Overcoming Challenges And Making A Difference Through Education With Mark Alyn

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. 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 feel so incredibly blessed and grateful to be here with you today. It's a beautiful sunny day in Southern California. So wherever you are, wherever you are at this moment, whether you're inside or outside, whether the weather is warm or cold or it's day or night, that's what I love about the show. I love all podcasts for this reason. We get to consume the content at our leisure when it's convenient for us and it really meets us where we are, which I think is a wonderful aspect of this format for a program and a conversation. And as always, I want to begin our show by bringing us to the present moment. I don't know that there's anything more important, frankly, than to live in this moment, because it truly is all we have. You know, the past, the moment ago is gone and the moment ahead is, is to be seen. And if you ever doubt that, you know, the reminder that I use and I've shared with you before, if you've listened to the episodes, you know, this is a pretty common one for me. But in this moment, we take a breath. We're breathing all the time. This time, when we breathe now, we're breathing with just a little bit more consciousness, awareness of our breath. And as we are aware of our breath in this moment, it is absolutely a fact that there are people who are taking their very last breath in this moment, which makes this breath right now important. It's sacred, it's holy. Because there's something really special about our ability to be here now in whatever this is, and to show up in the best way that we're capable of showing up. And for now, this is, for me, being a host of a show, being able to have great conversations with great people. I'm about to introduce somebody to you that is somebody new in my life and somebody I respect and really feel you guys are going to get a lot of value out of. Learn some things from. I know I've learned from him in the short time I've known him. So I'm going to bring Mark Allen on in just a moment, but as you're getting ready for that, I would love if you're driving or using, operating any heavy machinery, please keep, keep your eyes open. Okay? Do that as you continue to breathe consciously and be in gratitude and appreciation for this moment and for your life and for all the blessings. We all have challenges, so I'm sure if you're watching, you're listening, you're doing both. You have some challenges. Some of them are small, perhaps some of them are large. But there's no question that there's a purpose to your being here now in this and that it is a blessing. And I feel honored to have you be part of our community. So with that and without further ado, I want to introduce this gentleman to you. And we're going to have a really great conversation on our podcast today about pivoting. Shocking. The subject matter is pivoting. So we'll have another pivot story and learn some great things from this gentleman. As a broadcaster, Mark has talked with more than 25,000 people from all walks of life. He loves to learn. I love that about him. He is a lifelong learner, and his goal is to be in communication with more and more people about what they are doing in their lives and how they've succeeded and how they've had challenges and how they've overcome those things. And he's no stranger to challenges because about six years ago, he had a challenge when his back went out, and then on top of being debilitated with a back issue. And I've had that myself, and I know how debilitating that can be. He had the double debilitation of working or trying to work through his insurance and being denied coverage and dealing with the insurance company. And he became, I think, well, we'll find out what his mindset was at the time. But he sort of took on the role of a reporter filing complaints with anybody that I guess would listen to his complaints. And then all of a sudden, he got a call from a friend and he'll share this story. But this friend inspired him to pivot, to do something about where he was at in that moment, having some challenges physically, wanting to make a difference not only in his own life in the moment, but also in the lives of other people through some form of education, especially about the challenges that he'd been facing just dealing with his whole. With this whole insurance crisis while he was feeling physically not at his best. So this gentleman has a long, long history. He's an entrepreneur. He's an educator. He's a radio talk show host on the topic of health. And without further ado, I want to bring ON and welcome Mr. Mark Allen. Mark, great to have you on the show today.

Thank you, sir. It's a pleasure, Adam. I'm really blessed to be here with you. I appreciate that. I wrote a note as you were opening the show.

You did?

Yeah, I did. I wrote a note and you said, there are many people as we take our breath and begin the show, many people are taking their last breath. And what popped into my head from spirit you and I have talked about that is there are also many people taking their first breath.

How beautiful that is. Oh, Mark, thank you. I have chills. I'm sure I'm not alone right now, but I will say I have got chills from what you just said. For all the times that I have opened our show and even in the closing of them remind us how important it is that we honor our life. I've used the reference to the fact that people are taking their last breath and have not looked at what is so obvious that you've just pointed out, which is that there are so many people being born and taking their first breath now. So thank you.

They may not be listening now, but in 30 years when we do this again, that's our audience. And I. You know, life is so precious. You know, it's like that. And as somebody goes out, a candle is lit. So I just. I had to say that.

