The Inner Game of Coaching: Shadows & Successes w/ Mark Guay
Mark Guay I highly respect and admire. In this conversation, we explore the intersection of spirituality and business success in coaching. We unpack the importance of working with integrity, viewing money as an energetic exchange, and creating an environment of mutual investment with clients. This episode is a deep dive into the personal and professional growth of coaches, emphasizing the need for competencies, mentorship, and a space to learn from failures.
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Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode of the Art and Business of Meditation Podcast. We have someone I am so excited to introduce you to. Mark Guay is a transformational coach, speaker, and full time dad. He believes in the untethered ability to manifest our unlimited potential and works with leaders who bring their great gifts to the world in a way that aligns mind, body and soul. His talks and courses have reached over a million people worldwide. His previous executive clients include General Electric, Slack, Etsy, and Morgan. Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark: Lou, so great to be here, brother. Thank you so much for inviting me on the show.
Lou: And I'll add to those listening. Mark is someone in my life that I deeply respect. It kind of blows me away when I think of how much I respect both, how he shows up in his life, how he shows up as a father. And so I'm just excited to share that with you all listening and to get another chance to speak to my friend Mark. Mark, we can start in many different places. I think. I'm just going to ask kind of a big why? Question. You're a coach. You do this work. And I think where we originally connected was we had a similar story and very different story. But when I heard your story, you were one of the only people who I heard the story and was like, oh, yeah, I can feel some of that in my own. And I don't want to ask you to tell your story, but something that stood out from anyone listening is that feeling of, are we having a psychotic break or a spiritual awakening? And the balance of kind of what can really overtake us in this world of spirituality. And so I always felt really resonant with hearing your story because I shared similar, somewhat what sounded like similar experiences. And so, in many ways, that experience for me in my life is why I do what I do. It's very clear there's really no going back. And so I just want to offer to start with that question, why do you do what you do now, Mark?
Mark: Well, I think you said it right there. There's no going back. Even though if I'm being completely honest with you, there are definitely times where can I go back? It would be so much easier. I'm okay with that. When I'm in states of struggle, right? Because I'm human. When I'm in states of struggle, it's like, oh, life would seemingly be a lot easier without all this extra awareness, which is what a spiritual emergence, I think, brings you.
Lou: Yeah. So why do you do what you do now?
Mark: That is a good question. And honestly, because I decided at some point in time, a long time ago, to follow my soul's calling. And even if it doesn't necessarily feel easy in the moment, my story has gotten me to affirm the belief that it is worth it. And so meditation, spiritual development, was incredibly important to me in my adolescent development. And it was not necessarily brought from the familiar places. It wasn't brought from my family. I didn't have a direct teacher, looking back, teachers, books, practices, dreams, they were my guides growing up. And at some point in time, and there is a particular moment that stands out for me where all of a sudden I had realized at a young age, oh, this is the path I'm going to follow. This is the guidance I'm going to live by. Not necessarily what my family says is the right thing to do, what my government says is the right thing to do, what the religion I was born into says I'm supposed to do. No, I'm going to practice meditation. I'm going to practice dream work. I'm going to engage in a wide range of spirituality to find out what works for me. And from that discovery and the mentors that come along that way, that's the path that I'm going to walk down. And to extend that a little bit further is there was a point in my own development where all of a sudden I realized it was time for me to start sharing. And we could say sharing is teaching because it is. Slowly, I didn't do it right away, but slowly I started to share. I started to create, and then eventually it became my business. And there was a lot in what I'm talking about here because there was a lot of reframes That I had to do where I had to reframe that. Oh, interesting. I was raised to believe that businesses are bad and everyone's out trying out to get you. Okay? And now I've come to believe that actually, business is a way in which to create an exchange to help build the world that you want your children to live in. And great people building great businesses with great products and services leads to the world that I want to see. And so business can be a wonderful vehicle for manifesting the world that you want to live in, you want your kids to live in. And so at some point in time, there was a decision I made where I said, okay, I'm going to start doing the thing that feels terrifying, which is to actually publicly talk about the things that I've kept secret for quite a long time.
Lou: So you start talking about it and sharing it. I know, you have a background teaching students in high school. Was it during that time, or did you let go of that and just kind of go into this unknown world?
