a moment. But I remember telling her, I'm like, look, when you're out of here, let's go and build a house. I remember I was making all this money. I was 26 years old. So we built a custom, semi-custom house in our mid-20s. And then I get the phone call and it's a phone call from my cousin. And he says, hey, I know you're great at sales. We've got this little company out here in Naperville, Illinois. And we're like 6, 7 guys and gals and we'd like to grow it. Would you consider leaving GE? I just lit up like, you're kidding me, because I wanted to be wanted. Every new salesperson, like one of the reasons I got into it, I didn't accept myself very well. So I wanted acceptance and validation from the sales I got and I got it. And here my cousin sees that I'm good and wants me to help him grow a business. That was like a pretty cool moment. And yet we had just built this house. Liz was now pregnant again because it was a year after the whole loss thing. And I knew that she wanted to stay in Kansas City. And I just said, hey, God, if there's like a way to have this happen and be obvious that this is the right choice, show us the way. And I'll tell you what, Adam, like, and I'm writing a new book and it's got this story and a lot of these stories in it, but just, you can see the drops of wisdom and insights and the coincidences that line up. To have it be so fricking obvious, including prior to us fully saying yes, a gentleman knocks on our door because we decided we'll put the house on the market, we'll see if it sells. If it sells quickly, sure. Guy knocks on the door to see our home. We were supposed to be gone before he got there, but he got there early. His real estate agent wasn't with him. His name's Buddy. And I'm like, all right, well, just come on in. So he comes into the kitchen, we start talking. He's like, well, why are you moving? I say, well, there's this job. That I got drawn into with my cousin and a little software company. You probably never heard of it. He said, oh, I'm in that business. You know, what's the name? I tell him the name. He said, oh, I'm one of their clients. And he worked for a company called Kemper. And we're like, you're kidding. They had like 5 clients, Adam, in the whole world.

Yeah.

And one of their clients comes to Kansas City

to

look at our house.

He's in your kitchen.

Because they were opening an office there or something. So it's just stuff like that. It's like, Wait a minute, this is obviously happening. But it was that call. It was the call of, hey, are you gonna come through on your commitment? Kind of the God call. You're gonna come through on your commitment to do what is really optimal here. And thankfully it came through and we moved.

Yeah, so you follow that guidance, you end up in Naperville.

Yeah, I'm with this little tiny company and 6 months later the partners We doubled the size of the company. So they're now making a lot more money. They're not sure how to manage it. They're not really business people. They're all techies. About 6 months in, my cousin contacts me and says, hey, just so you know, I'm leaving. I'm like, what? I just moved from Kansas City. It's been 6 months. And he said, it's just not working out. He and the partners, he thought I would come in and kind of save it. And it didn't work out. And so they had promised me equity, so at least I had that. And then they told me after they found out he was leaving, they said, well, just so you know, we're not giving you the equity. And I'm like, well, fuck you. It's why I'm here. So that was the catalyst to say, okay, well, if you're not going to honor your commitments, then I'm going to leave.

Yeah.

And I started a company called Jennico. It was a software company. And that was on September 18th, 1998. Great day.

Great day. You know what? We just passed that one.

We did.

Like we do every year.

We did. They just had their, I guess, their 20th or 21st anniversary here.

So, what happens with Jennica? Let's do this. We're going to take a big leap now, like you said earlier. Let's leap from the point of inception. You've got this entrepreneurial bug and the seed of that was sown early on in life, as we found out. And here you are, you're now no longer an employee, you're starting something from scratch, there's no guarantee of anything. How's it go?

We had a 6-month-old.

Oh, sorry, let's add that to the—

First of 5 kept coming.

So you probably needed to have your head examined at that point, right? Just looking back.

