Ep 67 The Place Before Performance A Conversation with Mark Platten

Welcome to Remembering the Forgotten, a space where leaders think out loud without polish or performance. No scripts, no performance, just 2 people thinking out loud. These conversations aren't about delivering insight. They are about thinking together in real time. Because there are moments where you can feel That the answer is already there, but you can't quite reach it. And then something shifts, and suddenly it's simple. Not new, just clear. That's this space. There's a point where leadership stops being about information— more frameworks, more strategy, more communication. And something else begins, the ability to remain clear when complexity increases, pressure rises, and alignment can no longer be assumed. Today, I'm joined by Mark Clanton. Mark has spent decades working inside environments where stakes were real, from military leadership to international advisory teams to statewide leadership systems reaching thousands of people annually. But underneath all of it runs a consistent thread. How can people function coherently inside complexity? Not theoretically, practically. Because eventually every leader encounters the same question: what actually allows people to stay aligned, effective, and grounded when the pressure becomes real? With that, welcome, Mark, to the show.

Markus, thank you so much. Good to be here with you.

Absolutely pleasure to have you. So before we begin, where can you just be yourself, untouched by expectation or performance?

Always in nature and Often with my grandchildren, or when my children were really young.

That's interesting. Tell me more about that.

Because I was just having this conversation with a friend of mine yesterday about— I'm gonna go in a really weird place with this, but we're talking, he asked the question about pedophiles and what do you think that's about. And I said, because I think there's a purity that, that that the child, that the young person brings, that isn't about judgment, that isn't about— that hasn't been tainted. There's something that our soul wants to be attached to that. Now, pedophilia obviously is not something we want to move toward and not something we would promote, but the concept of being drawn to the innocence of life where you're not judged as an adult, where they just see you as a face of the divine, and there's no judgment about your looks, about what you say, about anything with that. They're beholden to your energy. And so when I am with my 3-year-old grandson, I am marveled at what interests him because he's not being pushed by society yet. He's not being shaped or changed, or, or he hasn't been what I call, you know, conditioned or, or controlled in that way that society will, will eventually do to all of us. And so there is deep sacredness to me in that, and in that I can be myself because he's not wanting me to be anybody but myself. Maybe a superhero or two, but other than that, he just wants me to play. He just wants me to be present. And I think that's the great gift, is that really being present.

Why do you think we humans need a place like that? To actually be just ourselves, untouched. Because that's something that kind of bothers me.

I said something that bothers you? Is that what you said?

No, no, that bothers me. That we need to have single places or spaces where we can be ourselves. And why isn't it like the norm? Because we are humans, right? We're beings.

We are, but we're social animals too. That our whole— I mean, if we go back long enough in our, probably our biology, our psychology, or our emotional being, and even probably the spiritual component of that, is the aspect of belonging. And, and if we don't belong That could mean being removed from the tribe, from the community. So I think that place of being yourself could have negative consequences if you're truly fully yourself. So that necessity— I'm not sure most people want to be with themselves and want to be fully themselves. In most cases, I think we shut that down. I think we push it away. And you know, there's lots of subconscious work that we that we all can do to look at our shadow parts, those parts that we cut off from ourselves. We're afraid to look at because we don't want to see those parts of ourselves that are the full spectrum of who we are. But I think once we do, I think once we really lean into that, at least for me, that's my deep edge of work. It's my deep edge of work with men. It's my deep work of edge with. With the books I'm writing, it's my deep edge of work. With the sound healing I'm doing, it's my deep edge of work. With the soul tank that I'm leaning into is how can I go in and bring forth all those parts, recollect all those parts of myself and let every part of me have a voice in the conversation? That's deep work. That's hard work. That's work, especially we as men don't go into typically.

I'm going into a totally unexpected direction, even for myself now. What is your take on the poem Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson?

Yeah, where it's not our lack that scares us but our, our brilliance.

Not the darkness, it's the light.

