Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Business

Many of us entrepreneurs know what it's like to build something with all of the passion and the ideas that we could possibly have, but we also know what it's like to experience burnout and the stress of that.

I know that I did, and I had to take some time out in India actually after building my first business in Singapore and kind of came off the rails a little bit there.

Well, if I'd only known my guest today, I could have had a path from really from trauma to triumph. My guest today is Mark John, who's joining us from Edinburgh in Scotland, and he's going to talk about a business that he's been building called the Native Wisdom Hub. We're going to talk about how we can experience trauma but move to triumph, and he's a living example that that's possible. Mark John, welcome. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. Beautiful introduction as well. Thank you very much for that. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Well, thank you. And I mean it heartfelt. You know, I've been down that path as so many of us have, where we have all the sense of adventure, curiosity, and energy.

And we maybe don't take a step back early enough.

But I was really delighted to find, you know, you and what you're doing, Mark John, because It's not enough just to meditate. It's not enough just to do exercise. There needs to be a broader plan, doesn't there? So let's hear from you about Native Wisdom and this path from trauma to triumph. It's not a quick fix solution. I know that, but you're going to tell us a little bit about your own story, then talk about how you've been helping entrepreneurs that are going through some challenges. And also at the end, you've got a giveaway for us. I encourage everyone to listen for that at the end. Mark John, Tell us about Native Wisdom Hub, what you do and how you help people.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much for that. And I think Native Wisdom Hub in and of itself as an organization, it is the product of my trauma to triumph journey. Right. So, and, you know, we didn't, like you said, it's not a quick fix. It's not a fast thing. You know, it's not an overnight thing, really. We built the brand of Native Wisdom Hubs from 2020, summer of 2020, and we didn't actually incorporate until September 2023. So it took us 3 years. We built the brand for 3 years before we actually incorporated as a company. And I think that was a product of doing things in the past, building companies in the past in ways that were really unsustainable and just going gung-ho, too quick, too big, too fast, too soon, too much. Yeah, too everything. And so that's what Native Wisdom Hub is a product of, is all the lessons that I learned in that. And one of the primary things that I learned in the middle of all of that, which I share with other people, and we help through Native Wisdom Hub, we help people to reconnect with this, which is making sure that you're working in alignment, especially as entrepreneurs. We're full of inspiration and drive and passion and all the things, all the good juice of life. And so many of us are doing it in ways that actually are not really truly aligned with what our heart wants. And so I think that's perhaps the biggest piece that we help people to do is really connect reconnect with their own hearts, really connect with their childhood dreams, connect with who they really are, answering all the most important questions in life. Who am I? Why am I here? Where have I come from? Where am I going? What are my gifts? Who am I here to serve? Yeah, and we do so by working together hand in hand with some of South America's indigenous populations, running psychedelic healing retreats in collaboration with them., and helping people to go through these, these journeys in contact with the world's living indigenous populations, tapping into their ancient millenary, uh, plant medicines.

Mark, Mark John, it's interesting that you're tapping into Latin America and to these psychedelic healings, as you call it. Tell us about why it's Latin America, why psychedelic healing, uh, and also You know, are you just putting people on drugs and hoping that they'll feel happy afterwards?

