Unlocking Mental Fitness with Marc Champagne

Thanks for tuning in to True Grit and Grace. This episode is brought to you by the Pink Drink. If you're tired or sluggish, suffer from brain fog, inflammation, or even worse, pain from inflammation, you're not alone. And the good news is there is an answer. It's called the Pink Drink. Now, I started drinking this 2 years ago and it has been life-changing for me. In fact, after 2 months of drinking it, I could see my ankle bone for the first time in 12 years. After so many surgeries, I could not seem to get the inflammation down until now. I have more energy. My brain fog is cured, and it's given me the freedom to do more of the things that I love to do. And I want the same for you. This is simple and sustainable, y'all, and it tastes good, and it focuses on root healing. This isn't some Band-Aid cover-up. Focuses on great gut health, blood sugar balance, inflammation reduction. And it tastes so good. Even my husband drinks it. This isn't just for the ladies, fellas. You can drink it too. It's got real ingredients, no artificial sweeteners, no sugar, and it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg, y'all. It's affordable. So if you're ready to feel better, you want more energy, you want a cure for your brain fog, and you want to get that inflammation down, go to plexusworldwide.com. Again, that is plexusworldwide.com/amberlylago/home, and that link will also be in the show notes. And now on to the show. Thank you for tuning in to the True Grit and Grace podcast. I'm Amberly Lago, and I'll be sharing Inspirational stories of resilience and empowering ideas to elevate your business and your life, ignite your passion, and fuel your purpose. Hey, and welcome back to True Grit and Grace. I'm Amberly Lago, and I have one of my really good friends on the show today. I've been so looking forward to sharing him, his story, his wisdom with you. He's an author. He's a speaker. He's a mental health strategist. In fact, he's a bestselling author of Personal Socrates. In fact, I love his book so much that I bought it for every single person in my mastermind. He works with teams on mental fitness, and also he works with brands on their mental fitness, and he knows how to ask the right questions to change your life. So I'm excited to dig in on how to change your life and improve your life in the best way today. So, Mark Champagne, welcome to True Grit and Grace. Thank you so much for being here.

Amberly, I am so pumped. I've been looking forward to this chat for a long time.

I love you.

Like, like you've said, and, you know, there are just people in this world that you, you hear their name, or they send you a message, or you think about them, and just like an immediate smile comes to my face. And you're, you're one of those people. So, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You just have this beautiful energy to you. So, I mean, I can't wait. I just, I feel honored to be on the other side of the mic talking to you.

Well, thank you so much. And seriously, I love your book so much. And before we started recording, I was like, Oh my gosh, I just had a new person join the mastermind and I sent her my copy of your book. And I was like, I went to my closet over here and I was like, let me go grab his book so I can show it off and for the YouTube. And I was like, oh no, my new book isn't here yet. And I sent his book. But you know what? That's like when you find a good book. And you want to share it with your friends or whatever, you know it's good. And so, yeah, your book is amazing, but I want to dig and I want to talk about your book, but I also want to start by asking you, how did you get into mental fitness? And it's so important, as important as physical fitness. And, and sometimes I think, I mean, people might not like this, but I think it might be even more important than physical fitness because I feel like it starts with your mental fitness. So I want to know, how did you get started? Because I know you were in the corporate world, you were in the pharmaceutical world. What was the shift that made you go from one extreme to another?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I mean, I know I'm biased, but I tend to agree with you that if we're going to prioritize one thing, it's the health and the performance of our mind. Because to your point, I mean, it's our mind that's telling us or instructing us to go to the gym or exercise or to make the healthy decision or not. So it's really hard for all of those things to cascade in a desired way if our minds are cluttered and stressed and, you know, just operating from a survival mode versus a thriving state. Right. So I agree. And what's interesting though about at least my mental fitness journey, like I never, first of all, I didn't even know that this, that that language is something that kind of came up out of necessity when I really got into this space because no one really understood what I was talking about or they had all these like preconceived notions around because journaling is a big base of a lot of the work that I do. And they're like, oh, so you're talking about the, you know, the young kid at school that's journaling about the crush or something and their And like, not, not really. I'm talking about like really exceptional humans that are asking powerful questions and that can change everything. So the, the language of mental fitness, you know, started to become very apparent that, you know, it was at least more accessible. And I kind of just fell— Amberly, I fell into this a little bit by accident. I mean, I was in the corporate space, as you mentioned, for about a decade. I came straight outta university into a sales function or sales role in the pharmaceutical world. And I remember at that time they used to hire people in like big groups or like batches essentially.

