Speaker 1: No matter where we're at in life, no matter what
Speaker 1: we're doing, we're all one question away from a completely
Speaker 1: different path. Just noticing where you've come from and where
Speaker 1: you're heading, and that gives you the pause and the
Speaker 1: opportunity to course crack if you want, or write the
Speaker 1: new chapter and give us the opportunity to pick a
Speaker 1: different path, injecting those moments, those micro moments I should say,
Speaker 1: of play and excitement. If it goes so.
Speaker 2: Far, welcome to the seas.
Speaker 3: The Yay Podcast.
Speaker 2: Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too
Speaker 2: rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then
Speaker 2: we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize
Speaker 2: there's more than one way. So this is a platform
Speaker 2: to hear and explore the stories of those who found
Speaker 2: lives they adore, the good.
Speaker 3: Bad and ugly.
Speaker 2: The best and worst day will bear all the facets
Speaker 2: of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or Spoonful of Sarah,
Speaker 2: a lawyer turned fu entrepreneur whos wapped the suits and
Speaker 2: heels to co found matcha Maidan and Match Milk Bark
Speaker 2: CZA is a series of conversations on finding a life
Speaker 2: you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and
Speaker 2: fulfillment along the way. There are so many people without
Speaker 2: whom this show would not have been possible, but this
Speaker 2: guest in particular really pushed me forwards at the pivotal
Speaker 2: moment where I could have backed out. We connected a
Speaker 2: few years ago when I jumped on his own incredible
Speaker 2: show Behind the Human for one of my very first
Speaker 2: ever podcast interviews, and a few months later it was
Speaker 2: Mark who I turned to when I wanted to start
Speaker 2: my own show. Back then, he was about the only
Speaker 2: person I even knew with their own podcast, and I
Speaker 2: still can't believe how instantly and generously he shared the
Speaker 2: details of his gear software, reaching out to guests, and
Speaker 2: everything in between about bringing a podcast to life and
Speaker 2: what an absolute privilege years later now to at least
Speaker 2: begin to repay the favor by sharing the exciting news
Speaker 2: about his brand new book, Personal Socrates. Although I don't
Speaker 2: really know if I'm repaying him a favor, I think
Speaker 2: he's doing me another one by sharing his incredible wisdom
Speaker 2: on the show. Mark Champagne has one of those fascinating
Speaker 2: stories that begins with a whole decade in an area
Speaker 2: that now I can't even imagine him in doing corporate
Speaker 2: sales and brand management for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. His
Speaker 2: side passion for photography was the first inclination of a
Speaker 2: possible career shift, building from self taught newbie to even
Speaker 2: joining photographers without borders on a trip from his native
Speaker 2: Canada to Senegal. But it was through his groundbreaking journaling
Speaker 2: and mental fitness app Keio that I first met Mark,
Speaker 2: which saw incredible success, building up to eighty six point
Speaker 2: nine million impressions on Apple until the day he decided
Speaker 2: to delete it. And now he's a brand new author
Speaker 2: helping us ask bigger and better questions to upgrade our lives,
Speaker 2: just at the perfect time for World Mental Health Month.
Speaker 2: I'm sure if it's his Canadian background or not, but
Speaker 2: you'll hear instantly what a genuine and kind soul Mark
Speaker 2: is and his book is exactly the handbook to happiness
Speaker 2: and mental fitness that we all need as we continue
Speaker 2: to navigate so much uncertainty and change.
Speaker 3: I hope you get.
Speaker 2: As much out of him as I did. Mark Champagne,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks Sarah. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2: I am so so excited about this, firstly because I
Speaker 2: haven't seen you in so long, Secondly because I'm so
Speaker 2: thrilled about your incredible new book. But thirdly because and
Speaker 2: I saved this until we press record because we've been
Speaker 2: talking for about twenty minutes, because that's how excited I
Speaker 2: am to see you. But for anyone who doesn't already
Speaker 2: know this, and I actually don't think i've shared this before.
Speaker 2: Back when I've had the idea for CZA three years ago,
Speaker 2: I think it was I had been on Mark's incredible podcast,
Speaker 2: which we'll talk about, and it was one of the
Speaker 2: very first podcast interviews I'd ever done, and I enjoyed
Speaker 2: it so much. In a couple of months later, I
Speaker 2: had the idea of, oh, you know, I've told this
Speaker 2: story before. I wanted to have more conversations in a
Speaker 2: longer kind of forum. But I didn't know anything about podcasts.
Speaker 2: And I always say that in the moment of self doubt,
Speaker 2: you have to go to the right person and someone
Speaker 2: can either tip you away from that dream.
Speaker 3: Or tip you towards it.
Speaker 2: And I went back and looked in advance of this
Speaker 2: conversation at the email that I sent you, being like
Speaker 2: we've never met in person. I've only just you know,
Speaker 2: we've had one conversation, but you're the nicest person and
Speaker 2: I love your energy. But also, can I please ask
Speaker 2: you a favor? Can you tell me every single thing
Speaker 2: you know about podcasts? Because I want to start one
Speaker 2: and fully expecting you to be like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Go to Apple podcasts or google it.
Speaker 2: Mark sent back the most detailed, thoughtful, kind explanation of
Speaker 2: microphones and platforms and where it lives and how Apple
Speaker 2: podcast goes, like all this stuff I'd never heard of,
Speaker 2: and you are the reason this podcast exists. And I
Speaker 2: will never be able to thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Well, you're I mean, I'm almost teary eyed, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for seeing that. I forgot about that email actually,
Speaker 1: and I actually can't believe that that was one of
Speaker 1: the My show was one of the first podcasts you've done,
Speaker 1: because you're, I mean, you're so natural at it. So
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised that you have your own show and
Speaker 1: it's rocking because you've definitely found one of your callings
Speaker 1: when it comes to interviews and whatnot. I know you're
Speaker 1: doing a ton of different things, but I hope you're
Speaker 1: enjoying it because it's so fun.
Speaker 3: I love it. It is so much fun.
Speaker 2: And I remember you saying that to me. You're like,
Speaker 2: even if you know you get one or two listeners,
Speaker 2: it doesn't even matter, Like, just start, you'll have the
Speaker 2: best time ever. And now that's what I tell other
Speaker 2: people who are like, I'm wondering if I should start
Speaker 2: a podcast. But you were just so generous, even though
Speaker 2: there was no reason for you to do that, I'd
Speaker 2: already done your interview, Like, you were just so kind
Speaker 2: and giving. And I always think, you know, in so
Speaker 2: many times in your life, like you just mentioned finding
Speaker 2: something that I, you know, love and I'm good at.
Speaker 2: Without your push in the right direction, I couldn't have
Speaker 2: found that because I wouldn't have known, because I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have started interviewing people. And so I think in anyone's path, yay,
Speaker 2: you know, we go through all the different twists and
Speaker 2: turns and people and pivotal moments, and that email and
Speaker 2: your response was one of them for me.
Speaker 3: So thank you so so much.
Speaker 1: Well received.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so it's like a full circle on the show.
Speaker 2: Now my book and your book, Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 2: am so so thrilled, but as you know. The way
Speaker 2: I've developed the whole structure of the show is that
Speaker 2: because people often encounter you now knowing so much about
Speaker 2: mental fitness and strategies to live your best life and
Speaker 2: have now become a published author and have an incredibly
Speaker 2: successful podcast, it's so easy to assume that you were
Speaker 2: born enlightened and that you always knew you would end
Speaker 2: up here, and that you know you've this was a
Speaker 2: logical pathway for you. But I definitely want to dive
Speaker 2: all the way deep into the book, and I still
Speaker 2: I also can't believe that I'm in it. It blows
Speaker 2: me away. I just want to cry, but which we
Speaker 2: will get to sure. But I think what I love
Speaker 2: most is tracing back from like childhood mark and filling
Speaker 2: the gap of between you know, the first time you
Speaker 2: ever thought about having a job and what that would
Speaker 2: mean to the job you're in now. There's always so
Speaker 2: much stuff in between that often doesn't make sense at
Speaker 2: the time, and that it never follows a linear path.
Speaker 2: But I love reminding everyone that if they haven't found
Speaker 2: their pathway yet, you know, most people don't straight away
Speaker 2: on their first or second or even third goes. And
Speaker 2: I like You've done so many interesting but totally unrelated things,
Speaker 2: so definitely want to cover that. But first ice breaker, Yeah,
Speaker 2: what is the most down to earth thing about you?
Speaker 1: Ooh, down to earth thing about me? I think just
Speaker 1: I really try to be as present as possible, And
Speaker 1: presence comes to mind right now because it's something that
Speaker 1: I've been working so hard on, especially with everything going
Speaker 1: on that you know, just you know, being here with
Speaker 1: you and experiencing your energy and this conversation and the
Speaker 1: questions and all of that. I mean, for me, if
Speaker 1: I can offer that in all experiences, and obviously I'm
Speaker 1: not perfect and I fail at this all the time,
Speaker 1: but that's the thing I hope people leave with and think, wow,
Speaker 1: that was you know, he was really present, and I
Speaker 1: feel more energized after being you know, with him for example.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's my ultimate goal. I don't care
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. If I can leave someone more energized
Speaker 1: than when they came in, then that puts a smile
Speaker 1: on my face.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you absolutely doing it. Like for people
Speaker 2: who can't see the video yet, which will come out eventually,
Speaker 2: but Mark and I like are just out smiling each
Speaker 2: other all the time, Like, you've never seen two more smiley,
Speaker 2: excitable people and we're just bouncing off in this like
Speaker 2: weird circle of joy.