Yeah, if I wasn't insane already. So let me give you a couple of highlight points. We are working our tails off nonstop, nonstop, nonstop. I mean, till 11, 12 o'clock every night out of the house, move into an apartment, then move into an office, then grow the office. It's that story, right? Yeah. Kind of really progressive, slow growth. There were ups and downs. I'd never taken a business class, so I was learning everything for the first time hands-on. My partner was a technical architect, brilliant, and we worked well together. He was kind of the operational mindset. I was the visionary sales mindset. So we worked very well, complementary, because about 3 months after I had left, he and I joined together, my cousin and I rejoined. I should make that obvious there. And so we grew to about $1.5 million, closing up on $2 million in a pretty quick period of time. And I had a coach who said, what does the company look like when you're a little bit bigger? I said, what do you mean? He said, well, create the model of the business now. So I created the model. I knew I wanted to grow to a $20 million company, by the way. And so we created the whole architecture of what a $6 million company looked like when we were 2. My name and my partner's name were mostly in the boxes, but then we did it. It just happened, right? And that's what I found is every time we put an intention out there and we're clear about it, And we had to work, right? But I was more stressed about it than I needed to be because it was just going to happen. That's what I've discovered is when we put a clear intention out, it's happening and it's up to us to allow it to happen. So we grew to the $6 million and then we quickly doubled to $11 million. We were very fragile and in 2006, we had just booked some new office space.

What do you mean you were very fragile?

The business was very fragile. It was kind of like We outgrew our ability to deliver.

Mm-hmm.

So we brought on a gentleman who was exceptional at that. He came on, helped really solidify our process so that we could actually deliver on all these things we were really good at selling. And we stabilized and then quickly grew up, you know, over a couple years to $20 million. And that led till 2010. But I'm gonna tell the story of how we actually got to the sale.

Okay.

Along the way, by the way, again, lots of ups and downs. And whenever I was desperate, I'd pray. And whenever I'd pray, like, the answer just showed up. And at some point along the way, I said, well, what if I just prayed all the time? So every day I just say, hey, I surrender. You know, I surrender. I know not what a thing is or what it's for. I used kind of that thing I learned from my grandfather, and which I know comes from the Bible and stuff, but it's like, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender. So I started to do that more and more. Did you want to interrupt?

No.

Okay. So in 2009, we hire this woman, Alison, and she introduces this concept called PSYCH-K. And PSYCH-K is a tool that supports like changing beliefs very rapidly. And I'm like, this is cool. So I loved it so much, I invited our whole management team to go through it. And the ones who chose And there was a moment at the end, she said, okay, we're going to do a vision for this future state. And I was really clear and I publicly stated, I said, I want to sell the company within a certain period of time. I think it was 18 months or something for a certain amount of money. And I want to stay with the company for only 6 months. That was in 2009. So about, I think it was 14 months after that, some dynamics had taken place. Where I go to Thanksgiving in 2010. My wife, kids, and I were at a condo that we won at an auction, and I didn't have the cell phone on at all. And I hear this voice inside my head and it says, offer to buy Joel out. Now, there was some tension building at the company, like, where are we going? You know, what's happening? We're right at $20 million. Our profitability had gotten cut in half from like 15%, 18% down to like 10%. And I'm like, why are we working harder for less money? This doesn't make sense. So that was the message. It was very clear. It's like, offer to buy him out. And so I went back, offered to buy him out, and he says that he doesn't want to sell. And he's concerned that if I bought him, that the way I was thinking we'd lead the company wouldn't really lead to success. And so he says, how about if I buy you out? Before the words left his lips, I was like, yes. But I said, well, let me talk to my wife and get back to you. You know, what would it look like? He lays it out. It was the exact amount of money that I'd said back in 2009. He asked me to stay 6 months, which is the exact amount of time, and it was within the time period. And it goes to show, it's like I got everything that I had asked for, which brings up another story later, and I was 38 years old. So go back to the 6th grade and the prayer. Hey, it'd be nice to kind of retire before I'm 40.

Exactly.

And here I'm 38 years old and I'm being handed lots of money. Most of it was paid out over time, but there was a big chunk up front too. And within a week, we had all the paperwork done, signed, and about half a week later, we told the company. And it was just like, wow, it was incredible.

You have so many stories of the struggle involved in that kind of a thing. And this was— you used the word allowing earlier. So tie this in. How much is this you just getting out of the way? Did it feel like that at the time? Is that what you look back and go, man, I just was, as you said, surrendered?