Mark: So at the time I was teaching, and it's funny, you're one of the few people who knows that, because not everyone knows that. I was a teacher in a former career the time I was teaching, there was a lot going on in my life. And one of the main external influences was my wife got very sick and it catapulted me into a very deep, dark night of the soul. Not the same story I told you. That's more so the later part of it. But it made me start to question, oh, wait a second, my wife might not make it out of this. My eternal optimism kind of got dampened for a while and I started to actually realize, oh my gosh, this might not end up okay. And I had this really deep belief growing up that no matter what was happening, I'm always going to be okay. Everything's going to always work out okay. And that was the first time I started to question that. And so that brought me deeper into my spiritual practice because I started to ask for more help and started to really go there for more answers. And in that moment, I was meeting people of great influence. And one of the great influences I met was a woman named Ariana Huffington, who wrote or is known for the Huffington Post, amongst many other things. And I had pitched her an article after meeting her, and she said, great, we'd love to have your work on the Huffington Post, which back then it was very different than it is now. And so I started to write on the Huffington Post. And what I decided to do is one of my first kind of ways of making it more public was I wrote a meditation on the Huffington Post. And I believe if I'm correct in this, I hyperlinked to my Google Drive. That's how it was back then for. Right. And so that was my first kind of, well, I'm a teacher, and I want to start putting this out into the world. And so here's a medium that I can do it through, the Huffington Post, which had quite a reach back then. And so I put this meditation on the Huffington Post, and I started to get emails from people thanking me for it. I was able to see maybe it wasn't Google Drive, maybe it was Dropbox, but I was able to actually see that people were clicking on it. So whatever would give me a metric for that. This was a long time ago. And then eventually I got an email from a person who had said they were starting up an app called Insight Timer, and they were wondering if that meditation would. If they would be able to put it on that app. And I said, of course, great, go for it. I had no idea who they were. They were just starting out, and I had downloaded the app, and I was like, oh, this is a really. I like the sound of the gong or the singing bowl. Like, this is nice. And I started to use it as my own app for timing meditation. And I'm going to fast forward here just for a second, just to kind of paint the picture. And then I didn't pay attention to it at all. I just put up a profile. They did it for me, actually, and then I didn't pay attention at all. And over the years, that sort of journey of putting it out there, having someone benefit from it and then kind of expand upon it, has led to my growth in My business, whether it was through donations coming in or through people coming in and asking for one to one work or partners coming in and saying, hey, we think you'd really be good at facilitating this or doing this workshop. Now, obviously, I'm talking about a 15 year journey about. But that's sort of the cycle of what was happening.
Lou: You talked about business being a vehicle, and having to make that shift from business is bad to business can be a force for good and value in the world. And you had mentioned this thing around how to grow in business, and you said something that I think was a little controversial, so I'd love to hear you talk about it, because I can see people judging it is you're saying.
Mark: Bring on the spice, baby. Let's do it.
Lou: You're saying to follow the money. And so tell me what you mean by following the money and how that's led you to kind of continuing to expand the value that you're giving.
Mark: Did I say follow the money? That's what you heard, or is that what I said?
Lou: It's what you said, yes.
Mark: All right. I want to listen to the recording. Because it was on the inquiry.
Lou: You said it. Yeah, because I asked a question. I asked people for people listening. I asked a question of, like, what's business advice you would give? And I'll repeat it. You said, follow the money. Money is an energetic exchange. So do the work that is yielding sales. Sorry to put you on the spot.
Mark: Okay, let's be clear here, because there's incredible context to that. Right. Because for one. Yeah, absolutely. I've had a complete reframe about what money is. You got to direct me here a little bit, because I can talk about money for a while because it's been a really interesting place to explore, particularly when running a business that delves into spirituality. Right. So the main nuance there is money is an energetic exchange. And so what I believe I was addressing in that question was more, so when you have, let's just say we're both coaches and we have client A and client B, and client A isn't paying anything and it's free moDel. They just show up for free, and then the other one is paying a price that is not a crazy amount that they can't afford, but it's just enough to make them show up or to get them to show up. Go with that one, because that person is going to show up, they're going to do the work, and there's an energetic exchange of value. That person is going to show up on time, they're going to do the work, they're going to dive a little bit deeper. And so in one way it's applying attention, the money, but in another way, it is an energetic exchange. And so that's what I mean when I say follow the money, right? Because money, I do think, is an extension of energy, and this can become a bigger talk right here. But even the amount of money that you make, I see it as the amount of energy that you're able to hold and process.
Lou: Well, let's roll with this, because this is the art and business of meditation, and I don't think I've had a conversation with someone yet specifically about money. So, yeah, let's roll with this and see where it wants to unfold.
Mark: Let's do it.
Lou: Yeah. So tell me more about there's an energetic exchange, or I guess the question is how have your beliefs have transformed? How have you shifted and how have you noticed? You talked about that vehicle of holding energy, and I'm a big believer in this, too. It's why we see lottery winners, that energy just goes right through them and then they're burnt out and they're worse for it. So talk about, I'd love for you to expand on that concept of being a vessel, to hold more value, to hold more money in that sense. And how is that showing up in your business? Or was there a noticeable shift? Like, was it, I'm struggling, I'm not getting any money. I'm kind of grinding away, and then all of a sudden, boom. And then all of a sudden you have kind of the influx. So, yeah, anywhere you want to take that?
