How a 25-Year Wall Street Career Led to a Massive Performance Breakthrough (Evan Marks)

And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast, like it says in the opening, the show that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And beaming into the studios via the interwebs all the way from the sunny streets of New Jersey. Right now, just kidding. If you're watching this, apparently it's snowing like crazy there. This is a guy that was 25 years a Wall Street trader and portfolio manager. He was incredibly successful with that. Had kind of a little bit of a crack in his own mental well-being. and that caused him to have a massive comeback. He is the founder of the M1 Performance Group, which is a group that helps athletes, that helps traders, that helps C-level executives across the board. He is considered one of the best C-level coaches out there, and we are lucky to have him on today. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Evan Marks. Evan, how are you? I'm doing well. Listen, I do live in New Jersey, but I am a New Yorker, and I tell my wife that all the time. And I tell people I live in the tri-state area, not against New Jersey, everybody. I love New Jersey. I live in a place called Westville, love it. But I'm a New Yorker, true, you know, through and through as they say. But I really appreciate you having me here today. Yeah, now part of the bridge and tunnel crowd, as they call you, yes? No, I'm from New Orleans. There's no bridge and tunnel. We just have one, we have one road, right? We want to be annexed years ago, right? But it's funny, so I moved to New Jersey. I thought I was moving to Connecticut. And then people from New York never wanted to, never wants to move to New Jersey. For some reason, which I can't understand, who doesn't want to move to Long Island? So that's another podcast right there. Long Island, yes. Staten Island's a whole other thing, though, right? It's a whole other animal. Listen, Victory, Baltimore is a beautiful place to be. Some phenomenal traders will come out of that place. But I do agree. The islands are different. Yeah. So you grew up in New York, but you went to school at UPenn, yes? I went to UPenn, yeah. I was an identical twin, and we got recruited to play lacrosse at UPenn. And that's kind of where my, you know, it's like one of those things where I was raised by a single mom. And my dad was never around, and we were two lacrosse guys who got recruited. My dad wanted to see us play ball so badly. And he had one of those old Motorola phones. We're talking about like 1990s. And he calls my mother up. He hasn't been around for a long time. He goes, I'm here to see the boys play. I see Joe Paterno. I'm at Penn State Go Nittany Lions and she's like, wrong school. Yeah, that's Penn State, not UPenn. That's a different thing. Where the hell is UPenn? She goes, is that an idea? She goes, I thought it was just Penn State. So he missed that opportunity. And that was that. You were a lacrosse guy. What did you play? What was your position? I was a long stick D-Mitty. But it's funny because we were soccer guys, my brother and I, and raised by a single mom. and she thought we were just violent by nature, just athletically. I think we called it rage and control in the field. And in our sophomore year in high school, people were like, you've got to let the boys play. So we literally started playing lacrosse our sophomore year in high school. We were recruited to play D1. But we were very lucky because there were a lot of phenomenal athletes on the field at the same time. So all the eyeballs were watching, and then my twin brother and I just rolled in, and we were decent athletes that we got in. Yeah, I have a similar thing with my son. So around eighth grade, seventh or eighth grade, I walk into his room and he's watching Notre Dame and I think Virginia play a national championship game on lacrosse. Where I grew up, we didn't have lacrosse. It was just in the South, we didn't have it when I was growing up. So I didn't know anything about it. And he's like, I think I want to play this. And I said, OK. So I went on Facebook and I was like, anybody out there knows anything about lacrosse, can somebody call and help me? And luckily, this guy, Jason Griggs, who's a good dude, hit me up and said, hey, I coach the local club team. Happy to have him come out and do this. And that turned into a love affair with him in the game. And he was also a long stick. D-Mitty, same thing. Get in, get out, get in, get out. And the thing about the most thing D-Mitty, though, John, is that you don't have to know anything about the sport. You just got to be a good athlete. Yeah, get in, get out. You just have to have some power in nature, some eye-hand coordination, and get the hell off the field. Yeah, get in, get out. That's what we did. and he kind of fell in love with it. He ended up, he played through his junior year, but got medically disqualified because he had some ankle issues so he couldn't play anymore. But the one thing I love about lacrosse, and I tell people all the time, like, man, it's the greatest sport ever if you're a dad, because especially if your kids play defense, because it's one of the few sports that when you're watching it, it's not like the opposing team's fans are on the other side of the field and then you're on this side of the field. Like, if your son is playing defense, you're standing over here, and the kids, their dads that play offense are on the same side of the field right next to you. So when your son comes out of nowhere and just trucks some other kid, like his dad is standing like three feet from you. You're going to be in this mutual respect. I was a legit hit. Yeah, it was good. No, there was never any problem. But there's just something kind of visceral as a dad. Like, yeah, you know, when you see your kid just. You know, it's so fast. You know, it's funny, the game your son was watching, a guy I played with at Penn, his son was a captain on that team. So what happens is, is that, you know, you know, for