It's our possible brilliance. I think there's a lot of truth to that because If I'm a failure, if I can't quite make things, if I'm kind of stumbling, then people expect that from me, and there's not a whole lot of expectation with that. When you succeed, then there's an awful lot of pressure to be successful. Then there's an awful lot of pressure to maintain that. Then there's the expectation that everybody has around what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to show up in the world, and. And so, I think there's that interesting place of we want, in our minds, we want the success. Maybe we want to be, we want to have to reach millions of people perhaps, but we don't want the responsibility that comes along with that oftentimes. And that's a big, there's a truth to that. It's why so many people won't become entrepreneurs, won't step out because it's easier To put myself on the slot and be told what I— what my job is, what my role is, what I need to do. It's much easier for us to do that because it's— I would say the same is true for religion. It's much easier to be told what is okay to do and be, even if we don't necessarily do it. But to be truly a spiritual being where you're— you don't have those— the, the tight niche with that, the, the strict kind of direction means that you have to be accountable to yourself. And that's a much more difficult place to be, is to be accountable and to be responsible for yourself, for your direction, and for, and for where life is taking you.

You mentioned something interesting, and you used it in a slightly— I call it Europeanized, Western culture way. Responsibility. Responsibility sounds quite heavy.

Hmm.

It's something I need to carry, right? I like the Asian way of looking at it, the ability to respond. And that immediately loses the heaviness. And I believe that is one of the big issues that people never really learned what this means to have the ability to respond because they so early, as you said, the socialization takes place. You've been in academia, you know that better than me, somewhere between 3 and 7 years old, right? Yeah. Think about that. How crazy is that? Literally, when the child comes into, or a little bit out of innocence, society grabs it and starts molding it. But let's be honest, at the same time, you and I would not have a career had we not accepted a certain kind of adaption, because that adapting makes us good members of society, and good members of society makes us good people for the economy. It's just simply a fact. But there is one thing which I really would like to dig in deeper. You spoke about that, I call it social animal, right? The belonging, the wanting to be a member of the tribe. Have you ever met anyone Who refused you, fought you, declined you when you showed up as who you are?

Absolutely.

Tell me more about that, please.

So I can say certainly we have a bit, and like we do everywhere, of political differences. or religious differences. And so I tend to lean much more on the, on the left side, and so the, the more liberal side of things. And I've spent, uh, you know, almost 2 decades working in an environment that was a very conservative environment. Mm-hmm. And me sharing, having to watch kind of how I presented stuff that didn't didn't throw the people I was working with into kind of their own pushing away and separating and not allowing me in. And there were times where I challenged and was shut down around stuff. In fact, I lost a job around that because of, I believe, because of holding a different reality around that.

Can I challenge that for a quick moment?

Absolutely. I love challenges.

Is that really who you are, or is that because of a belief you hold?

Of course, you're bold.

Think about that for a moment.

Sure.

If you show up, let me put it this way. I can simply not imagine, my friend, that anyone who meets you like I met you for the first time would be put off, felt this guy is too much himself. and say, I don't wanna spend any moment with this guy because he shows me something which I'm not. I believe it's the opposite. I personally believe that someone meets you is attracted by the light. You know, I play a little bit further in Marianne Williamson's poem.

Yeah.

Because that's where she ends, right? that my light becomes the light in the world which attracts. Maybe you can pull it up for a moment if you see it. But that is what I think is all about. I've been working with people for close to 30 years, and I never had to show people weaknesses. I never had to show people their Downsides. I never had to explain people how bad they are. It was always the opposite. And I can really say that, yes, people have been pushing me away because they couldn't stand what they saw. It's a mirror. They didn't like it. But most people all around the world are attracted When you show up as who you are. And then all the beliefs aside. But I believe we have to separate between the belief someone has and who someone is. And we have lost that, I believe. That's why we identify ourselves even in spiritual groups about I am, I do, I help with work and blah, blah. That's nice, but it's not who people are. I agree. So I recommended yesterday a friend, you probably know him as well actually. And I said to him, he runs a group like a roundtable. And I said, invite people under the premise that we are not talking about business, we are not talking about what we do. We only talk about who we are and how we live. Until maybe 10 minutes before the show ends. And then once we have got to know each other as who we are, guess what? I never trust anyone because of what they do, by the way. And that's the big nonsense that's going on with this know, like, and trust. I show up this much. I will like this much, and that should produce trust? No way. No way. That's why I'm saying if someone shows up as simply as who they are, they open automatic doors on the other side. And the other person will say to you, Mark, I feel like we know each other forever. Not because you have a past academia, Because you showed up. And I believe that is the hardest thing today because I can tell you when I work with my clients, it is never that I have to speak about their weaknesses. Goodness me, they could write thesis about their weaknesses and why they would fail. But what I'm doing is I'm coming there and I'm showing them a mirror. I know this is probably something which might some viewers or listeners surprise. I can only work with the potential that's already available in the other person. When a coach or a consultant says, I can bring you something, that's bullshit. I can bring you methodology, I can bring you tactics, I can bring you strategy. But in order for you to execute it, unless it's there, if you're not a human people person, I cannot make you into a human people person. I first have to do psychology and deep psychiatry to get the trauma away, which goes over it. But I believe it is the thing, if we dare just to show up as who we are, People say it's hard. I counter that. I think it's the easiest thing to do, but it takes courage. And if you look at the end, how Marianne Williamson ends her poem, because it gives the other person permission to do the same. So yeah, our conversation goes into a totally different direction than we expected.