So.

And I appreciate you, you and Randy having me on the show. Thank you very much.

Well, thank you. And I loved being on your show as well. And so tell us about the show. Tell us people. I want people to obviously know where they can listen to you, but let's talk about what the show is to begin with. Sure.

Late night health started, as you said, when I had an issue with my back. And I'm going to need your. Yours, maybe need your skills as an. As an attorney with this, because I share my disdain for the insurance company. And if you'd rather me not mention the name, that's okay. I woke up. I woke up six years ago. My back was like this. I mean, I was giggling and laughing and in a great deal of pain. And I steamed my back and went to my chiropractor and I was fine. Two days later, I woke up and my back was like this again. And I went back to the Cairo. After the third or fourth time, my wife handed me a business card and said, go to this doctor. And you've Been married long enough to know that you pick and choose arguments with your spouse that you feel that you have at least a 50% chance of winning.

Oh, are you kidding?

There are not many of those, right?

Yeah, not often. If I was going to pick and choose the battles that I fought based on a 50, 50 shot at winning, I would just. I probably would never fight. Let's put it.

I'm stupid in that way, and 3% chance I do it. So I went to her doctor. And I've always had a holistic bent, an alternative health bent. I prefer going to a chiropractor than an orthopedic surgeon, for example. So I figured, you know, at my age, maybe I have arthritis. So she sent me to a rheumatologist. And if everybody listening can imagine a doctor touching the lower right quadrant of your back for about 15 seconds, that was the beginning and the end and even the middle of the exam. Adam. And he turned to me, said, mark, you screwed up your back. I don't know what you did, but you screwed it up. And it's. It hurts. Your muscles are really tight back there. We need to do something. I said, great. He offered me three options. Option one was, I'm going to give you a shot. Shot won't help, but it'll make you feel better. And I said, no, I don't think I want that. He said, I'd like to give. I can give you some drugs, by the way, do you drive and do you work? And I said, well, I got here. Yes, I do drive, and I love to work and want to work. He said, so I guess drugs are out, because if you take drugs, you're going to be drooling all day. You won't even be able to read because you won't remember. And I said, okay. He said, the third is physical therapy. I'd never had PT before, so I took it. After five or six visits, a major insurance company sent me a note saying, we're not covering this. We're denying the claim. And I called them up and asked why. And the reason I got was because we can cut to Adam, because look.

Yeah, seriously. Is that. That's what they said to you?

That's what the customer service rep said to me.

Because we can.

Because we can. I said, well, hold on a second. And I am not an attorney. I have a degree in radio, tv, film. Maybe I should have gone to law school. Well, I could have gotten into the Abe Smith School of Law. But anyway, I looked at the contract, and it said, Clearly, 100% coverage if prescribed by a physician. And I said that to the rep and they said, yeah, we know, we still deny the claim. Click. I was livid. I found out that insurance companies actually pay third party companies to deny claims. There's some clerk, they're paid, I don't know, 12 or $14 an hour, and they pick through a pile of claims and they say this one, there is no real rhyme or reason. And there shouldn't be because they're not doctors, they're not chiropractors, they're not even physical therapists. Though a physical therapist said, in my opinion, it's not needed.

Wait, a physical therapist said what's not needed?

The treatment. Okay, okay. A PhD. There's a company down in your neck of the woods that has three letters. Ash. Oh, I said it. Sorry, Adam.

That's okay.

And the, the insurance company has blue in their name.

Yeah.

Or at least a blue cross in their. Oh, I said Anthem Blue.

Oh, man. How'd that happen?

Listen, I'm not a professional. What can you, what can I say?

Listen, I'm sure you're not alone in, in having those acronyms burned in your memory, so.

Well, it's terrible. And, and it turns also turns out that when a third party company who denies a claim, they get paid more. They get a commission on what they save. My prescription was for three months, for three times a week. And I believe a physical therapy appointment is like 150 to $175 a visit. So they say they made a lot of money there. They saved money for the insurance company, but they got a percentage. And attorneys, by the way, are having third party companies look at their cases now. And being said, well, we know you got paid X dollars. We think you should be paid half of that. And they get a percentage of that. It's just not an equitable way of doing it. Anyway, while I'm fighting and I'm filing claims with the California Medical association, the insurance commission said, we wish we could do something. We know they do it. We have no teeth.

They were toothless.