Mark: Yeah, there's a lot of different places we can go, so let's dance with this for a little bit here. But the one thing that's coming to mind right now is how much energy can you hold and how much energy can you process, right? And so I was raised in a blue collar family where my family was on food stamps, right? And this was not necessarily. I didn't feel poor growing up, just to be clear. I actually had everything that I had really wanted, but it was definitely a scarcity type mindset. It was paycheck to paycheck for quite some time. My mother was the lunch lady at my school. To help cover some tuition
Mark: money was something that I grew up believing that you hold on to, and you take advantage of any business in any way, you get as much as you can out of it, to the point where my grandmothers, we would go to Ponderosa, which was a popular restaurant chain, and they would bring. I can't believe I've shared this on a podcast here, but they would bring a big Ziploc bag in their purse, and they would put chicken wings in there, and then they would take that home with them, and then that's what I would eat for the next day. So it was this idea of, how much can you extend the buck? And I get that, and there's incredible value in that. And these grandmothers I'm talking about, they come from 1917, so they saw some stuff that our generation has not seen by any means whatsoever, particularly growing up in the Western world. So that's all to say. So, growing up, for me, it was all about holding on as much as you can to money. And the idea of making more money was from saving as much as you can. And that, in one degree, is a sense of hoarding. Right. And without going too far off the track, my mother actually has had a history of hoarding, and so I come from that type of background. When I started getting into business and moving out of an employeeship and moving more into, oh, I need to create value in the world. I wanted to make sure that I'm doing it in a way that feels an integrity. I never want anyone to pay for anything that I either provide as a service or create as a product and feel like I took advantage of them or they didn't receive value out of it. I want their lives to be enhanced by what I create. And once I started thinking about that, it got me to realize that I have an opportunity here to enhance the lives of other people. And the more I focused on that, the more money that started to come in and I noticed my psyche and the way in which I was relating to the money. I started making more money than I've ever had, making way more money than my family ever had growing up. And I was noticing the way in which the type of shadow work it was bringing up in me. And it was really exciting because part of the almost masochistic trait of someone that delves into spiritual practice is finding out, like, oh, where am I? Shadow? Oh, interesting. Wow, okay, that's embarrassing to admit about myself. Those type of things, that they come out. And then I started really going into, okay, well, how much energy am I able to hold here? And I started playing around with the concept of money. And so I've created a series of meditations that aren't public, they're what I create for clients or I create for friends or for myself. And it's about finding, what is the number that makes you say in your mind, oh, I can't make that. No. And it's not about going to a crazy high number. It's not about going to like, I don't know, 50 million a year. If you're making one hundred K a year right now, it's about finding where is the shift? If I say to you, Lou, you're going to make 50K this year? And you're like, yeah, if I make 50K, actually, that's a failure. I'm not very happy with that. But if I say, you're going to make 150, and all of a sudden you're like, yeah, I can do that. That'd be great. Okay, that would work. And then if I were saying, you make 250K, maybe that would still work for you. There's a point at eventually where you would say, ooh, that's a little bit out of my reach right now. And then right there is a powerful place to be able to sit and to be able to feel. And how does that feel in my body and work and doing the body work around that? And then what is the story I'm telling myself there? And there is incredible potency and power in simply just allowing yourself to feel comfortable with a little bit higher of a number. So let's say, I don't know, 150. Let's just say that is a number right now for you or your listener that makes them feel like, yeah, I can definitely do that, but let's say 225 a year, we're using American dollars all of a sudden gets them to say, yeah, that would be, I don't think I can do that. Great. Let's work with that number. Let's feel in 225K coming into your life. And then we do this parallel practice where you start feeling a memory or a location that brought about expansion and excitement, like, say, the birth of a child or walking on a beautiful beach in Hawaii where you felt expanded, you felt powerful, you felt alive, and you start going back and forth between. You go from the powerful memory to then the number, powerful memory to the number. And over days, eventually your relationship to that number changes. And all of a sudden your felt somatic experience with that number is not a There's no way I can do that. It's a yeah. Type of energy. And that's where I think the magic starts to come in, because all of a sudden you start making choices and opportunities start to come in your way that reflect bringing in that number or higher. And that's about as far as I know in that area. And I'm not going to pretend like I am some mega expert in that area, but what I have seen is that there is a number of which you're like, oh, I can't do that. And then working within your body, within your vessel as a human, to be able to hold the energy of that and be able to process that, I'll give you one small example here. And then I want to make sure this is a conversation, not Mark's TED talk, is if all of a sudden you start feeling into 225 and all of a sudden you go, oh, I could start doing this. I can start doing that. What ends up happening, particularly for a lot of people on the path that we're talking about, is they think more about the world that they're going to be able to help build. I could help that nonprofit. For me, something that was really big for me is I was able to bring on free clients or create a sliding scale for my offerings because I didn't feel the pressure anymore of having to make a certain amount. And all of a sudden I realized when I'm in abundance, I'm able to say, oh, I would love to work with you, and here's what. Let's do that number. That's fine. All right. And it's a lower price point than I would typically do. Or I'm able to go do a free meditation class at a place and not feel like, okay, how am I going to make up the money that I'm not making here? And it's a really powerful, powerful give and exchange and receive that I just find to be incredible. So now that's how I look at a way in which we can relate to money because I think on a deeper spiritual level, that's what it is.