So glad you asked that because it was October, or a month and a half before the Thanksgiving moment, and I had been working on a project with a local politician. to bring a huge global initiative to Chicago. We actually did a proposal that ended up on the doorstep of Obama through David Axelrod, his right-hand guy at the time. Axelrod called us back at that moment in October of 2010, because I had been spending a lot of time on that, thinking I didn't really care about software as much anymore. I wanted to move on. I really had this idea that we could shape the future in a unique way and these vicious cycles that we keep going through again and again. And I thought, well, this will be the catalyst because then if countries ever get to a place where they're not talking, we can start to seed some of the communication channels globally by doing this initiative. So Axelrod comes back and says Obama loves it and will do it anywhere but Chicago, which is where we all are. Right. Like, well, come on. Like, this is— we want to do it in Chicago.

Any place but here.

So all of our interest is like, well, I'm not interested. What am I going to do in Seattle or something? I don't know anything about the other areas. So I was actually in tears in the parking garage very soon after that because it just— I felt empty. I felt so apathetic. And I sat in my car in tears and I said, God, look, I'm not moving until you talk to me and tell me what to do. I'm done. I said, I don't want to build this company anymore. The thing in Chicago that we were building, that seems to be gone. Like, kind of, what is it? You know, show me. And I sat there for many, many minutes, many tens of minutes, and finally calmed down and breathed. And I got to a calm state and this idea came up in my head. And I'm like, okay. I went and did it right up to the office, did it. I said, okay, what now? And I just waited. I was like, I don't know what I was saying, F you too, but it felt like that. I'm like, I'm done. I'll stay, I'll hang out, I'll do stuff, but I'm just gonna wait. And so it just kept coming and coming and coming and coming. And that's what led to the voice in the head in November saying offer to buy my partner out, which obviously flipped around and I got what I actually wanted but wasn't conscious of it. The whole unconscious like thing just Made it happen. It's incredible. So yes, that was the struggle moment. That was the moment of, I'm done, I surrender, show me the way.

Right.

A month later, out of the company.

Let's fast forward beyond that. We're gonna take another big leap now. So there's a— you've closed, you've been paid, your consulting is done, you're sort of washed, you know, you're finished with the company.

Yeah.

Is this just sort of putting your feet up, sitting around and watching your kids grow. As I heard Eddie Murphy talking about this just the other night in this— I don't know if you ever see the Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great.

Freaking love that show. And he's having a whole conversation. I mean, really very interesting episode with Eddie Murphy, who at this point is not doing stand-up. I'm not sure what other projects he's got going on, but basically he says, nah, man, I'm just lazy. my favorite thing to do is to do nothing. He's just watching his kids. And it's— there's an element of, with him, which is a totally separate thing, where there's a fear now because he is such an icon. Yeah. And, you know, even Seinfeld speaking to him, you could just sense that Seinfeld looks at him as this iconic figure. And oddly enough, Murphy looks at Seinfeld the exact same way. And Seinfeld looks at Murphy and thinks, well, there's a guy who's always so confident. I wish I could have had just a fraction of his confidence. And Murphy's like, you know, I look at Seinfeld and the only thing I ever really wanted was that guy's confidence. He always knew so much. So each of them sort of hiding their own insecurity, their own lack of confidence, their— all of that. But in Murphy's instance anyway, he just hasn't gotten back on the horse when it comes to the stand-up stuff. In his— the sort of story in his mind, Is that if he did and he failed, it would be an epic public failure. So just to get up and try new material, to create some bits and get some feedback, is the normal process for a comic. They all do it. And they're like baseball players, you know, and a Hall of Famer is going to hit 1 out of 3. 7 out of 10 are outs or strikes. It's a failure. And it's the same with a comic. They've got to get out there and try stuff and get feedback and fail. to be able to find out what works and he's just not prepared to pay that price. So, he's sitting home just watching his kids grow up. So, Mark, is that— were you there? What were you up to 6 months later? You got your— All right.

So, I'm going to answer that, but please forgive me for interrupting in the middle of the podcast here. Should I be thinking that we're trying to wrap up in the next 13 minutes? Are we tight on an hour? Because I can tighten some things up. Or what's your— how do you want to roll it?

We never normally do this. We'll pull the curtain back now for everybody that's going, ah, this is a conversation that usually it's like, you know, turn the— You

can cut this later if you want.