No, I love that, Markus. I really agree with what you're saying there. In fact, you know, I love the concept of bringing people together and not talking about work. A good friend of mine, I've been around him numerous times when people ask, like, what do you do? Because that's the first thing we do, right? We want to know, especially with men or in business. We want to— I call it with men, I say we're kind of like dogs butt sniffing. You know how dogs sniff each other's butts because they're trying to find out where they're— it's the, where do I sit? Am I below this? Am I— where am I in the echelon in this ranking system? You know, how much money did Markus make? Is he the CEO of something? So, it's like, Well, am I above Markus? He's below me. In the military, from my military days, like, oh, are you the— you know, you could easily see by the rank on their shoulders, like, oh, is officer okay? Or enlisted, like, oh, I'm above the enlisted, I'm below this, you know, the colonel or the general or whatever it is. So it's always that butt-sniffing thing that's going on, and we do that by what do you do. And my friend said—

I literally grew up somewhere on an island somehow. I'm so not familiar with these concepts, so that's why I love talking with you.

So my friends, when they ask him about what he does, he says, about what? I like that. And he refuses to answer the question and be put in that box of being defined by what we do for a living or what that leads to, because it's a really shallow, empty pathway, right, that is only taking you down about about how much you produce or what your status is instead of what's your status as a human being. There's much better creative questions to ask about getting to find the depth and soul of what lights us up inside, right? That's a much better question. Like, Markus, what's lighting you up inside right now? What's got you on fire? What is— what pulls you out of bed and makes you, you know, alive? What's actually the liveness in you? And yeah, I've seen some really fun, interesting research and experiments that have been done where you bring— so I'm countering my own piece of what I've said before, where you bring some really conservative and very liberal people and you don't talk— you talk about, about basic humanity. And I've said this, I would say we, whether you're far left, far right wing, centrist, have no opinion whatsoever, whatever it may be, that we as human beings agree on probably 95% of all things. Mm-hmm. We want to be safe. We want to be able to have a living. We want to be kind of left alone to our own devices and our path.

And be loved.

Yeah. We want to be able to—

Be respected. Exactly.

Absolutely. And be honored.

Yes, that's all. Yeah. So you see how easy it basically would be. And now you understand why so many people are stuck. Identity is like a block in the free flow of energy. I could tell you when I was working in L placement, and so I had like top echelon to the lowest level in hierarchy, and they got fired. People introduced themselves with, I'm the CEO. I said, no, no, no, maybe you're an ex-CEO. But right now you're someone without a job. That's the worst.

Right.

That's the worst. And I love the framework, I tell you. So let me pivot a little bit. I love our conversation, really. What's something right now in your life, Marc, that doesn't fully make sense? Even though it should.

I've got this thing that is pulling me forward that is so outside the realms of, of anything that makes sense, which is I spoke to you about this before. I did— my wife and I went on a 6-month world trip here, uh, just got back literally a year ago. But when we were coming back, one of the things that came into me is like, I'm supposed to be doing something with my voice. I'm not talking about talking, I'm talking about like singing or expressing through sound. Um, and I'm not quite sure what that is, and yet it compels me and it pulls me and it follows me and it invites me into exploring. And so I've done some voice healing. I've got some teachers who I've kind of taken programs with, and I've actually taught some stuff. And I did a program where I stood up. I'm really tied to deep spiritual practices and calling in directions and setting sacred containers and stuff like that when I'm doing some of my deep work with people and groups and stuff like that. And so I'd usually call in through some of my, you know, indigenous teachings and call in the directions in a particular way. There are very specific ways of calling in the different directions using words. But when I stood up to do this back in, I think it was June, and I've done this hundreds of times, but all of a sudden I was like, this tapping is like Sing it in, don't speak it in. And I didn't question it, even though everything in me is like, I've never done this before. But it's like, I'm just gonna do it. And I did. And I've done it that way ever since. And it's so— I'm intrigued by something. It doesn't make any sense to me, and yet it's this beautiful thing that is like, that is following. I know that there's a gift in here for humanity. for myself if I can surrender into the fullness of what it's inviting me into and just stay in the mystery of it and not try to make it something that it isn't. And that's some of the hardest and most beautiful part of it. So now I know it's something that you probably weren't thinking about, but it's so unique and so— I

know I'm not thinking about anything. Believe me.