Lou: So excited we're having this conversation and I'm also noticing my own fears and judgments in us diving into this. And for a moment I was like, oh yeah, I was listening to you, but I was also like, oh, a title of this podcast is going to be around money. And then there's like a little thought of, oh, I feel a sense of fear around that in a way of promoting, and we can talk about the coaching industry in general, but I have some reservations and I've done titles about money before because I've talked about money, but I'm just noticing and I'm curious not to get a free coaching here. But you mentioned the shadows that showed up. Like for me, in this little judgment, I'm imagining there's something here that I'm not okay with around promoting content, around growing your awareness around money. I don't know why, but reflect anything on that that feels relevant. But I'm also curious. You mentioned Shadows that came up for you. What were those shadows that you had to go through?
Mark: Is okay if I ask questions to you first?
Lou: Please.
Mark: So tell me a little bit more of what's showing up for you when you think about putting a title with money on the show.
Lou: Go a little bit deeper. This is good because I was also thinking about mentioning to you and maybe having our conversation go this way as well. But it's all in one, which is beautiful. So last year, probably 2022, I don't know if you were aware or tapped into this. It was more on Instagram where I was seeing this going, but there was kind of this reckoning in the coaching industry and with some people that I've actually personally have worked with. And so I was very tapped into it and just seeing some people getting called out for different practices. And I'm actually working on an email right now that's called God's Network Marketing Scheme. And I'm saying that in the best way possible because I've always talked about coaching as like, this is like I get to help myself, work on myself and help others. This is amazing. What better way to make a living? But some people go at coaching in a negative way, talking about it how it's a pyramid scheme and you pay more money to this coach so they can coach this coach. And it's coaching coaches, coaches, coaches, coaches. And I have a judgment there. Even though I love working with coaches, I love working with wellness practitioners, I love working with people that are really wanting to do their own work. And so I have these two judgments. And so I think to bring this back around, what comes up for me is I don't want to be known as it always shifts.
Mark: Right.
Lou: You start making more money when you start being the coach who helps people make money.
Mark: Right.
Lou: If there's a lot of value in that. And so I think there's a judgment in creating content and moving in that direction, of creating content in that way. So that's what's showing up.
Mark: Yeah. And so part of the work for me that has shown up is I want to be loved and liked by everyone, no matter how much work I do on myself. And I like to tell myself that I'm comfortable with criticism, I'm comfortable with being ridiculed or any of that. The truth is, at my core, there's many young parts of me that just want to be liked by everyone. I want to be loved. Right. And it's taken me a lot of work to be able to be okay when others don't like me. And so what I have realized is that no matter what I do, when you start bringing more attention to yourself and you start standing up for ideas, beliefs, practices that you hold near and dear to your heart, there are going to be two camps. There's almost like the polarity expands a little bit. You're going to get more people that love you, and you're going to get more people that don't. And so when I started, let's say, increasing my price point, I started to bring in people that I really wanted to work with and they really wanted to work with me. And then other people that I would still love to work with, I can tell they were really not okay with my price point. We'll put it that way. And what I try to do as much as possible is I try to walk with integrity. And so, yeah, my one to one coaching is pricey. I get it. I come from a background where me as a kid, I would say, are you kidding me right now? Are you trying to take advantage of me right now? And in the coaching industry, I think there are. And that is one of the shadows that I became aware of, too, is there's definitely that part of me as well that I know enough that if I really wanted to, I could spin something, to be able to convince a group of people to do something and pay something that would cost a lot, but it would be at their disservice. And I see that a lot in the coaching industry where people are leveraging breath work. I can tell you a story if you want to hear it. But where people are leveraging really powerful, sacred tools to actually
Mark: convince a group of people to spend to do something that they're uncomfortable with. And what I more so try to do is when I make a sale, I'm talking specifically about a service here is I want the person to check in and make the decision from a regulated nervous system standpoint. Don't want them to make it from hyperarousal. I'm certainly not going to try to stoke the fire if they're in hypoarousal. And so that is what's key for me. Whereas in our industrY, we know that constraints help drive action. And so I've seen at in person workshops, you put them through this deeply powerful experience. You touch their really young parts, you get the audience to feel safe and protected, and then you give them an offer that is a really high price point, and you tell them that to get to the vision that they want to get to. Here's the price point. And you see a whole bunch of other people that are going to do it, and then you don't want to feel left out. And I've seen a lot of people completely overspend what they're actually able to do out of this manipulative situation. And that gets really icky. And that is something I'm not okay with. I see that a lot in the industry. And so again, what I try to do is I try to work with people and say, I would love to work with you, and I ask that you make this decision after taking some time, taking a few breaths. Don't make the decision right now. If. Even if they say yes, I want it.
Lou: Great.