Is that what you're saying, they were toothless? Absolutely toothless. And the bottom line is that they said there's nothing we can do. And I filed a com. I actually filed a complaint with the physical therapy with the cma.

Naming the.

Physical therapist at this company saying she was practicing medicine without a license because she gave a diagnosis without even examining me where it's clear that I couldn't move my back. Was that bad. I got a call from a friend of mine, Darrell Wayne, he's known as the Insane Darrell Wayne, one of the top classic rock jocks in the country. And he said, hey, Mark.

So he probably doesn't say it that way. He probably says the Insane Darren.

Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. Though Facebook made him take off the insane. And you can look him up on the insane. Darrel Wayne, he's wonderful. He said, what would you do? He owns a radio station. What would you do if you could go back on radio? And I'm a broadcaster. I'd been off the air for maybe a year. I'd been doing a show in LA at a major CBS radio station, and the show ended. It happens in broadcasting. I was concentrating on my video production and marketing business. I do video marketing. And what would you do? And I swear, Adam, that when he said that to me from source, the universe, God spoke through me. And I said, I want to empower people who are 40 plus to take charge of their health care, to stand up to doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, ask questions, and to provide a forum, if you will, that explores all kinds of modalities for treatment. Late Night Health is a media sponsor for the Komen race here in Los Angeles coming up in March.

And.

They talk about mammograms, mammography, and other treatments for breast cancer that are more traditional. I back that up with looks at thermal imaging. I talk about other forms of cancer treatment and. And we blend it, allowing people to stand up and make their own choice. Let me ask you a question. You go to your doctor, Adam, and he says, you know, Adam, there's a little something wrong. We'd like to take a look at it, and here's the treatment. What would you say to that, doctor?

Well, I mean, I would ask a bunch. I'd have asked a lot of questions before that I would expect. But let's just say he, this is what we found something wrong. We'd like to have you take a treatment. If I trusted that doctor and if I thought the treatment itself was in alignment with what I would typically do, meaning I wouldn't ordinarily take drugs right out of the gate, and I wouldn't ordinarily jump into surgery right. Right out of the gate. So if there was some place that involved therapy or some therapeutic modality that I was open to, I would say, tell me more.

Right.

Give me more of the details. And I'd probably also ask, is this covered by insurance? More likely than not. Yeah.

And I applaud you for that, because a lot of people say, okay, they don't ask questions. Doctor says, I need you to jump. And the only question is, how high? So I've come up with a theory. Doctors work for us as patients. That's chiropractors, doctors, any healthcare professional, we don't work for them. And so you walk into a doctor's office and they come in and they say, hey, Adam, how are you? I'm Dr. Smith. Well, right away, no offense, you're 20 years older than the doctor, so you should be calling him by his first name. He should be calling you Mr. Markell. It's just common courtesy. I walked into a doctor's office about two years ago, called the doctor by her first name. She was insulted. So you just called me Mark. The reason you do that is to create a level playing field because you're on the same team, and frankly, the doctor's not the captain, you are. So that when you go into your doctor, you want them to know you're in charge. You have a lot of questions. The more questions, the better. That's why the Internet is so great. My mother in law, a number of years ago.

Oh, wait, we're going to digress to your mother in law.

Yeah, I have. All right, go to the mother in law.

And then I got something else I want to come back to.

Okay. And I don't want to keep rambling, but keep.

No, no, cue the mother in law.

She's a mother in law. And I've been married for. Well, it'll be, it'll be 40 years in April. So. My beautiful, my. My father, my mother in law had a condition and the family was concerned, and my son looked something up and said, when you talk to your doctor, tell him you ask this question. You found it on the Internet. And she did. And his response was, what? Did you get your medical degree on the Internet? I'm a real doctor. I'll tell you what to do. I would have fired his tush on the spot.

Yeah, Well, I think that what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me personally, that there's a. It's not necessarily level playing field. And there's a certain. There's a certain level at which the uninformed are more. More easily led astray. I mean, it's just that's, that's the way it is in anything, whether it's in finance, investing, your medical advice that you seek. Being uninformed is a risk. And I think it is a personal responsibility that a lot of people abdicate to doctors. They abdicate their responsibility to Politicians, their senators, to all sorts of people, to their boss or whoever, and we pay.

A price for that.

