The Roadmap To Your Ideal Life with Mary Shores

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, everybody.

Welcome back another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markell and I am excited in this moment. I've got an incredible guest on the show today and I'll introduce her in just a couple of seconds. But I just feel really blessed in this moment for not any particular reason, just to be alive and breathing in this moment and reminding myself that that's enough. Always have so many things to be grateful for, but I don't need to enumerate them in this moment. I feel that it's definitely something that deserves pointing out and reminding. Reminder for me and for maybe some of you that gratitude doesn't necessarily have to be attached to. Yeah, I just nailed 100k contract today. Or you know, I got that thing that I was looking for. You know, somebody acknowledged me or the sun is shining. I mean lots of those things too. And that's incredible as a reason to be happy. But gratitude I think is a little bit different. And appreciation, while I won't get into the distinction there, I think what's cool about the word appreciate, especially when we talk about things that are financially related or assets, things that appreciate increase in value. I think that our lives definitely appreciate in value when we are conscious of how appreciative we are of just being alive. So hopefully I closed that loop and the guest that I have today is really just an incredible lady who has an incredible life experience. Very interesting road as we all have an interesting road. You'll get to hear from her a little bit more about what that is. Her name is Mary Shores and Mary's roller coaster life, that's a clue into what we're talking about. Her roller coaster life began with being abandoned in a young age and tragically losing her first child. But Mary was able to overcome life's hurdles and turn tragedy to triumph by founding her now eight figure business empire at age 24. That is shocking, by the way, but very cool. Mary is an expert in personal development, but is not a life coach. She is a businesswoman who discovered a roadmap for how to get in Control of your life. Mary blends personal experience with her extensive knowledge of neuroscience and human behavior to guide businesses and individuals to defeat the freakout and create their ideal life. I love that. Defeat the freak out. Mary, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

It's my pleasure. Adam, so nice to meet you.

Oh, yeah, likewise. That's a great bio. What is not written in this bio that you would love for people to know about you?

You know, bios are a tricky thing, aren't they? You know, I guess that I think I probably embody just complete, unconventional, delusional ambition. I used to get a little bit called out for saying delusional ambition, but sometimes I think you've got to be a little bit delusional to follow your ambitions.

Interesting. Yeah. So I'm curious, what does it look like for you to be delusionally ambitious, like on a daily basis maybe?

That's a good question. You know, I think sometimes it's, it's playing full out, you know, and then when in my younger days I might have said something like my life looked like one of those old do the do commercials, you know, when they would be like skydiving or jumping off a cliff. So I definitely had that adventurous side. But you know, now I'm in my 40s and I know that your show is all about pivots and sometimes I feel like I'm actually going through puberty again, only it's like not necessarily the same kind of result. Just figuring out what my way is now that I'm in my mid-40s. Like who is this person, who is my identity? Do I have to still hold on to that old identity, that person that I was or what's the new delusional ambition look like? I'm still figuring it out.

Yeah, beautiful without acne, I hope.

Well, sometimes there's that too, believe it or not. You know, one of the things that I have really come to realize because I'm approaching my birthday here, in about three weeks I'll be 45. And I think about, I see so many people posting online and I'm like, oh, I'm living my dream life. And you know, you can live your dream life too, you know, here by my program. And I think some you of myself, you know, I'm not going to claim that I'm living my dream life, but what I can claim is that absolutely as I sit Here in this 44 year old version of myself, that life is absolutely more beautiful than it was before. And the reason it's more beautiful is because I have the wisdom, the strength, the resilience, you know, the intuitive guidance, the things I have, the tools that help me to show up and play full out. So that looks different now than it used to, but I think it's a great thing to share on a show about making pivots.

Yeah, I love that. I absolutely love that answer, Mary. Adore it. In fact, in the book Pivot, we talk about resilience and how important. In fact, this is my favorite topic these days to speak about and where I am privileged to speak for a living and get paid to keynote and stuff like that in front of corporate groups. Often what I'm talking about is resilience and how in many ways. And I'll just ask you, before we get into my take on it, what's your vision of what resilience looks like? How would you define resilience?