Really?

And then, yeah, then the whole group, and it wasn't just that industry. I mean, there was others as well. It's like you hired, it's like you had, it was a hiring spree essentially. And you know, you'd have this group of people and, and in my case, I was and continued to, to live in Canada and we were all flown out to Montreal for this 3 weeks of training, which that I feel like doesn't happen anymore. And I remember thinking, because I was like, well, we're— and this is a sales role. I'm like, we're all being trained up essentially in the same way, you know, depending on what kind of degree you're coming outta university with, either you're being trained up on the business and sales, or you're being trained up on the science for the medications. And I just remember thinking like, how possibly am I gonna stand out of this group being in the sales function?

Mm-hmm.

If we're all doing the same thing.

Really? So that popped into your head. You're like, well, we're all getting trained the same. How am I going to be different?

Exactly. And I don't know where that came from, but I'm forever grateful for that moment because what happened next was that at least the decision that I made was like, I'm going to get up maybe 10 or 15 minutes earlier in the morning and just start consuming Positive content.

And at that time, I mean, you know, how old were you at this time?

I would have been in my early 20s.

Wow.

Early to mid-20s, maybe mid-20s.

That's amazing that you knew to do something positive and wake up early while a lot of people were probably out drinking and partying at that age. But also, I want to highlight that, Mark, you seem to always set yourself a apart from everything that you do, from the way you interact with people, from the way that you show up, from the way that you show up with your fancy glasses and your hair. So if y'all are listening to this on Apple or Spotify, you'll have to check out the YouTube video and check out his fancy glasses. But yeah, it seems that you had that in you to set yourself apart. And as to be someone different than just any other person out there. But in your 20s, to go, I'm going to wake up earlier, I'm going to learn things. Was it self-development that you were diving into?

Yeah. I mean, at that time, I was reading magazines, like, online for the most part, but, like, Success Magazine, or I'd be pulling up you know, blog articles from Tony Robbins or Robin Sharma and so forth, going back in those days to be the person that really started my own journaling practice. Because that's what came next after it. And it didn't take very long because probably within weeks it was a matter of understanding, seeing that, okay, well, it doesn't matter who I'm studying or learning from. 100% of these people are taking time to still their mind, And think and ask good questions. So what I started doing as I was reading, I'd write down those questions and I'd either journal on them or with them in the moment, or I would write it down for the next morning. It was almost like a motivator because then I would wake up and I knew I had this like really powerful question to reflect on. And I knew how I'd feel after starting my day from that mindset.

Okay. I want you to walk me through that really quick because I'm saying this because selfishly I need it. I have been waking up thinking about the wrong things lately, like my to-do list instead of something I'm excited about. So walk us through how you can wake up in the morning and be completely motivated to start your day versus like overwhelmed starting your day.

If we draw a parallel to nutrition, it's the same concept. If you wake up and jam a donut in your mouth or something unhealthy, you're going to feel the effects of that. So it's the same thing when you wake up, if you could fuel your mind with good quality nutrition and we're all different, but for the most part, what I've noticed, and I still do this to this day, I have a cycle of books that lean up. Usually there's one. And right now it's some of Robert Greene's work. And before that it was Ryan Holiday and there was Daily Stoic, and it's just leaning up against my coffee machine. So as I'm taking the first big glass of water, and then as my coffee's brewing, I'm reading one passage from one of these books that could be spiritual. It could be faith. It could be like whatever it is, just something that, you know, when you will read that, it'll either shift your perspective, inspire you, or motivate you, or just like start your day in a motivated state. Essentially, that's what I was doing. And I continued to do. And I think we all need that because like, it's, it's kind of the norm to wake up in a way feeling a bit anxious because unfortunately we live in a society that if we're on default mode, we're just going to be driven into survival mode. Throw on the news. It's all negative. You know, as soon as you step outside of your house or start consuming content, when you're not conscious about it, It typically puts us in a survival mode. We feel fearful or anxious, or we start to loop it with our thoughts. So I just think we owe it to ourselves to take a few minutes. And that's what I mean. It's only a few minutes to bring in some content that is on our terms and that we know will put us in a happy state. And then from there, you can stack on your practices. And that's where, for me, the journaling was helpful based on whatever was happening in my life at that time. Because whether, like Amberly, whether you ask the questions or not, and here are 2 really good ones to start the day. Like, how am I feeling right now? One word. How's my mind feel? And where do I feel that emotion in my body? Just spending a few seconds on those prompts usually releases that feeling. If not, at least provide some clues as to, okay, well, if I'm feeling like this, why? And whether it's, whether it's wanted or unwanted, if you're feeling great, Well, what's fueling that so that I can tap into that when I know I'm going to get hit with a low? But if we don't ask those questions, whether we like it or not, those emotions are still there.