No, man. Like organic, just the way it's supposed to be. You know what? I would love to see us wrap up in the next sort of 12 to 15. Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken And all you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. But here's what's interesting to me, and I'll say this publicly. You are a great storyteller, Mark. I'm fascinated. I know for sure that our community listening to this, hearing the stories about your grandfather, and what I'm tracking, and I'm sure everybody that is walking on the beach listening to this or driving in their car and taking it in, they're going, wow, there's some significant common denominators in your story to this point. Now, the story is far from over, and so that's why I know you—

That's why I'm asking.

That question. But those common denominators, which people can put that into their own languaging, I think are pretty obvious, these sort of mile markers along the way. And they're really important. You know, I'm paying attention.

The best of the story is yet to come.

Well, take a sip of your coffee, buddy, and load up. Let's go.

All right. So, 6 months after, so you're asking. So, here's what happened. I had invitations to travel. People who knew I sold, suddenly I had offers to invest in their companies. I had lost the identity. This is key. I'd lost the identity that I had so wrapped myself around, believing that I was this successful entrepreneur. I mean, the awards we won. I mean, I said I didn't care, but I guess I might have valued them a little bit more than I thought. It wasn't the award, it was the knowingness that we deserved it. Like, we kicked butt. And the downside to that was when it was gone, I had invested so much. I mean, 3 nights a week, I'd be gone from my family networking, building relationships, serving on nonprofit boards. I mean, I was like humming. And suddenly, I'm going 90 miles an hour to about 13, and it felt very weird. So, I kind of went with the flow a little bit. One day in January, February after I sold, a buddy of mine calls. He said, hey, I woke up from a dream. I was supposed to go to Israel with this group, and the message in the dream was that you're supposed to go and not me. And my response, I'm like, yeah, it feels right. And I did.

I

talked to Liz. She's like, well, how can I say no to you going to the Holy Land, right? So I go for 16 days and amazing transformational experiences. I start writing a book because I thought, well, I've got a dozen years of journals. I would journal every day. I have a dozen years of journals all through the business's ups and downs. And so I start modeling that with a business book consultant and I'm working on that. All my fears, all my insecurities, they all come rising up during that 6-month period and introduced to a concept in the summer of 2011. And it's a concept that was so foreign to me. I had grown up hearing that forgiveness was to let someone off the hook. It's like, oh, you're a good guy, so you should forgive. So I thought, well, okay, well, if someone's an a-hole, me, I'll be the proud good guy. Like, okay, well, I forgive you. Well, that does nothing for the pain that I was hanging on to. I felt whatever, slighted or hurt or whatever feelings came up. There's anger and all that had nowhere to go. There was no outlet. So I'm introduced to this concept that true forgiveness, the forgiveness that Jesus in his Aramaic tongue would have taught was to release the brother, the sister, if you will, by letting go of attachment to what's going on in us. Allow the feelings to come up. Don't hang on to them. Allow them to come up. Allow them to be free. Allow our perception of what we thought happened to change. I might have thought, well, Adam did this and he did it to hurt It's like, well, if I could breathe and feel the hurt and allow my perception to change, I might see that actually maybe you did it because there was a really good reason. I could just say, Adam, you did that. This was my experience. You know what was going on? And now we actually address it, right? And move forward. But I never did that. I just kind of made lots of assumptions, judged, hung on. And so here I'm learning this concept and I go into overdrive. I'm talking hours a day where I'm thinking of people from grade school and high school and college and work and thinking, well, I got to release judgment of this guy. And images would come up of these people and say, well, I release judgment of you. I forgive. I release this pain. I allow for that anger to be felt. And I was feeling this energetic release and miraculous things started to happen around me leading up to a week in September of 2011. And that week, which I will chronicle completely in the book, because I was writing the book during this experience of all these out-of-this-world things. I'm writing every day about the experience. So it's live happening. And Adam, during that week, I had a wall moved. I had invisible hands heal a muscle that was so torn in my back I couldn't even move. And I felt these hands and then they rolled me over, lifted me up. Wow. I'd be in a room and I'd mention something about somebody related to roses and the smell of roses would come up or the smell of pipe came up. I remember hearing the thoughts of other people and then they'd say it and it's like, wait a minute, I just heard what it was they were saying. It was almost like I was plugged in to this different realm of understanding. I was knowing things beyond the moment and I'd see them start to come about. It was as if I heard, if you know Abraham Hicks, I heard her say this really well. She said, imagine you haven't eaten for a week and then all of a sudden somebody gives you a pizza. You're going to look a little crazy when you go after that pizza because no one's as hungry as you are. And it was kind of like that. It's like this world of the unseen that I knew was there, that I grew up being educated that was there, but didn't quite believe. Like, well, maybe it's there, maybe it's not, I don't know. Even though I had so much evidence. And here all of a sudden, it's real, it's physical. Like, stuff's happening, visions are happening that are just incredible. I had one vision and it was just as real as me talking with you right now, as me touching this computer. It looked that real. It sounded that real. It was just so incredible. And by the end of that week, I think that's enough of that setup for that story. I end up being dragged from my home and hauled off by paramedics, and I end up in the one place that I was terrified and had no context for except for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Actually, not even that. It was actually The Shining. The Shining was my reference for insane.