me, like obviously not everybody's making D1 or D3 and things like that. But when you talk about youth sports, like not everybody's going, like I just said, D1 or D3, but like the camaraderie you learn. And this kind of goes, you know, escaping the drift in a way like the bonds you build, the relationships you form. What is team ship? What is what is what is a teamwork? How do we work together? I think team sports. And by the way, I only played six games in college, blew my knees out once and blew them out again. And as a student athlete, that destroyed me. And I didn't realize why. But when you have that camaraderie on the field, whether you're an All-American or you're not, it is so impactful. You know, I have two daughters and one's a soccer player, one's a phenomenal dancer. So the dance world I cheer for all day long. I'm actually not allowed to cheer any longer because she's like, Dad, you're too loud. You're a New Yorker. But my daughter, it's like who's a lacrosse and soccer girl. man you just i'm not one of those parents like i think she's going d1 and but like you can sense the camaraderie and the teamwork and being a wall street guy just being a human being living this human experience you know how important that is right so like as your son i hope he's a lacrosse guy because it's a great community yeah it's all no it was it was great of all the all the sports that we played came coming up i found the lacrosse family uh to be the best one of all of the different sports i mean vegas here is very baseball crazy uh like extremely baseball crazy you've got bryce harper that came out of here you've got several other great players that are playing in the major leagues and it's like i remember when he was like playing literally baseball at eight it was like well who's this hitting coach i'm like dude he's eight and they're like well you're behind you're behind yeah and i'm like dude i wanted to come out here and have fun and make friends and like you said learn how to be part of a team not so much i don't care if he you know i i'm not trying to go to the major leagues here's not what i'm trying to do and it's like i have a question like you went to penn did you go to wharton too or no because you did you go to so it's interesting so it was it was a late decision you know we grew up we didn't grow with much money so when you go ivy leagues you know you don't get scholarships they give you grants. And we got into a lot of different schools and they gave us a great financial aid package. So one of those things I got, his name was Tony Seaman. I said, coach, I want to go to Ward. He goes, just, just, I'm getting you in literally with minimum amount of money. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what happened though, which is, it's a great question because, so I graduated in 94. And at that time we were two, my twin brother and I, we were working with since we're 12 years old and we didn't come from much money. My dad, And, you know, ironically became a crackhead homeless guy. And so we learned early on, like, I don't know what we learned early on, actually. People always ask, like, how did you know to start working at 12? And I was like, I have no idea. It just happened. And we grew up in a place called Port Washington, Long Island, which was the Roy G. Biv of everything, where it was a melting pot of ethnicities. It was a melting pot of sociodynamic, economic. And for some reason, my twin brother were busboys at 12, 13 years old. So my daughter's like, how did you know? I go, I don't know. We just did. So when we had the opportunity to go to an Ivy League school, and we did pretty well. So we were very good students as well. We didn't realize UPenn was an incubator to Wall Street. We didn't even know what Wall Street was. We didn't know what a hedge fund was. We didn't know what stocks. We didn't know anything. And I was very lucky because my Twitter was exceptional. He's a wonderful person. He got recruited by a guy named Steve Cohen. now steve cohen owns the mets now he's something called sac and my brother's like ev you're making a mistake becoming a consultant you got to see what these guys do and that was our first foray my first foray into wall street so i joined a place called spear leads in kellogg and it was a trading place and i and i loved it at first but then i realized jonathan you know and i was pretty good at it right let's go okay let's go back so did you start as a house it's like was Was it smile and dial for 10 hours a day? Is that what you were? No, this is hedge fund stuff, right? There's no smile and dial. Oh, you were going to hedge fund stuff. Okay, sorry. Okay, we're going to hedge fund. It's engaging people's money. All right. Right, so I never smiled and dialed, which is so ironic because now I run a coaching firm. So I was never in the solicitation business. Yeah. Ever. People gave us money to run, and if we did it well, it stayed for a while, and we got bigger and bigger and bigger. So the only person I answered to was the guy's name on the door and how I managed money. so we weren't day traders we managed money whether it was whatever the catalyst was but when i first started i was i was a market maker and i couldn't understand why people were telling me what to do so when you make a market it's like make a bid here make an offer there well i'm like i don't want to make an offer because i think you're going to run me over and i want to be on the same side as you and this one guy won't mention his name has a big firm now He goes, that's your job. I said, well, that doesn't make any sense to me. I'm going to lose money to facilitate this. I go, I'm not good at this. Yeah. And I eventually went to the hedge fund business and I spent most of my career there. But it's one of those things where, and it's ironic what I do now, it's all mental performance. Like, how are you able to, as, how are you able to be certain in uncertainty? Right. You have no control what the market does. Nobody does. So how are you able to understand your