Speaker 3: It's so exciting for me.
Speaker 1: Sick.
Speaker 3: But also you're.
Speaker 2: Canadian, so you're automatically like the kindest, most loveliest person ever.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Also, did you say you had Thanksgiving last week? Do
Speaker 2: Canadians have a different Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: We did? Well. I mean, I'm only aware because the
Speaker 1: one that's always made such a big deal about is
Speaker 1: the US Thanksgiving. But yeah, ours was this past weekend,
Speaker 1: so I don't know for the only country in the
Speaker 1: world that has it at this time, but it's always
Speaker 1: been this date. Wow, you're probably thrown off, like what
Speaker 1: is he? Is he mixed up with his holidays?
Speaker 2: I actually wasn't at all because I have no concept
Speaker 2: of time at the moment, so I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's probably Thanksgiving time exactly. But then I
Speaker 2: was like, wait, I thought Thanksgiving was in November.
Speaker 3: But it's so funny.
Speaker 2: That's so Canadian of you to be like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: this is Thanksgiving, but there's there's a different one. But
Speaker 2: that's not that's not think that's the US Thanksgiving. I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry, I treated that one as a default.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: Canadian Thanksgiving is the default Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: That's funny.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you're way to tell us about young Mark.
Speaker 2: What were you like as a kid, What were you know,
Speaker 2: the things that really lead you up before any of
Speaker 2: those societal conceptions of things started to kind of blind
Speaker 2: your judgment. What did you think you wanted to be
Speaker 2: and what was your childhood like?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's funny. I mean I try to think about
Speaker 1: my childhood. You know. I'm in a men's group, so
Speaker 1: so our childhood comes up often enough in that work,
Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of the guys in the
Speaker 1: group there's you know, unfortunately, there's there's trauma and there's
Speaker 1: things like that that they're working through and processing, and
Speaker 1: I just I don't have that. So I feel really grateful. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I was brought up in a really loving household and
Speaker 1: support of parents and whatnot, but raised and born and
Speaker 1: lived and went university as well in like a really
Speaker 1: small town and it was just you know, hanging out outside,
Speaker 1: playing doing things like basketball. I was big into skateboarding
Speaker 1: in the before university and whatnot, and just you know,
Speaker 1: having a good time with friends and it wasn't until
Speaker 1: I can't remember what age I was, but definitely before
Speaker 1: university and whatnot, that I would I'd spend the summers
Speaker 1: going to the city which for any Canadians or anyone
Speaker 1: that's been the Canada that you'd probably recognize Toronto. That's
Speaker 1: our biggest city in the country, which is about four
Speaker 1: hours away from where I grew up. And I would
Speaker 1: spend the summers there or at least a month there
Speaker 1: with an aunt and uncle. And that was my exposure
Speaker 1: to like the business world and traffic, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I remember coming in and be like six or
Speaker 1: seven lanes of traffic and just thinking, wow, like this
Speaker 1: is where things are happening, and just being so excited
Speaker 1: about congestion essentially, which just ridiculous, right, But it opened
Speaker 1: me up to this this whole other world that I
Speaker 1: just wasn't exposed to, and that's I think gave me
Speaker 1: a little bit of the you know, the curiosity around
Speaker 1: business life and marketing and things like that, which is
Speaker 1: what I ultimately went to university for and then ended
Speaker 1: up moving and I lived in Toronto for quite some
Speaker 1: time with completely different opinions of traffic. Obviously at an older.
Speaker 2: Age, congestion really weighs off, you know, exactly off.
Speaker 1: It's not ideal, but that's essentially that the path that
Speaker 1: got me into that space. And then I spent about
Speaker 1: a decade in the corporate world before jumping into what
Speaker 1: I'm doing now, which none of this, I mean, I
Speaker 1: never would have imagined being an advocate for mental fitness
Speaker 1: or mental health, like I didn't even really know what
Speaker 1: that stuff was. Frankly at that age, definitely never thought
Speaker 1: I would have ever had a you know, any type
Speaker 1: of podcast, or was interviewing people, or for sure writing
Speaker 1: a book. The closest I've ever come to having excitement
Speaker 1: about writing, I was young and I had my parents
Speaker 1: had this all typewriter from I guess when they were kids,
Speaker 1: and I remember finding it and pulling it out and
Speaker 1: just slapping on the keys, and I was trying to
Speaker 1: write some sort of you know, fictional story with ultimate failure.
Speaker 1: Like it sucked, it was, but I remember thinking, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: I love to write a book one day and it
Speaker 1: kind of stopped there and here we are.
Speaker 3: So wow, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: I think looking back at the different chapters and like
Speaker 2: the times that you spent in each thing. It's so
Speaker 2: interesting that that decade of corporate was so different. I mean,
Speaker 2: I expected, coming into your life now that there would
Speaker 2: have been a much earlier interest in health or sports science.
Speaker 3: Or you know, anything kind of related.
Speaker 2: But it was sales for biotech and pharmacy, and then
Speaker 2: business analyst and then brand manager and marketing and like
Speaker 2: such a different world. And I think sometimes people look
Speaker 2: back at chapters that don't make sense and lament the
Speaker 2: waste of time that that was. But I'm sure that
Speaker 2: that ten years maybe doesn't connect now. But if you'd
Speaker 2: tried to start what you're doing now ten years earlier,
Speaker 2: you couldn't have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a small connection that had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the work I was doing, because when I
Speaker 1: came out of university, and I think I had a
Speaker 1: couple jobs in between, starting in the farmer world. But
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, I was hired in sales, and I
Speaker 1: remember that time they would hire people in like batches, essentially,
Speaker 1: and then you would go to in this case, we
Speaker 1: were flown out to Montreal and that's where the Canadian
Speaker 1: head office was and you'd spend four weeks at the
Speaker 1: head office doing all this training. Depending on your degree
Speaker 1: and kind of what you needed. But it was at
Speaker 1: that moment where I remember thinking, well, I'm in a
Speaker 1: sales role. We're all being trained essentially in the same way, Like,
Speaker 1: how possibly could I stand out if if we're going
Speaker 1: to and I'm in a sales role, so like, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's obviously motivation to that. They had like trips and
Speaker 1: wards and things like that, like how could I stand out?
Speaker 1: And that's that's what started the journey into mental fitness.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that at that time, but I got
Speaker 1: up earlier and I started reading positive things and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden that positive content, you know, at
Speaker 1: that time, I was reading like Success magazine, and it
Speaker 1: was exposed to people like Tony Robbins and Robin Sharma
Speaker 1: and all these different people. And over the years started seeing, Wow,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what kind of content I'm consuming in
Speaker 1: this space, one hundred percent of the people have some
Speaker 1: sort of reflective practice. And I was gravitating towards journaling.
Speaker 1: So throughout the eight or nine years in that world,
Speaker 1: you know, just navigating job changes and life disruptions and
Speaker 1: all these different things, I would get up early, I'd
Speaker 1: bring in that content for me. I was gravitating towards
Speaker 1: the questions that all these people were reflecting on. I'd
Speaker 1: write those down and then I would reflect on them
Speaker 1: the next morning to my own practice in relation to
Speaker 1: where I was at in my life. I did that
Speaker 1: for you years, years, until getting frustrated with the tools.
Speaker 1: And that's where we met. Was at that kind of
Speaker 1: junction in my life when I left that world.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's so fascinating and it's funny how like really,
Speaker 2: when you look at things, the seeds get planted like
Speaker 2: so far into the past that you don't realize at
Speaker 2: the time. So exciting, but later when you connect the dots,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh my god, it makes sense. That started
Speaker 2: way before I thought it actually did. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: was reading it you also did. I mean, there's just
Speaker 2: so many different cool things that you've done. You were
Speaker 2: with photographers without Borders doing photography for a water charity
Speaker 2: in Senegal, Like, how did that come about?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well so, and that's funny too, because that's I
Speaker 1: would say photography, and I picked up for photography when
Speaker 1: I was in university. That's probably the moment that introduced
Speaker 1: me to mindfulness without even knowing that that was happening,
Speaker 1: because I mean even now I take well, I mean
Speaker 1: I take photos with my phone like every other human
Speaker 1: on the planet. But you know, that was the first
Speaker 1: moment where I started noticing the detail in you know,
Speaker 1: the shadows or the light or the exposures and things
Speaker 1: like that. And now, I mean, photographer has given me
Speaker 1: the greatest gift I could ever ask for. I can't
Speaker 1: go anywhere without seeing the photo or that composition, right,
Speaker 1: which again just allows you to step into the present
Speaker 1: moment and see the detail. So it you know, it
Speaker 1: started in university and I just I kept you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of self taught. Ironically. I was following someone
Speaker 1: by the name of Chase Jarvis, who's won a profile
Speaker 1: in the book, and that's how I learned photography because
Speaker 1: he was a globally renowned photographer and I was just
Speaker 1: following all those online you know, courses and his teachings
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And then eventually I was I
Speaker 1: was exposed to this Photographers without Borders, and it was
Speaker 1: such an amazing opportunity. I got the company, the Time
Speaker 1: of Artists that I was working for to help sponsor
Speaker 1: me to go, and I took every I think it
Speaker 1: was a three week trip and we went to Sinegal
Speaker 1: and I went with a company called Water Charity, not
Speaker 1: Charity Water. There's two of them, essentially water Charity that
Speaker 1: have the same name, and they needed someone to essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, document and capture all of the projects that
Speaker 1: they had going on on the ground so that people
Speaker 1: could see, you know, the effects and the villages. And
Speaker 1: it was just such I mean, I'll never forget that experience.