That's a whole kind of different. Speaking of digressing, that's a different topic on some level. But advocacy for ourselves is really important. And certainly our demographic in many ways covers the age group that we're talking about. We've got folks that are in there, we've got millennials that are listening to the show, and lots of other people of all ages. But we have sort of 63% of the folks that are listening are in that range of 35 to 55, more women than men, even. And becoming an advocate for yourself is really important, and there's no time like the present to do that. So Even if you're 35 or you're 25, for that matter, or you're 60, it's better that you get started advocating for yourself now than waiting until with. I'll just say, God forbid you end up in a situation where you're incapacitated, where you're, your health is such that you're not at your best, not maybe not even at your best mentally, because, you know, when we're in pain and physically not well, we want that pain to stop and we're looking for somebody to help us. And we're very much almost like we revert to being children. We're always child. You know, there's always that child element.

Do that with doctors.

We do.

We do that with doctors and even millennials. And by the way, I don't believe a person is fully formed until they're 42 years old.

That's pretty good. Well, the good. You know, then there's hope for me, Right. I could still grow, right?

Absolutely. But even, even everybody can grow. When you shut down and, and, and don't want to learn, that's. You may as well die.

Right. So what we're trying to. I think part of what we're learning here is that advocacy is important. That's what I'm hearing. You say that you self advocacy. And so that became a bit of a lightning rod for you in, in your pivot, because, and this is, this is interesting, it's the first time I've mentioned this live or not live. We're recording. But this is the first time I'm saying this in public, I suppose, and that is that we've got a new book that we've started and will be coming out soon. We'll talk a lot more about it called the Next Pivot and N E X T in all Caps. Because we are continuing to pivot. This is one of those things that we're never pivoting once and then sort of on the trajectory that we wanted and. And will take us to the end. And you just said the reason. Because we're always either in growth mode or by the same. By the same reasoning, we're in decay mode. So it's really one or the other. We're either continuing to grow and live and thrive, or we're. What's the word? There's. We're atrophying. There's another word I'm looking for.

You're.

You're.

You're dying. Yeah. If I may, I have two people that I know, some of the smart. Two of the smartest guys I know. They have not pivoted since they were 19 years old, and they are well past that age. One guy does a certain thing. He's a broadcaster, and he wants to do the way he's always done it. Well, broadcasting's changed. Podcasting, like what we're doing now, video podcasting. The other was in. Is an engineer, and when he applies for a job, he never sends out a cover letter because he never had to before, hasn't worked in 15 years. My point is that if you don't pivot, if you don't make that change, if you don't swing around and say, I'm going to approach something from a different point of view, which is why your program is so beneficial to people, you're going to rot.

Well, it begs the. I mean, here's the thing. You can't see a different point of view, Mark, if you don't pivot, if you don't swivel. I know folks are listening to this and some are watching and seeing it as well on YouTube. But, you know, you're sitting in a swivel chair, which is wonderful as an. As a way to explain that I'm also in a swivel chair. If you swivel, if you pivot, you get to see things you don't otherwise see. That's the point of it. So for you, you were at a place in your life where you'd been in broadcasting, you'd had a successful show. That show ended. As you said, the natural order of things in nature is that things begin and things end. I'm going to bring us back to the first. The first thing that you pointed out, which was, it's not just in this moment, even right this second, that people are taking their last breath right now, but there are also people taking their first breath right now. So there's things being born and there's things that are going through the process of entropy. That was the word that, for whatever reason, disappeared. But things are decaying.

Must have been a word from law school, I learned that.

It's the only thing that I remember from science. But in any event, you were in that same stage where something was ending the natural order of things as things begin and they end. And at that same moment that you had this sort of a health issue, a crisis even, and got pretty good and worked up, lathered up about what was happening in the insurance space, a friend of yours holds up the mirror or says something to you and says, hey, buddy, sounds like you want to get back on the. You know, back behind the microphone again. And so your next pivot. Tell us about the next. What was the process like for you to look at the next pivot? Because you could have probably said, hey, you know, maybe I'll just. I don't know, maybe I just coast from here. Maybe I'll retire from here. Maybe I'll, I don't know, go play golf every day. You had those options.

That was not an option, however.

Well, the golf might not have been.

The golf's not a bit. I think you live near a golf course. Actually, I live near, like, six, including the one that Tiger woods had his charity event at in Southern California. The point is that. Excuse me. I was absolutely shocked when Darrell said, what would you do? My first thought was, I want to do a food, restaurant and wine show. Because I've done those before.