And yeah, can you say those questions again, just so people can really hear that and write that down? And if you're like listening to this and you're jogging or driving, don't worry, it'll be in the show notes. But say those couple of questions again.

What's one word to describe how I'm feeling right now? Make it super easy. And where am I feeling that in my body? Those are the questions to at least come out of our head into our body. And then the last question after, you know, to finish the loop is how do I want to show up today? One word. And just those 3 prompts, we're talking minutes, minutes that can dictate the next 23 hours of your day.

Oh, so good. And yeah, I notice for me when I wake up, like, I highly suggest that you don't grab your phone and look at your phone because when I wake up and I don't grab my phone. I have a journaling practice, a gratitude practice, and I'm not always perfect at it. But I also read out of a few of my favorite books, and I have them tucked in this little drawer and a reading nook where I go in the morning and I wake up early and nobody else is awake and I can go and read. And that's like my special time.

Yeah.

But there are times Where all of a sudden I'm making my coffee and I accidentally slip and I open up Instagram. And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to post something. I'm comparing myself. Like, it's crazy. Like my mind spirals into like a frenzy. And I actually just did some genetic testing and they're like, yep, you've got ADHD. You've got OCD. You've got blah, blah, blah, blah. Like. The list goes on. Okay. And I'm like, oh, well, it makes sense.

Yeah.

How I'm glad I've been able to function as how, how I have for this long. But for someone who's like, okay, I am serious. I want to change my life. I want to feel better. How do I start? Do they read your book? Is there an app? What can they do?

I just want to say me too. Like, sometimes I start my days off and just let's give ourselves some credit. There's whole teams that their full-time job is to make sure that we do pick up our phones the first time, you know, first thing when we wake up. So I mean, I think first step is just not, you know, judge ourselves too hard and just be kind and know that this stuff will happen.

But If we can set up—

yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel it too. And it's, it's again, there's just ways to come back on the, on track. And this is one of the ways is to set up our environments so that when we do wake up, if we have an environment set up that is conducive or supportive to what, like how we want to feel and how we want to start the day. So the phone is maybe in another room. I used to run a journaling app. So even on my side, I When we had the app, I'd have a huge caveat. I'm like, start the day with the app, but you first have to make sure that your phone is set up not to hijack you. And what that means, if you really want to use your phone, that means that there's, it's not set up with notifications on your lock screen and what you can do. And I still do this today, even though I journal in a notebook as well. My first screen on my iPhone at least is all apps that are there and that I can go into on my own terms. All apps around health, whether it's mental fitness or physical fitness or music, there's nothing there that has a number bubble or an email or anything like that.

That's so good.

It's like the retreat screen on your phone in a way. So if you start there, then you're not hijacked. But if you know, and let's just be honest with ourselves, if you know that right now you're not in a position To have that kind of willpower. It's like if you throw all this junk food in your kitchen and just leave it exposed and think, I'm going to master this, eventually it might get us, right? So just don't have that stuff in the house. Same thing. So pick your favorite book, pick a journal or your favorite pen or whatever. Just set it up so that you're excited to jump in and start the day like that. Right. And then that way it becomes easier and easier and you start to feel the benefits and then you'll start playing with things and you start realizing, okay, well maybe I'll include this aspect in this morning ritual essentially. And then it starts to evolve, which is beautiful because it's like, it's the feedback loop that just kind of keeps giving because the more you experiment and try these different practices, the more benefit that you tend to get, the more self-aware You become, and then you start just seeing things that have always been there, but they've been just masked with emotion or with mental clutter. And you start blowing all that stuff out and it's like a whole other world opens up.