Speaker 1: I mean, just meeting the happiest people I've probably met
Speaker 1: to this day that have just nothing right, nothing in
Speaker 1: art sense of the sense of the world, but you know,
Speaker 1: they they they're just so grateful for what they do
Speaker 1: have and the sense of community and the smiles, you know,
Speaker 1: capturing that through the lens was just I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2: It's so funny that you say that because so many people,
Speaker 2: I think during our trip to Rwanda, and I think
Speaker 2: we spoke about this on your podcast, that was the
Speaker 2: exact reflection I had. Was the I expected the reverse
Speaker 2: reflection of, you know, being overwhelmed by how much we
Speaker 2: have and how grateful I am for you know, comparing
Speaker 2: to what little they had. But actually I saw like
Speaker 2: a more pure happiness that I had never seen back home,
Speaker 2: just joy with small things. And I think that's such
Speaker 2: a common reflection for people traveling to countries like this
Speaker 2: and expecting to feel like we have so much and
Speaker 2: they have so little, but actually you get exposed to
Speaker 2: such a deeper gratitude than you've probably ever thought about before.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: Interesting for separating happiness from stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, and what I really liked about the
Speaker 1: objective of the trip was that, you know, because we're
Speaker 1: used to seeing kind of the world vision style photos,
Speaker 1: you know, and usually at least back in the day,
Speaker 1: at least when I was growing up, that you would
Speaker 1: see a lot of the sad faces, and the strategy
Speaker 1: was around and you know, the sadness and helping people
Speaker 1: out of that, which is which is valid. But the
Speaker 1: charity that I was going over with wanted to show
Speaker 1: the happiness that was being brought because of you know,
Speaker 1: a well that was doug or some sort of water
Speaker 1: system that was set up. So it was just, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a combination of two really magical things. To
Speaker 1: be able to capture that and feel that from these
Speaker 1: villages and hopefully, I mean those those images still live
Speaker 1: on and they're using them, hopefully you know, it motivates
Speaker 1: others to step in and help and bring that you know,
Speaker 1: that joy and that happiness and that health to so
Speaker 1: many more people. So it's yeah, I often think about
Speaker 1: that trip and it's something I'd love to do again
Speaker 1: at any moment. Frankly, well once this world opens up.
Speaker 2: It's also so interesting that you know those experiences, and
Speaker 2: I think they're often the ones that aren't related to
Speaker 2: a career you want to have forever. Like I'm sure
Speaker 2: whether you wanted to be a photographer or thought that
Speaker 2: was going to be your full time vocation. But sometimes
Speaker 2: unless something directly aligns with our future goal, we dismiss
Speaker 2: it as like, oh, well, what's that going to give me?
Speaker 2: Like it's not towards the ultimate dream. But I think
Speaker 2: those activities you do for breadth are actually indirectly more
Speaker 2: valuable than anything that you could do that's just like
Speaker 2: immediately clear what the benefit is going to be at
Speaker 2: the time. How do you feel about that kind of
Speaker 2: idea of making time for stuff that isn't necessarily productive
Speaker 2: for your ultimate goal but kind of also is I'm
Speaker 2: being so inarticulate, but do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: No, No, I know exactly what you mean. And I
Speaker 1: actually experienced that because I remember, you know, I was
Speaker 1: still in my regular job, which I was I was
Speaker 1: quite happy with. I enjoyed the people and what we
Speaker 1: were doing. But I had this little photography thing on
Speaker 1: the side that every now and then I would shoot
Speaker 1: like a wedding or like some family portraits or something like.
Speaker 1: It wasn't you know, I think crazy in terms of income,
Speaker 1: but mentally I was trying. It's like I want or
Speaker 1: if I can get this going and then I can
Speaker 1: go all in on on the photography, because it, you know,
Speaker 1: really lights me up. But it came to a point
Speaker 1: where I remember just feeling like even thinking like that.
Speaker 1: Or it was probably weddings, because those are the most
Speaker 1: stressful things to ever shoot with your photographer. I'll never
Speaker 1: forget those experiences. It's probably the weddings, but it was
Speaker 1: it came down to, you know what I'm kind of
Speaker 1: I'm robbing myself of the joy of this hobby and
Speaker 1: and this art or this practice that I don't want
Speaker 1: to lose, you know, the sense of excitement and like
Speaker 1: the wonder and everything that brings to me. So I
Speaker 1: actually stopped, you know, focusing on essentially creating another revenue
Speaker 1: stream for me and my family and just you know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot casually. And then like
Speaker 1: our phones really were upgraded, and I remember just thinking, no,
Speaker 1: we always have a phone. But I'm also still not
Speaker 1: going to give up the the practice of slowing down
Speaker 1: and you know, not just taking a photo to take
Speaker 1: a photo, but like actually framing something even though I'm
Speaker 1: not using a canon or Sony or something like that,
Speaker 1: I'm using my film, but be present and conscious with
Speaker 1: the practice and keep that up. And that I still
Speaker 1: do to this day, and it's something I'm super grateful for.
Speaker 2: I love that you brought up the idea that sometimes
Speaker 2: commercializing a passion kills the joy in it. And you know,
Speaker 2: so often people kind of get wrapped up in this
Speaker 2: idea of you have to love your job or you
Speaker 2: have to do as a job the thing that you love.
Speaker 2: But for many people that actually kills what they love
Speaker 2: most about it, like adding a brief and a deadline
Speaker 2: and financial expectations, and it's actually okay to seize your
Speaker 2: yea in a way that is totally separate from income.
Speaker 2: In fact, sometimes that kind of allows you to maintain
Speaker 2: the joy. So anyone listening, you know, give yourself permission
Speaker 2: to decide, I don't need to do it as a job.
Speaker 2: It's okay if that's on the side true, And it's
Speaker 2: okay if you don't get that same level of yay
Speaker 2: in what is your income producing activity as long as
Speaker 2: you're finding that joy sort of somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you nailed it.
Speaker 2: So then we get to nearly a decade after you graduated,
Speaker 2: ten years later that this gigantic pivot kind of happened.
Speaker 2: Did it feel like that at the time? How did
Speaker 2: it happen?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I think sometimes also you look back and go, wow,
Speaker 2: that was a really pivotal like sliding doors moment. But
Speaker 2: in the moment, maybe it happened and unraveled in tiny
Speaker 2: steps like how did KO begin?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I mean, that's an interest interesting way to
Speaker 1: think about it, because it definitely now in retrospect looking back,
Speaker 1: looks like it feels like a massive pivot. And it
Speaker 1: was because I really do feel like, other than you know,
Speaker 1: my core values and whatnot, I feel like a completely
Speaker 1: different person than I was eight or ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And what essentially what transpired was again like that nearly
Speaker 1: a decade of really having a consistent mental fitness practice
Speaker 1: and seeing that be helpful for my own life, I
Speaker 1: started to grow really frustrated with the digital options that
Speaker 1: were available for journaling because I was traveling a lot
Speaker 1: and I typically would do my type of journaling a
Speaker 1: reflection on a phone or on my iPad. And at
Speaker 1: the time, some of the meditation apps were starting to
Speaker 1: take off, like Calm and Headspace, and they were picking
Speaker 1: up steam. So I remember thinking, Okay, it seems like
Speaker 1: kind of the mainstream audience is starting to be okay
Speaker 1: or open to being guided digitally, you know, in least
Speaker 1: meditation in that space. But at that time, there was
Speaker 1: really nothing that existed for journaling to help start a practice.
Speaker 1: And the way I was doing it was again like
Speaker 1: I'd write a question down and then it started to
Speaker 1: become so disconnected. I'd write a question down, I'd copy
Speaker 1: it paste it into another app. I'm like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: There has to be a way more efficient way to
Speaker 1: do this right, especially in that at that time, And
Speaker 1: that's how the idea for Kio arose and I I'll
Speaker 1: never forget the email. I wrote an email to my
Speaker 1: brother in law, who you know, has been a lifelong entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: so there was a bit of comfort there, I guess
Speaker 1: you can say, or confidence there, you know, talking to
Speaker 1: someone that's been in that space before. He also had
Speaker 1: an IT company, which we laugh about to this day
Speaker 1: that's nowhere near a developer kind of experience. So at
Speaker 1: the time I was thinking, oh, yeah, he's got you know,
Speaker 1: this IT company. He's doing websites and phone systems and
Speaker 1: networks and stuff. I mean, surely he's got some experience
Speaker 1: in this or can help. And anyway, I just sent
Speaker 1: him an email with the frustrations and saying, Hey, would
Speaker 1: you like to try building something to see if we
Speaker 1: can you know, flirt with this idea and he said yes,
Speaker 1: and so we started doing it and I started mind
Speaker 1: mapping this app on the side kind of evenings and weekends,
Speaker 1: until eventually, I remember we went to this conference in Montreal.
Speaker 1: It was a conference called C two all on Creativity.