They.

They're a lot of fun to do. I love to eat. Fortunately, we're just on audio, so nobody can see the tummy. But the. That's. That's what I probably would have answered. I didn't answer it. And the pivot was. You have a choice when you do that pivot. You can go left, you can go right. Am I correct in that?

And every degree in between? Yeah.

Right. So it's Wednesday night, it's 8 o' clock at night. I'm in studio listening to Darrell do a live show. It's called the Knuckleheads. He's been doing it for 18 years. And when he asked me that, and I answered, I want to do a show empowering people, he goes, wow, what a great idea. Nobody's doing that. Because I wanted to blend allopathic and alternative health and everything in between. He said, let's start it Saturday night. Here's the pivot. I said, huh? That was My response, that's.

That's the pivot. Huh. Huh.

It's. It would be like somebody. I can't even think of what it would be like. Adam. I mean, he said, it's now Wednesday night. He wants me to start a radio show for two hours on Saturday night. And I said, huh. And then I said, can I get back to you?

So it was huh followed by huh. Um, I just want everybody to get the. You know, we like to break things down into the formula pieces. Just say it again. It was huh, huh followed by and.

My brain is racing. I mean, I'm going, oh, my God, what an opportunity. What? But I said, I need a day. Can you give me a day? He said, sure. So I called a couple of people the next morning. One owned a radio station and now it's Thursday morning. I'm calling him at 7:00am Pacific, it's 10:00 clock in Florida. And I talked to John and gave him the idea. He said, you know, I've had a lot of health radio shows on over the years, and this is a guy that I've worked with or known for over 30 years, 35 years. And he said, nobody's doing that. Let's start it Saturday night. Now. What's going through my head is, oh, my God. Two radio stations want a show that doesn't exist. I didn't know what to do on.

A topic that just popped into my head when I asked the question. Yeah, absolutely, because you said, spirit brought.

The spirit brought me the idea. Understand that my background as a broadcaster, as you said, I've interviewed 20 or 25,000 people. I've interviewed people on the street. I've been a news anchor. I've been a reporter for both radio and tv. I have talked to people from finance and entertainment and politics and you, you name it. And a lot of what I've done in the past, I've interviewed many people in health, both alternative and allopathic. And now they want me to do this show. There's no show and they want this show. They want to start it in like 48 hours. And what am I going to do? So I backpedal. I said, I want to start the show. Will you two help me do that? And we formed a little team and we got the show going. We just had our 300th episode. We're on Amazon, by the way, as a. This is a plug. Sorry, but we're on Amazon right now in the audiobooks section called Late Night Health, which is a compilation of some of our interviews over the last almost six years that we've been doing the show, and it's become a major part of what I do.

So is there an X pivot?

Yes, there is an X pivot.

Beautiful. Now, so I love the way you answered that, because it could have caught you off guard here. And the answer is yes. And it's for me, it's for you, it's for everybody. I think the answer is always going to be, is there a next pivot? Yes. Do you know what it is? Maybe, maybe not. Do you need to know at this moment? No, not from my perspective anyway. Just understanding that there will be a next pivot. But it sounds like you actually have some clarity about what that might be.

I do not exactly sure how to reach it, but I'm going to go back to what we said at the beginning of the. Of our. Of our chat. And that is a pivot, to me, is like a first breath. It's a change of life. Right. And so about a month ago, I was meditating, and I don't meditate long nor well. I am still in the process of learning. And it was like taking a first breath because it is a change of life. And that change of life is. I have determined that I want to become the spokesperson for my generation. I'm a generation or two ahead of Adam, so that's my goal. I am a TV host. I've hosted hundreds of hours and thousands of hours of radio. I want to be the. I'm going to say it. I want to be the Dick Clark of the baby boomer generation.

Only alive.

Only alive.

Yes.

Only alive, please.

God bless.

Yes. I actually interviewed him. I did a video many years ago for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and he volunteered to be interviewed. And we did this in the lobby of the Capitol Records building. And for those of you who don't know, that's the round building. Architectural marvel. Marvel, yeah, that's the word. And we're in the lobby, and he was talking, you know, we were setting up. And the way you focus on somebody's face is to go tight on their face so that you can see the nose and the eyes. And I like to get a little light, a little sparkle in the eyes. So my cameraman is focusing up on us, and Dick turns to me and says, please, nothing above the waist. Don't come closer than the waist. That was the funniest thing he could have said to me.