Well, I love that first of all. And it feels good to have someone like you say, okay, just give yourself grace. Like you, we all go through that where we have times where we're like, oh, we grabbed the phone or whatever we do. It really helps. So thank you for saying that, that we're all human, right? We're all human.

Yeah.

And I'm just wondering, like, for someone who's like, well, I want to be mentally stronger. I want to have mental fitness. Where do I start? Like, for example, my dad is going through a lot of health challenges right now. And I feel like if he could mentally get stronger, if he could mentally be more fit, then it would help him through that. Do you think the best thing for him to do is to start with journaling or, or where's the best place for people to start with that?

When it comes to journaling, it is by far the practice I see show up over and over again, no matter who I'm studying or interviewing or for the book or whatever it is. So I'm a bit biased with that. That being said, I'd first start with this question. What are 3 to 5 practices, activities, or things that I know when I do put a smile on my face and make me feel good. And then make sure that you're prioritizing those practices or those activities on a regular basis, because then when we do those things, and for me, you know, they, they journaling happens to be one of them, physical exercise, breathwork, walks in nature. I remember when I was going through some of my hardest times, just when I was living in the city in Toronto at that point and just popping into photography galleries, quite passionate about photography. And I just know that that was a good mental break. They're different for all of us, but for the theme is the same. They pause for the most part any unwanted like looping thoughts and whatnot and put us in this state where we're, where we feel good and we feel motivated and inspired. And when we're in that state of mind, that's when we're like, okay, this is the plan forward. And with your dad, if there's a plan to work on his health or whatever it is, that's the time you want to be thinking about it. Not when you're feeling at your worst or feeling fearful or anxious, because we don't make our best decisions in that mental state. I mean, that's why I'm so passionate about this work, because this— I haven't said anything That is not accessible literally within minutes. It's like, we don't have to go on a 7-day silent retreat to tap into this stuff. I mean, if you want to go do that, that's great, but this is stuff that literally one question, especially with gratitude, right? Just thinking about, yeah, who can I celebrate in my life right now? What can I celebrate about my life? I mean, that just having one question can immediately shift your mind. I mean, I know this from your story, of course. I mean, Gratitude was huge, right? Like, to shift into this completely opposite state of mind, no matter what's happening in your life. It's powerful.

And that's one thing that I love that you do, is that you say that you're like one question away from changing your life personally or professionally. You're one question away. And that, to me, is how fast you can shift your perspective. And it's life-changing. And so that's why I love the work that you do with all the people that you've interviewed in your book. I want to know who's the most interesting person that you interviewed that is in your book?

I mean, the most interesting person in the book, and same with the question, comes down to the relevance in terms of like where I was at in my life when I was writing the book. And Chip Conley, who happens to be on the COVID of the book with the blurb, is the person when I was in what felt like a deep depression, provided me with that one question and paused that looping narrative, paused that path to deep depression and brought back hope and inspiration.

Really?

And got me onto this track. Yeah. And it was just, it was just this, it was, and this is what I mean by relevance, because if you asked me this question today, it serves as a good check-in, but it doesn't have the power that it did, you know, 5 years ago when things were really exploding. And he just said, 'cause I sent him an email, I said, listen, Chip, we, uh, and for the listeners, that very quickly, the context is that journaling app that I started. We, uh, we reached a lot of people, 86.9 million people with that app.

Yeah. I was going to ask you about your journaling app and how hard that must have been to press Delete.

Yes, delete.

And that must have been like to get over that, to go from corporate to start this app, to press delete. And we can get into that too. And I wasn't even quite sure if I should even bring that up. But no, tell me about Chip, your conversation with Chip.

Yeah, well, I'll provide a bit of flavor then for the delete because it leads well into Chip's prompt or how that came about. But in short, essentially we reached a lot of people, but the business model was not working.

A lot of people, millions, by the way. Millions of people.