No, absolutely not. It goes way beyond that. Latin America, because I mean, from the age of 11, I grew up with two different families of South Americans. And by age 15, I was completely bilingual Spanish-English. By age 22, I qualified as an interpreter and translator, a language interpreter and translator. So I was completely bilingual from age 15. And I always say that language is the portal or the doorway to culture, and culture is the doorway to human hearts. And human hearts connecting with people's hearts is really— and building empathy with people, that's where it's at for me. And that's why I do everything that I do. That's why Native Wisdom Hub exists. And why psychedelic healing? Because As I was only, what, 19 years old, I was on a crazy 19 years old hitchhike my way through South America from Argentina through Chile and Bolivia into Peru. And the reason I was in the middle of that hitchhiking trip was because I'd gone through this really big awakening in Argentina where I just awakened to the absolute wonders of life and canceled my trip home, sold all my stuff on the streets, and took off on an adventure hitchhiking. And as I was doing that, I came face to face with the region's indigenous populations. Who just blew my mind. I mean, I became so enamored and fascinated by them and their way of being and their wisdom and the connection to themselves and the authenticity and the connection to the earth, the connection to each other, the way they worked in harmony, in community, in connection with the earth. And they were just— they had a very powerful impact on me. And a core part of that region's indigenous cultures is the use of psychedelics for for the purposes of continuity of these ways of being, of living in community, living in connection with the earth. And they are just, they're very well. They're not chasing well-being. They're happy being who they are, what they are. They're happy being. And this is where the whole thing, the seed was planted. And I began to participate in psychedelic healing ceremonies and events for myself. And through doing so, I mean, my life completely changed. I began to really get to know myself on a deep level. And yeah, so it's had a huge impact on my own life and I want to kind of gift that to other people. But on top of that, because the indigenous populations have given so much to me and to my family and my own well-being, I want to do it in a way I recognize that there is a big growth in popularity of psychedelic healing in the world that's happening right now. And so, you know, with Native Wisdom Hub, we're really taking our place in the middle of that to help steward this whole movement in ways that are rooted in, you know, integrity, responsibility, and ethical practice, both on a cross-cultural level and on a, you know, the ethics of caring for other people.

Um, yeah, Mark, John, I, I have to just ask you just briefly though, when you say psychedelics, just help us to understand what do you, what do you mean? Because obviously not everyone wants to maybe get into, into drugs of some kind, or so just very briefly, just reassure us if you like that this isn't going off on a journey that some people wouldn't be able to come back from, because Obviously, people all manage drugs and alcohol and so on in different ways.

Absolutely.

So just sort of share with us, when you say psychedelics, without going into too much detail, but just what do you mean practically?

Yeah, practically, I mean, yeah, there is— so the psychedelic effect is, of course, it's vision-inducing, and vision-inducing when curated, created, and held in safe, deeply intentional, often ceremonial, highly intentional circumstances, the vision-inducing part is it induces visions of our own life, of our own self, of our own truth, our own authenticity. And so it's absolutely, it's controlled. It has a beginning and it has an end, you know, deeply intentional, focused, safe set, safe mindset, safe setting, lots of preparation and lots of integration beyond the actual experience to help land on the other side of it. It's intentional. The focus is not escapism. The focus is not drug-taking, party-going. Intentional to help, to use as a tool for people to look deep inside of themselves to find their own truth, their own essence, and the answers to their own healing journey. Yeah, I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, so I guess like I remember John Lennon, of course, was famous, wasn't he, for going down that path as well.

But I don't want to go too much down the rabbit hole, but does it involve taking some drugs that are presumably clinically safe is where I'm heading with this.

Yep, absolutely. There are a number of growing numbers of, of studies, um, in the world on all— there are multiple, you know, uh, psilocybin is one of them that's going up under— it's under a lot of research at the moment. Ayahuasca is another one, DMT specifically, ibogaine, mescaline. There's a number of different, uh, medicines. Um, we at Native Wisdom Hub work primarily with the mescaline-based San Pedro cactus and the DMT-based ayahuasca vine. We do so in direct collaboration with the indigenous populations who have stewarded these medicines for thousands of years.

Yeah. Okay. That's the important part for me is that you're talking about a cactus derivative and a vine derivative. In other words, they're not a chemical fabricated in a lab somewhere. Yeah, and nor are you getting people involved in something like cocaine, of course, which is then can be a tricky path.

So just be absolutely clear for everybody, um, you know, that's listening. Mark John's purpose is to connect with indigenous, naturally occurring— if we call them substances, I suppose, Mark John— within, as you say, a very well-established protocol and practices Yep. Which are led by the indigenous population. So you're sort of helping people from our 21st century AI, increasingly driven, social media plagued, and really taking us back to reconnect to those people that in a way didn't experience the disruption to our lives of modern industrialization and modernization and digitalization.

Is that fair?