Hmm. Right.

And as soon as I was told you need to go to the psych ward, which I was told the day before, but I didn't go. I was hauled there. I'm like, oh, fuck, my life's over. I'm crazy. I'm gonna kill somebody. Because that was my reference. Crazy people kill people. And it was so wrong, so different. But that's where I ended up. I ended up in the psych ward in September of 2011. And I was there for a week. And I would say that some of the most wild ideas I had for what that would be like completely collapsed. I realized these are just real people and they're going through whatever they're going through. And I got to a place where I was fully medicated, fully diagnosed. And I said to the doc, you're like, hey, how do I get better? And this was just before I was going home. He said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, how do I get well? Like, what— how long does this last? And he said, Mark, this isn't something that goes away. What do we do? He said, well, let me first tell you that the most we know about the brain we learned in the '90s, is what he tells me. And he said, even that's not that much. And there's no cure for what you have. He said I was diagnosed bipolar 1. And he said, we'll manage the medications. And if the one you're on doesn't work, we'll adjust it and we'll just keep getting to a place until it's stable. And I said, well, how long do I take those? He said, well, probably the rest of your life. Just landed like a lead balloon, right? And I, inside, I'm like, no, it's not happening. So I went home and from that day forward, I was looking for solutions, but I really accelerated it a month after I got out. And then I'll pause for you to interrupt and did a TEDx talk, which I had prepared for, Adam. I was so ready. I memorized this thing. It was talking about ending global cycles of these vicious cycles, and I showed patterns from historians and my philosophy about what could, could stop. Well, interestingly enough, instead of focusing on the cycles out in the world, I started to focus on the cycles in here and changing those.

Right.

Which helped me realize that they could change, and that took a little while. But I had an out-of-body experience on that stage where my body was here, my consciousness after I started shifted over here and I could see my body moving and talking but I couldn't hear anything. And I had had a vision of this during my mania experience, by the way. I saw 11:11, saw the stop sign, out-of-body experience like me up in the stands and it happened. It's literally happening. I said— How's this possible? Then boom, I was back in my body, and I didn't know where I was in the talk except for the slide that was up. So I had some context, but it was so foreign to me. I stumbled through that talk and the memorized talk, which today I'd handle differently. I just tried to get through. And shortly after, I was praying again because I felt thoroughly embarrassed. And I said, God, if there's a way to heal this, show me the way. And Adam, there's a great story. That goes much beyond today's podcast, honestly, about how I was led step by step by step to full health and restoration. It included medical doctors, psychiatrists, and spiritual healing, mental healing. There was a lot there. It took everything, healing the gut, getting the nutrients to the brain. But a big part of it, the biggest part I would say, was to go to the core source. And that's what we teach in the Optimal Being Program. Yeah. That you mentioned in the beginning. Like, we teach how to really get to a place where any division within us that keeps us from the truth of who we are starts to collapse and we become fully unified again. And when we are, we're so connected. You know that confidence you were talking about that the comedians were desiring? I desired it too, and I have it. I mean, I'm like a very confident individual. Very grounded. I'm bringing some of the tools that helped me get there to others so that they can also live their optimal life. That's what I'm doing.