Speaker 1: Super fun, really awesome experience. And while I was there
Speaker 1: for the company, I was meeting with people but then
Speaker 1: also pitching this concept for the app. And my brother
Speaker 1: in law was there with me, so he was in
Speaker 1: these meetings. So we were just trying to get a
Speaker 1: pulse to see like what would people, you know, how
Speaker 1: would they react to this? And he had a designer
Speaker 1: on his team for his other work, so you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a functional app. We essentially had a
Speaker 1: mock up that was tappable, and as we would leave
Speaker 1: these meetings, we say it'll be like, okay, Ken, we
Speaker 1: got this feedback, can you shift this around. We're going
Speaker 1: to try another one. And we were just essentially iterating
Speaker 1: the app on the spot, and we got enough validation
Speaker 1: from those meetings to really cause a pause and think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've got something here. But I
Speaker 1: knew enough in my own day job that to make
Speaker 1: that successful, you know, there needed to be a pretty
Speaker 1: big strategy or plan or some sort of marketing initiative
Speaker 1: to really get this off the ground, because no one
Speaker 1: was doing this in journaling at that time, and I
Speaker 1: know I couldn't do that and my day job at
Speaker 1: the same time. So eventually it led to me leaving
Speaker 1: that job in the pharmaceutical world and pursuing Kio full
Speaker 1: time and.
Speaker 2: Then growing it to I think like eighty six million
Speaker 2: people being impacted. Wild idea, like what even is that
Speaker 2: I don't know yet, Sarah, Oh, I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the dust probably still hasn't settled on that. But it's
Speaker 2: so interesting that your background in business and brand management
Speaker 2: is what really helped launch that with experience and with
Speaker 2: skills and bringing so much to the table to to
Speaker 2: Like I think at the time, you don't notice or
Speaker 2: you don't realize necessarily how important those skills are, but
Speaker 2: so much of what you learn in one context is
Speaker 2: transferable to anything else that you do. So I'm sure
Speaker 2: that a huge part of your success.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It definitely was because I mean I
Speaker 1: was leaning on, you know, the skill set that you
Speaker 1: felt comfortable with, or that I had developed obviously over
Speaker 1: the years working on literally these hundred million dollar brands,
Speaker 1: right and these products, And essentially what I brought over was, Okay,
Speaker 1: well we're going to launch this app. You know, while
Speaker 1: we're really frustrated with how long development's taking because that
Speaker 1: we have zero experience and we're trying to figure this out.
Speaker 1: We're going through all these dep teams. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: not just going to sit back here and do nothing.
Speaker 1: So I started working on building relationships and bringing in
Speaker 1: you know, the right people with their content and obviously
Speaker 1: you're a part of that, right and getting different perspectives
Speaker 1: in this space, and so that when we launched the app,
Speaker 1: we weren't launching an app to zero people. We already
Speaker 1: had an audience, and we already had content that wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily coming from us, but we had content from all
Speaker 1: these you know, studying humans that essentially we were linking
Speaker 1: out to their work if people wanted to continue down
Speaker 1: that path. So, you know, it seemed to make sense
Speaker 1: as a as a collaboration strategy. And then I just
Speaker 1: made sure from a brand perspective that you know, we
Speaker 1: were really focus on the language of mental fitness. And
Speaker 1: the reason for that was simple, people just you know,
Speaker 1: there was so much talk around mental health, which is
Speaker 1: unfortunately loaded full of stigma still, right, and mental fitness
Speaker 1: was really you know that step in, well, I'm taking
Speaker 1: action just like I do my physical fitness, right, And
Speaker 1: so it was just like a more of a motivating term,
Speaker 1: I guess you will, because for me, mental fitness, you know,
Speaker 1: everything's under that mental health, mental resiliency, mental performance. So
Speaker 1: it's not about ignoring any factors, but it just feels
Speaker 1: more motivating and that you have more zest essentially to
Speaker 1: you know, take that, take that step forward. So I
Speaker 1: was just really focusing on that, and then the rest
Speaker 1: of the team obviously we were doing everything possible to
Speaker 1: make the app look beautiful and very apple Ish at
Speaker 1: that time, and it started to get picked up by
Speaker 1: Apple all around the world. That's what led to all
Speaker 1: those app Store impressions.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, so incredible, Such a testament to just
Speaker 2: your creativity and that you were really meant to be
Speaker 2: on this pathway. And I love the idea that the
Speaker 2: term mental fitness that's become so closely associated with everything
Speaker 2: you do, elevates your mental health and like everything and
Speaker 2: your mental processes to the same status as your physical fitness.
Speaker 2: Like I think that's another thing that I like about
Speaker 2: using fitness is that it's so associated with your body,
Speaker 2: and we often don't treat our mind with the same
Speaker 2: level of care. But I like that that word kind
Speaker 2: of encompasses that whole concept so nicely well.
Speaker 1: And I remember Sarah in one of our you know,
Speaker 1: when we were trying to raise funding for the app,
Speaker 1: one of the slides I had in the pitch deck
Speaker 1: was linked to the physical fitness world and just showing
Speaker 1: how mental fitness was was going to be parallel soon,
Speaker 1: like we're getting to that point. And the the image
Speaker 1: I had in the slide was of People magazine and
Speaker 1: I think the seventies and it was what's the guy's name,
Speaker 1: the guy from Baywatch and Jane Fonder or something, and
Speaker 1: they were going jogging, and the caption was something like,
Speaker 1: we're all going jogging. Everyone's doing it now, so like
Speaker 1: at that time it was jogging and exercise outside is
Speaker 1: essentially just taking off, right, So the point was we're
Speaker 1: not you know, that's where mental fitness is right now,
Speaker 1: and the super more than four years ago, but just
Speaker 1: to try to show that, hey, now's the time to
Speaker 1: get on board with this because and I really believe
Speaker 1: this to this day. I mean, what motivates us and
Speaker 1: tells us to go into the gym or run or
Speaker 1: do the exercise are the decisions that our mind's making.
Speaker 1: So for me, it all starts there. First.
Speaker 2: You've really extended and expanded on that idea in the book,
Speaker 2: which it's just such a valuable tool, particularly in this
Speaker 2: climate where we're being our mental fitness is being challenged
Speaker 2: more than it ever has. But I also want to
Speaker 2: weave in a little bit of the next section is
Speaker 2: your nati as all the challenges that kind of get
Speaker 2: in the way of your joy along the way. And
Speaker 2: it makes sense to kind of weave it in here
Speaker 2: because I think you've moved from an industry where you
Speaker 2: have so much experience. You studied for it, you have
Speaker 2: a degree behind you, and like lots of different corporations
Speaker 2: and businesses that you've worked with to back up. You know,
Speaker 2: if you ever have feelings of doubt or lack of confidence,
Speaker 2: you can talk yourself back around by I am experienced.
Speaker 2: I deserve to be here moving into a totally new
Speaker 2: industry with a brand new idea where not only have
Speaker 2: you never done it before, but no one has really
Speaker 2: done it before, but having to put yourself out there
Speaker 2: with pictures and like investing a lot of money. I
Speaker 2: think most you know, brand new business owners struggle more
Speaker 2: with self doubt and the mental side of the challenge.
Speaker 2: Then logistically you can physically figure out how to start
Speaker 2: a business.
Speaker 3: It's fitting your head around it.
Speaker 2: How did you cope in those early days with like
Speaker 2: the doubt or the fear, the risk and the massive
Speaker 2: change from what you knew, Like the comfort zone, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was definitely terrifying in some respects.
Speaker 1: There's definitely many moments of fear even even now. But
Speaker 1: the luxury of being in the space of mental fitness,
Speaker 1: especially starting with the APP I mean I had, and
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for this, but I've had literally hundreds
Speaker 1: of interviews with all of these incredible humans in all
Speaker 1: of these different industries, in different spaces, providing the things
Speaker 1: that they were doing to keep their mind healthy. So
Speaker 1: for me, you know, when you're building the business in
Speaker 1: that space, it's like that classic you have to practice
Speaker 1: what you preach. And it was the same thing writing
Speaker 1: the book, like I had to really rely on the
Speaker 1: practices because like everyone listening, I'm human as well, and
Speaker 1: you know, you fall into these comparison modes and in Okay,
Speaker 1: well that app is ranking over here, they did this,
Speaker 1: how come we can't get that funding? You know, like
Speaker 1: it's easily to slip into those internal dialogue or those
Speaker 1: looping thoughts. But again, just flipping back to these mental
Speaker 1: fitness practices about Okay, if I know prioritize my health
Speaker 1: mental and physical, if I meditate, if I bring in
Speaker 1: some breath work, or I do some journaling and boost
Speaker 1: myself awareness. Then I can catch these moments, pause a narrative,
Speaker 1: release it, or rechannel it, and continue forward.
Speaker 2: Essentially, I love the idea of pausing the narrative. It's
Speaker 2: so valuable to remind yourself that the narrative is something
Speaker 2: that you can actually you can control, like you can
Speaker 2: observe it. I think I used to think I had
Speaker 2: one level of thinking, but not that then I could
Speaker 2: have thoughts and value judgments on those thoughts, and that
Speaker 2: whole idea of metacognition, like what makes us different to
Speaker 2: any other being in this universe is that humans can
Speaker 2: think about their own thoughts, which also means that you
Speaker 2: can stop the ones that are unproductive, which is just
Speaker 2: like such a big.