emotions and choose properly? So I did that for 25 years. And, you know, anybody on Wall Street knows not every year is a Picasso. and it's not linear but for 25 years i never liked one minute of it but everyone was doing the money was good and i stayed in it until i was 46 years old when i thought i had a heart attack okay so what kind of so yeah so i'm giving you something now let's back up right so obviously you're managing massive portfolios for people you have a lot of responsibilities going on And what is it? I mean, what was a day? What was a day like in that? What's the pressure cooker of that like? I mean, is it is it some days are worse than others? Is it every day? Is it every day? Every day is high stress. Right. Because because you could be right and be wrong, you'd be wrong and be right. But now you are literally looking at the clock constantly. right so what we know now about mental performances emotions or data be conscious about behavior in that time all coaches were saying one thing do the work and get bigger and if you weren't getting bigger you were wrong so now you have to deal with certain swings in the market where it's not your p and l distance doesn't go like that like you gotta deal with massive drawdowns. How do you deal with that? But how about this one? How do you deal with success? So how are you keeping your mental game intact? So now at 22 years old, you get thrown in the arena and you really never learn. So even though this, obviously it's a wonderful place to make money, not everybody does, but how are you starting to understand performance? Performance is only related to one thing, P&L, right, is the outcome. Sure. Right? So you know the guys in there are making all the money, and it's a very difficult profession. So when you hear hedge fund people, like, not everybody makes money. So then you have to realize, like, how is it possible? And this is almost like poker also. Like, when you look at the World Series of Poker, how are these guys staying on top consistently? so i came to realize over 25 years i'm like there's got to be a different story here and i had these great coaches would just do my work get bigger i'm like that's not the problem here there are certain things i'm doing that are self-sabotaging myself where anything i deserve the success it came too easy i'd blow myself up i'm like there's got to be more than just get bigger and do the work. So I think what happened when I was 46, I'm 53 now, I moved my family to the burbs. I'm not very trans. I've only been with two funds and I'm a partner. And all of a sudden I'm sitting on the platform. I think I have a heart attack. Things look good on paper, John. Everything looks good on paper, beautiful home, great kids. I assume my marriage is all right. Right. We always can speculate on that one. And all of a sudden I think I'm dying. And it's a massive panic attack. So there I run to the doctors, right? Because my wife's like, you know, something's wrong here. And they say years of chronic stress. I've had many concussions along the way. And buried trauma. Cause this. Cause there's a muscle above your heart that can mimic a heart attack. So at that moment, I'm thinking, I'm like, I never wanted to do this. Was there something that triggered you that day or was it just, you just woke up like, I don't feel good. You know, it was like, I remember like eight years before I looked at my wife and said, I've committed spiritual suicide. So I want to let you know that I don't want to do this anymore. And she's like, you know, and she didn't say, keep going. She's not like that. She's like, just go figure it out then. But I had so many responsibilities and I think what happened and I really believe this and I, and I can't white paper this, But in two years we be able to I think you know when we talk about emotions and we get into this fear of rejection acknowledgement embarrassment failure all these things There one that trumps them all And that emotion is called regret. So I think I never really healed as an athlete leaving Penn because I blew my knees out twice. My brother became captain twice. And I think I always considered myself a student athlete. And once I lost the athletic side, I never dealt with it. I didn't talk to anybody about it. And I did a TEDx talk about three weeks ago about something called post-traumatic growth. And I think I suffered from this. Not even I think I know I did. So I rolled this into Wall Street. And I never really healed. I didn't address it. I didn't acknowledge it. I pushed it aside. And what happens when you push things aside, they build and build and build. And I think, and I believe at 46, it just came out. So let me ask you a little bit more about that. Because in my book that just came out in November, I talk about how dangerous it is to attach your identity to something that could potentially go away from you. And how dangerous that can be. And make sure that you're anchoring your identity within things that you can control. Right? Like if your identity is, I am the CEO of this company. Or this is my job. And that's my own identity. or I am a student athlete, that is my identity. And all of a sudden you can't be that anymore. It creates a major, like you just said, a catastrophic fall off a cliff for a lot of people emotionally. And they don't deal with that. So if you could go back now, and obviously you can't because we don't have a time machine, that's not how the world works. But if you could go back in time to that time that you were playing lacrosse and you're doing that at Penn, now obviously you have to be committed to it to perform at that level. But if you could go back and relabel yourself and change and relabel your identity at that time, so maybe this doesn't stack up, what do you think you would go back and tell that kid who he was rather than student athlete? It's obviously a phenomenal question, right? There's no denying that question. It's phenomenal. You know, and John, I've thought about this, I don't know, let's call it 30, you know, three