I'm still actually defining it and I'm fascinated that you speak on it. So I hope I'm gonna have to look that up because I want to, I want to listen. You know, I didn't even understand or know that I was in. In resilience mode or that I had earned resilience throughout my life until a woman who was filming a documentary project, it was sort of. It's sort of a documentary series, and she chose 50 people from around the world, and she specifically chose them for their resilience, for that bounce back factor, for their ability to not only recover from some sort of tragedy, but actually thrive. The thing about trauma, the thing that maybe is even a little bit misunderstood, is that trauma is not about the thing that happened. Trauma is about how does it manifest, how does it show up every day in your reality. And so I think that a little bit about resilience is this bounce back factor. How are we able to process through, through the things that happen in our life, especially when we're living in a culture that is very positive psychology focused and that doesn't always allow us room to process our emotions when shit hits the fan. And let's just face it, that happens in life. And so definitely she did this study where she took these 50 people and she did a grounded research study, which is the way Brene Brown does it. Very long interview styles, Brown, broken down by psychologists where they say, okay, here is the pattern. And I love that you started your show off with gratitude because in all of the 50 people, guess what it was gratitude. Like that inner sense of gratitude. Because when you can take the time to be grateful, and like you said, grateful for the big wins the $100,000 contracts, but grateful for the moments. Like for me sitting on my back porch in the morning, just drinking coffee in the fresh air, that's something I'm so grateful for. It's so peaceful. But there's a specific neurological effect that happens in the people who have a daily gratitude practice. And that's why it's so powerful. You know, I feel like I grew up. I grew up in the Midwest, and there's a tendency in the Midwest for. To, you know, religion sometimes rules the day. And I grew up going to a private Lutheran school. And I was definitely remember this feeling like I owed this debt of gratitude to a deity in the sky. But now, see, I understand it much deeper than that. Because the reason that every foundation of spiritual, you know, spiritual practice or religious practice is gratitude is because it's just so healthy for our brain and our body and our nervous system, and it changes our lens of perception to the world.

That's so interesting. I didn't plan the conversation going here, but let's follow it for just a second. See. See where it takes us back in the day that we didn't live in, which is, unless maybe we have past lives, which I'm totally open to that concept as well, but not to digress into there. Back when, let's say, gratitude became a part of every major religion and every spiritual practice from the start of whenever that was, they weren't talking about neuroscience. They weren't talking in the terms that you were speaking of just a moment ago. And that is pretty. Well, I think a lot of attention is going in that direction right now. Do you think they knew it intuitively and that's why they knew that it was good for the brain to use, I think, the term that you said just a few moments ago. Or was there something else that's attached to gratitude? That. That is not necessarily a. An. An outcome for happiness, but something else. And that's a. It's. I'm not. I'm not framing that question as clearly as I'd like.

I'm feeling you. I mean, where you're going. Yeah. You know, when there was two things I wanted to be growing up, one was an archaeologist. Like, picture it, the female Indiana Jones.

Totally. I can so. I so see that.

And the other thing I wanted to be was a businesswoman. And so businesswoman won out. But my passion lies in understanding ancient culture and ancient civilization. And I'm certainly not an expert, but you know, what I think I have learned is that we don't really know what they knew. And I've heard talks given by, say, Paramahansa Yogananda 100 years ago where he's talking about the grooves in our brain. And that sounds like neurology to me. And so, you know, I think that sometimes science and spirituality are actually talking about exactly the same thing, but they're talking about it using two different languages, which makes it difficult because we're in this language of now, today. And if you and I don't, I mean, I have two teenage boys. And I will tell you that just from my generation to that generation, I don't know what they're talking about half the time, right. Because they use a different vernacular. And I'm sure my parents didn't know what I'm talking about. And you know, you go thousands of generations like that, it's difficult for us to know sometimes exactly what they knew. But they were onto something, right? And that's not changed. And so when you listen, when you take the time to learn some of the concepts for those more past civilizations, you'll see a tremendous intelligence and wisdom, you know, if you can get past that language barrier. And I talk about that quite a bit in conscious communications because I like that book to be at that bridge between where science and spirituality crossroads. And it's like, look, we're talking about the same thing here.

Yeah, this language is so important, the words we use, as you said, the vernacular is so important. And sometimes it requires that we have a guide, an interpreter of sorts to look at how what language was being used for and what the end game for the language was at a different time. So I love Emmet Fox as a interpreter, sort of a spiritual guide for the Bible. And yes, there's some religion in it, there's some references to religious leaders and things of that sort. But for the most part, I think the Bible has a great, this great story there. And these are great parables for life as much today as when those texts were written. But the language itself is not familiar. It's not even the words are being used differently. Like the word righteousness has been used in a variety of different ways. And often, you know, when you hear somebody calling somebody self righteous today, it's like somebody that is arrogant or somebody that thinks that their shit doesn't stink or something. But the word righteousness itself, at least according to some of the interpretations that I am in favor of, are looking at that word as a right, a word that means right thinking. And when I read that, you know that Emmett Fox said righteousness is right thinking. I thought, geez, that makes a lot of sense because. And you know, there's again, stuff in the Bible that talks about don't, don't judge, judge only judge righteousness, judge right thinking in some ways. And I think that makes sense. If you're going to judge anything, judge your own right thinking. And what a great thing to aspire to that we are more and more thinking rightly. And that's its own path by itself. So your path has been interesting. I mean, obviously, you know, in the intro you use the word roller coaster. So anytime we can get somebody on the show that's got a roller coaster life, it's perfect for the people in our community have been pivoting a long way. And I think we're all pivoting whether we know it or not. Change is the. Is the great constant. You know, that's kind of an oxymoron, but. Or a contradiction that the only constant in the universe is change. Things are always in flux, and yet change scares the crap out of people. And oftentimes people are resisting or moving toward or in a state of sort of ignoring change or resisting it versus embracing. In fact, we have a book that we're working on that'll be out next year that's all about that topic of how it is that we embrace change as a part of how we are resilient, creating resilience. And I want to definitely close that loop and come back to resilience. But my question for you is really, what's been that roller coaster life looking like for you?