Speaker 1: Revelation for sure. Well, and then that you can zoom
Speaker 1: out obviously and disastogotiate with maybe not disassociated that's the
Speaker 1: wrong word, but just have enough of a separation that
Speaker 1: you then start realizing that I am not just my
Speaker 1: thoughts or I am not the anxiety. Here. There's something
Speaker 1: I picked up from a meditation teacher, Jeff Warren. He
Speaker 1: wrote he wrote a book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics,
Speaker 1: which is the greatest title ever and he co authored
Speaker 1: it with Dan Harris, who's the ABC News anchor in
Speaker 1: the US. And I remember Jeff telling me about this,
Speaker 1: this whole idea of you know, when people when you
Speaker 1: have anxiety come up, or if you feel you know,
Speaker 1: a depressive state coming up, or whatever, fear, uncertainty, whatever
Speaker 1: those things are. You know, he provides labels to those
Speaker 1: things or names, and it's like, welcome to the party.
Speaker 1: So anxious Tom just walked into the room. You can
Speaker 1: come in, we can talk a little bit, but then
Speaker 1: you're going to have to leave type thing. And it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know, even with the humor of that,
Speaker 1: it just lightens the situation, right, And it's not anxious
Speaker 1: Tom like taking over your life and that you're spinning
Speaker 1: and looping for days on end, if not weeks or longer. Right,
Speaker 1: And then that's when it becomes a problem. But when
Speaker 1: you can acknowledge it and you're like, okay, thanks, I
Speaker 1: get it. Obviously there's something here that I have to
Speaker 1: deal with or process. But now you're gonna have to,
Speaker 1: you know, grab a no derve and take off.
Speaker 3: I loved that.
Speaker 2: I actually highlighted that in the book that welcome to
Speaker 2: the party kind of analogy, because it's such a good
Speaker 2: way to visualize the idea that thoughts come and go
Speaker 2: like they're not they don't consume your entire identity or
Speaker 2: just come in the door, and then you can, you know,
Speaker 2: politely show them the door and they can go all
Speaker 2: the way back out.
Speaker 1: Of the way. Absolutely everything is.
Speaker 2: Impervan yes, totally. So then I think another really big
Speaker 2: challenge for a lot of people along the way of
Speaker 2: their journey is like steps that seem like steps backwards,
Speaker 2: or times that things don't necessarily work out the way
Speaker 2: that you want them to, and and coming to terms
Speaker 2: with the idea that you know, I love quotes that
Speaker 2: you know sometimes like things have to fall apart for
Speaker 2: better things to come together, and like what seems like
Speaker 2: a step backwards, there's always a learning that can propel
Speaker 2: you forward, so that idea of like failing forwards. And
Speaker 2: in the very early pages of Personal Socrates, in your intro,
Speaker 2: you talk about the idea that Kio was like this
Speaker 2: big jump and this big seizing of the a, and
Speaker 2: you know, for three years it just kept growing exponentially
Speaker 2: and felt like everything you were hitting all these goals
Speaker 2: but then confronted this wall of what you felt what
Speaker 2: felt like failure, but was actually just the seeds for
Speaker 2: the next chapter. Because again, like your joy and your
Speaker 2: ultimate you know, purpose in life is not static. Three
Speaker 2: years later, you're a three years different person, so you
Speaker 2: might have you know, things unravel in chapters. So talk
Speaker 2: us through that whole idea of hitting these milestones, and.
Speaker 1: Then I feel, I mean that was that was an
Speaker 1: explosion of my world, I guess is how I could
Speaker 1: just describe that because you know, just as we've been
Speaker 1: talking about this massive number of eighty six point nine
Speaker 1: million people, which is obviously a lot of App Store impressions,
Speaker 1: and we had hundreds of thousands of downloads as well,
Speaker 1: so we had a pretty big community in the app.
Speaker 1: But just as we're as it sounds great right now,
Speaker 1: which it was, we were also falling for that hype.
Speaker 1: And you know, when we have these write ups in
Speaker 1: these brand features and you know, collaborating with like Lego
Speaker 1: and LinkedIn and Vaynermedia, there's this element of almost like
Speaker 1: false sense of security that Okay, well, obviously if those
Speaker 1: brands are behind us, or we're getting all these you know,
Speaker 1: new apps we love or apps or of the day
Speaker 1: that you know, we have to succeed here. But where
Speaker 1: we weren't succeeding was the business model, you know, in
Speaker 1: the financials. And I really I don't doubt that we
Speaker 1: would have figured that out because we were on the
Speaker 1: track to you know, iterate, continue to iterate the product
Speaker 1: and whatnot. The difference though, and I think, you know
Speaker 1: it's not I share that because if we would have
Speaker 1: kept going, we probably would have turned it around. But
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, at that time, personally, I had lost
Speaker 1: the conviction to continue, you know, it was it was,
Speaker 1: and that was the hardest thing to accept because somewhere
Speaker 1: along the way, we had spent you know, a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of money and spent a tremendous amount of mental
Speaker 1: capacity on this project or on this business, and I
Speaker 1: lost the hope or desire to really push through kind
Speaker 1: of that messy middle or push through to the other side.
Speaker 1: And something just felt like, you know what, this chapter,
Speaker 1: as you say, or this vehicle into mental fitness, which
Speaker 1: was an app, doesn't feel right for me anymore. And
Speaker 1: I knew that I was in the right space, so
Speaker 1: that gave a slight amount of comfort, But because everything
Speaker 1: else was exploding while that decision was being made. It
Speaker 1: was enough to say, okay, you know what, like enough's
Speaker 1: enough on this one. We're gonna we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: shut this down, and I'll just I'll never forget, you know,
Speaker 1: being I was in a coworking space in Toronto, Canada,
Speaker 1: and I was looking at that number the Apple dashboard
Speaker 1: with all the metrics and just thinking, can my next
Speaker 1: step is going to is delete from app Store? And
Speaker 1: then that's when all the wrong questions started to circulate,
Speaker 1: like how could we fail at such a colossal level,
Speaker 1: and like what would my ex colleagues think? Because I
Speaker 1: left the job. That wasn't one of those snares where
Speaker 1: I dreaded going into work. I mean, it was all
Speaker 1: you know, more so I didn't I didn't want to
Speaker 1: regret not trying this, and I just I remember the
Speaker 1: fate their faces flashing in front of me, because I'll
Speaker 1: never forget sitting at my desk telling people that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving in a month essentially, and there was just
Speaker 1: such joy and excitement and like encouragement and almost the
Speaker 1: sense of yeah, I have ideas like that too. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're so courageous to go and do it, and then
Speaker 1: now here I am. I'm deleting this business. And the
Speaker 1: worst part was that my backup plan of returning back
Speaker 1: to that industry also didn't feel right, because I what
Speaker 1: felt one hundred percent right was this was this space
Speaker 1: of mental fitness. But now I just deleted the vehicle
Speaker 1: that was, you know, keeping me in there, and I
Speaker 1: have no idea how I'm going to stay here and
Speaker 1: what I'm going to do next. We're financially wrecked, We're
Speaker 1: living in a place that was always supposed to be temporary,
Speaker 1: so we don't even really like the area that we're
Speaker 1: in in the house, and we had sold, you know,
Speaker 1: with this beautiful condo Montreal and sold that, and so
Speaker 1: everything just felt wrong and like it was exploding. And
Speaker 1: there was just this fear in this this massive anxiety
Speaker 1: that was causing me to feel sick, like physically sick
Speaker 1: every morning during that period until I eventually could go
Speaker 1: back to some of the practices and just the micro
Speaker 1: moments of tapping into the present moment and deploying as
Speaker 1: much gratitude as possible, even even something as simple as yeah,
Speaker 1: I deleted the app, but I deleted the app on
Speaker 1: the laptop that most people don't have access to or
Speaker 1: don't have in the world. Like small things like that
Speaker 1: just pause that narrative long enough to start asking questions again.
Speaker 1: And then the question that arose was what do I
Speaker 1: want from my life? And that sent me down a
Speaker 1: new path essentially, Oh.
Speaker 2: My gosh, there's so much to unpacking that I think
Speaker 2: it's just so important firstly, to remember this kind of
Speaker 2: process is such a beautiful example of the idea that
Speaker 2: you know your why is unchanging. You found your why.
Speaker 2: But I love that you use the word vehicle, because
Speaker 2: I think we get too attached to the how, and
Speaker 2: we think, oh, let go of the how. Then I've
Speaker 2: let go of my why. But actually no, it's okay.
Speaker 2: If like the method of delivering that purpose changes why,
Speaker 2: I can be the same your whole life, but the
Speaker 2: how has to change depending on what your life is doing.
Speaker 2: And I also think that something that I need to
Speaker 2: remind myself of always and I try to spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time on in the show is the way
Speaker 2: that success and failure is like two sides of the
Speaker 2: same coin, is so inextrically related to perception. And so
Speaker 2: the question I often ask people, is like, when you're
Speaker 2: talking about success or failure, do you mean actual success
Speaker 2: or failure or do you mean that people perceive you
Speaker 2: to have succeeded or failed? And if you knew that
Speaker 2: you could try something and fail and no one would
Speaker 2: find out about it, It's like if a tree falls
Speaker 2: in a wood and no one hears it didn't happen. No,
Speaker 2: most people are not scared of failing. They don't think
Speaker 2: that it would fundamentally change their self worth if they
Speaker 2: knew no one would ever find out about it, So
Speaker 2: no one's actually scared of failing. We're all scared of
Speaker 2: people thinking that were a failure. And then then your
Speaker 2: fundamental life values come into play. Of like you could
Speaker 2: have pushed through and found objective success, But what would
Speaker 2: that have cost you if it was making you so
Speaker 2: unhappy every day? So that comes back to that quote
Speaker 2: that I love of like if it cost to your peace,
Speaker 2: it's too expensive, Like it doesn't matter how great the
Speaker 2: successes and heights you could have taken KYO two if
Speaker 2: you turned it around if you weren't in it every day,
Speaker 2: Like what is the point of that exercise? And you
Speaker 2: took control and like volunteered for a really shitty time
Speaker 2: to kind of break something, to.