I love that. That's a great summary. Yeah. In a nutshell, there you go. And there's a big argument Fantastic summary, by the way. I loved it. I loved it. There is a big argument. What's the guy's— there's an author that I can't remember right now, but I think he's written a book called Disconnection or Disconnected, something like that. And that's one of multiple people that argue that the very core and heart and center of the world's current crisis of mental health is disconnection from exactly that, our truest essence, which is a deep symbiotic intimate relationship, interrelationship with nature.

Yeah, Mark John and I absolutely hear you and love where you're going.

And also, you know, I personally went through Central America.

I did the Carretera in 1989 from, actually, I went from North Carolina down to Costa Rica. Overland and went up through Mazatlán and up through Guatemala and up to Chichicastenango and saw the native Indians and how they were living and went out to some of the homes and saw some of the weaving and so on. So there was this combined poverty and yet also an amazing connection with where they lived, right? And I wouldn't want to make any judgments about happiness or anything, but I can completely understand why you fell in love with the colors and the energy and the passion and the connectedness of Latin America, right? And the innate wisdom. And anyone, of course, that's been to like Tikal and seen the temples in the jungle would see the ancient civilizations that existed, let alone what you've got down there in Latin America proper. Well, John, I'm so interested in where you're coming at and helping people from trauma to triumph. And at the end, we're going to share a link to a free workbook that you've created.

I can see that's a hallmark of everything you're doing, is very generous and very centered as well.

You are also an entrepreneur. You know, this show is also about how people build brands, right?

It's not an easy story that you're selling in a way, because you're kind of running counter to the veins of let's go digital, let's go crypto, let's go Web3, let's go AI, right? So Mark John, tell us with Native Wisdom Hub, how are you building this brand?

How are you helping people to understand that you exist and overcome any anxiety they might have about going to indigenous places to find some peace and comfort?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Thanks for the question. And I think first and foremost, you know, a hat tip of gratitude and recognition and acknowledgement to our team. Because we've built, you know, it's part of our way of being now since the trauma. Now here is the triumph and the triumph is part of, a big part of the triumph is having, is making sure that we do not work with people who are not entirely like aligned with us, you know, and that includes building our team. So all the team, is so well gelled and we hold each other every single week. We have huddles where we just listen to each other, all of our troubles, all of our— yeah, everything. We don't leave any part of ourself in the closet. We bring it all to the table and we share with each other openly, fully. And so that helps team cohesion and connection and we love each other. We love on each other as a team and it's a great environment to be in. Native Wisdom Hub has a great environment, a great working environment. I'm super proud of that. And thanks to them, we have, yeah, we have our social media channels. So we have Venus, who's out there working on the Instagram channels. She also works on not my own personal LinkedIn profile, but we have a business, a company LinkedIn profile. Works through all the content with that. It's mainly organic what we're doing. Sometimes a little bit of paid ads on Instagram, but mainly building audiences organically, connecting with them online through social media. And of course, we have a Facebook group as well where we hang out and we have weekly themes just to help build, just to help take that culture of Native Wisdom Hub, which is so deeply connected and intertwined. Into the community so that we can help welcome wider members of the community into this feeling of being connected with each other, seeing each other, witnessing each other, appreciating each other, loving one another for who we are. And in this way, this is the spirit that laces heart-centered entrepreneurship. It's full of love, it's full of authenticity, it's full of good vibes. And that's what we like to channel from the top to the bottom, bottom to the top, all through every cell and every piece of what Native Wisdom Hub— that's the spirit that we want to be giving. And that's what we also want to deliver through our marketing, mainly social media marketing, a little bit of paid ads on Instagram, on LinkedIn. We're on TikTok too. It's my own personal profile on TikTok, but we put a lot of the company stuff on there as well.

Okay, Mark John, that's fantastic. I love the way you say we love each other, but we also love on each other, which is an expression I haven't heard someone use before.

But this idea you'd love on somebody is also an interesting perspective. And I can see how that's bringing people to you.

Let's just think about the kind of clients that you do have. Do you want to just tell us your kind of ideal avatar?