Well, there's, you know, roller coasters are up and down and they're fast moving and there's that slow, scary climb when you know you're going to crash and burn on the other side.

You're about to lose your stomach, right?

Perfectly said.

Click, click.

So, you know, I think from. I grew up in somewhat of an unstable home, but from my. On my mother's side, but she actually ended up marrying a very stable guy. So during my mostly formative years between like 7 and 16, like, things were okay, all right, but my mom divorced him immediately, got remarried and ran off with that guy, and she actually left me in the house to live alone. But within a few months said, you know, I'm going to sell the house, so you've got to move out. So here I was 16 and I was literally out of my own, no place to go, no money, no guidance, and really very scared, like, not even sure what I was saying scared of. So I ended up staying with a friend. Finished, Finished school. But short, became like a teen mom, right. Shortly after high school was over with. And my daughter, her name was Haley, she was born. There was an issue during labor. She had five minutes lack of oxygen to the brain. And I'm sorry, because this is a little bit hard to hear and sometimes a little bit hard to talk about, but. So she had severe profound brain damage. Now what this looks like is that she was blind, she was deaf, she was unable to suck a bottle because she didn't have any, like, human instinctual reflexes. So she couldn't swallow, she couldn't suck. And she had to have a gastronomy tube surgically inserted into her stomach to be fed. And her medications, she, you know, had grand mal seizures. She was on life support at the beginning of her days. And I was just a juvenile myself and not understanding. I had no bandwidth, so to speak, to understand what was happening. And she lived for 18 months, and that time was spent living in and out of the children's hospital. So Riley Hospital in Indianapolis, you know, they're great people over there, but I had nothing. I mean, I was over there with my boyfriend at the time, her father, living, sleeping on the emergency room floor, along with other parents and families that were in the same situation as we were and seeing things that you can just literally never unsee. Okay. We're talking about children in burn units, cancer victims, just really devastating car accidents, Things that we don't want to. You know, we don't always want to know these things are going on, but they are. And so this had a tremendous impact on me, as you. As you might imagine. And I was only 19. And it's only now, like I said, this kind of puberty that I'm going through. It's actually only now that I look back on that time with this full compassion for that young girl that just showed up every day to do her best. The impact of that probably left me with some pretty significant PTSD. Now we're talking. This is 93. Okay? We didn't talk about PTSD in 93. So what do you do in those days? You pick yourself up, you move on. Right. You don't really deal with it. Your solution to dealing with it is like, pick your shit up, put your boots on, whatever those old sayings are. So, you know, I did. I actually. I hit rock bottom for a while after she passed away and regressed. I was 20 then, but probably, like, regressed a little bit. That's okay. It didn't. But, you know, I think like, I should have become a statistic, you know what I mean? I mean, here I had no education, I had no hope. And I got to this point where I'm looking around and at my peers, you know, like my friends that I went to school with and they're, they're beginning to graduate college right around this age. 21. 20, 21. And I felt like I would never be able to have the same lifestyle that they would have because I didn't think that I would be able to get the same kind of jobs. Right. I mean, I thought I would be like hourly wage. I didn't have a lot of hope in that area. And so a lot of times when people want to know my story about like, how did you start this business when you were only 24? It actually didn't come from this place of empowerment and resilience, but this is me growing that resilience muscle, you know, like dialing it back and looking back in that young woman's mind, it was more about, I can't compete in this world, so, so what is my best option? And to me that was like, I definitely believe that America is the land of the free. I believe that we are the land of the opportunity. And I saw an opportunity and I jumped at it. And so I started my first business at 24. Didn't really have any expectations or wasn't, wasn't thinking it was ever going to be an eight figure business. Are you kidding me? I probably didn't even, you know, I didn't think that way back then. But I just, you know, I started and every day I did what I was supposed to do on my desk and I stayed in my authenticity and in my integrity. And, you know, the story turned out okay in some aspects.