Speaker 3: Put different pieces back together.
Speaker 2: And I think that's the fundamental like practice that brings joys.
Speaker 2: Being willing to go backwards a little bit.
Speaker 1: Tough again, well, and it just there again, there's this
Speaker 1: there was this sense of being on the right path
Speaker 1: right and trusting I knew enough at that point again
Speaker 1: because of all the practices and all the interviews to
Speaker 1: really trust that the journey was going to play out
Speaker 1: as it should and that I was on the right path.
Speaker 1: But I needed to do everything possible to get back
Speaker 1: to a healthy mind. And then then it just became
Speaker 1: my full time job was was going to the gym
Speaker 1: in the morning, meditating, journaling and getting my mind is
Speaker 1: clear and as intentional as possible to then slowly start
Speaker 1: taking the steps forward right. And that took time. I
Speaker 1: mean that took It wasn't a matter of weeks. That
Speaker 1: took months. And frankly, I mean I'm still on that
Speaker 1: journey in many respects, but it feels so different, so different, right,
Speaker 1: And I think what happens too when you go through
Speaker 1: those wild moments or those big experiences in life and
Speaker 1: your work and personally and professionally you can stack those
Speaker 1: experiences on top of each other, right, and then now
Speaker 1: it's okay, well I've been through that. I know I
Speaker 1: can handle that. So now you have this new sense
Speaker 1: of confidence that, Okay, well, sure I'll try this whole
Speaker 1: book journey, or I'll try this, or I'll try that, right,
Speaker 1: because I've proven to myself that I can get through it,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, that I have the community of friends
Speaker 1: and family and people like yourself that will will support right, Like,
Speaker 1: we're not in this alone and other people have gone
Speaker 1: through this and will continue to go through this. But
Speaker 1: you know, as long as we keep trying right and
Speaker 1: we're still curious and we're having fun along the way,
Speaker 1: then I mean, it just mixed life so much more enjoyable.
Speaker 2: So much, so much and talking about curiosity. That is
Speaker 2: the basis of this beautiful new book. The concept is
Speaker 2: just continually asking the right questions in life, which I
Speaker 2: just loved reading it and I'm going to read it
Speaker 2: many many times over. There's so much packed into it.
Speaker 2: Talk to us about the process of writing personal Socrates,
Speaker 2: and for anyone who doesn't already know, because it's not
Speaker 2: an automatic assumption that people know who Socrates is and
Speaker 2: the Socratic method. I only know about the Socratic method
Speaker 2: because law school. You know, how did the ideas formulate?
Speaker 2: And then how did you choose the questions. It's a
Speaker 2: beautifully structured book, all around key fundamental, with a different
Speaker 2: guest or case study or interviewee that encapsulates that idea
Speaker 2: from your personal life to work to family and relationships,
Speaker 2: all kind of different areas and everyone from like Jane
Speaker 2: Austin to Picasso and then Samantha gash Or we all know,
Speaker 2: Natalie Warner who we all know, Melissa Embrassini who we
Speaker 2: all know big members of the neighborhood. And there's also
Speaker 2: a chapter on yours, trul I just blows my mind.
Speaker 2: But talk us through the method and the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean ironically it comes straight back to
Speaker 1: the more I'm talking about it, the more it's becoming
Speaker 1: a parent. It comes right back to how my practice
Speaker 1: started eight or nine years ago, which was listening for
Speaker 1: questions as I was consuming knowledge, whether that was books, podcast,
Speaker 1: blogs and magazines, taking those questions and then using them
Speaker 1: on my own reflection, which translated into kio obviously, and
Speaker 1: it was the same idea was to share different perspectives
Speaker 1: and stories to show people that this stuff is accessible
Speaker 1: to anyone. It's not just you know, for a meditation
Speaker 1: instructor or yoga coach or yoga instructor. I mean, anyone
Speaker 1: can do this stuff. So you know, when the app
Speaker 1: was shut down, like I said, I knew I was
Speaker 1: in the right space, and I knew, especially in this case,
Speaker 1: that if I was able to pause the scenario that
Speaker 1: was literally driving me into a deep depression with one
Speaker 1: question that I have to continue in some capacity to
Speaker 1: expose the concept of using questions for mental fitness. Because
Speaker 1: we're all asking questions all the time, right, It's just
Speaker 1: a matter are we asking the right questions? Are they
Speaker 1: quality questions? Are they well timed? Right? For me was
Speaker 1: what do I want for my life? That was the
Speaker 1: big question, and then that, you know, led to other
Speaker 1: ones which were, okay, well, if that's what I want,
Speaker 1: like what does an ideal day look like? Who can
Speaker 1: help me with that? What projects would make sense? You know,
Speaker 1: what does that look like? And you know, our questions
Speaker 1: evolved because if I were to ask that same question
Speaker 1: to myself right now, it would serve as a nice
Speaker 1: check in. But it's not at the same kind of
Speaker 1: intensity level as pausing a depression essentially or avoiding one.
Speaker 1: So that's where you know, the realization was made that
Speaker 1: no matter where we're at in life, no matter what
Speaker 1: we're doing, we're all one question away from a completely
Speaker 1: different path. Right at any point, including the micro moments
Speaker 1: where you know, we might be triggered or stressed about
Speaker 1: a conversation or an email that came in, one question
Speaker 1: around gratitude can completely pause and reshift our mood instantly.
Speaker 1: So you know, that was the premise behind the concept
Speaker 1: of the book. And I, like probably most people listening
Speaker 1: right now, you know who aren't you know, studying in
Speaker 1: philosophy or don't have a graduate degree in philosophy, only
Speaker 1: knew that, Okay, as Socrates, he's the guy that asked
Speaker 1: questions like that was kind of the baseline of my knowledge.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was having a conversation with the
Speaker 1: now publisher and the founder of that company, Joey from
Speaker 1: Baron fig explaining essentially what the you know, what my
Speaker 1: work's always been over the years, and the concept of
Speaker 1: the book and whatnot or what I was writing about,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, yeah, the Socratic method like the
Speaker 1: Socratic what Yeah, And of course he has a minor
Speaker 1: in philosophy and a major in English, so he got it.
Speaker 1: But as I started researching and really like digging past
Speaker 1: the surface of who Socrates was, it became really apparent
Speaker 1: that this is exactly what's happening, because you know, all
Speaker 1: the questions that were being left on the podcast and
Speaker 1: through the app, they're following that Socratic method of asking
Speaker 1: a big question and then asking follow up clarity seeking
Speaker 1: type questions and unpacking things. And the thing that struck
Speaker 1: me was that here's a guy Socrates literally born in
Speaker 1: four sixty nine BC, and a method that has I mean,
Speaker 1: you're exposed to going to law school. I mean it's
Speaker 1: literally stood the test of time and we're all using
Speaker 1: in some capacity, but we don't even realize we're doing that.
Speaker 1: And I remember coming across these these question types that
Speaker 1: different scholars and whatnot had studied, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: this is the reason we don't know we're doing this,
Speaker 1: because who can remember these question types of that I'd
Speaker 1: have to literally open the book to list all six
Speaker 1: out for you. So I'm like, there's the problem. So
Speaker 1: is there a way to take the method that's been
Speaker 1: around that clearly works. Is there a way to modernize
Speaker 1: that and make it so accessible to be, you know,
Speaker 1: applied to our daily lives. And that's essentially what got
Speaker 1: me all excited, like, yeah, we absolutely have to use
Speaker 1: this as the backbone of the book and structure the
Speaker 1: book in a way of get clear first questions around clarity.
Speaker 1: Then when you're clear and know where you're heading, you
Speaker 1: know who you're trying to become or where you want
Speaker 1: to go, then you can act and think with more
Speaker 1: intention and provide questions that can help there. And if
Speaker 1: you're doing those those first two steps, the third one
Speaker 1: almost comes by default or you're really set up because
Speaker 1: then now you're expanding what's possible or opportunities are showing
Speaker 1: up because you can see right. It's no different than
Speaker 1: if you open up a door into a room and
Speaker 1: that the room is jammed floor to ceiling with boxes.
Speaker 1: You can't see the back of the room or you
Speaker 1: can't see if there's a window or another door until
Speaker 1: you start cleaning up the room. And unfortunate, our minds
Speaker 1: are like that right, with emotions and relationships and massive
Speaker 1: amount of decisions. So if we can clean that up
Speaker 1: which then we allow our minds to do you know,
Speaker 1: the magic and connect the dots because we have the answers, They're.
Speaker 3: All there totally.
Speaker 2: And I love even like the cover, the fact that
Speaker 2: there's a question mark but it's a key. It's like
Speaker 2: a question mark in the shape of a key, and
Speaker 2: the whole idea that these questions unlock, you know, aspects
Speaker 2: of yourself by like I think often we do we
Speaker 2: only search for answers, but it's like you're if you're
Speaker 2: only asking the wrong questions, the answers are irrelevant. You
Speaker 2: only you know, you'll only keep getting the same results.