Yes. Yes. So there was one thing that was working well, and that was the marketing and the collaboration plan and the people we had in the app and the prompts and the brands and whatnot was working really well. But we weren't technologists and we were doing everything possible to bring in teams to create the best app possible. Unfortunately, that volume of people that came in, you know, left just as quick because they were confused. Or this is like a typical tech story where, you know, it takes multiple rounds and iterations of the app to make sure it flows properly and so forth. So long story short, we ran out of time and money and also at that time, mental capacity. And I started to feel like a hypocrite being in this space, you know, trying to help people with their minds. And I felt just extreme stress. And at the time I had our first son, he was 2. I remember thinking like, can he feel the amount of stress that, you know, we're doing everything possible to shield him from, but there's no way that he's not connecting somehow to this energy. And, you know, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to bring that on to my family.

Yeah.

So I hit delete and the reason it was so hard, it wasn't just because it wasn't, it didn't feel like just deleting an app. It felt like deleting my identity for the last 3 years building it. And to your, you know, the point that you made that I left the corporate world, I thought of them right away. I thought of all the wrong questions. I was like, how could we fail at such a colossal level? What would my ex-colleagues think knowing that when I was leaving, because I was leaving on good terms, But I remember just the feeling of having someone across the desk from me congratulating me essentially for following, you know, an idea and so forth. But what I felt with people that I knew so well and I didn't know was it was like, I've got an idea too, but I'm just, you know, you're so courageous for leaving and trying this. And here I am now, you know, kind of like the tail between my legs in a way, kind of, I failed in a way.

Yeah.

That was really hard.

And that had to be so hard.

So hard. And we were living in Toronto at that point, which is in, you know, in Canada, at least the, probably the biggest and the most expensive city to be in. Everything was supposed to be temporary. We were in a, we had moved from Montreal to Toronto and it was a temporary place as we were building this. So we were in an area that, you know, didn't really feel like home and couldn't even afford it at this point. And I had no plan forward. Because I didn't want to go back to the industry I had come from because I, in this process, could 100% feel to my core that this is the work that I need to be doing. But now I just deleted the business essentially keeping me there. So this is where Chip comes in because I had interviewed him at that point for the app and the podcast, and I just explained the situation and just asked for some advice.

Wow.

And I'll never forget this email because it was maybe one line of text and one question. And the question just was, well, what do you want for your life?

Wow.

And I remember just kicking back my chair thinking, wow, that's a good question. And so well-timed, because if I can answer that, then I can ask another question, which is, well, if that's what I want, then Who do I need to speak to? And what will my days look like? And what's one step I can take today and then tomorrow? And that, those questions just started to build moments of hope and bring back a plan and inspiration. And it's not to say that all of the, you know, survival state kind of thoughts weren't coming back. They definitely were, but at least I could go back to, well, this is what I want. This is what I'm building towards. And then layer in, okay, now my mind is looping. feels like everything's out of control. Let's tap into some gratitude. I just deleted an app on a laptop that most people in the world don't have. That's something to celebrate. And I still have a tool that I can rebuild. So it's just, it's, you need those reminders though, right? Because we're just wired to be in that state of mind from like the prehistoric days to survive, essentially. So it's just, that's where the morning, for me, I remember I kept my gym membership, which I could no longer afford. But that was my full-time job to make sure that my mind and my body were as healthy as they could be to get clear enough to then, you know, take the actions and, you know, essentially create, you know, the path that I'm on right now.

Oh, I love that you just said that. Because, okay, this is kind of weird that I'm even saying this. I'm gonna say—

I can't wait.

Well, I always think like, because I've been in survival mode a lot, like I was a single mom for a long time, I've I've lost everything and had to rebuild. And I've often thought to myself, like, well, what would I do? Like, if I lost it all and I had to rebuild from scratch and I was homeless and I'm like, the first thing I would do is I'd keep my gym membership.

Yeah.

First thing. Gym membership. First thing. My recovery meetings. Like, yeah, first thing. But I'm like, yeah, gym membership. I could work out. I could take a shower. It's like we need that foundation in order to build.

Of course.

We need our mental fitness as well as our spiritual fitness as well as our physical fitness. It all goes hand in hand in order to rebuild. And you have completely rebuilt something in such an incredible way. Now you have this top podcast that I'm so honored I got to be on your podcast. Thank you.

Awesome.