Mark: Tomorrow, I'd like you to reply to my email, and if you're still a yes, please, let's move forward. And I don't want their spouse to be really upset. I don't want them to keep it a secret. There needs to be clear energy and clear lines of communication. And it's finding that place of what is the amount for someone to spend where they feel like, yeah, I'm fully investing in this work. Let me give you one more side story. Is that okay?
Lou: Please. I love this.
Mark: So I was trained when I was learning business. Seth Godin was a big influence for, and I'm sure your fans or your audience knows a little bit about Seth Godin. And something he said to me really stood out. He said, harvard does not need to. They have enough money in their bank where they can give free tuition to every student for I don't know how many years, a long time. They don't need to charge a cent yet. Here's what would happen if they all of a sudden said free to anyone that came in. The story that the parents who paid the tuition tell themselves is going to change. It's not going to be, I'm Paying X amount so that my son and daughter gets the best education in the world. It's going to change to something along the lines of, this is not the best school. I'm going to go to Brown, I'm going to go to Princeton, I'm going to go to Oxford, I'm going to go to one of the other ones. Because the energetic exchange that needs to happen for those parents and those kids to feel like I'm getting the best and to tell themselves that I'm getting the best needs to be at a price point that is just high enough, but not crazy. And I think right now it's like 70K or something like that to go to Harvard. It was 50K when Seth told me that story. And if they all of a sudden charge 250, it would be way too high. So there's a really interesting line, and I would be willing to say that a lot of people that end up spending, that it does end up being a good return. Not everyone, obviously, but the ones that I work with and the way in which I charge, I want to make sure that I am helping them expand, I am helping them grow. And that months later, years later, they reach out to me and they tell me that they're married, they have kids, they have this great business. I want to hear their success. I want to know that the work that we did together was really profound. And that's why I focus a lot on manifesting your unlimited potential. Because I see, as humans, we have this innate ability to be able to continually grow, continually evolve. And when you say yes to that, is such a beautiful journey.
Lou: So there's these practices that are unethical in many ways. I really appreciate, and I've heard Tyson Express sales similarly of not having people, Tyson's both a friend of ours, a really close friend of Mark's, of not having people make a decision on the call. And I think that is challenging when they want to say yes, when they're like, yeah, I will give you my money and I will do this thing. To actually pause. And hearing you say it, too, it's just making me reflect on how do I want to show up in this. There's some really skeevy practices in the coaching world. Like people really getting into other people's bank accounts and finances and asking all these very questions to try and get them to figure it out. And so what I'm hearing from you is really letting them kind of resource themselves and just holding your own price. And I think that's where I wanted to get to. It's like how do you decide what that edge is? And obviously your clientele is going to matter, right, because bit towards an executive that makes multiple six figures a year is going to be different than a coach who's just making fifty k a year and wants to grow, right, but wants to seize the value in coaching.
Mark: I've seen both. I've had potential clients who say definitely can't afford that, but thankfully I have other things that they could get for free or they could pay a smaller amount and I can still serve them, but the one to one coaching they couldn't afford. And then I've had other people that money was not. Money is not an option or sorry, money is not an obstacle for them. And in fact the frame they were coming from was expecting a way higher amount and I actually gave them a lower amount and I saw that for them it all of a sudden shifted, oh, maybe Mark's not as good, maybe this coaching isn't actually as good. And I saw know reverse that. I said, whoa, that's really interesting. And I just became aware of how much my own upbringing and the collective that I grew up in, how much that really did influence my understanding of money as energy. And so I just want to be clear and say it's interesting when you start to actually see the opposite happen because for the majority of the story it's oh, you're way too expensive when you experience the, you're not charging enough and I'm not going to work with you because of that. That's an interesting feeling.
Lou: I've had that happen. One time the person did end up working with me, but they did say, I thought you would be more expensive. And it's like interesting. Not that maybe they wanted to spend more, but it was a question and it Reminds me of a quote by Ramit SETI or just like a question where it's like there's a certain level and a certain people that are holding a specific money, right, where at some point, obviously when you have hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, these couple of thousands, it's not a big net difference to some people. There's a certain question of why pay less when I can pay more. And it's like a wild paradigm to think about living that way because when we pay more we're probably looking for greater value things, we're looking for greater quality things. And so I'm glad you brought that up because it is kind of a paradigm shift. Have we exhausted this conversation around money? Because I'm endlessly fascinated with the coaching industry. And maybe the question goes to what are your feelings about the coaching industry? Is there any other practices that you see harmful or things that if someone's wanting to get into working, let's specifically talk about one on one because I think that's where maybe this stuff comes up often. What are some things that you see or are feeling around the coaching industry in general and maybe talk more about the type of coaching that you do as well?