Well, that, that was more of a profound experience than you could have, you could have known at the time. I don't imagine that any, anyone at 19 would be prepared for that. I don't know that people at 59 would be pre for that, frankly. But definitely it's interesting you say that you're, you feel like you're in puberty again. I mean, I think we all are on some level, but we're just not aware of it. And, and there's something to the idea that that trauma, if you want to use that word, and I think that it qualifies to say that that's a trauma. We've all had lesser or greater traumas, traumas, but that that's not something you can process at the time. I mean, I don't know that anybody is able to process their trauma contemporaneously with it occurring. So the fact that maybe it's taken a lot of years and now you have that greater perspective on it and you're able to process through it gives you other options now, new awareness and other options. I'm curious, what. Do you have any clarity about what that looks like? And then of course, you know, we can dive into some of the things that you did between 24 now to create quite a bit of a. Not just a great business, but you also help a lot of people. So it's an interesting dichotomy of things that you are about because you are an experienced business owner, but you're also a thought leader and you write books and help people. So I'd love to know more about that. But before we go there, anything that that experience in processing it now is informing you about the future.

Hmm, Informing me about the future. Let me think on that for just a second. You know, as I was saying about trauma being what, how it shows up in our present day reality, it's also like, I really believe that our bodies are like libraries and they store everything that has ever happened to us. And if we don't process them out, the impact on our future, I think is going to be some sort of illness and disease. I was talking to a wellness expert earlier today and she said it so beautifully. She said, you know, a stressful environment for your body is the perfect environment for disease to thrive. And I was like, you know, that's so true. And so I know that I held that stress and that trauma in my body for a very long time. But, you know, I think that once you take that personal development box off the shelf, once you take that spirituality box off the shelf, it's like Pandora's box. You open it and you don't put it back. There's no going back. And you can't unknow what you now know. And so one, you know, one thing leads you to another. And I don't know that I even understood that I was affected by trauma in my life because, you know, I was this powerful dynamo. I mean, like, if you ask me, and I talk about this in conscious communications, like pick an archetype. Who's your superhero? I mean, I'm all about Scarlett o', Hara, right? Because I was this. I'm the cross between Jessica Rabbit and Scarlett o'. Hara. Now, why is that like Scarlett o', Hara? She's business brilliant, right? She's got this beautiful business Mind, she's a beautiful woman and she exudes this strength and this confidence and she's like a shark. You know, she could totally be on Shark Tank and rock that. But, you know, here's, here's the other thing about Scarlett is that she has this life of struggle, right? She's constantly got drama. I mean, no one really likes her. But I realized there's one day I looked up and I said, I looked at myself and I said, you know what? I don't want to be Scarlet anymore. I don't want that. I'm like, I want to be Dorothy. Because you know what? Dorothy had the power all along. And Dorothy had this unconditional love and support from those around her. And I'm like, that's what I want to step into. And so to make that pivot from giving up Scarlet and stepping into, stepping into Dorothy was I had to learn certain lessons. Like one of them was I had to learn how to receive. Because, you know, when you get into this resilience and in your strength, you don't necessarily always let other people do for you. And I had to learn that, like, I had to learn to receive. I had to learn that I don't have to be in control of every situation all the time, every single day and every moment. It's exhausting and it just causes more physical stress and damage to your body.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of people think they were born with an identity and they spend their lives trying to figure out what that is. And I think that's a riddle that doesn't get solved. And it's also frustrating and painful and it's perpetuated in ways through a lot of things, through quite a bit of personal development. I, I rather believe that our identities are changing and they're one thing when we're six year old, boy or girl, and there's something different when we're 16 and another thing yet entirely when we're 46 or whatever. And so to know where you are at any given stage and phase of your life is really part of the essential. I'm searching for the word I'm wanting here, but it's the art of living successfully is to be able to be present to that in the moment. What is my identity today? Where I am and to ask the other questions which aren't that easy to answer, even which is with the identity that I'm feeling, that this is where I'm at, is my job, is my businesses, are my relationships part of that. How do those things either contribute to the fuller expression of my true identity now, or are they in some way impeding that? Because I think a lot of people work a job or do a business or something, and it's mostly for the money, or it's mostly out of obligation or out of fear of what change would look like. And so they stay stuck because they're denying their identity in a lot of ways. So it's not. I don't think it's about going off and, you know, on some. Some mission to find your. Your. The identity you were born with, but really to discover more of who you are today and then look at. Where does that sit in the greater context of what you do for what you do. But I am also very curious about this, because it's perfect. We opened the loop on resilience early, and then you brought up this idea of stress. Stress is an interesting thing, because when we talk about stress in the context of a gym, let's say you're sitting down on the bench to do. Well, for me, it would be like, do a bench press or some other thing. That would be a stress on my body. It's through that stress that we're able to develop greater ability. Our muscles develop through stress. But what I think is the piece in the pie that's missing is that you can't continue to stress your body, your mind, your heart, your spirit without recovery time. Because without the recovery time, that stress ultimately just sort of depletes us. And so if I was to sit on any piece of equipment in the gym for hours and hours and hours on end without break or go back the next day and the next day and the next day, ultimately, everything breaks down. So even when it comes to trauma and processing through that stress, it's knowing that you've got to have time to recover, to build time to recover is how we become resilient. That's what we've discovered, is that we live in a culture that perpetuates the myth of exhaustion, or not even just the myth, but the idea that we're supposed to get exhausted and that our. You know, whether it's our employers or it's our clients or whatever it is, that the more exhausted we get, the more hard we work, the more we accomplish.