Yes, with humility. As I said, people, maybe some of them may know you, may have watched videos or seen you in places, and folks that have even hired you to come and speak to their organizations, and those that will no doubt do that. But I know you well at this point, and you're just a humble person. And by that I mean Your confidence isn't something that intrudes on mine. It doesn't intrude into my space or anyone else's space as far as I can tell. I've never said those words about anybody before in that particular way. So I really appreciate that about you, Mark. I genuinely appreciate that about you as a leader in the world, because if our leaders were exuding those qualities— It doesn't mean you don't have strong opinions. It doesn't mean that you can't make tough decisions or that you're trying to create uniform agreement, consensus even, because I don't believe in those things. I just don't. And I don't see you as somebody that would be—

It means standing in yourself without waiver. It's knowing yourself. And there's a famous quote, I can't remember who said it, but it's essentially, there's no way you can know what to do until you know who you are. And when we look at business, What's really interesting is business leaders have a whole collection of human beings that come in and they're all dealing with their stuff. And there's this question of, well, how do we get people aligned? How do we encourage people to come in and have some commonality with our value set and align with our vision and help that? And one of the first things that I realized in the summer of 2012 After I started really seeing the path that I was going to get well, because it took about 3 years, honestly, 3 hospitalizations, a suicide attempt. There was a bunch of stuff in there. So it wasn't like a switch, but I realized that one of the reasons why it wasn't quicker is because I didn't have as clear of an access point.

Hmm.

So anyone who can fog a mirror is on some kind of continuum of health. On the one side, they're in that ideal flow state. They're just humming and happening. They're joyful. All areas of their life are just like rocking and they're connected. On the other side, we'll call that what we've labeled as a mental illness, which is so disconnected and trying desperately to reconnect.

Yes. And isolated.

Or get out.

Yeah. I mean, and this is coming up in the news a lot because we see that that dysfunction is showing up in And I don't even like the word dysfunction as it came out of my mouth because it has this air of judgment, just like the mental health has this air of judgment. We've got a huge problem with suicide among young people and older people. It's interesting, scary that in the studies more recently, the demographics of group that showed the highest increase in the incidence of suicide were women in their 50s and 60s. You go, what? What, are you kidding me? But it is a problem for sure that begs our attention. And part of, I think, what is a beginning of a solution is in how we look at it, in our perception of what it is and the judgments that we have about it and the fear, which I think those judgments are all based in fear anyway, that keep us from a greater understanding of what mental health really means. And the fact that you wouldn't tolerate A diagnosis from a professional that said, hey buddy, you're not going to get better. You're just going to manage through medication for the rest of your life a condition that'll stay the same. And that just was BS and you called BS on it. And as you said, not an easy road, but 3 years later, you're in a— we're in a very, very different place. So we may continue this conversation at a different time, but for now, we'll kind of— you've got this new book that's coming out, but there's a book that people can find as well, which is Awakening the Optimal Leader. And I think what's It's a book of visionary fiction. Oh, you got it right there, Mark. Beautiful.

Yeah. I don't know if people can see it, but—

Hey, get it on Amazon. It'll be in the show notes as well. And again, you said it a little bit earlier, but this idea of visionary fiction is helping organizations create a narrative even through a project like a book for the company to bring folks together to align a vision and have those values. really be a tangible thing that they all— that everybody within the organization can lean on, rely on, count on. Is that an accurate summation of that?

It is, but without the context of another quick story, with your permission. Do it.

No, no, no, do it. We're going to run a little overtime. Folks, listen, just go grab yourself a cup of something, come back, push pause, come back and listen. It just keeps getting better and better. Go ahead, Mark.

I wanted to share a story. 2015, okay? So I'm well now. My doctor has said, Mark, you don't need to take the medication anymore. You're good. And it took me a little while to accept that. But 2015, my 9-year-old boy, he's now 13, almost 14. He says, hey, Dad, would you lay down with me before he was going to bed and tell me a story? I'm like, yeah, sure. So I laid down with him. I start coming up with a story and night after night, he keeps asking me. Hey, would you tell me another story, Dad? One night, as he— I know he's gonna ask me, I'm thinking, I don't know if I have any stories left.

I'm running out of stories here, buddy. Been there.