By the way, it's called the Behind the Human Podcast. Y'all have to go check it out, subscribe to his podcast. And now you're able to— the connections that you have and the questions that you get to ask so many of the most amazing thought leaders that have been in your book is absolutely amazing to me. How do you think that people can get to make their habits work for them?

I mean, first step one is to just get crystal clear on, and these are 2 questions that I think everyone should spend some time with. And because this then allows you to go back and make sure that your habits are linked up and supporting the thing that you're doing. So the first one is just, again, all this without judgment and without any feelings of like punishing ourselves or whatever, just like straight facts and how you feel right now. Don't overthink it. But the first question is, who am I right now in terms of, you know, the type of person that I am, like the characteristics and so forth. And who am I striving to become? And this is the same thing with business. It's, you know, where are we at right now with the brand and where do we want the brand to be? We ask those questions all the time, but we rarely ask those questions for ourselves in the biggest business and biggest game of all life, right? So who am I? Who am I striving to become? Because then when we get really clear there, then it just becomes, okay, well, do my habits and systems support the person I'm trying to become, or are they pushing me farther away? And that's where you start to audit your day. That's so good. But again, coming back to what we were talking about with your dad, like just asking the question, like these 3 to 5 things are things that put my mind in a good state. And are they practices and activities that will help me get to where I'm trying to get to right now? These are fun journaling exercises because it's like you can design the life of your dreams, right? There's no judgment here. How do you want to feel every day when you wake up? And it's not to say that every day is rainbows and butterflies. But I think we deserve to have more of those days than not. And I really think it's the reverse right now.

Well, yeah, you said something very powerful. You can design the life of your dreams. You can do that. You're not a product of your circumstances. You get to choose how you're going to show up, how you're going to think about your circumstances, and what you're going to do about it. So I think that is so powerful. I'm so excited for you to come speak to my mastermind group. I've been so excited for you to come on the show. I know that you work with a lot of teams. You do speaking internationally and you coach so many people and you've got this top podcast, but how could somebody, is there any way anybody could work with you or do you have a mastermind or how's the best way that people can actually be connected with you?

Yeah, well, thank you. I mean, it's so kind of you to say that. Maybe I should think about creating some sort of mastermind, but right now I don't have that. You know, I do work one-to-one with people, so I'm a message away if people swing over to behindthehuman.com. That's where all my work is. But I find I've been doing a lot of work with teams lately around just how to be mentally fit. It's teams, but it's, it's very much individualized because when a mind stops And when you're not working on a team, the whole team feels that. And when the whole team feels that, the whole brand stops working as well.

Mm-hmm.

So, I think finally, which I'm happy about, is we're finally realizing this. And it's not just a performance thing or turnover thing. It's, I, we wanna feel good. And when we feel good, we think really well and we wanna show up. And if then we realize that, okay, I'm doing the right thing. And if I'm not, then I'll leave, which is good for everyone. 'Cause you're, you know, you're finding the right people. So my job, and this is why I continue the podcast, this is why I continue studying all these prompts, is to curate based on where that specific team's at and individuals where you're at, if it's one-to-one, to curate the best prompts that will resonate with you at the moment you are in your journey right now. Because like I shared on my side, prompts, it's, it's not that a specific question is higher quality than the other. It's to ask the right question at the right time with the right context that makes it powerful. And that's the part. And this is why I call myself a mental fitness strategist because it's a strategy for our mind and to bring in all the inputs and distill it into a very simple strategy for either the team or ourselves individually. And, and that just lights me up because it— I can't— so, you know, you just, you continue to learn, right? And continue to bring in new stories and perspectives and so forth.

I'm just thinking about like how life-changing it is for someone to hear the right question at the right time, like it was for you to get that email from your friend that completely changed your whole perspective on things. The journal prompts that you give your book, I feel like really gets people connected to having more self-awareness and having more like mental fitness, asking themselves the right questions. And so that's amazing to get people out of burnout, to get people more connected with what their true truly what their passion is. Are there some things that you would suggest for people to do? Like any last words that you're like, okay, if somebody's feeling burnout or they're tired or they're frustrated or they're just like, oh my gosh, I don't know how I'm going to keep moving forward. What do I do? Is there anything you could suggest for them?