Yeah, I mean, so people who are kind of just seeking a little bit more purpose and fulfillment in life, they are kind of tired with the life that they live or the world that they're experiencing, and they know that the indigenous ways hold secrets. They know that the indigenous ways hold secrets. There we go. And that they come with us to seek those secrets, to learn those secrets. And then, of course, there are my own private coaching clients who filter through into our retreats as well. And my own private coaching clients that I work with and bring them with so much joy and elation into our retreat environments, they're what you might refer to as high-performing people, CEOs of investment firms, you know, what do we call the word is, yeah, investment brokers, brokerage. You know, some of my clients might be, you know, CEOs of investment brokerages, London-based investment brokerages, boutique, you know, property development companies based in Luxembourg, music producers and managers who are managing fairly big names in the world of music, kind of big also social media influencers as well. And I think in terms of what I give them in the private practice, it's that it's a little bit of a different vibe to their everyday thing. It's a place where they can kind of just let their hair down and really talk about what's real in their life and receive some guidance back to their own heart, back to what is most important them, back to what gives them joy and fulfillment and how to balance their life with family and business and influencing and all the things, how to cultivate joy in their life and in a balanced way. And so that's what I offer them in the private practice. But then so often a big part of that is saying, well, by the way, my company has a retreat coming up. For example, we have one in December this year. Time of recording is October 2024. In December 2024, we have a retreat for 10 days in Peru. And so my private coaching clients will come across into those kind of retreats because it's part of the mission of reconnecting to themselves and reconnecting to community who are in similar pursuits to them, which is to cultivate more balance, more joy, more harmony so that their impact and performance in what they do is sustainable for the long term. Right.

So people that are successful and then to some degree feeling the stress that comes with success.

And I think that's the challenge, isn't it?

It's axiomatic that the higher you fly, the closer you get to the sun and the more you get your feathers singed, right?

And you kind of need to get back down.

And I love how what you're doing is reconnecting people to the indigenous populations because it's creating a sort of a sense of connectedness to something greater than what we currently have in maybe our modern society, right?

And maybe people have struggled to find not just a methodology, but also a community that's centered around something that's got some wholesome traditions.

Right.

Mark John, you've been building this Native Wisdom Hub. As you say, heart-centered and reminds me a little bit of Masami Sato of B1G1, buy one, give one, which is amazing. And she's built an amazing foundation there, which is about for-profit enterprises that are giving back.

But we both know that building a brand isn't always easy.

You've experienced it many times. Would there be one example or mistake that you'd share as a learning, not as a criticism, but as a learning that we could learn from you?

I think I said it. I think I said similar words earlier in this recording, in this conversation, like too much, too big, too soon. That's my biggest mistake, not taking care of the foundations, not not making sure that the embers at the bottom of the fire are sufficiently stoked before adding massive logs on the top, so to speak, to take it back into indigenous environments. I think that's perhaps my biggest mistake in my whole entrepreneurial journey. 2017, I built a language company that was servicing the development of a voice recognition technology, AI voice recognition technology that was part of one of the world's biggest tech giants. We were servicing 8 languages and in the space of 5 months we built a bank of about 270 freelance language contributors, aka workers, freelance workers. 79 of them were actively servicing assignments for us across 8 different languages and I just got a little bit too confident at that point. I got a little bit too carried away and I left my business partner back then to take care of the whole thing that we'd just built so that I could go off and build in true impact entrepreneurship spirit, to go and build a whole impact arm that was going to use the same technology to preserve indigenous languages and create a digital database of indigenous languages. And this was my passion. It's a big part of my passion. I just threw everything at that and right as I was doing that, the company we were servicing, they changed project manager and then that project manager just decided for some reason she didn't like us and took away 5 of the 8 languages that we were servicing and gave them to another provider and it just, yeah, I was already too deep down the rabbit hole of this new arm, this new Impact arm. I had no gas left in my tank to turn back and fix what what had been broken. And so we had to just allow it all to fold, basically. Um, so as quick as it blew up, it also collapsed as quicker— it collapsed quicker than it was built, actually. Yeah.

Yeah, well, things take longer to build than to break, don't they?

I mean, that's, that's the tragedy of a business, as, as a reputation takes years to build and can be destroyed in moments.