He keeps asking

that one,

and I loved it. It was fun. But on this particular night, I just hear this inner voice again, and it's so clear. It'd be like if you were speaking in my head, but it was my voice, right? And the voice says, don't tell him a story. Allow a story to come. And Adam, as if what I shared wasn't unusual already, one of the most unusual experiences of my life occurred. I experienced my lips moving, words coming out, but no pre-thought or anything. It was just that it was almost like I paid $5 to go see a movie and I was watching this unfold and participating. And at the end, it was the best story, by the way, of all the stories I told.

Of all.

But it didn't feel like it came from the me That had told the previous ones.

There's that allowing again.

Yes. And it's one of the things, by the way, that not that people would experience this, but as someone does the optimal being kind of work that we teach, gifts that are innate within them, almost like a, you know, an apple seed contains within it the knowingness of how to produce an apple. It was almost like that. It's like something within me that I had resisted came forward and this knowingness of how to do this story thing, how to really be surrendered, how to be in that state of allowance, how to be whole came forward. So I say, Henry, what do you think of that at the end? And he kind of took his fingers out of his mouth and gives me a thumbs up. He said, Dad, that was really good, but it's just going to get better.

Hmm.

I know you're just getting started, or I know you're just learning. I think it was, I know you're just learning. Which from a 9-year-old, it's like, oh my gosh.

When was this?

This was 2015, the fall of 2015. So night after night, sometimes with some gaps, the same thing happens. And I was taught how to get into this mode of allowing for story. Fast forward of doing this in my coaching, doing this with speaking, doing this in different environments, because I keep just surrendering. One day I'm at this desk right here and It's like I grab a pen, I grab a little note card like this, and I write down, I think it was 14 numbers. And then these words are written. And I'm looking at, I'm watching these words come like, well, what is this? And at the end, I hear that same voice say, okay, go down in the basement and record this book. And that is Awakening the Optimal Leader. It took 90 minutes. I sent it to The editor and publisher to get it produced. And I said, well, what's this for? And the answer was, I'm going to create these books for companies so that their story can be told. It starts with their truth of what actually has happened, their vision of where they want to go, and then interview some of their people to see what are the gaps that might be in the way. So we get a roadmap and then I— create a story that's kind of like a hero's journey for the company, which allows for their story to be handed to new employees or partners or current employees. And they can say, look, this is where we're going. This is what we're building. If you want to join us and help us build this, then you got a job here. But don't accept until you believe that this is a place that you really want to be. Which is something, if you look at the millennials and some of the younger generation, they want to belong. They want someone who's got a vision, who's got clarity, who's willing to say, yeah, this is what we're creating, and have enough room in it so that the new people come in and put their stamp on it and contribute. But it's something that, yeah, I believe in that. I want to do that. So that's the intention. This was a model to show people like, hey, would you like your company to go through this? And then some of them may want to also do some of the program stuff we do, but even just the book to hand to future employees, it's like, people love this, by the way. And I'm looking for companies that want to dive right in with that.

Absolutely. Yeah. Back to what you said earlier, and then we're going to wrap up for the allowing. You were at one of our programs, maybe I think you did the speaker program last year, was it? Or was it earlier in this year? Yeah.

First part of enrollment.

Yeah, exactly. And I watched you do that. I mean, I saw you allow for, in a moment, you could call it inspiration or guidance or something, but you just were so present. And a big part of when we work with people on public speaking is that distinction between pretense and presence. And obviously pretense is much about the ego and much about defending and protecting and just everything that kind of creates that identity that we walk around with, that facade. And presence is very vulnerable. It's that place of transparency on some level even, and certainly represents truth in the moment for sure. And this sort of empty vessel that allows for whatever it is to flow in a pure, clean, clear way. And I saw that happen for you. It was a very distinct moment and it was very moving because the people that were there The rest of the folks that were also participating were all sort of in awe of that moment when you got into that space, when you were in that flow state. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. So to me, seeing you in front of organizations is something I continue to look forward to because there's just a great deal that you have to share. And I say this to everybody who's listening to this. You could be certain that there's a level of allowing, and maybe it's allowing to play, allowing yourself to have a bigger influence in the world, to have a bigger impact. I'll bring it back to Eddie Murphy. I mean, look, it's hard not to look at that man and go, Jesus, just a comic genius. Anything you ever saw of him, whether you liked the material or didn't, I mean, this dude's— man was a command of that genre. And I really truly believe right now he's just not allowing himself to go into that space of pure vulnerability, which would allow him to learn something about what's funny in the moment, what's funny now. What was funny in 1976 may be funny now, but that's really just not what's relevant. But there's a relevance, and he has great relevance today once he's prepared to step into that place where he can suck, where he can dare to suck again. I love that. Give freedom. Well, that's our speaker book. It's called Dare to Suck, which we're in the process of—

Everybody pick that up.

Yeah, pick that one up, right? So, Mark, what a pleasure, brother. So happy to have you on the show. Last little thing. Do you have a ritual practice in the morning that you start the day with? Because clearly, you know, this is a work in progress for all of us, and your day begins same as mine does with the first thought of the day, with the first action of the day. What does that look like for you?

Do the same thing pretty much every day. And it's interesting because I knew you were going to ask that. It's like, hmm, do I share this with people? There

you go.

So I stay in bed actually for quite a bit longer. Some people say, well, hey, count to 5 and put your feet on the floor and get up. And it's like, that doesn't work for me. I think I'd get dizzy and fall down. I actually wake up and I first thing, take some nice breaths in bed, laying down, just eyes closed. I'm just breathing and really consciously moving the breath, right? And that's part of my wake-up. And then I am very often awoken with some kind of thing that's needed to be addressed in that clear, calm, meditative state. And it gets resolved. And I'll see it usually come out later in the day. It's like, oh wow, that was cool. I live my life kind of in awe. Like you said before, it's like, really? That was cool. So that's what I do. I breathe. And in that breath, just get into that meditative state, allow for what needs to come up to come up. And before I get up, I often will say, is there anything else to be aware of?

Hmm.

And sometimes it's nope. And I just get up and go. And sometimes it's yeah, and there's a message that I receive that allows for me to again tap into something that maybe I've been resisting. There may have been a project that wasn't flowing that's like oh, realize that it's been three weeks since you talked to blah blah blah blah. Like oh, that's interesting. What's going on there? Well, you're nervous because or I'm nervous because XYZ. And then it gives me the awareness, the conscious awareness to actually start to move through that. So that's how I start every day. And I'll be honest, sometimes that's a 5-minute process and I've done that for 3 hours.

Yes.

Sometimes I'll get out of the bed or sit up or get to a chair or something like that. But before I ever step out of my room, I— number one priority I realized is be whole. And if there's anything keeping me from being whole, I don't leave the room until I am, and then I move forward with the day.

Yeah. Start with your, um, with your right foot, you know, get out, as my grandmother would say, get out on the right foot.

That's it.

Yeah. I will— allowing is so, so profound in so many ways. It's a, uh, it's a beautiful thing. I'm taking that in myself even in this moment, how, how important it is that we allow and allow for space of that. You can't do that when you got your cell phone in your hand necessarily and you're checking on who called you while you were sleeping or messages, Facebook, and any other number of things that will just immediately take you into a different space, maybe less than whole space to start the day with. My practice has been the same for so many years. It's just 10 seconds. It's— I think part of what I enjoy about that is it's the level of its simplicity. And I can count on it. I don't have to create it anew. So there's a predictability to it as well. But I wake up first and foremost, and I think that's the key right there. Wake up. And the alternative ain't so good. So I chuckle at the fact that there is that moment of waking that it could have gone the other way. And I then shift my attention to being grateful and appreciative of whatever it is in that moment that I can appreciate. And there's so much. It's infinite, it's endless. And that's the second piece of it. And the third is this feet on the floor or even from the bed, 10 seconds to couple the gratitude or put the gratitude feeling into action. And that action is this verbal statement thing I say out loud, which is, I love my life. I love my life. Mark, what are the words?

I love my life. I love my life.

Yes, you do, brother. I

love my life for sure.

Awesome. Well, you have a blessed day, everybody. Have a great evening, day, morning, afternoon, whatever, wherever you are right now. We'd love to find out how you're doing and where you're at. So, if you want to leave a comment, go to adammarkel.com/podcast. Leave a comment there. You can leave a review on iTunes. And of course, tell some friends, subscribe, and come find us on Facebook and elsewhere in the world of social. For now anyway, have a great week. Bye-bye. rest of your day. Ciao for now. Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mark.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcast. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.