First, you know, in any of those situations, just take a pause, take a few long, deep breaths. Immediately you feel the difference of that. And then essentially deploy one of those activities that, you know, will make you feel good. And you'll most likely at least pull yourself out of that, that, that survival state. But I'd love to leave everyone with a prompt that is so fun to answer. And especially like if you're in a state where it feels like things are out of control or you're questioning or you're not sure and there's a lot of uncertainty. Take the situation and bring it to your mind and then just answer this question. What if everything went right? And list out all of the possible scenarios in that situation that things go right. Who's involved? How are you feeling? What's happening? And again, it's not to say that everything will go right, but instead of starting from a place of lack or there's no way I can do this. They won't want to be involved. I don't have enough money to do this. You start from a place of possibility and no limits and no walls.

That shifts your perspective right away.

Right away. Imagine another language that works well with these kinds of problems. Imagine if, right? And you're, you're, or, and I'm lifting this from, from people that I've studied and Naveen Jain is one of them in the book, a billionaire entrepreneur that when he, you know, he thinks of these, these billion-dollar companies, they're from an imagine if. Imagine if— and his— this is a, a real question he left me— imagine if chronic disease was a choice. And that just shifts the whole situation. Well, if it's a choice, then how do we get to a point where it's a choice? And what has to change in the system? And so forth. And it's just subtle shifts. Wow.

But what you just said, Is powerful. Okay, right there. Imagine if chronic disease was a choice because you know what it does? It puts people in the driver's seat of their life, and it enables them to make choices to do whatever's best for them instead of oh, I'm the victim that puts it makes them the victor because they can be like oh. Well, I can change this. I can do these things. That's powerful.

Same with the prompt of, you know, who am I striving to become? I mean, you're putting yourself in the driver's seat to design that life. And the alternative is you're letting others design it for you because something will happen. And unfortunately, if we don't do— we don't think of these things, Then we're just on the default track. And the default track, for the most part, doesn't lead us to those greatest desires and dreams that we have for ourselves. In any case, the only time I want to be on autopilot is if the pilot is taking a bit of a break, you know, flying me from Montreal to Houston or something, then let's make sure the systems are working. Other than that, I don't want it on autopilot when he's landing or she's landing. I want them thinking. And I think we should think too, we deserve it.

Oh, so powerful. Oh my gosh. Well, I love your— well, first of all, your book is so beautifully done. And oh, it is. It's— I like this. I say a book, but it's, it's like a masterpiece, the way it's in a cover. And it's a hardcover. And I don't know, It's beautiful.

Well, there were intentions behind that in the sense that, like, we talked about this a bit, that, you know, for a morning to start your morning, I always have a book and I open it up and that kind of kickstarts everything. And that's why for anyone that has the book, or if they pick it up, the chapters are short. Yeah, it's special. But it— there's like subtle details that, you know, I give credit to the designers over at the publishing company, but the book lays flat, it stays open. So if you're reading in the morning and you are Brewing your cup of coffee, your tea's steeping, the pages aren't flipping around all over the place. They're short chapters so that, you know, and I did the audiobooks. I know they're only anywhere from 7 to 9 minutes. So if that's all you're doing in the morning, I mean, at least I know that there's questions and perspective shifts in each one of those chapters that will leave you in a thriving state. And then yeah, there's just little design, you know, rounded corners and pages left in the chapters that, you know, we just wanted to make it kind of full circle in what we're speaking about, but make it an inviting experience so that you want to jump into this.

Oh, well, it's amazing. You're amazing. I have just treasured your friendship. Whenever I get to talk with you, I'm excited. So thank you so much for taking the time. To share your wisdom on the show, and you know what? You guys check him out. You can find out all his details in the show notes. Mark Champagne, you are a dear friend of mine, and I appreciate you so much. If y'all want to take a screenshot wherever you're listening, Apple, Spotify, wherever, take a screenshot and tag us at Amberly Lago Motivation, and I believe it's. It's M Champagne. It was your Instagram.

Yeah. M Champagne is, is the personal account. And then Behind the Human is the podcast. Either, either or I will reshare everything and greatly appreciate that.

Yeah. I always like when I see people sharing that they listened, I'm like, I'm going to reshare that. So yeah. Thank you. And until next time, thank y'all for tuning in. We'll see you See you next week. See you next week.