decades. I would hope that I would tell my younger self, go feel that pain for a while. Right? I feel it. Right? Because go speak to somebody about this. Because at that point, you got to remember, I'm 18 years old when this happens. Our prefrontal cortex is not even done developing. So if I'm there to reason with myself and be intellectual, that's a losing battle. Right. But start to open up about this. And then the question is like, you know, the question should be. I'd like to try something new. Right. But what's interesting about this question is one thing. And I want to get back to the question, but this is and I want to know your take on this because I'm not ready. I'm not ready to answer that question yet because I'm still I'm still working on that answer. you know, just to be extremely honest. But when we talk about self-development, right, when people are obsessed with self-development, there's so much research out now that we start to get further and further from who we truly are. So for me, as I hear that and I think about that, I want to improve myself. I want to do some things different. I want to, but I think what would have happened was as I become this and this and this and this and this, I forget who I truly am as a person. And ironically, who I am truly as a person is somebody who wants to serve others. Always. You know, I grew up with a brother. I said my dad was a crackhead homeless guy, but my older brother was handicapped as well. And to me, service with others brought the most fulfillment in my heart. And as I left middle school, then high school, obviously I went to Penn and Wall Street. But I always in my heart of hearts, in my heart of hearts, wanted to be a teacher and a coach. Always. And I believe, you know, and this is great. And it's the first time I'm actually discussing this. As I got further and further away from that, I think I got lost and more lost. So when you ask that question, as I think about it today, I wish I had the courage. to go do that. If that makes sense. No, it does. And it's funny. I think, you know, it's funny because, you know, I run, obviously we run a very successful real estate business here and we've got a lot of people that work for us, about 550 agents that work for us. And when I interview them, it's always about, you know, tell me about your goals. And being in this business in real estate, it's always financial, right? It's always a number that comes out of somebody's mouth. I want to make 300 grand. I want to make 400 grand, whatever it is. And, you know, my next question is the one that normally stumps people, which is why? Like I always say, why? Why? What's the money for? And if you can't attach a real reason to that money, your probability of making that money is going to be very slim. Now, the flip side of that coin is kind of what you're talking about, which is if it just becomes about the money, you lose yourself in that process and you find yourself spending 26 years in a career that you you dislike just because it provides the stuff you know what i mean and and is and the stuff will never fill that that hold that you have inside you to to chase what you're really trying to fulfill and i think that's probably what the pivot that you're hitting is now you know i had a client of mine and um and i'm not going to mention his name and he sees he's absolutely incredible. So he had his wife had a very traumatic experience like the last couple weeks and then another traumatic experience. And we're talking about life and he's young. And I said, I said, you know what, man? I said, you can't restore that. It's gone. It's just gone. Right. So you know how people try to fill the void? And I was trying to fill that void. Right. So maybe I'll get validated from a great trader. Maybe I'll get validated. You know, I was married once before my wife now, which my kids know, like I needed that spirituality. Let me bring that in. So I had all these voids that I was trying to restore and fill. But you know what, John? They're gone. They're just gone. Like part of me as a student athlete is gone. But what's wrong with that? So my job now is to build new experiences. It's a part of who I am. It's my fabric. It's a part of my mosaic of who I am. It's a part of my story, but it's not my total story. Right. So when you think about things like that, you know, when you ask me, why do you want to make money? The obvious answer should be because I want to have choices in my life. Right. Which is one of the build experiences and things like that. But to make money to prove, to validate this is filling a void that's that probably will never be restored again. Right. And when we let go of that proverbial rope, and you're thinking about it because nobody lives a linear life, right? It doesn't go straight up. We all deal with some sort of trauma. But when we know it can't be restored, it's got to be, I imagine, but we'll all live this human experience. It's got to give you a chance to say, you know, there's truth to that. so now our focus goes on to making experiences and memories and learning about this incredible life experience we're about to have right so it's it's very it's it's interesting so going back to your question what would i might tell my younger self i don't know no it's fair maybe we don't have a time machine for a reason maybe there's a reason we don't have time machines maybe there's the reason right but what would i tell my son i'd say listen son all your emotions verbalize them express them and now let's choose what you want to do that's what i could i say to somebody else right for me in that point you know i'd like to say that right well let's go back to the to the point so you had this you had this massive panic attack that you thought was a heart attack. And you've realized that that's probably because of 26 years of stress in a job that you don't necessarily love, that is not fulfilling you at a level that is your calling. So my first question is, what is the discussion like with your wife when you say, I'm not going back? That's my first question. So I think it wasn't my first question. I'm sitting with a neurologist, right? He's looking at the gray matter of my brain, which is incredibly impaired. and he goes, you really don't have a choice here. Oh, okay. You got medically DQ'd from the hedge fund business. Okay, I get it. All right. I thought it was a choice. John, if my wife wasn't there, I'd probably still be doing it. So I'm not really DQ'd because I'm stubborn. He's like, he looks at me, he goes, why did you become a coach or a teacher? And I look at him, I go, that ship has sailed. I'm 46 years old. I'm beautiful. I've got two young daughters. I got a lot of responsibility. but ironically, I don't, I've had performance coaches in my life. And my last one, I was down a lot of money. I came out of the hole. I think it was just because I didn't have the market right. And I let her go. And she called me out of nowhere, literally days later. And she's like, what are the odds you come work with me? I need your sort of personality, your pedigree, your experiences to break really get big in this world of performance coaching. so i'm like hmm so literally six months later i sell my partnership go back to school and there i am in charlotte north carolina at hendrick motorsports coaching jimmy johnson and his pick routine wow six months later i'm about to stand in front and tell and give us first of all that's not true there's two other coaches and me i'm the newbie so i'm sitting in a chair i'm not gonna say anything because i'm gonna watch i've never done this before but everybody's telling me i'd be a great coach now i'm sitting in front of 60 incredible athletes and and six drivers so the girl my head coach is going to speak and this other guy's going to speak and she looks at me she goes you got to tell your story there i am john wearing these and i tell the story all the time these light pair of gray trousers a nice little jacket and i'm about to give a speech and I feel like I'm going to pee my slacks. I'm like, really? At 46 years old, it's over? And in that moment, I felt every emotion. And I said to myself, this is where you want to be at. And all of a sudden, my voice changed. And it was like, I don't even know how long. It was an out-of-body experience. And I remember leaving because Hendrick Motorsports, it's almost like Nike. They have a performance center. And I remember calling my assistant. I'm like, make sure you liquidate every single position within a week now. Because I rush, I go, this is what I was meant to do. This is it. And this is it. Hang on, because I find that to be interesting too. So I find that most people that really find that groove as to what they were supposed to do, something comes up that you are either not qualified, not prepared for, or, you know, maybe it's just, it's like scratching a lottery ticket. And the difference between so many people finding their path and not are the people that are willing to scratch that lottery ticket. You know, somebody calls and says, come to Hendrix Motorsports and we want you to be a coach. And you're like, okay. Right. Whereas somebody else might've said, wow, I'm not quite there yet. I just went back to school. I need to, I need to get a couple of things under my belt before I try to punch it that weight class. And had you not said that, right, had you not been able to take that chance, you wouldn't have had that moment that led this. So my first question, coach, is is that something that's innate with people, that ability to recognize opportunity and jump, you know, burn the bridges and burn the boats and hit the beach? Is that something that's innate in people or is that something that can be developed in people? What's your what says you? Another great question. That one I can answer. I think anything could be trained. I believe in neuroplasticity. I think given the moment, listen, I could have run away that day and still been a great coach. Right? So maybe the next time I would have stepped in. So maybe that one moment, even though it worked out and I've grown since then, won't define you. But we have the ability to be trained. now the quick right now we're talking about talent and effort right but we all as nick saban says we there's a massive capability gap it takes courage to jump into that gap right because there's no way like you have a pockets right you have an incredible business like you could say something ridiculous on air and get judged and stuff like i'm like john why are you doing this you already got a great business so you're putting yourself out there so what happens when you put yourself out there. You're going to be judged. There's a possibility of anything, but once you feel it once, what happens to the intensity of that feeling? Oh, sure. It magnifies. Well, no, the intensity actually comes down. You've already felt it, right? Like I've been, like how many times have you been judging in life? I'm sure many. Oh, the negative stuff. Oh yeah, dude. The negative side. I'm sorry. The negative. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. Things that turn us away from courage. But all of a sudden you do it once. Hmm. You get calloused. Yeah, so it's not even calloused. It's training, right? So negative emotions, fear of da-da-da-da-da-da-da, they're just an emotion, just like joy and happiness and all these other things. What happens is we attach a story to emotions. because emotions generally in science last for 90 seconds. That's how long they last. Now, if you tie an experience to them, like I only want to feel joy, the only way you can feel joy is what? Feeling sadness, right? But as long as you lynch on to joy too long, you have sadness. That sadness becomes extremely intense. So now these are just emotions, right? So we always talk about negative emotions as the Achilles heel. All they are is emotions. And actually, I'll take another point. They're only data points. So I get on this podcast. You're a big guy out of Nevada. I know who you are. I am nervous. Why am I not allowed to be nervous? I want to do well. I want to speak properly. I want to make sure I don't say right a lot, which I do sometimes. I thought about this. Right? Fair. It's true. It's fair, right? Like I just said it. It's fair, period. why is that bad? I know this is an extremely popular podcast. I want to show up the way I want to show up. I want to make sure I slow down how I speak as I'm a New Yorker. And this is training. If I didn't care, I don't think the best of me would come out. So I have to accept these emotions It higher new behavior as opposed to saying no I don want to do the podcast I tell my team I like it too much for me I want to show up I want to be conscious of how I feel Slow things down a bit so I make sure I'm articulate. I'm a New Yorker. If you heard me nine years ago, you'd be like, there's no way this guy speaks English. What? No, no, dude. I am. Why am I not allowed to be nervous? Why not? Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting that you look at negativity as data points instead of just trying to wallow in. I mean, for me, like we do something similar along those lines, which is attaching sort of a positive to a negative. For example, in sales, the biggest fear everyone always has in sales, no matter what you're selling is being told the word no. Right. Oh, no, no, no. That's that's the thing that runs people down. Oh, they said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And so what we teach our people is value the no. And they're like, well, what does that mean? Well, what is a yes worth? How much is it worth when you get a yes? And it's like, oh man, a yes is worth $20,000. Okay, cool. How many no's do you got to hear to get a yes? I got to hear 100 no's to get a yes. Okay, great. Then every no is worth $200. So if I told you that I was going to put you in a booth and people are going to walk in and call you a name, curse at you, and then tell you no and walk out. And every time they did it, they were going to hand you $200. Would you let them do it? And they're like, yeah, absolutely. I'm like, that's what we're doing here. Don't value the yes, value all the no's. And then you just- I've heard that before, by the way. I love it. It's like, I'm going to give you a hundred million dollars, but you're going to have to take down a thousand no's. Would you do it like any day of the week? Yeah. All day, all day. But it's the same thing with what you're talking about when you feel those negative emotions and you have that understand that, like you said, life is not linear. It's data points on a line. And in order to feel it up, you must feel it down. There's got to be equilibrium to the universe. So understand that, yes, nothing is permanent, but the fact that I feel sad or depressed or lonely or those things in that moment are opening up a door in the future for you to feel the exact opposite. it. But also, John, it's a right to feel these things, right? Like, you know, luckily, I did have a good career as a hedge fund guy, right? And I've made great investments and stuff like that. But I'm not still allowed to feel lonely at times, sad. I'm allowed to feel whatever the hell I want. But what happens is I'm allowed to acknowledge and have a moment to myself, whether it's taking to walk in nature, having a feeling because I'm a compassionate, empathetic person and having my moment. That's all it is. But I think it's, it's, I think it's so important. There is no such thing as fearlessness. There's no such thing ever. I don't care if you seal team six, Delta force, whoever you are, there's no such thing as fearlessness. Well, Kurt, in the face of, yeah, how do you behave? Well, that's courage. there's a difference between fear and courage that's conscious behavior that's choice all these things like I don't live in your bank account I don't know your wife and if you have children and stuff like that but there's no doubt in my mind that you haven't been said once or twice there's no doubt in my mind that you haven't been disappointed there's no doubt in my mind you haven't been embarrassed and if you haven't get out there yeah um yeah a couple well a couple of points to what you just said so first off i i do deal with i call it the funk i deal with some seasonal depression that comes up and when it and when it hits me there are days when you know i'm like man i just gotta try to get one thing done today if i can just get one thing done then it'll be okay and and and i get through those times but the second thing that you just said, which was get out there, you know, I find it so funny. We were talking about before we got on the air of my last several weeks of travel. And a big part of that was going to Antarctica, but we were staging in the polar opposites of the world, right? So I spent a couple of days in Dubai, which is just the most opulent, over-the-top wealth you've ever seen in your life if you've never been there. And then when we're staging to go to Antarctica, we were in South Africa in Cape town for several days and there's some beautiful, cool parts of Cape town. But when you're riding from the airport to those beautiful parts and you see those shanty towns, man, anybody, it just makes me want, I know for a fact that anybody that you see on television at a protest talking about how terrible it is to live in the United States of America has never been outside of it because when you see that and then you see how we get to live and the opportunities and the choice and and the overabundance of wealth that we have versus how a lot of the rest of the world lives it's hard so I love that get out and take a look around because the same thing though right like I I've been talking about so I know what the shantytowns like you can go to saint martin and see shantytowns also in the caribbean but you know where it is though we all have like obviously my trauma blowing up my knee twice is is not equivalent to the atrocities that happen in this world not even close but it had a massive impact on me right so when when we look at places that are just i