Speaker 2: And I think that's the biggest kind of change in
Speaker 2: my life was asking things that didn't really matter to
Speaker 2: my ultimate joy and then wondering why I was never
Speaker 2: getting any further. And it's because I had to change
Speaker 2: the question, not change the answer. It's such a just
Speaker 2: a beautiful, simple way to actually change the way fundamentally
Speaker 2: that you think about things. Are there any like favorite
Speaker 2: chapters or big takeaway things that like So this is
Speaker 2: at the time of recording, it hasn't actually officially launched yet,
Speaker 2: which is so so exciting to get you at the
Speaker 2: time where you can give a little like reflection on
Speaker 2: the vulnerability hangover, like how are you feeling about it?
Speaker 2: But yeah, do you for anyone who's listening, and we
Speaker 2: will share links to where you can pre purchase it
Speaker 2: and purchase it. What are some of the you know,
Speaker 2: maybe the three biggest kind of aha moments for you
Speaker 2: in writing it that you think be helpful with other people?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I love that question because what I realized
Speaker 1: in the process and the ultimate goal of anyone reading
Speaker 1: the book, is that my answer to that question should
Speaker 1: change as as time goes, as my life evolves, Like
Speaker 1: the question that resonates with me the most now should
Speaker 1: change because you know, circumstances change and other prompts will
Speaker 1: then resonate. So that's why there's so many different profiles
Speaker 1: and different prompts, so that no matter where you're at
Speaker 1: in life, something in there should at least peauk your
Speaker 1: curiosity and it's probably where you should start and the
Speaker 1: one that you know actually continue on the theme of
Speaker 1: what you were reflecting on. But like, am I asking
Speaker 1: the right questions? The one that sparks for me is
Speaker 1: James Clear's profile and really getting clear on the person
Speaker 1: you are trying to become or want to become right,
Speaker 1: And his opening prompt is something around who am I
Speaker 1: optimizing to become, which essentially, in other words, you know,
Speaker 1: translates to are you climbing the right mountain? So, you know,
Speaker 1: those are those are the type of questions that I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about as I'm you know, expanding out into
Speaker 1: this this mental fitness world. I'm still in the right path.
Speaker 1: I do believe that, but there's also all these different
Speaker 1: kind of you know, secondary offshoots off the core path,
Speaker 1: and I need to be so clear on is that
Speaker 1: a distraction or is that actually something that's helping me
Speaker 1: further down the path. So constantly checking in with a
Speaker 1: question like that helps quite a bit. And then there
Speaker 1: are other ones, like in the third part of the
Speaker 1: book that are around just possibility. Because often we talk
Speaker 1: about mental fitness, and rightfully so from the perspective of
Speaker 1: handling tough situations right and processing tough motions and releasing
Speaker 1: and rechanneling and things like that, But there's this whole
Speaker 1: other world, these practices that are around priming your mind
Speaker 1: to be more creative and to think and to use
Speaker 1: your imagination and to really like set you know, release
Speaker 1: any type of limiting beliefs. For example, So I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of a profile like like Navin Jane and using language
Speaker 1: around imagine if, right, imagine if and just going down
Speaker 1: whatever you're working on or whatever you want in your life,
Speaker 1: imagine if this happened and that happen, and forgetting all
Speaker 1: the rules. It brings us right back to when we're kids, right,
Speaker 1: and you just ask questions and you're not thinking about
Speaker 1: you know, the results of those actions. You're just you're
Speaker 1: letting your imagination run free. And as adults, you know,
Speaker 1: when we do that, it trains our minds to also
Speaker 1: activate that creativity, right and really just break down and
Speaker 1: allow for creative thinking and whatnot. So I've been doing
Speaker 1: a lot of that as well, and it's just such
Speaker 1: a fun practice, especially before you go to bed, because
Speaker 1: if you do that and your journal and let your
Speaker 1: mind run free, often to what happens is when you're
Speaker 1: going to sleep, your mind's in that primed, excited state
Speaker 1: and you go to sleep, you know, thinking or almost
Speaker 1: visualizing your goals in a way, right, and then you
Speaker 1: fall asleep and your mind still working on that and
Speaker 1: playing out that scene to your movie essentially, and you know,
Speaker 1: you're just getting closer and closer to you know, whatever
Speaker 1: you want. And it's different for all of us obviously,
Speaker 1: but there's almost no downside to doing something like that, right,
Speaker 1: So those are a couple that that spark. And then
Speaker 1: the profile is where I obviously didn't have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to interview you know, the subjects because they've they've passed
Speaker 1: or they've Picasso for example, Like that one was really
Speaker 1: fun because I was going through those practices almost live
Speaker 1: on the spot while writing it. Like I didn't go
Speaker 1: I didn't have this whole color practice laid out. And
Speaker 1: I'll explain with that is in a minute before writing
Speaker 1: his profile, it was due doing the research and seeing, wow,
Speaker 1: I've experienced Picasso's work, but I didn't realize that he
Speaker 1: had this blue phase to his work where all of
Speaker 1: his you know, his paintings and whatnot were essentially in
Speaker 1: that hue, which also linked up to a time in
Speaker 1: his life that he was depressed, his best friend had
Speaker 1: committed suicide, and then all of a sudden, his his
Speaker 1: work shifted into this rose colored era, which is when
Speaker 1: he met his wife and you know, like things changed.
Speaker 1: For example, so the reflection as I was going through
Speaker 1: that was wow. You know, here's someone that you know,
Speaker 1: everyone knows about the work and the idea that he's
Speaker 1: so well known for paintings in all different types of
Speaker 1: those phases. It wasn't just you know, the famous guitarist
Speaker 1: painting in the blue phase. There are all these other
Speaker 1: different pieces of work that everyone knows about, which means
Speaker 1: that you know, his his body of work is what's important.
Speaker 1: It's not just the one phase. So that's where the
Speaker 1: reflection was. Well, so our lives are the same way,
Speaker 1: you know, like if I thought back to those early
Speaker 1: days and sales, like what color would I associate my
Speaker 1: life with around that time? And I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: I was probably in like the reds because I was go,
Speaker 1: go go, and like aggressive and want to really you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, prove that I could do this for example,
Speaker 1: And you know, I just remember I actually went to
Speaker 1: Picasso Museum while on a on a trip in that
Speaker 1: industry in Barcelona, and the objective was just to get
Speaker 1: essentially get through the entire museum and see everything versus
Speaker 1: you know, two years from now, when I was writing
Speaker 1: essentially the first draft, I was able to do a
Speaker 1: virtual tour of that museum, and it was you know,
Speaker 1: let's take in one or two of his paintings and
Speaker 1: really be present with them and just noticing like the
Speaker 1: evolution of and there's no right or wrong answers, but
Speaker 1: just noticing where you've come from and where you're heading.
Speaker 1: And that gives you the pause and the opportunity to
Speaker 1: course correct if you want it, or write the new
Speaker 1: chapter which is, you know, something related to Jane Austen's profile.
Speaker 1: But it just gives us that opportunity to slow down,
Speaker 1: come off the autopilot, provide a different perspective from something
Speaker 1: completely different that we would we wouldn't normally be reading
Speaker 1: or reflecting on, and give us the opportunity to pick
Speaker 1: a different path. I said a lot there.
Speaker 3: I love the word course correct.
Speaker 2: No, it's so valuable, and I think course correction is
Speaker 2: such a concept that I think we should normalize a
Speaker 2: lot more because I think people, you know, feel like
Speaker 2: if they've invested a lot, like with Kio, if you've
Speaker 2: invested a lot of time and energy and money and
Speaker 2: reputation into something, you kind of feel wetted to it, like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I've got to make I've got to see the story
Speaker 2: to the end, But why, like, why can't you just
Speaker 2: redirect at any time? And I think the best thing
Speaker 2: about the pandemic, and we would never wish it to
Speaker 2: have hap it that way, is that the breaking the
Speaker 2: circuit and getting off autopilot is automatic.
Speaker 3: It was forced.
Speaker 1: As for its reflection, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: Normally you have to volunteer yourself for that, which a
Speaker 2: lot of people aren't ready for or don't have time for.
Speaker 2: But this way we've kind of all been forced to
Speaker 2: do it. So personal Socrates is like the best guide
Speaker 2: to have in your pocket as you navigate this exciting
Speaker 2: time to know that the world has thrown all the
Speaker 2: pieces kind of out the window, but you get to
Speaker 2: choose the ones that you put back in.
Speaker 3: It's so exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, And I promise I didn't create this
Speaker 1: pandemic for the launch of the book, and you're right,
Speaker 1: it's kind of well timed, and I do. I am
Speaker 1: hopeful because I'm hopeful that you know, people that would
Speaker 1: never have thought about these type of practices and because
Speaker 1: of this forced kind of reflection. I just hope that
Speaker 1: people continue down that path and see that Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: because people have been answering some pretty big questions that
Speaker 1: they most likely never thought about, right, and like who
Speaker 1: am I? Or what do I want to? Again? Am
Speaker 1: I climbing the right mountain? Because they you know, they
Speaker 1: were forced into a pause, and some still like that's
Speaker 1: what it is, right. It's just like when you have
Speaker 1: ideas that come up in the shower or on a run.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're stilling our mind. So just the
Speaker 1: whole world has gone through that in some capacity. But
Speaker 1: we don't need to wait for another pandemic or situation
Speaker 1: like that to inject those moments of stillness. And now
Speaker 1: that people know that what's possible after you know, going
Speaker 1: through these practices in a moment like that, I just
Speaker 1: hope that you know, we stick with them.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so excited for the book to officially launch
Speaker 2: out into the world. I think it is such a
Speaker 2: valuable handbook just to have to guide you through like
Speaker 2: this whole rebuilding and course correcting for.