Yeah, yeah, don't go tight.

Don't go tight.

Well, he was, you know, had a very youthful look, I guess. And over the years, they panned the camera back maybe just a little bit to keep his youthful, his youthful glow because, I mean, this guy was killing it and, and rocking and rolling people for, I mean, since Elvis days. And we know that's a long time ago at this point.

Well, he just, you know, his name was just on TV on, you know, Dick Clark's rocking New Year's Eve.

It's incredible. It is. It's a legacy to him. And talk about a pivoter. I mean, I forget what it was I used to know maybe at 33 businesses or something like that. His net worth was ridiculous amount, you know, half a billion dollars or something. But in any event, he lived, he certainly lived a full life.

He did.

And I loved, I loved how you just created some definition around, around pivoting as change of life. That this breath, like a first breath when we pivot and we, we're doing something new, like in the moment you said yes, you, you said yes to this new pivot, to this next pivot was really profound because you didn't know what it would all look like. And you had some concerns, as you were smart to, I think, have some concerns. We all might have concerns about doing something new and different, but you still took that breath. You took that breath and that was a change of life.

A lot of people at my age, you're starting to retire. I have a friend, he was financially secure and could retire early and that's great. He works very hard doing wildlife photography now. Was photographer in high school. As you said at the beginning, I talk to people and I learned. My idea is that if I'm talking to Adam and learning about a pivot and learning about how you went from being a corporate attorney and saying to your wife, no more, and creating this program and becoming a speaker and all of that, that's terrific. I don't want to retire because one, I'll get bored. I mean, I like going on vacation, but if I take a three week vacation, 10 days of that are, what could I be doing at home? And that's, I know that that's not right, but it's my personality. And so I want the next part of my life to be in service, speaking to people. I talk about marketing, I talk about, I guess I could talk about health. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a health care professional. I'm a host. That's what it says in my irs, you know, host, producer, that's what I am. And in talking to people, I'd like to Think that I bring out information.

That.

Listeners or viewers can learn from and say, hmm, and have that aha moment. I told this story because it just happened. And forgive me for taking over your show about three and a half, four years ago, actually, longer ago. We've been doing the show for six years, and almost from the beginning, we had a groupie, a radio groupie show up in the studio. He was a kind of a friend of Darrell's. And after, I don't know, a year or so of showing up, he stopped showing up. And I asked, you know, all right, he was busy. I asked after a couple of weeks, where is he? And Darrell didn't know. So we checked in on him and he was sick. He had cancer. And I wished him well. I didn't call him or anything, but I sent a message to him. And about four or five months later, he shows up at the studio. And he looked great, and I was so happy to see him. And I said, smitty, nice to see you. How you doing? And he said, not so well. Got about a month left, six weeks left to live.

And I went, what?

He said, I have liver cancer. I've been going through treatments at a major medical facility in Southern California. It didn't work, and it's okay. I'm ready. And he had always wanted to be on the radio. So, Adam, what I did was I said, can you make it back next week and I want to interview you. And I did, about a month ago, and he passed away. His family called me and told me how much that meant to him. And of course it made me feel.

Great.

But making me feel great is not the important thing. About a month ago, I got an email. Listen to your show. Great stuff. Heard the interview with Smitty. I have terminal cancer. You've given me hope. That is what late night health is all about.

Yeah, it is. A. Well, you described a few minutes ago the aha moment, that that's a part of your intention. So I want to. I want to get solid on that point of it, that your next pivot is about your having even more of an influence and a voice and access to people that are in their baby boomer years and maybe some of them are retired or retiring, and some of them have no plans to retire, just like yourself. And. And that you might be able to convey something to them, give them that opportunity for an aha or for hope or what have you, is the guiding principle in your next pivot. That's what I feel is clear. Is that correct?

Absolutely. When you Have a pivot conference. I'd be perfect to be one of your speakers. There's another.

I see that. So, Mark, how does. How does that feel? Me reflecting that back to you?

No, you're right. That's what I want to do. I mean, you know, we all have. We all have a purpose. Sometimes we don't even know what that purpose is. I finally know what my purpose is. My friend was sitting.