Um, but what's amazing about you, Mark John, is your resilience, and you keep coming back. And it sounds as though each time you've been knocked down, you've got sort of closer and closer to the path that fulfills you, which is, which is a credit to you, because sometimes people then go back to pursue sort of egotistical or, or financial goals. But it sounds though you've learned the lesson of going closer and closer to, as you say, heart-centered business.

Yeah.

If there's a tip or a piece of advice that you'd like to give to me and my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs from your many years of experience in building Native Wisdom Hub, what would that be?

Follow the joy. Like what gives me joy in life and how can I cultivate more of that in my life? And I guess that's a very quick piece of advice. I'd love to just give one more as well, if that's okay. Please do. That is, particularly when we reach burnout and we crash and burn, it can be difficult to muster a sense of self-worth. And we can often feel shame and disappointment and feel like we're not really worth too much, right? In those moments, The question that I offer people, and it's part of the free gift that we'll offer at the end as well, is where has life reflected back to me my brilliance and my uniqueness? So where in life, which conversations, which scenes, which scenarios, where have we made people happy? Where have we impressed people? Where have we received really good feedback? Or even if it's not verbal feedback, just noticeably changing somebody's perspective, their energy, or just making them happy? Where has life reflected back to us our own brilliance and our own uniqueness? Yeah.

I think that needs a moment's pause, Mark John, because that's amazingly profound. Mark John, you're in Edinburgh.

We know that you're actually married to a lady from Peru with a couple of beautiful children from that marriage. And you're moving to Loch Lomond, you mentioned, right? So I can only imagine how much fun that's going to be.

And I'd love to come and visit one day if you've got a spare fishing rod. That would be great. But when you're on Loch Lomond, you might have a couple of moments to read or listen to a podcast. What would you be reading or listening to?

Anything by my man Jeremy Narby. So he has a book called Plant Teachers that talks about ayahuasca, tobacco, and other plant teachers. From the Americas. And yeah, anything that is about impact entrepreneurship, such as Yannick Silver. I think his philosophies are really amazing. So yeah, anything by Yannick Silver for impact entrepreneurship and anything for plant consciousness and indigenous wisdom. Jeremy Narby, the Swiss anthropologist.

Yeah. Mark John, what a pleasure.

And if people want to get hold of you, and let's just share the gift you're kindly going to offer for anyone that's listening. Mark John is going to share with you now the, the link to a free workbook that he's got. And for anyone that wants to, you can see this also on YouTube. My channel is @JimAJames, where you can see the screen shares as well that we've done during the show. Mark John, where could people come to get your wonderful free gift that you're offering.

Yeah, I will give you the link. It's part of our website, nativewisdomhub.com/traumatotriumph. I'll drop you the link so that you can put it in the show notes. So do pay attention, you know, for those who have stayed until the end, thank you so much. And now you can follow the instructions to look in the show notes. The link will be there. I'll make sure that we get Jim to put it in the show notes. And yeah, my gift from You know, from my heart to yours, I hope it's helpful, sincerely.

Having listened to you and spent a wonderful half an hour chatting to you, Mark John, I'm absolutely sure that anything you share will be of value and give people some insights that they haven't had before. I've certainly got them today. Thank you so much for joining me, Mark John, the co-founder and CEO of a company called Native Wisdom Hub. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Jim James James James. It's been a pleasure.

It's been a pleasure and quite different as well.

I think for those of you listening, you know, I normally have people on the show that talk about AI, automation, SEO.

So I was really excited to meet Mark, Mark John, and to have him come on the show and talk about getting reconnected, not just to our own sense of purpose, but a broader purpose and communities that have been living centuries in harmony with themselves and with their community and the planet. And in a way, I sometimes think we need that bridge to something greater than just other people who are also struggling in the same way as us. And what Mark John does with his retreats and so on is to, to reconnect you to people that are already living in harmony.

And that's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for us all.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. If you've enjoyed it, do please review it. And share it with a fellow Unnoticed Entrepreneur, or maybe share it with someone who's noticed but is suffering from burnout, because Mark John's got a Trauma to Triumph offering and retreats and courses and his own one-to-one coaching. Thank you for joining me, Jim James, on this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur.