[00:01] Katie: Welcome to the Focus B show, where Katie Stoddart high performance coach, interviews experts around the world in performance and mindfulness. Now here's your host. Katie.
[00:34] Katie: Hi, Mark. Welcome to the show. It's so great to have you here.
[00:37] Marc: Thanks, Katie. I'm excited to jam with you.
[00:41] Katie: Amazing. And as this episode is being released, it's actually on the launch of your book Personal Socrates.
[00:48] Marc: Pretty surreal to even think about that. It's been a two year journey putting that together, but I would say nearly a decade journey of really working with these practices and the topic I'm sure we're going to jump into. So it's surreal to think that it is launch day today.
[01:11] Katie: Amazing. So exciting. I'd like to begin today's episode with the way you begin each of your podcast episode, which I found extremely interesting, and I thought it'd be nice for you to be on the other side of that question. So, Mark, tell us a bit like who are you?
[01:28] Marc: I should know better, right? Katie, that question like that will be eventually flipped to. No, thank you for the question. And as you know, I asked that question just to avoid job titles and things like that to get to the core of the person. So I appreciate the question back. For me, I think the quickest or the shortest answer to who are you? What feels right to me is just I'm a curious human that is obsessed and excited about questions and questions that can help myself, obviously navigate life and the journey and the ups and downs and all of that. But then also really curious and excited about the questions that others are asking because their stories and it doesn't matter what they're doing, whether they're authors or entrepreneurs or in the corporate world, it doesn't matter what the industry is. We're all asking questions. And that fascination and that curiosity is really what lights me up each day.
[02:39] Katie: Nice. And as you mentioned in your book, we're only one question away from transforming our life. I thought that was a beautiful message.
[02:47] Marc: Yeah, well, because if you really I haven't always thought like that, but the more and more I've been working in this language of questions, if you will, the more I've realized that our life really is just a series of questions and answers, right? Like, where do I want to live? Where do I want to work? What do I want to do? Who do I want to be with? I mean, these are questions we ask sometimes we don't even really think about. We're kind of like on autopilot with those prompts, and other times, obviously, they stop us in our tracks and they're like huge life moments. And I've just noticed through interviews on my side as well and studying this stuff, that if we spend the time to try to upgrade those questions, then so do our life upgrades as well, right? Like, the quality of those questions and what we're thinking about, just like the people you decide to invest time in or the books you read or the podcasts you listen to. I mean, these are all decisions that have impact on our lives. So I'm just of the narrative, let's bring the highest quality of everything that we can into our life and the results by default should be quality and better. Right.
[04:04] Katie: It's also something that a lot of people don't think about. And as a coach, obviously, and also doing a podcast, I can theme the tremendous power of questions and it's something people don't conscientiously do. I like to go to one specific topic that seems to come up a lot in your book that I find really interesting, which is this combination of knowledge and stillness. And you have this fantastic quote which is the clarity that we seek is born when knowledge meets stillness. I thought this is beautiful, I'll probably put it on a post. It on a wall. And so what are some of your key practices to have this knowledge and learning but also reflection time?
[04:42] Marc: Yeah, that's a great question. And for me, I learned this from well, I've heard it a few times, but what comes to mind is there's a pretty well known author, Robin Sharma, who has several books, the 05:00 A.m. Club, I think, the Monk who sold his Ferrari, he's got another book coming out as well. And I remember I first heard this concept or this idea in one of his books and it's just that let's keep it with books. Often we set a target in how many books we want to read, right, which is fine, some people read slower, some people read faster. But the point that I got from Robin was forget the number of books and focus on the page that you're actually I think, you know when you do that and this is where the knowledge meets stillness part. If you slow down and pause and actually consume what you're reading, and then think about it and think about how that particular piece of knowledge can apply to your life right now or a situation you're dealing with at work or personally right now. Then now it turns from knowledge to being something that's of value and not just something in a book that will go on your shelf or stay on your kindle or whatever. Right. And again, this is how all this stuff started for me ten years ago, is that I'd be reading things like that, blog posts. Then when podcasts started coming out, listening to podcasts and using questions to pause or to bring that stillness, to turn the knowledge into some sort of valuable practical action on myself. Right. Because when I'm reading it's a bit strange now because it's like all I see is questions. Essentially you read something and be like, well, wait a second, so you're saying to take whatever a moment in the morning to exercise or do this. Well, then I flip that into, well, how can I adjust my routine or practices to incorporate more movement or something like that? Right. And then it becomes applicable. Then you can see the benefits of what that author is writing about. Right.
[06:58] Katie: This is what I love in your book. You have so many practical and implemental aspects that you can actually use. And I've just realized something as you were speaking that actually questions seem to be this bridge between the knowledge and applying it. Because you read a piece of information, then you think, how can I use this and apply it in my life? That's the bridge. And then actually doing it is the action. So actually turning everything into questions makes it more likely that you'll apply it. Otherwise you just read it and think that's nice, and move on.
[07:30] Marc: Yeah, totally. Well, and I think that's where it comes into, where the idea of not focusing on the number of books and slowing down and focusing on the quality and the consumption and implementing what you're reading. Right. Because we can read a ton of books and we will absorb a certain percentage of that knowledge, but eventually it's just gone and then we're back onto the next book. Unless what happens I've seen happen before is a life event or something comes up and then you're triggered or remember, oh, I read something, or there's something in my mind that I can pull from and then go back to, which is useful. But I don't know. I don't like to leave life to autopilot because that's a bit too risky from what I've noticed. So I'd rather just kind of slow it down and use the questions to your point from switching to knowledge to action of some sort or some sort of implementable action. And questions can be used for that pause. The pause is what I think we miss often in society. And it's not our fault we're a bit of a victim to society and productivity, culture and hustle hustle, it's getting better. But the pause is where I think that's the superpower, because it happens anywhere. It's the pause before you're reacting to a situation with emotion, or it's the pause between answering in a conversation that maybe if you took literally a microsecond to step back, you would have answered in a completely different situation. Right. So it's the pause that for me, the pause is the benefit that comes from the question, and then everything else flows from there.
[09:25] Katie: Interesting. So the pause follows the question. I love when you mentioned the pause in your book. It really brought a smile to my face because you explain it so clearly. You talk about the magic of the pause, and I think that some people don't realize that actually a huge benefit of meditation is that it makes this pause longer. And I think the way you explained it makes it very clear and tangible and maybe some people will be able to notice it in their lives and of course, increases mindfulness and meditation helps with that.
[09:58] Marc: Totally. Well, all of these practices, anything under the umbrella of mental fitness to me really helps with the self awareness aspect, whether it's meditation, journaling, breath work, like all of these things just help train our minds to slow down a bit because the pause is there. It's just we don't see it or we don't feel it. Right. Any of these practices helps kind of blow out the mental fog that's in our minds. Just like you would open a front door and back door in a house and let the wind blow out the dust type thing. We can do that with our minds as well.
[10:39] Katie: You have this analogy with the library that you write about that our minds are like libraries, but the books are perfectly displayed and they're all a mess. I love this. I mean, I love the Lavier images and tools because they were very easy to visualize, but also they had a very strong message behind them also.
[10:58] Marc: Oh, thank you. You never know if the stuff is going to land. I mean, I'm just trying to speak in language or in terms that I understand. So I appreciate the feedback.
[11:08] Katie: Yeah, I definitely loved it. I'm sure the audience listening will too. And I feel you touch on so many interesting topics in terms of stoicism and gratitude and curiosity and so many directions. It would be weird if people don't resonate with at least half of it, if not more. And as someone in personal development, I think it's interesting because I either know about these topics and you take them an extra inch further or a bit of another perspective, or they're things I hadn't thought of particularly. Like when you mentioned, has this happened before? And looking at the past and seeing, is this something that we've already done? Is this a recurring pattern? And using that, that's always an interesting point.
[11:50] Marc: Yeah. And you know what? It's too late to include in the book, but I just interviewed someone the other day and she left me with a question related to that topic that really kind of pushed me back in my chair. And the prompt was, what lesson am I tired of learning over again?
[12:08] Katie: Nice.
[12:09] Marc: And I just thought, I'm like, wow, that's a really powerful prompt because I think if we stop and think about that, we can all identify areas in our life that we might be pretending that we don't know that we're relearning those lessons. But we are. And I think, again, that's where when we pause and take a few minutes to think about it, then we can least actively decide to either make a different decision and do something about that or not. But I mean, we've least given ourselves the opportunity to make a different decision. So I thought that prompt, I mean, it links well with what you just mentioned on that topic. And I feel like we all do that in so many different ways with relationships or nutrition or health. There's endless examples, but, yeah, I can.