It's a badge of honor.

It is indeed. It's rewarded. They don't. They reward people for staying at the office late and that they don't reward you for taking your lunch outside to eat under a tree. It's completely different way of looking at things. And I think the challenge today, especially for operators of businesses and entrepreneurs or folks that are inside companies, is to look at the generations that are coming up in the next few years. The biggest group of people working in the workforce will be millennials. I think they're almost there at this point and then Gen Z will eclipse them before long. And these are folks that are much more interested in self care. They're definitely have seen sort of the error of their parents ways and have had more, more of a training of sorts that, that they are deserving and worthy and that they should love themselves and want the best for themselves. And that's just not how I was brought up. I mean, you and I are around the same age. I don't remember too many people training into me or programming into me. You're great. You don't necessarily have to get A's to prove yourself to be greater as a human being. You know, to make a million dollars, to have a title to, to be in a position of power or authority and to be respected. This is, this is how it is that, that you develop a great self image. And today I think kids are growing up feeling much more healthy about themselves. So when you brought up love, and love is, love is something that can either be conditional or unconditional. And when it's unconditional, it's, you know, there's, there's space there to accept mistakes, there's space there to expect that, you know, sometimes we take steps backwards, that bad things happen, that we lose people in our lives that we love, that all kinds of stuff that we can't explain happens. But in the context of loving yourself unconditionally, you can create space for that and that is a different paradigm entirely. So your resilience, I think in many ways is the result of the fact that you've taken good care of yourself over the years. Do you think that's accurate? Is that part of the equation for you think?

I think that in all honesty, I was definitely burning the candle at both ends. I mean, we talk about that culture, that climate that we grew up in and the attitude and like the commercial that popped into my head and I'm sure you'll remember it is the woman and they're singing the song like I can bring home the bacon. Da da da da da.

Cook it up, fry it up in a pan.

Right, right. I mean that's like, that's such the epitome of the 90s career woman. Right. And that's what I, that was what I was looking at. So you Know, I think I got it 50% right as far as taking care of myself, because I was really into the wellness, so I was into nutrition, into fitness, and I can tell you that. And I read articles about this, but this was years after I did it. I mean, I was avid into kickboxing for eight years. And I mean, not on any kind of professional level. I used to say that, well, if you put me in a back alley with my buddy and, you know, played a certain song that was choreographed a certain way, I could get all west side Story on your ass. But you know, that. That's about the extent of it, right? You know, Tai Bo. But it does. It, like, worked out this aggression. And I think that especially with recovering from my divorce, that my divorce was another major pivot in my life where I didn't think I was going to survive it. I mean, I was blindsided. I had no idea that my marriage was going to end. And so I really attribute physical fitness and especially group fitness as meeting so many of my needs. You know, so if we talk about this aspect of, like, wellness or a lot of times, I like to say is, you know, there's not a big difference between empowerment and disempowerment. It's just asking yourself the question, how well do you feel today from a scale of 1 to 20? And if you're in that upper 10 to 20, that's great. That's an empowered feeling. And everything you create from a feeling of empowerment is going to show up stronger, faster, better, longer lasting, and more importantly, have a greater impact in your life versus disempowerment is just a few points away when you're under that 10. But just understand that whatever you try to create from a disempowered state of being, it's going to be stressful, chaotic, uncertain, and you'll feel stuck. But the way that you switch from that disempowered feeling, because, like, I feel like we're in this empowerment phase, you know, here in our country, it's all about empowerment and movements, but we can't live like that all the time either. That's the same.

It's the same exhaustion model. Exactly. It's the Rocky Balboa thing, You know, just, he's. He's the great example of what. What endurance looks like. And he wins our hearts for it, but he also loses the fight. And he doesn't. He don't look too good in the end, you know, so we can't. We can't perpetuate that. All right? We can perpetuate that model. But ultimately that leads to sort of the hitting the wall piece. Right. So you were.

We want to be covered. Yeah. We want to be allowing ourselves, you know, that time for self care. And that's not a word. Again, you. And I mean self care selfish.

Yeah, exactly.