I feel like this should be. There should be a choir that's singing. Right. Because there's so many people that are listening, right. Who know what it's like to wonder about that, to be confused even, or just clear on certain days and then unclear on other days. What is my quote, unquote purpose? And that's like out of the Personal Development Manual. It's like the first chapter, find your purpose. And so. Yeah, how would you define that? I mean, we've got just a few minutes here, but I really want to get your sense of it. How. How do you define your purpose?

My personal purpose or everybody?

Not what it is. But when you said you found your purpose, I want you to put some context around that.

Now you've thrown me. There's a pivot.

Yes.

I think that finding a purpose in life is something that most people do not do. I mentioned the two friends, really smart guys. One guy will not change what he does. The other guy will not change what he does. And they don't have a purpose. And I feel sorry for them. I think that we all have to dig down and look. We have mutual friends, Swami and Robert Clancy, and they both teach the same thing, love. I have a new friend. His book is over there. Hold on. Another plug. And I know this isn't video. It's called the Clarity Cleanse. It's all about love. And I think that's what we need to do. So that as I grow, as I find my purpose and hone that purpose. I want to host a game show for seniors. I want to do a show where people may be competitive with each other doing something. I don't know how this is going to happen. Half the time I'm not sure it will. But I think finding that purpose is going to keep me alive and young.

So what's another way to describe. Let's just replace the word purpose. And I appreciate you playing with me on this because this is important. Language is important. You're in the language in the communications business. So what's a word we could replace purpose with? With the way you just described the game show and these Other things that are coming up in your heart or in your head. How would you describe purpose with a different word? Wow.

Life. I think life and purpose can be synonyms. If you don't have a purpose, you don't have a life. And if you don't have a life, if you have a life and you don't have a purpose, you really don't have a life.

So a life without purpose maybe doesn't feel the way you want it to feel. I'm just thinking that these two guys that you mentioned earlier are. I'm assuming. I don't want to make the assumption, but I want to close the loop for our listeners. Sure. That your feelings about them and what you've observed in them, I'm guessing, is that these are not terribly happy people.

Oh, no, they're not.

Oh, well, I think that's a part of the story that we don't need the details on, but is an important element because to look at them and feel sorry or to feel like what's missing for them is purpose and that they're kind of rigid and stuck in their ways and don't pivot. Well, what's. If they're happy, if they're content, you know, if they're. If that's where they're at, then maybe, you know, people would go, and I would say, well, you know, don't mess. Don't mess with what's working, but if it's not working. And maybe that's what you're saying is that they're not happy and not fulfilled and it's not working, but yet still stuck and rigid in their. In their ways. That. That's the challenge. That's the issue.

Exactly. But There are only two guys. You know, they keep doing studies. 85, 90% of the American workforce hate what they do for a living.

Yes. 53% of that workforce are actively looking for a new job. That's the recent Harris polls. Absolutely. There's a lot of unhappiness. I mean, this is our purpose. So we talk about in the remaining couple of minutes here why we do this show and what our trainings and curriculum is really about is to help, to meet people, hopefully people that are on the path and help them to get more momentum on the path. So the inspiration, the information, the ahas that they get out of these kinds of things is really important. And then occasionally we feel like we're meeting a person on that road who might resemble one of those friends that you're talking about, somebody that is stuck or is stagnant and wants, and isn't looking to stay stagnant, but wants to do something to catalyze, create some catalyst for change for themselves, but is also fearful is also not knowing what to do or who to trust or what, what their quote unquote purpose is. And until they know what their purpose is, then they're stuck in their job or they're stuck in their life and that becomes a vicious cycle. And.

Fear not knowing, it's something that we all have, every one of us. Even somebody who's self actualized, like you, there's got to be times where you go, what the hell am I doing now?

I'm shaking my head. Just so we're clear, folks maybe don't see this.

Right.

But yeah, thank you for the compliment. No, I'm not self actualized, but working on it. And that's, and that's the point because.

That'S it and that's what we've got.

To be doing, as you said earlier. So let me ask you one quick question because we are running short of time. Is there something, when we talk about some of the themes here, which is the openness, you're open to change, you're open to that fresh breath, to that pivot, the next pivot, even if you don't know whether it will happen or how it'll happen or all those things, but you're still, you're open. What do you do on a conscious level? I'll call it a ritual, you might call it a habit, but something that you do daily even to keep you in that forward thinking space, that momentum, in that open sort of mindset. What do you do? If there's anything.

I cry a lot.

I like to cry too, by the way. I don't know if you're kidding or not, but crying is very therapeutic.