[13:03] Katie: Definitely relate to that. I think it's a really powerful prompt, and I'll be using it. I also feel that from your book, I have a different perspective on questions in general and the importance and how we can use them as prompts in our journal, both in the morning or the evening. So I invite the audience that's listening to rethink how you think about questions, read Mark's book and apply them to your daily life. I'd like to go on a bit of a tangent now. There's a really interesting topic that comes up at one point, which is the Roe. So the Return on Energy and the Return on Investment ROI that if you could say a few words around this topic, it was something fairly new for me. I've heard of return on experience also. Is that the same or different?
[13:49] Marc: Yeah. So that one, that's from John Azarath's profile, I believe, who has started and runs many multi million dollar organizations, all centered around helping know mentally be clear and perform in their mindset and all of that. And I remember him leaving that point that we often don't think we think a lot about time and that time is the most valuable thing in life, which it is very valuable. But we often forget about what we're doing in that time? Because if we're appreciating the time but we're doing things that are energy sucking, for example, then it just makes that time not the most useful for for us as well as anyone on the other side, whether that's through our work or our relationships and personal life. So I really like his concept of stepping back and thinking about, okay, are the things I'm doing on a day to day basis, are they giving me energy or taking energy away? And it's interesting because I can't remember if I think I put this exercise in there, but just the idea of putting a list, two lists on a sheet, right, and writing out, well, what do I do every day? What does my calendar look like? What are the consistent variables every day or for the week? And list those things out, and then just identifying those items or those meetings and those events and going back and seeing, well, is that giving me energy or taking energy away? And again, without doing that and pausing, it's hard to see what's actually happening. Like, it just all folds into one just big event of life, right? Like the game of life, for example. But when you see it in front of you, and again, this takes five minutes, ten minutes at max, then you can least see and again, allow yourself the opportunity to make a decision. Well, I see a pattern here or a trend that I'm doing these things over and over again and they make me feel like garbage. They're sucking energy out of my life. And I mean, there's certain things that I think we all have to do, like life admin type activities that probably will never really light us up, like accounting and things like that. No offense to any of the accountants listening, but for the most part, I would say that the majority of what you're doing day in and week by week and every year, you want it to be fueling you. Right? And giving you joy and satisfaction. Because when we're in that state of mind, when we're motivated and we're excited, that's where we do our best work, our best thinking, when we're present, when we're driven to change things or whatever. Right? And again, we benefit from that. But there's a ripple effect to that, that others around us benefit from it as well, versus activities that drain us, that could put us into anxious states or fearful states or just feeling depleted. It's really hard to do your best work kind of pushing the boulder up the mountain. We can get it there, but it's not the most pleasurable thing. I'd rather flow with the whole scenario or I think in the book I mentioned just the idea if there's an option, a cost effective option to land on the top of the mountain in a helicopter. I'll take that option. Sorry, that was a long winded answer, too. I think, really just about being conscious of where we're directing our energy and what's fueling us and what's depleting that energy reserve.
[17:40] Katie: Yes. That goes sort of hand in hand with one of the key concepts of productivity, I feel, in terms of manage your energy and your attention because I'm all about focus, so it comes up all the time. Manage your energy and your attention and not managing your time. Because, first of all, it's a lot nicer, like you said, pushing it up the hill. Who wants to do that? It's not at all a nice experience, of course.
[18:03] Marc: And there are always other options, right? Sometimes when you're in it, it may not feel like there are other options. It may feel like the only option is to go straight up that mountain, pushing the giant boulder. But again, when you can slow down and think clearly, we've got a powerful thing on the top of our shoulders that has a lot of knowledge and a lot of solutions. We just need to allow it to do its yes.
[18:30] Katie: Yes. Amazing. I'm curious, you've interviewed so many wonderful people on your podcast behind the Human, people like James Clear, a habit expert and actually a lot of the people that are profiled in the book. What sort of practices or habits have you started to implement following these conversations? So we're talking about what you said earlier, applying the knowledge that you learn. Could you share with us a few that you've started to apply in your life since these interviews?