The reality is that self care doesn't have to be self indulgent. It just means taking space for yourself, giving yourself that recovery period. Because you know what, when you do that, what happens is you naturally rise up that frequency scale of emotions until you hit that 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and you're ready. That's when you're ready to make that comeback. I've made a lot of comebacks in my life, actually. I took a couple of years off of fitness for a while, and now I'm making my comeback. And you know what? Like, I'm sore every day in the gym. Coming home, I'm sore. My triceps, I just can't even lift my arm above my head right now. That's okay, because you know what? It feels good when you're on that comeback run.

But you're going to recover now. You're not going to go back in the gym this afternoon and press yourself that further. Because if you come back two days from now, when your muscles have recovered, that's when you're going to take a stride forward.

And I'm not the same age. I mean, I'm not 32.

Well, that's a good point. I mean, age has some bearing on what. What exhaustion or stress even looks like. I mean, look, here's the thing that triggered it for me. When you gave the quote from that lady about stress, I. To me, stress is not something that we look at. I mean, stress doesn't kill us. It's our belief that stress kills us. That kills us. And there's research that bears this out, that our thoughts about stress are a big part of how it is that stress impacts us. And when we do think that stress is the thing that could lead to disease, well, yeah, we become. There are things that are opportunistic in nature. And when we're depleted and our immune systems are depleted, then we're more of a sort of a host for that kind of opportunistic disease to set in. It really is important that we all get that message that we have to recharge. Have you ever had a car that you could run the tank on e a bit before you had to fill up?

No, but although I do try it more often than I'd like to Admit.

I had a magic car in college. It was a this 1983 red Honda Prelude. And I said it was a magic car because I could run this thing for days, weeks even on as it read E was. It was incredible. And I had no money in college, so it was perfect.

You know, I had a 83 blue Honda Civic, little two door.

Really? But yours didn't run on E, right?

It probably did.

Or maybe you didn't test it there.

I probably didn't think about, you know, those were the days where you'd get quarters from your friends for gas money.

Exactly.

You just kind of put gas in the tank whenever.

I pushed this thing to the limit until was one day I was headed to a family gathering. I had a suit on and all that kind of stuff. And I was on E. And I didn't. I just sort of ignored it. And so it ran on E until it stopped running on E. And then I'm on the side of the road in this car, have to walk a couple of miles, pay 75 bucks to fill up a red tank, walk all the way back and fill my car up. So I'm late to the family gathering, I'm all dirty. I'm out 75 bucks. And it's a lesson that I still talk about today because running ourselves that way, we run ourselves on E. Not thinking like we think we're superheroes on some level. And you're right, when we're 19, that looks one way. And when we're 39, it's sort of a different thing. But, you know, you can't run yourself on E over and over and over again and not ultimately, you know, end up on the side of the road. So right now you're taking good care of yourself. What age were you divorced? What was, what was the time frame when that was going on?

34.

34, yeah. So it's so interesting because you brought up at the beginning how when we have trauma in our lives, it's. It rears its head again, usually later. And it's an interesting thing. There's a book called the Presence Process, Michael Brown, and he actually says in this book that sort of unresolved childhood trauma shows up every seven years or thereabouts in different ways. Doesn't look the same, it's not the same parties or, you know, players, so to speak, but different things show up every seven years that sort of reflect back this unresolved issue or trauma. And then we get another opportunity to deal with it. So there's no time like the present. I Mean, that's what those pivots maybe are so great for, is that they point out the fact that there is this growth opportunity. So your business, you ended up getting into an interesting business, which was the debt collection space. Was that the business that you started when you were 24?