Mark: Yeah, there's so much to talk about there, so feel free to direct me if you want to go somewhere else. But what you're specifically taking a look at is what am I seeing that is perhaps unethical in the coaching industry? Yeah, so that's a great question and I don't have a set answer for it. I think there's a lot of organizational bodies that are trying to systematize. ICF International Coaching Federation has become an industry standard for certification in the coaching industry. But I've gone through it and it's okay. It's not bad. It's just. It's very okay. And my background, my formal education is in developmental psychology as an educator. For those who don't know, as an educator you have to get a master's degree and you have to take a tremendous amount of classes to prove your ability to understand the developmental psychology of a child to an adult. And then the coaching industry focuses more on the development of the adult. So that's where we get to go into fun things like Robert Keegan's work or Ken Wilbur, who they really push the paradigm of. Actually your development doesn't stop when your body stops developing, when your frontal lobe stops developing around 25. No, you have the choice now to actually continue to develop. Oh boy. And then that brings in the are you actually making the choice to continue to develop or are you allowing yourself to stay stagnant? And that brings us into the coaching industry, which is where there's people who want to grow and we don't have systems that naturally allow it. Our school system does not set up that way. Our school system is set up in a way where it teaches you what to know, not how to learn and what we need to focus more. So is on the long term game of how do we grow children into adults that know who they are, how they learn, and then they're able to bring their gifts into the world. That is a far more long term structure. Right. So in the coaching industry, we have a lot of people who want to grow clients and then we have a lot of people who want to coach because coaching is great. It's a really wonderful field, yet it's not regulated and still pretty much a wild west of careers. So here's the thing for me is what I would say is we have a lot of coaching programs and training programs out there that get coaches to believe in themselves, but they don't necessarily teach coaches how to discern what is appropriate for them to do in their work. And one very simple metric for that is checking in and going, can I actually truly support this person? And here's one thing that I'll say here is a lot of times as coaches, we end up playing a codependent role. This is probably controversial to a lot of people listening. We end up playing a role where we inadvertently play, if you're using ifs terms, which is something that I work in a lot, we're playing self for the client, we're helping them co regulate, which is powerful. Yet we need to be careful that we're not creating a codependent system. Co regulation and codependent are two different things. And so as a coach, you have to know, do I actually have the tools to be able to fully support this person? And a way to check that in is do I have a story for one that relates to this and do I have competencies, skills to be able to properly serve this person? And then do I have a network of people for, if I get over my head now, for me, for instance, I have a series of mentors, two right, three right now that I'm working with. And then I have support my own groups that I put together to be able to check me, because if I'm not being checked, how am I supposed to know whether or not I'm going too far? I usually use the phrase I need sharp swords around me to help me sharpen my sword. So I'll bring what's going on and as a coach, I'll bring that to my mentors, I'll bring it to my groups, and it helps me process and go, oh, am I still in integrity? Am I able to properly support this person? There have definitely been clients that have come to me where, yes, I could support them. But my current business structure is not designed in that way. And so those are not the people that I want to serve. And so, for instance, as a small example, someone who is experiencing intense trauma in real time, they need way more than someone to talk to them 60 minutes or 90 minutes every two weeks. And so if you're trying to sell this thing saying, I will get you out of this trauma, I will help you regulate your nervous system and I'll do it all, meeting every two weeks for 90 minutes. Okay. But if you're going to have a 90 minutes session and let's say, for instance, you help this person experience catharsis, Catharsis isn't necessarily rehealing or, sorry, healing catharsis sometimes could be retraumatizing. And so even though on a coaching call you see someone cry and purge and they say, oh, my gosh, I feel so much better. Great, that could be a good thing, or it Also cannot be. So you need to be able to set up with the person and be able to discern, can this person self regulate? When I close down this zoom and I go back to my day and then they go back to their day. So you need to have awareness of that. You need to provide those tools. And a lot of times I see coaches coming in and they're like, hey, we're going to do 15 minutes of Wim Hof breathing and maybe we're going to microdose and being hyperbolic here, but it's like we're going to throw all this stuff here to rip you open and then, okay, I did my job. Bye bye, see you later. No, that is so out of integrity. That is not a healthy developmental track, right? So I can go off on that, but it's becoming aware of what are the tools, right? And so I'll just say this. The new thing that I'm learning is I'm studying with a guy named Robert Falkener and I'm learning how to integrate internal family systems therapy with psychedelic integration. They're worlds that I just have been invited into over the years and I find it really powerful on a coaching model. And this is not an offering that I have made public at all. And I won't anytime soon, but eventually I will. And so I'm currently in my own training where I'm trying to figure out, okay, how do I do this? I'm working with someone who's been doing it for a long time. I'm talking to a lot of people, I'm practicing and I'm gaining an understanding of what to do and what not to do. And so I'll just say that one more thing is this. As a coach, develop a learning zone. Develop a performance zone. A learning zone is a place where you can fail, you can f up and you'll have people to hold you high, pick you back up, help you figure out what happened so that you can grow as a coach. If every time you're constantly going in and you're working with a client, as if this is a legitimate deal and I need to perform my best, you're not actually setting yourself up to growth. You're setting yourself up to either hurt your client or hurt yourself as a coach. So developing a learning zone so that you could fall, you can learn, you can grow, you can have people to support you, and then you could actually show up to your clients having learned all those things and better serve your clients with more integrity.