[18:59] Marc: Well, so we were talking before we hit record that you had pulled a principle from one of the profiles from Cal Fussman, who know a legendary Esquire writer and interviewer himself now on his show Big Questions. And I was listening to his show this morning, just going during my mental fitness hour this morning. What felt right for me was a long walk. So I took a 30 or 40 minutes walk and I had a few of his podcasts in my ear and what I was listening for, because he's going back in his archive of interviews that he's done 1015 years ago, where he literally has a recorder on the desk and he's just recording this to write him up for Esquire. Right? And I was just listening to how he was asking the questions. And something I learned from Cal was his technique of going into an interview without a sheet of paper or a list of questions, but more so that he's done the work up front where he's listed out all of the questions, right? And he's thought of hundreds of questions before going into that interview. And then he rips up that paper and then he arrives at the interview really present and again allows his mind to pick the questions that fit. I was listening to an interview with Sting. What I was trying to do, what I was trying to implement in my life was knowing that he does that in his interview prep, trying to pick out how those questions are then coming to light in the interview and trying to learn from the master of the craft. And what I'll do is I have some guest prep to do for a show that I host for Baron Figg, who published the book with this guy Kyle Webster, who's an illustrator with Adobe. And it just reminded me to go back to that style of I mean, I do that on and off. But having listened to Cal this to let's think about this a little bit more and really try to implement his style. So that's one of them. And I think the other big thing is, just like anything in life, if we just allow the default track to play out, we fall into the rut of kind of where society is operating. And the people that I've interviewed don't operate in that track. They operate at a different level. Not to say that they're better or worse than any other person, but I think they've recognized they have that self awareness that if they don't constantly prime their mind with positive things affirmations, knowledge, people, all of that kind of stuff, then by default they'll navigate down to a path that is not where they want to perform. Because it's again hard to perform when you're not at your optimal mental state. So I think for me, the interviews serve as constant reminders that this stuff isn't unaccessible to any of us, and it's not super complicated. Like, I think of Apollo Ono, who's a huge I think we'll see what happens with the We're Summer Olympics now, so we'll see the Winter Olympics. But as of right now, he's the most decorated Winter Olympian of all time. A short track speed skater and a ton of medals. And he just uses postits in his closet or in the kitchen, like, wherever he's going. Frequently uses little postits with his goals or priming kind of affirmations to remind him that this is what I'm doing, this is why I'm doing it. And he told me as well. Sometimes I resonate with them, and sometimes I kind of forget why I wrote those out. But for the most part, they serve as reminders. I use the episodes and the interviews as reminders to myself that, okay, yeah, this practice really works well, or, hey, I've never tried X, or I've never tried journaling. And being really intentional with lining up with whatever's happening with the planets and moon energy and all that stuff, that's something that was foreign to me. What's the worst that can happen? Nothing bad is going to come from tapping into thousands of years of astrology and lining up with a practice that I'm already doing anyway. So, like, things like that. I think I'm really grateful for the interviews because they serve as reminders and they also serve as inspiration to try new practices.
[23:50] Katie: Absolutely. And I love how open minded you are on topics such as astrology or other things. You can just tell that there's a genuineness to learn and experiment and implement, and that's always inspiring. Listening to what you're saying. I'm starting to think if they're so accessible to everyone, like the postits or things like exercising or nutrition or things that come up quite regularly, I'm wondering what do you feel holds people back? Because all it takes is for them to listen to one of these episodes, one of your episodes, to read your book. Why is it that we're not all operating at that level?
[24:26] Marc: Great question. The only thing I can say is it's the consistency. And to operate at that level, just like the easiest parallel I can draw us is to nutrition and physical fitness. I mean, we all know that if we eat healthy, what we put in our body will result in how we feel and how we can perform and whatnot. But how many of us, myself included, when you're out in the wild in a regular supermarket or store, you're surrounded with the most unhealthy choices, and you've got billion dollar organizations that are fueling that. Right? So this is what I mean. And it's the same thing with mental fitness. That's why I think that for me, I really try to protect that first hour of the morning, to put something positive in my mind and something that triggers the reminders to do these practices and put my mind in the right place. Because the rest of the day is filled with the opposite of that, for the most part, unfortunately. I mean, you can obviously set up your environment as best as you can to avoid the news or only have positive things coming into your mind and whatnot. But it's just like the nutrition example or same with exercise. I mean we know that exercise is good for us, but sometimes we fall off of that narrative or that track and stuff happens, right? So I say it's not complicated, doesn't mean it's not hard. Because we do have to show up every day. And mental fitness is no different than if you're going to set an objective to exercise 20 or 30 minutes every day. I set the same objective for mental fitness and I prioritize that actually over physical fitness. Because I know that 100% something will come up to mentally throw me off. Just fact, it'll probably happen today and it'll happen tomorrow. And there's always things that will disrupt us emotionally, mentally. So if I can rely and be confident in the consistent mental fitness that I'm doing every day, then I know that okay, well I have the tools that can pull me out of that or shift me to where I need to go. And I have a really extreme example to make the point because I'll never forget this interview. If you want to hear the story, this was an in person interview in Toronto, Canada with a young guy that remember I was sitting across the table with him and his eyes were just, they were just he didn't look like there was something that was clearly up. And I just remember Ryan like, are you sure you want to do this interview right now? I can tell something's up. And I'll never forget this because he turned to me and he said I have to do this interview because the tools and the practices that we're about to talk about on the show are the very tools that gave me the 1 second last night to make a different decision. And that decision was to check himself into the suicide ward of the hospital. And then he proceeded to say, again, if it wasn't knowing that I had have access to these tools that give me whether for him it was journaling and meditation and whatnot, that could have been a very different outcome. So I mean, that's an extreme example, obviously. But again, knowing that when you're doing the consistent training and that you have those tools at your disposal, just knowing that you have them often helps you through so many life events, right?
[28:25] Katie: It just illustrates the importance of mental fitness. And we so often talk about physical fitness. Yet like you said, mental fitness is even more important in so many ways because it's how we deal with our emotions and basically the roller coaster of life. And especially when you have your own business. I'm thinking what you said about consistency reminds me probably that's why James Clear did so well with his book Atomic Habits, because we all need to build these habits also. And this is something that you also go through in your book in terms of the different practices that we can implement and use. So I do think it's a really valid point around consistency. I think it's so important.
[29:05] Marc: Yeah. And just for everyone listening, just so it's not so daunting if you're just starting up on this stuff or you want to get started. When I say consistency, it could be something as small as when you're making your morning cup of coffee or tea or whatever you're doing in the morning. Think of your current routine where you can practice stack something on top of what you're already doing. For me, that often shows up as I have an espresso coffee machine that I greatly enjoy as that's brewing, which takes less than a minute, I pull up Ryan Holiday's Daily Stoic. You mentioned stoicism at one point. So I pull up that and there's a one page passage for the day. That, again, for me, is my mental fitness. And if I was just doing that, that alone would make such a huge difference because it's just a perspective shift and it's something that's being done in the morning before I grab my phone, before I look at email, before my mind has to flip into reaction mode. This is something that, for me at least, makes me feel like, okay, I've started the day on my own terms, and I started the day with quality knowledge and quality information. And that took minutes. Less than five minutes.
[30:24] Katie: Yes. I love the fact that it sets the tone for the day. Actually, reading about this in your book made me want to buy the Daily Sewing by Ryan Holiday so I could do the exact same thing that this is such a nice thing. One page a day on stoicism. It's so nice. So I'll probably do exactly that.
[30:40] Marc: I'll make sure to message Ryan.
[30:43] Katie: Fantastic. I can't believe it. Mark, we're already approaching our half an hour. Before we go, one last question. What haven't you said that needs to be said?
[30:54] Marc: Oh, wow. That is a great question. I think the biggest thing that I'd love to leave with people because we've talked a lot about different practices and how questions can help and whatnot and how to get started. But I would just like to remind people to be kind to themselves going through this process, and especially when it comes to journaling, to just write or reflect without judgment on yourself. Right. Think about because we're our hardest critics to ourselves and we're often not very kind in terms of how we speak to ourselves in our own mind. And I think just when you're exploring and trying these practice, some of these questions are hard to answer. Right? And you ask what keeps people from doing some of this stuff? I mean, a question like who am I if you're not ready to or am I happy if you're not ready to? Be really honest with that answer and depending what the answer is, could be a really scary thing, right? We don't typically like to set us up to feel unwell and not motivated and whatnot. So I would just say approach any of these practice, whether it's journaling, meditation and whatever works for you, from a mental fitness and physical fitness, and just be kind to yourself and set yourself up for success. Set up some mini easy objectives to achieve, which maybe it's one page out of this book or Ryan's or something else. Every morning when you start your day and you can feel like you've checked something off that you know is healthy for your mind.
[32:36] Katie: Amazing. That's such a fantastic reminder and such a fantastic last note. Thank you so much, Mark, for being on the show. I'll also put a link to your book that is coming out as we release this episode in the show Notes, and I invite everyone to read it. I've personally read it myself, cover to cover. Fantastic read. So I highly recommend it. Thank you once more, Mark, for being on the show.
[32:57] Marc: Thank you. Have a beautiful day.
[32:59] Katie: Thank you.
[33:02] Katie: Thank you for listening to the Focus B show. We would love to hear your feedback. Let us know in a review how this episode inspired you. Keep buzzing.