Sure was. I was the youngest person in the country to open a collection agency at 24 years old. And you know, right away, when I wanted to be unique in the collections business and I wanted to take a sales approach and you know, I thought I was brilliant with my little 24 year old self, that I'm going to sell people on this idea of paying their debt and how much their credit score would improve and, and how better they would feel if they paid this debt. And that's. That sales approach was an epic failure. And it was a failure because a couple of reasons. I mean, one, my competition was using fear and anxiety. And you know, we're wired for negativity bias. So those people were. Negativity bias is just simple. It means we have a stronger reaction to losing $20 than we do to finding $20. And so my other colleagues in the business were beating me out every time. But the second reason, and I think that the important reason that failed, is because sales did not address the shame and the unworthiness that people feel just by having a debt. And see, having a debt is a psychological burden and it's a burden that gets in between people. It literally builds a brick wall between people and living the life of their dreams. Because if someone has a debt, we know for sure they are less likely to apply for the jobs, they're less likely to apply for a mortgage. They are even less likely to date the same people because they're swirling in this chaos of unworthiness. And so I really, like, I had this huge aha moment in life when one day I looked at the phone and I literally said, I want the next person who calls to be happier at the end of the call than they were at the beginning. And that was like, talk about a pivot. That was the pivot that changed the entire trajectory of the rest of my entire life. And that was back in like 2004, 2005. And so I started to study and I put this goal of happiness as my North Star. And what happened was I was studying the power of words and how we are triggered. So when I, the first thing I did was I created this do not say listen. Now, this was a list of words that basically was banned from my entire organization. And it was no not can't, won't, however, and unfortunately, and the reason that I banned these words is because negative words plant a seed of a negative outcome. And when you're in a business situation or you know, when you're. The point is you want to do anything well in life and your business, the way that you do that is by creating deep connection and trust. That is how you get it done. And so, you know, when, when who you're interacting with are people that are in a debt situation, that doesn't really leave you a lot of room to build relationships. But see, I was able to do it. I had the best laboratory ever. Because what I found was that anytime you used a negative word with somebody who's already in a vulnerable position, position, it triggered their fight or flight. And so what I had in my hands was people who wanted to fight and argue instead of solve a problem. Because see, you can't both be in your fight or flight and in your strategic problem solving area of the brain at the same time. And so, you know, my system developed, I call it the communication code, where I created these three rules and these three steps and they're, they're super simple to use and I've been teaching and training on them for 15 years. And then it also became the foundation. Even though Conscious Communications is a personal development book and it's my story and, you know, it's my journey, it's a teaching memoir, but it's based on this foundation of the communication code.

Beautiful. Tell us a little bit more about the book. I mean, in the show notes, we'll have access to a lot more information about you and your company. And obviously people can get the book on Amazon. I'm assuming it's available there. When did the book come out?

It was in August 2017.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Yet if you could share a little bit more about it. And did you write the book as a result of what you had learned through the psychology of debt collection? And I want to come back to one other thing too, in a minute, which is you said something that people who are in debt or indebted are less likely to go for jobs, have a very different sort of outlook, and maybe even look, their self esteem is impacted by it. I want to track that to a statistic that I read recently, which is that 49% of the people that have outstanding student loans are in default on those loans. That's the country that we're living in right now. Not only is it, I think, obscene that the cost of college is six figures plus so sort of, you know, rudimentary college, four year education is 100k, but people are taking out, you know, young people are taking out student loans and half of them are defaulting on those loans or in currently in default on those loans. I'd love to get your, your thoughts on that. But first, back to the book. Give us a sense of that.

I'll tell you what, if you're open, we could have a whole show about the impact of debt because you have absolutely no idea how passionate I am about the topic. And I think it would be an important and an impactful conversation and I think it would be an interesting one.

Let's do this. Okay.

As far as the book, Conscious Communications really teaches ambitious people how to create that life that was more beautiful than before by harnessing the power of their words to change their mind, their choices and their life. And it's, it's all based on neuroscience because I'm a neuro nerd and I love neuroscience. I mean, I just love to trace everything right back to neuroscience. And even like my own story, my own inspiration to write this book was, and I know you write, so it's like this calling, you know, and in fact it was such a strong calling that I would go around and I would say to anyone who would listen to me, I want to write a book. But I'm not a writer. And the interesting thing about words is that words are a mirror to your subconscious mind. So when you hear me say these words, I want to write a book, it's like you can see it written on my soul, like this purpose that I have come into this life with this story and wanting to write this book. But I have a really big problem when the next words out of my mouth are, but I'm not a writer. Because see, those words are also revealing a subconscious belief system that somewhere, somehow I did not believe that I was capable of writing a book. You know, I might have had belief systems like I needed to have a PhD in English or I needed to have connections in the publishing industry and I had none. And you know, that's, that's such a great story for what the book is about. Because it's not about wanting to become a writer. It's about how often do we say, I want xyz, I want to start a business, I want to lose 20 pounds, I want to move across the country, I want to, you know, I want to, I want to meet a great partner, but I don't have. And then insert your but excuse.

Well, sometimes say to people you know, don't show me your buts, because the word but, the word but itself is a word of negation. So anything that comes before the word but is negated by it. So I love you, but I respect you, but. And it's interesting you brought this up and I'm really happy that our community gets to hear you share that because the word but itself can be used so much less frequently when you're aware of it and replace the word or have the option to replace the word with but with and.

Right.

I love you and I respect you and, and, and, and it's a great, it's a great thing to be aware of because we're constantly negating things. And you're right, our words are very much a mirror to our soul.

Well, the word but is on the do not say list. I mean, just so you know, on the do not say list, it's the equivalent of however. You know, it's the equivalent. It's the equivalent of unfortunately. And you know, I think in our culture we might have been taught that however and unfortunately are sympathetic words. And in certain situations they may be. But I have to tell you that in the majority of the time, there's no good news.