Speaker 3: All of us. How you feeling?
Speaker 2: What do you do you have any expectations? Are you like,
Speaker 2: what do you hope it to do? Do you have
Speaker 2: any metrics of success? Or are you just putting it
Speaker 2: out there and wishing it the best? You know, like,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's I mean, there's definitely metrics there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm setting objectives and I say this kind
Speaker 1: of tongue in cheek because there is a massive difference
Speaker 1: in the mentality with this project and the app, whereas
Speaker 1: the app was very much how many users can we
Speaker 1: get in, how do we retain them, how do we
Speaker 1: convert them? And all of that, and this is I mean,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. Obviously, I'd love for as many
Speaker 1: people to pick it up, because I really do believe
Speaker 1: in the work, and I've seen questions save lives and
Speaker 1: upgrade lives, so I mean that's the ultimate goal. But
Speaker 1: my personal goal is to go into this whole launch
Speaker 1: as clear as possible, because I'm already starting to see
Speaker 1: little opportunities here and there and kind of going full
Speaker 1: circle to what I had mentioned earlier. But I want
Speaker 1: to make sure that the right ones are the ones
Speaker 1: that I grab onto and that they can help fuel
Speaker 1: kind of my overall mission. And I can only do
Speaker 1: that if I'm not fogged by a million different you know,
Speaker 1: launch activities and you know, get stuck in checking Amazon,
Speaker 1: you know, listings and rankings and things like that, Like,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, it's exciting obviously, I mean, as we speak
Speaker 1: right now, the book is in a couple of the
Speaker 1: top one hundred lists, but I know from the Kyo
Speaker 1: days it doesn't matter. That's I don't want to fall
Speaker 1: through the hype. Now, I'll take that and we can
Speaker 1: leverage that, but that the core thing is doing things
Speaker 1: like this and like really connecting and hopefully that there's
Speaker 1: one question, one story, or one practice for someone on
Speaker 1: the other side listening to this that can completely change
Speaker 1: their life, Like that's the ultimate goal.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like you've probably already done that without
Speaker 2: I've been realizing. But many, many more people will be
Speaker 2: able to benefit from this book. I'm so so thrilled.
Speaker 2: And all the links for everyone listening will be in
Speaker 2: the show notes. Last couple of questions, and it's extremely difficult.
Speaker 2: This section is your playta, which is where we obviously
Speaker 2: have run us very short of time for it. But
Speaker 2: just one quick question about separating your work identity from
Speaker 2: the things that bring you joy outside of work. Just
Speaker 2: getting that complete distance that you need to keep creative
Speaker 2: energy and get fresh ideas. I think it's so difficult
Speaker 2: when your job is something that is related to everyday
Speaker 2: life because there's no clear barrier between like being a
Speaker 2: doctor and then going home and not being a doctor.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like mental fitness applies to everything, so
Speaker 2: the ideas and stimulation anywhere that you are. It's hard
Speaker 2: to kind of quarantine yourself. It's such a bad choice
Speaker 2: of word this year, but quarantining your life into little sections.
Speaker 1: But what do you do?
Speaker 2: I kind of think of it as like it's play
Speaker 2: because you know, it's a bit of a juvenile word,
Speaker 2: but it's what lets you're in a child back out?
Speaker 2: What are the things you do? And I know you
Speaker 2: have a one year old Caleb, So is it just
Speaker 2: playing with him or you know, emulating his ways of
Speaker 2: playing that aren't attached to success or winning or improving
Speaker 2: or learning?
Speaker 3: What do you do for fun?
Speaker 1: Totally well, because you're too humble to ever bring this up,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to plug some practices out of your
Speaker 1: profile because I'm using I'm no, I'm using. I'm using
Speaker 1: one of your concepts around just work hygiene, which you
Speaker 1: know translates into just personal hygiene, and uh, I should
Speaker 1: call it wellness hygiene for example, that that helps me
Speaker 1: through all this and is just identifying the things in
Speaker 1: my life that I know will put a smile on
Speaker 1: my face and making sure that those activities, those conversations
Speaker 1: are injected into the week so it's not just a
Speaker 1: weekend thing, or it's not just you know, a vacation
Speaker 1: at the end of the month type thing. So perfect example.
Speaker 1: So my little guy Caleb, now he's he's actually five now,
Speaker 1: so it's great. Yeah, so year old, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: In the intro, he was one one and a half
Speaker 1: when all of the essentially the app stuff had started,
Speaker 1: so you're you're not mistaken on that. So he's been
Speaker 1: through this journey as well. So I mean a perfect
Speaker 1: example is, like we're recording this. We started essentially at
Speaker 1: six pm my time, so kind of it's been a
Speaker 1: full day first and just to you know, be able
Speaker 1: to show up with energy and make sure that I'm
Speaker 1: present for you, I took thirty minutes before and we
Speaker 1: played Lego down downstairs. You know, we just built together
Speaker 1: and had fun and stuff like that, which just gave
Speaker 1: me a whole new you know, zest and round of
Speaker 1: energy to come and have this discussion. So like just
Speaker 1: doing things like that, and it's different for everyone, So
Speaker 1: just figuring out what works. Maybe it's taking a walk
Speaker 1: or playing with your dog or whatever it is, but
Speaker 1: injecting those moments in your in your those micro moments
Speaker 1: I should say, of play and excitement. It goes so far,
Speaker 1: so far, This stuff doesn't have to be complicated, Sarah, Like,
Speaker 1: we don't need to wait for a seven day silent
Speaker 1: retreat to like completely reset. You know, those are great.
Speaker 1: We could do those things for sure, and I encourage them,
Speaker 1: But there's also the daily you know, the daily practices
Speaker 1: and whatnot to really help.
Speaker 2: I also think it's so important that like what makes
Speaker 2: you smile and happy can be weird, like I'm so
Speaker 2: yay focused and it's serial killer movies, Like why don't
Speaker 2: don't question it?
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 2: Like I used to literally suppress them and stop myself
Speaker 2: reading true crime books because I was like, this is
Speaker 2: not good for it, Like I worried that I was
Speaker 2: like pouring negativity into my mental health cup. But then
Speaker 2: by not doing an activity that I had already identified
Speaker 2: really helps me with the separation between work and switching off.
Speaker 2: I was depriving myself, Like don't double think it, don't
Speaker 2: like question it too much. If you if you find
Speaker 2: something you like doing, just do it.
Speaker 1: Just do it totally, totally.
Speaker 2: And very last question, what's your favorite quote?
Speaker 1: Oh, what's my favorite quote? I should have known this
Speaker 1: because you are the quote queen. I do know, i'd say.
Speaker 1: I mean this is actually a final thought in the book,
Speaker 1: but it just sticks with me. It comes up every day.
Speaker 1: Almost the most curious person in the room is also
Speaker 1: the most present. Ah, yes, and that you know, that's
Speaker 1: in Chip Conley's profile. But it's something that for me
Speaker 1: it just doesn't disappoint because you really can't go wrong
Speaker 1: with being present. And when you're present and curious, I
Speaker 1: mean everyone feels that you know and you you feel it,
Speaker 1: you learn, you know, you expand what's possible. It fires
Speaker 1: up your imagination and the people on the other side
Speaker 1: can can also feel that. So yeah, that's something that
Speaker 1: comes up all the time for me.
Speaker 3: Oh that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: And also given that your book is, you know, based
Speaker 2: on lots of different questions and always asking you and
Speaker 2: better questions, I think that curiosity quote is such a
Speaker 2: good one to finish on. Thank you so much for joining,
Speaker 2: huge congratulations on the book. Thank you for everything that
Speaker 2: you've done to literally make this show a thing when
Speaker 2: it otherwise wouldn't have been. And it's just been so
Speaker 2: nice to reconnect.
Speaker 1: Oh my heart is full, so thank you for making
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 3: It's been such a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what a lovely human being. Mark is
Speaker 2: one of those people I haven't even met in person,
Speaker 2: but would pretty much cross the world to support.
Speaker 3: I hope you guys enjoyed.
Speaker 2: And if you did, or you took away something from
Speaker 2: his endless wisdom, please show him some love sharing the
Speaker 2: episode and tagging at m Champagne to help keep us
Speaker 2: growing the neighborhood far and wide. As I mentioned, there
Speaker 2: are links to purchase his book or to listen to
Speaker 2: his podcast in the show notes. I can't recommend both
Speaker 2: more highly. And don't forget our third birthday or third
Speaker 2: anniversary episode is coming up, and I'd love to make
Speaker 2: sure I'm actually answering questions you have about the podcast,
Speaker 2: career changes, marriage, adoption, or anything in between. So just
Speaker 2: DM or email me your questions over the next week
Speaker 2: and I will get ange to ask me them in
Speaker 2: the episode which is coming your way. I hope you're
Speaker 2: all pleasing your ya