It's got me in this mystery. It's really got me. I mean, it's the one thing of all the things I'm doing, Markus, that That I'm so intrigued by because it's not logical

and

it's not rational, and yet everything about it is like this— coming home. This—

what would you say sits underneath it?

There is a foundational piece I was talking about before we started this conversation, Markus. I grew up on a farm, a small farm in eastern Iowa, and my whole day was out being in, in the, on the farm, in the, in nature, in the environment. And I just would sing all the time. I don't know why. I just like the sound of singing. Me too. And especially when nobody else is around, you know, just sing, or singing to the animals even. And it wasn't— it was just— it just brought me pure joy. It wasn't too— it wasn't performance-based. It wasn't— it was just something that flowed through me. So I have a feeling that I'm reawakening that alignment with what— with what you call it— soul purpose, the divine, God, whatever you want to call that thing that's like, this, Mark, come back to this, come back. There's a— there's a secret seed that we planted here way when you were young, and it brought you that deep joy. And now when I can surrender into that space and not try to control it— my mind still wants to control it quite a bit, but when I can again surrender into it and soften into it and let it be and get in coherence with what it wants to create, it's just delightful. It just is moving. It's deep and rich and powerful.

You pretty much found the portal to your own self. Because, you know, for people who are not that religious or spiritual, in the end, it could be us, the lost piece of us. How old were you when you sang as a child? 7.

Oh my gosh, Markus. I mean, young, young, 4 probably at least. I remember...

Full innocence.

Still in that kind of developed stage of where I was being forged by society, but it was...

The full innocence.

Yeah, it was really sweet. I just remember just singing to these cats and just for like...

Beautiful.

I knew that if I would just be still and just sing and just use my voice that these feral cats would come out. And they would, they would. You couldn't, you couldn't go around them, you couldn't get close to

them.

But when I sang, they would come out and would all gather around me. It was just, it was really, I mean, I'll call it magic because that's what, in my belief, is what it was. It was just pure, like, oh, it was a language, right? Right. So singing, that sound is not words. Words are very limited for me, create very limited context. We all have to agree what those words mean. I had a rabbi speak this before to me, and then in a training that he did for a group I was in, and he's like, words are the— we use words to communicate. It's our most limited form of communication.

Mm-hmm.

It creates the very basic— that's why when we have these deep experiences, and we try to explain them, it feels like we're cheating the experience, because we can't give it the context. We can't really explain because it's not something that words can actually offer. And he said, then what we do is we sing, and we sing the words. And because through song, it conveys a different energy and a different component that comes with that. And then he said, then the next level is you're singing but with no words, which is essentially what I'm doing with this, with this calling in directions and so forth with that. And you're bringing forth this where you're communicating beyond words. And he said the penultimate kind of place is silence, and you're communicating with nothing but the silence. And I love that, and I've held on to that teaching for a couple decades now because it was so poignant to me. It's like, ah, how am I communicating?

Beautiful.

How am I connecting with people? How can silence be the best communication tool that we possibly can bring to a situation?

You know what's interesting? Thank you for sharing. Firstly, when I listened to you, I just had a thought. If someone is doing really bad and they think In deep sorrow. Words never do justice, as we know, right? Do you realize that when we actually just hold someone's arm, that that person immediately calms? Think about that for a moment. If we speak of telepathy, Touch can literally transport every single thing that's going on in us. Now, if we are spiritual, we would say divine, um, give that person what that person needs, right? I don't think we have to go that far. Like, if we want to explain something, I'm actually doing soon when I meet someone and I have a deep emotional experience. You know what, can I just touch you for a moment? And I'm 100% certain this person feels it way beyond my words, way beyond my words. So thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's beautiful there, Markus, because that's the other thing. In fact, I was just— I just wrote about it in my book that will be coming out in a little bit. But One of the concepts I was writing about in there is the importance of touch. And we know— so let's get away from this, from the spiritual side— just, we know scientifically the importance of touch. That if our babies aren't touched, that they don't have that touch early on, there are all kinds of things that happen that they don't develop because of that. And so we know, and so we think somehow as adults that that's not necessary. And we have this loneliness epidemic that's happening, certainly in the United States, if not around the world, in our older populations. And even now, unfortunately, in our younger generations as well.

Much more than people think. Yeah.

Right. So we're attached to these things, but we're not in person. We're not. So we have forgotten how important touch is. And unfortunately for men, in many And it's kind of a taboo kind of thing. It's like, it's one of my— it's one of my things is that growing up as a, as a boy, you know, you'd be wrestling around with your male friends and, you know, punching each other and arms around each other's shoulders and doing always in constant contact with each other. But then all of a sudden became, as we got older, we became that, you know, I would say a homophobic kind of taboo that you're not supposed to do that.

Mm-hmm.

It's like, where did we go wrong with that? Because we definitely need that touch. So, so I'm a hugger because of that. I will hug people because it's the way of connecting.

I look forward to it.

Yeah, yeah. In fact, I consider myself a professional hugger there, Markus. So, so there's—

I'm an amateur.

For that, you're an amateur. There is a place for me that— and it's not, again, I hug in a way that isn't performative. It's not, it's just pure surrender into, into the other person to let them kind of— what you talk about when you touch, there is an energetic thing that's happening. It's like we're connected. And we know, you know, through some of the quantum entanglement stuff that, that anytime we come together in that way, we are interestingly connected.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's what one of the things we're missing. I mean, all the business stuff we've got out there and all the great money that's being made and all the things that we've done, There isn't— again, it's this pandemic of loneliness and of disconnection and of really truly being in relation with each other and what that means to belong and to connect and to be as much yourself as you possibly can and to encourage that in each other. I agree with you. I love what you were saying earlier about that. When we can be fully ourselves and express that, then people naturally—

You know, if you think about it, what does it mean And you see, and now you ask, where can you be yourself? I didn't ask where you can express yourself fully.

Right.

That's overreaching. To be yourself. That's when people tell me, but Markus, how will my husband, how will my partner react? I say, not at all, because the being takes place in you. And once that is solid, then the expression starts taking place. Maybe not at all. The be yourself, that's what people misunderstand. Being is basically an activation. It's an activity. No, it's not. It's a state.

Totally a state.

So slowly getting to the end because I want to be mindful of our time. What are you taking away from this conversation, Marc?

Well, my friend, what I'm taking away is I love the challenges and the questions. I love the curiosity and the possibility. I love the exploration of what it means to be and to be ourselves and to be the light that we can offer. And what would that— how would that change First of all, myself, because it's changing myself that changes the world. I can't affect anything else on the outside. It's all on the inside. So it's just a good reminder of what I already know. Right. And just marinating in that a bit more and softening into that more and opening more and being really willing to risk and be courageous, as you mentioned, to be myself, to have the courage to be fully in myself. So yeah, that's good.

Beautiful. The last and final question: if someone feels overwhelmed right now, which is quite easy, right? What would you want them to return to?

To play. Play takes us out of, out of the past, out of the future, out of the chaos of what's going on. Can you truly play? And that's what my 3-year-old grandson gives me as much as anything. So I make it a dedicated— I mean, I'm obviously gifting him, but he is gifting me just by the sense of, of just pure play without any intention other than just being a superhero, being whatever, going down the slides. So play— Stephen Jung talked about this in our meeting the other day, and I'm not sure if you've watched that video or not, but— Mm-hmm. But play is the thing that is the key to so much. And I so believe that. We asked about what we do, but how often do we ask men how do they play? How are you— or women for that fact, but I deal a lot with men and men's work. So What does it mean to play? Instead of what do you do for work, what do you do for play? How do you play? How do you show up? Let's go play. What does that mean? So that takes you out of the sympathetic nervous system and into the parasympathetic nervous system where we regulate and we relax and we come at ease. Or, and to hum while you're doing that or sing a bit of a song and see where that takes you. Non-performative. Yeah.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Mark, for having been my guest.

Thank you, Markus.

This was Remembering the Forgotten. As you move on, notice what may have been quietly remembered. There are moments where you can feel the answer is already there, but you can't quite reach it. And then something shifts, and suddenly it's simple. No force, no second-guessing, no internal negotiation. Just a clear sense of what's next and the capacity to move. If something shifted, let it stay. A few quiet pointers are waiting below.