No, it means you're rejected. Not buying from you. You're right. Isn't happening. I mean, it's like you're an incredible candidate. However, we don't even need to read after that or listen after that.

No, because you don't. Because your brain shuts down. Actually going to listen. I designed the book that it's a lot of the life lessons that I have learned in a very simple step by step process that has a short coaching exercise at the end of every book. And it's just, it's really changing lives. And I mean, I get messages from people every single day. You know, I'll share one of the processes because it's short, it's sweet and simple, and I think everyone can understand it. You know, I feel like we're living in this time that we understand and we accept that infinite possibilities are really available to all of us. But the thing is, sometimes we think infinite possibilities means we're going to reach our highest potential. And that's not necessarily the case because infinite possibilities means anything at all is possible. And that means the bad stuff too. But see, we're the ones that get to control by our choices. The thing that's going to happen next in our life. I think it's the ultimate power of free will. And so I created this process. It's called cleanse or clog. And it's really based on my foundation of understanding the importance of connection. That everything we say, everything we do, every word that comes out of our mouth and every choice that we make is. And every action we take in those thin sliced moments of life is either creating a deeper connection to what we want or it's driving a disconnection. It's that simple. So in our life we can make cleansing, connected choices or we can make clogging, disconnected choices. And a great example is like, you know, I told you I'm getting back on my wellness track. So if I were to apply cleanse or clog to my health and fitness or my wellness, it's easy for me. I don't need to go on like keto or paleo. Those things are great. But it's a little too intense for me. I just need to use my own intuition. Look at a piece of food and say, if I put this in my body, will it cleanse me or clog me? And I know the answer. If I'm looking at an apple, I know it's going to cleanse me. I know it has those nutrients. If I'm looking at a Snickers bar, I know it's going to clog me. But how do we cleanse or clog our relationships? You know, do I really need to send this text message? Do I really need to be right in this moment? Can I get through this short term squirm and focus on my end goal, the end game? You know, how do we cleanse or clog our careers? It's simple stuff like do you show up on time, are you well presented, are you prepared? You know, that's cleanses. Do you collaborate well with others? Those are cleanses. How do you cleanse or clog your personal development? You know, are you scrolling hours a day through Facebook or are you feeding your mind? Give yourself beautiful mind food, you know, and it just works in every single area of life. And it's simple. And you can take a two second check in and just say, you know, will this cleanser clog?

I love it. I love simple. Simple is usable. Complicated is interesting. So we'll take it. We'll take usable any day. This has been a wonderful conversation and what I know in this moment is that it's part one and maybe it's part one of part three, I don't know. But at a minimum we've got a part two coming up because I definitely want to talk about and I don't believe in any accidents. So the fact that it came up that we're talking about the stress that debt puts on people, and in more ways than just one, debt is impacting not just individual lives, but the collective lives of our society. And at least here in North America, the statistics are pretty dire in a lot of ways in that regard. So that's a perfect part two for us. And I just feel very honored, very blessed that we got to spend this time together and that our community was able to be a part of it. So thank you.

Yes, my pleasure. Adam, thank you so much for the opportunity.

No, Mary, this has been a blast. I'll say this for everybody as we are wrapping things up, that your comments mean the world to us. So to leave a comment on itunes is terrific, and we appreciate that. We're actually going to have a sweepstakes pretty soon. We're going to announce what the actual prizes are for this. So we appreciate you leaving a comment there. Or you can go to AdamMarkel.com Prize podcast and leave a comment there, where we'll also reply directly to you and appreciate your feedback, of course. And the other place where you can get more information about our community, the StartMyPivot Facebook page. On Facebook, you can go to pivotfb.com It'll take you right to the front door, which is absolutely, again, a blessing for us to be able to curate that community and serve in the. In the best way that we can. There. I will say, as we began, with gratitude, it's a perfect place to end. I pray that we all get to wake up tomorrow as we got to wake up today, and that we're even a little more conscious tomorrow than we are at the present. There's no guarantee, of course, there's no guarantee we will wake up. In fact, when we wake up and realize we're waking, we're taking that first breath of the morning. There are people who are taking their last breath in that moment. There are babies being born, and life is continuing forward. It's something that we can all be grateful for. It's a special moment, a holy moment, even. And it's our choice then, as we realize that, that we can either love ourselves unconditionally or withhold love until a different day. Withhold it until we're perfect, until we feel we're perfect, until we got our finances right, until things are lined up, till the proverbial ducks have lined up and we can hold back that unconditional appreciation for ourselves if we choose to. Or as Mary pointed out, we can select our words very, very, very carefully. So tomorrow, my prayer is that you wake up, that you spend a few seconds, even in gratitude, as you put your feet on the floor, that you think and declare out loud these words, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. It's been a blessing and I look forward to us connecting again soon. Ciao for now, everybody. Mary, thank you again.

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