Lou: A discernment that's helped me in what you're sharing is, am I trying to get them to have an experience so I feel better as a coach, or is this actually, like, what's best for this person? And so making that discernment of really letting their own process unfold without meddling or doing something because of our own insecurity, or of my own insecurity of like, well, does that a good session? Did they get something out of it so much we could continue on here? I do want to. In our last few minutes here, you mentioned two things, two areas that I had notes on exploring with you. And so maybe they're both because you coupled them as both, but just sharing the power, maybe for coaches or potential wellness practitioners, you probably have heard of IfS. I'm in a training with a coaching group called Alethea. And one of their depths, they have four depths that they work on. One of them is the depth of parts. And so we learn parts work, and it's highly influenced by ifs. It's a little bit simpler. It's a little bit simpler. It's hugely influenced by IfS. And it's been such an amazing tool in my own practice of just. You can just see parts everywhere. Just, oh, there's that part. And just being able to work with them in a skillful way has been huge for me. So I'd love for you to share anything you'd want to share, either. The other piece was that is that this year has been a year of psychedelic exploration. I've sat with mushrooms three times intentionally. One time with a facilitation, with two people facilitating it, and it's definitely been supportive for my own growth. So I'll just tee up ifs and psychedelics and see where you want to.
Mark: Let's do. And there's a lot we can talk about here. And I want to say this. I was asked to create an integration workshop for a company that puts on psychedelic retreats. And they said, mark, we know people are having deeply powerful experiences, but what's really important to us is something that we're seeing pretty lackluster in the psychedelic communities, which is integration. So we're curious if you could help us out with that. And I said, sure. So I went and I created a whole integration framework for this company. And I went and I ran the workshop, and all of a sudden I had realized, I think it was 17 people, if I'm not mistaken, in the circle. And as everyone was sharing and I was sort of putting things together, I realized they're fused with a part right now. And in ifs world, we call it blending. When you're blended with a part and part of the whole work of IFS isn't about necessarily getting to your wounded child what we call exiles. That's part of it. But actually it's just about creating a self connection to your parts so that you can become aware of, oh, I'm blended with this part right now. And that through that unblending. It is so healing. It's so self regulatory. It's powerful. So what I had realized in that workshop was, okay, these people are blended with parts. Super interesting. Enter into IFS. What I am learning is this now, and this is why I am on this path, because it's what I have seen to be one of the most powerful coaching models. And by a coaching model, I mean helping someone go from A to B, create a change in their life, right? And so if you do ifs internal family systems sessions before a psychedelic experience, you need to work with each of what we call protectors. You need to work with the protective system to get permission to then go and do a psychedelic experience. Because what happens in a psychedelic experience is you reach deeply young parts of yourself, you explore traumas again, and it could be a really powerful experience. But when you snap back into your ego, your physical body, and you're not in the holotrophic psychedelic state, all of a sudden your protective system comes in ten times more intense. And so let's say you have an anxious part, you have a lot of anxiety. BEFORE YOU GO INTO THE SESSION, YOU TAKE A PSYCHEDELIC, YOU BLOW PAST THE ANXIOUS PART, YOU GO REALLY INTO, DO SOME DEEP WORK, AND THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU GO AND YOU ENTER INTO YOUR WORLD. AND THE SAME THINGS THAT BROUGHT YOU ANXIETY BEFORE ALL OF A SUDDEN NOW FEEL EVEN MORE INTENSE. AND THAT CAN HAPPEN TO A LOT OF PEOPLE. SO WITH IFS, YOU GO IN AND YOU DO YOUR SESSIONS TO GAIN PERMISSION WITH THE PROTECTIVE PARTS. THREE, SIX SESSIONS, SOMETHING LIKE THAT, USUALLY. AND IN THE MORNING OF YOUR PSYCHEDELIC SESSION, YOU AGAIN CHECK IN. IS THERE ANYONE THAT'S CONCERNED ABOUT GOING ON THIS JOURNEY? LET'S CHECK INSIDE AND LET'S WORK WITH THOSE PARTS. AND LET'S MAKE SURE IF WE'RE GOING TO TAKE THIS PLANT MEDICINE THAT YOU HAVE PERMISSION FROM YOUR PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. AND WHAT HAPPENS IS THIS. IT'S REALLY AMAZING, IS THE PERSON DOESN'T EVEN NEED THAT MUCH IN TERMS OF DOSAGE. I have seen in psychedelic communities where someone will take like 15 or 20 grams of psilocybin mushrooms and they'll say, oh, I needed that much to be able to do the journey. AND YES, YOU HAVE, BECAUSE YOU NEEDED THAT MUCH TO COMPLETELY BULLDOZE PAST YOUR PROTECTIVE SYSTEM TO BE ABLE TO HAVE THE PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE. THAT'S NOT HEALTHY. WHAT IS HEALTHY IS IF YOU HAD PERMISSION FROM YOUR PROTECTIVE PARTS BEFOREHAND, CHANCES ARE YOU WOULD MAYBE NEED 2 GRAMS, MAYBE THREE AND A HALF, WHICH IS A POPULAR DOSAGE. BUT EVEN THAT