I'm kidding because I'm stalling. I'm trying to figure out. I don't have rituals or daily habits other than hygiene and which is probably wrong.

Well, on behalf of your wife and all of your friends and close co workers, I say thank you for that.

Yes, I do do that. I'm really, I'm searching too. I talk to people. And I'll tell you, when I was a young broadcaster in my early 20s, I was the youngest talk show host in LA and I met a psychic and she said, you know, you're moving very quickly to a bigger radio station. As I just think about this. I did, but not in the position that I wanted to. I became a producer at a major station in LA from a smaller station. I did both jobs and she said, you're going to be doing tv. That took a couple of years. I've always wanted to host and to talk. I don't know why and I don't say always. After I got to college because trigonometry and I couldn't tell a pancreas from a kidney in biology lab. So the idea of being a doctor just, I realized it wasn't going to happen. What I do is. And the word try should be stricken from the English language. It's a negative word. I work every day at projecting what I want. I do visualization. I'm seeing two heavy women fighting right now to win a prize which is a date with a very wealthy senior man. I mean those are the crazy things that I see in my head all the time. And so that would be the big thing, I think, visualizing where I'm going to be next.

So as far as ritual goes, you're, you're a visualizer. And I don't know where that, that image just came from that you described because that was out of. So I don't know what to do with that. But we don't have to do anything with it because as you said, things, thoughts come up and, and I personally do believe in visualizations as well in the sense that they're a form of intention, intentionality and I do believe that our intentions become our life because they are self fulfilling prophecies. So I really, I want to say thank you Mark for being on the show today. I really, I've enjoyed the conversation. I know our folks, our community are now as they're listening to this, enjoying it as well. And of course in our show notes we've got information about late night health because I'd love for folks to tune in and check out that broadcast. You've 300 plus episodes and going back.

A couple of weeks. Let me know when. Would love it.

Would love it. I love the conversation we had on the show just a few weeks back. I want to remind our listeners and those of you that are watching on YouTube as well that if you've not yet subscribed to the Conscious Pivot podcast, please go ahead and do that. Feel free to do that. Feel free as well on itunes to leave a review. We love the reviews. The five star reviews are wonderful. But any and all feedback is incredibly welcome to us and you can get to that obviously on itunes. You can go to AdamMarkel.com to access the podcast episodes. I know a lot of folks like to binge, listen and watch, etc. And please feel free to subscribe there. Those of you that have not yet joined our Facebook community, it is just such an incredible open space for ideas, for collaboration, for incubation of these next pivots. And that community is called StartMyPivot. StartMyPivot Facebook community. So you can get there on Facebook or you can just go to pivotfb.com we shorten the URL, make it really easy. Pivotfb.com or you can go to startmypivot.com and why you might want to visit that site as well is that we've got a Kickstart guide. It's absolutely free. Six questions to help Kickstart your your pivot. Whether it's this year, next year, whenever it is that the next pivot is coming, we know one thing, there's a next pivot that is a guarantee. I'm going to say that with certainty. And I don't, I don't say a lot of things with that kind of certainty. So I know that like I know my own name. And we've got to be, we want to be prepared to maximize those income. Incredible opportunity. So with that, I want to say once again, thank you so much everybody for tuning in, for listening in. It is a joy, it is a pleasure. It's really an honor for me personally to be able to spend my time doing this and I welcome all your feedback and I love the fact that you are a part of this community. And once again, as a reminder, tomorrow, let's all wake up. I get to do this because I get the microphone, so I get to hold up the magic wand and wave this wand so that everybody that is listening now, watching this, we all get to wake up tomorrow. And that's the first step. There's three steps in a ritual that I've been able to share with folks for a number of years now. And the first step is to wake up. And we wake up ourselves consciously. We wake up ourselves, physically, spiritually, even. This idea that we just become a little more awake and a little more alive and a little more evolved to tomorrow than today. And we're doing well to do that. And to be in gratitude for that waking breath is the second step. There's never a moment in the day when gratitude isn't going to make that moment better. That's a fact. So we wake up, we're in gratitude. And lastly, if you're interested, if you're willing, tomorrow and for a period of days after that, 21 at a minimum, if that's okay with you. Say these words out loud. Say I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. I wish you all a beautiful, beautiful day and we'll see you again soon. So for now I'll say ciao. Bye bye.

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@admarkelle.com podcasts for more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love. Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.