OFTENTIMES I HAVE SEEN TO BE SO MUCH MORE WHEN YOU HAVE PERMISSION FROM YOUR PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. OKAY, SO YOU'RE IN THE PSYCHEDELIC SESSION. YOU HAVE A SITTER WHO'S ACTUALLY TAKING NOTES ABOUT YOUR MOVEMENTS, ABOUT THINGS YOU SAY. YOU'RE LISTENING TO A SOUNDTRACK THAT YOU CURATED BEFOREHAND. THINGS COME UP USUALLY AT THE BEGINNING AND MORE SO AT THE END BECAUSE NONVERBAL IS TYPICALLY IN THE HEIGHTENED START STATES OF THE JOURNEY, BUT YOUR SITTER TAKES NOTES OF ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU SAY THAT COME UP THE NEXT DAY OR THAT NIGHT. You have an integration session where you go over the notes, you listen to the parts of the music that were going on during those notes, and then that's where you do an iFs session again. And you come into. What was. That was a part of it. Oh, interesting. That was a part of it. And you start doing the IFS based on that much awareness. That is amazing. And then following, you have a few more post integration sessions where, okay, let's check in with those parts. And during the ceremony, this part was really animated to go and do this. And how's that going? What's showing up in your system and what ends up happening is when you do it that way, not only are you able to stay balanced. And when I say balanced, you're able to stay kind and compassionate in your relationships. You're not overly reactive and mean. You're able to still hold down your responsibilities in your job. You don't go and have a crazy experience that's beautiful and then come back to your life and go, what the heck is going on? You're actually able to integrate in a balanced way, and then you're able to actually affect the change that you want to step into. And it's really calm and it's really beautiful and it's really balanced. It's not this ecstatic catharsis that is highly marketable but not necessarily yields long term growth and balance. You know what I mean?
Lou: 100%. This is so valuable for me too, as I go into New Year's doing, probably one of my most intensive retreat experiences with psilocybin. So asking the protector, that makes so much sense. In my arts work training, they call it protector parts and hurt parts. And so the fact that you can blast through the protector to get to the hurt, it makes so much sense. So I have taken a ton from this conversation, Mark. I knew I would, and this is super valuable and super fun to have this chat with you. So I thank you. You mentioned something new that you're creating now. I guess feel free to share anything that you're excited about or where they can find you or learn more about.
Mark: Yeah, thank you, Lou. And I look up to you very highly for the way in which you market yourself. I think you do it with incredible integrity. And so that's what I'm saying to your audience, is start seeing me a little bit more in the public space. I've been having a really great time without social media and without really any sort of public display of who is Mark and what does he do? But more so meeting people, creating experiences. Meeting people, creating experiences, and growing my network and my communities through that. I'm feeling called now to start creating more content, reaching a wider, larger audience in that way, because I feel very abundant in my life and I want to be able to reach more people. One of my favorite things is traveling to a place and having someone recognize me. And immediately, and I'm sure you've had this too, immediately you're able to drop in because that person trusts you. There's psychological safety right there. And so I love honest conversation. I love being real. If I'm ordering a croissant at a bakery and you recognize me, and we have even just a few moments of hello, where are you? What are you doing here? The connection is so much level or so much stronger, and it's just so beautiful. So expect that for me, expect to see myself more so in the public space with a podcast and more of a social media presence. And of course, all my meditations are currently on insight Timer, and I have a ten day course there called Manifest your unlimited potential. I'm trying really hard to bring manifestation down to the ground and really talk about the nuances that one experiences when they decide to embody a manifestation practice, because I'm seeing it sold in a way that is very surface level, and it's a very deeply powerful, sacred practice. And I want to give the tools to people so that they can actually navigate manifestation in a healthy and balanced way.
Lou: Amazing. Everyone, go check out all of Mark's stuff. And take Mark as an example of someone not needing to just continue to route social media in order to make its way. Like, there's many different ways to make it and make connections, and Mark's a beautiful example of that.
Mark: If I just did social media, if I thought to myself, that was the way in which I'm going to grow myself as a coach, 90% of my actual income over my career as a coach, and my exposure has not at all been in any way whatsoever to the traditional social media space. So it's its own other animal, and it's beautiful, and it's where you're going to see more of me, too.
Lou: And even though I'm putting some more energy into social idea, it really hasn't been the driving force. So I love the example of it. Mark, thank you so much, brother.
Mark: Likewise. Thank you, Lou. Thanks for having me.