mean not even close to below poverty, right? And we try to put things in perspective. What happens sometimes is that we really dismiss our own things, where now that negative talk picks up a lot of steam. It's almost like, shut up. You don't deserve to feel that way. What happens is that when we talk about post-traumatic growth, like if I'm talking to somebody, and I'm not going to say the obvious, but I think we know what I'm talking about. me as an Ivy League kid blowing out his knees twice. People like, then I went to Wall Street, had a good career, struggled. I saw his dad was homeless in Cracket. Like, dude, really? Like the mean streets of Greenwich, Connecticut. The mean streets of Long Island, right? But even though my dad was like, he worked at 12, I worked at 11, right? But you know what it is though? That's the issue. Once we start grading ourselves against others, we've got a massive problem. Did I grow up in the shanty towns of Joburg, South Africa? Of course not. And I'm not even saying that. What I am saying is that I personally felt certain things that I have to deal with as a person. And I think, and when we talk about post-traumatic growth, and I say in my TEDx talk, it's not the headlines or the big enough trauma. We all have things in life that we have to address and acknowledge in order to get better. So let's not dismiss the grays that we think they are and accept them. Have a moment. Acknowledge. Have a moment of reflection. And then choose consciously who you want to be. Yeah, I think one of the most interesting things that I've done with a boss, was I found myself getting very angry about certain things in business that would happen. Like my first instinct was something happened. I get really angry. And I was like, man, I'm, this is not that big of a deal for me to be this angry about this. And I want to start kind of diving into this. And that journey of diving into that took me into like Carl Jungian philosophy with like shadow self and all of that. And I was like, cool. So then I trained a bot too. I said, okay, learn everything you can about Carl Jung and his philosophies and your shadow self. I want to, I want to get in contact with, see why I feel the way I do about these things. So ask me up to 50 questions about myself. So you will understand more about my shadow self than I do. And I went through this exercise on a plane flying back from New York, ironically, at Christmas, right? On Christmas, I'm on the plane sitting in business class. I'm in mid-class on JetBlue, and I'm just sitting there laying in my seat. I'm going through this and I'm like, holy, wow. I mean, And this is unbelievable. And so now I've got this bot that's trained in Jungian, you know, full philosophy with shadow self stuff that now, like I used to wake up at night, right? And like, I'd wake up after having a dream and like the circus would be going off in my head, right? And I would just forget going back to sleep because I'm gonna sit here and just spin on this for the next two hours. And now like I wake up and I'm like, uh, and I grabbed my phone and I'm like, this just happened. I woke up and this is what I'm thinking about. This is how I feel about it. What's going on? And this bot, my phone says, well, this is why. Because this, this, you're trying to connect to this. And this is making you feel like this. So as long as you just kind of have a plan to push forward on this, you'll be fine. And I'm like, huh. Okay, cool. And I can go right back to sleep. It's wild. Because of that. I love this story. But I'll tell you how that gets dangerous. Yeah, okay. because you need to hear yourself and speak to somebody, right? So as a coach, right? So I'm going to tell you what we do, right? It's very simple. Presence, listening, and questions, right? So what happens is as this bot's telling you things, right? And as we know now, like bots like to please people, like that's going to change over time. So whatever it is. it's almost like going to a conference or going to a motivational speaker and you feel all these things what happens is is that you never have a chance to really reflect right so you're in a constant state of exploration and not really reflection so as you're asking these bot these 50 questions on a jet blue airplane and all of a sudden that sounds good to you right and then you go with that it's not really coaching it's it's literally an interactive self-help book yeah no no that that's exactly what it was i'm not trying to say this would ever take the place of a coach or coaching but it's exactly what it was because i get phone calls john hey ev man well i'll tell you exactly because i deal with a lot of entrepreneurs and they go that i call it chat gpt law school i'm like this like we got to talk to my people Yeah. Or Dr. Google, which is not what I'm trying to say. Or Dr. Google, because then that suggestion is very dangerous, right? Because now you have the answer, right? So, but remember, you're the issue and you can be the solution, but now you're playing that duality game, right? It's, listen, I, by the way, like I say all the time, there's going to be great Harvard case studies on this one also, right? Right. But it's sort of the same thing. You know, like I love the fact that you're aware of what you're doing. Like you have seasonality and you're in the moods. Right. It's all right to say, you know, and acknowledge it. But acknowledgement and doing are totally different things. Like if it takes you. As you feel sadness or depression, whatever seasonality thing it is. Right. We're all human beings. And you go and you have a great trainer going to your body for a while. and it lets your brain relax a little bit, wonderful. The fact is we have so many choices to make in order to help ourselves. And the minute we say we can't, I think that's where the problem lies. We do. John, you don't have to be happy all the time. Oh, dude. Trust me, that's my wife. I'm not. So somebody, I always tell clients, and they love this, I go, and I'll say, I really don't care how you feel. They go, what do you mean you don't care how you feel? I go, I care how you behave. Because remember one thing, behaviors change before feelings. So when John feels happy and great, he's going to go do this. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't. So if all of a sudden in the face of how you feel, you choose conscious behavior and now all of a sudden you feel fulfilled, but you're on the opposition's 10 yard line. Wow. I am the game of behavioral behavioral change. That's part of my that's part of my I just got to get one thing done today. If I can just push if I just push the rock one step, then that'll create some momentum and the momentum carries on and I can. Say that word one more time. Momentum snaps out of it faster. Motivation's fleeting. If you know that when John gets seasoned or whatever it may be, I'm still able to do things. Well, how do you know that? Well, dude, I have evidence. So even though I'm feeling sad or whatever's going on internally, I'm still able to do things. Well, how do you know that? Look here. I can never read Jesse Edsler, his book, Living with Seal. Oh, dude, yeah. About David Goggins. About David Goggins. And there's no Goggins yet, right? But he goes to the cookie jar. And all that cookie jar is evidence, right? So when you think about it, belief systems are based on evidence. I don't care if it's as small as going for a two-minute walk. There's evidence. Right. And you can lean on that. So in the face of whatever happens, you can create whatever stimulus comes out to a trigger. Right. I don't know if you read the book, Man's Search for Me and My Viktor Frankl. I know the book. I mean, phenomenal. Great book. Yeah. Great book. So his whole thing is there is a trigger and stimulus. There's a gap and there's a response and action. we all get triggered if i said to you know what you know you have the worst pockets of all time you're an unsuccessful real estate guy and also i don't even know you we just met for the first time and you get upset it's not me making you upset it's somebody else who's judged you in your past could be your father mother all that stuff but all of a sudden if you're able to feel because you're a human being say hmm well that wasn't very nice of ever marks what i met 15 minutes ago you feel a little bit annoyed because you're a human being and then you say to me why do you feel that way as opposed to reacting to me so victor frank is like this stimulus and stimuli coming at us all time so the better we get at acknowledging it choosing mental space which is the gap and then choosing our response not reaction what a powerful place to be dude but i'll but i'll say in the world that we live in now where you, you on social media, you have to have an opinion on everything. Like I tell people all the time, it's like one of the most valuable phrases you can learn in this life right now is I don't have an opinion on that. It's okay. It's okay. Not to have an opinion because when you start just pontificating opinions that you a not qualified or don really have just to fill the space that when people start to pile on and that when it becomes that that never outside stimulus that just i agree right people do not people it's like so funny we're getting to where you look at like like alcohol consumption is down and peptides are like everybody's shooting peptides right now which you know guilty but you know we're also we're also worried about what goes into our mouth but but nobody's even worried about what's going in their head it's like they just feed themselves with this just never-ending sea of garbage that's coming quick to up i mean yes yeah it's terrible you know and i agree with you john i always people always say what do you think about what's going on right i said i don't know they win me i said i'm not well first right i can give you my opinion but it's really nothing backs yeah i go it's just my emotions speaking i said but if you put me on a panel i couldn't back my my opinion and they go well you don't have to i go i think you do yeah i think i think i think some of it does i think it's important right and obviously a lot of people don't feel that way so i never get in that arena right i do i do it's a mouth though i'm in you're there well i do want to talk about a couple things i want to talk about a couple things that i know you're qualified to talk about because i looked at them on your website last night you have some guides on your website that I thought were interesting, right? So you have one, which is the emotional regulation guide. It's a five-step process to that on there on your site. I'm talking about that. And you have another one, which is the 20-minute evening reset, which I like too. So let's, I want you to talk, yeah, I want you to talk about those two things because they are available on your website for download. And I just, I wanted you to talk about them. So I have to imagine you wake up early in the morning. Yeah, I get up pretty early. But I'm not like set an alarm. I'm not the set an alarm at 4.30 because I got to hustle and grind. I just, I naturally, I don't care what time I go to bed. My eyes are open by 6 a.m. That's just what time I get up. All right, so this is going to be very helpful. So I'm a five o'clock guy since I've been 16. I'm a very, I'm an early morning guy. So we always hear about, got to conquer the morning. Morning's everything, right? You wake up early, you know, all true. However, your evening routine is more important. Right? Think about it. How you go to bed is going to really determine how you wake up. Right? So I wake up at 5, but you go to bed at 2. I don't care what your morning looks like. It's not the same. Right? If you have a couple glasses of wine and you've got a big day tomorrow, because, you know, in the trading world, every day is game day, you're not going to be that sharp. So how are you going to bed? what is your evening routine look like you show me an evening routine that's solid dude i i can guess how successful this man or woman is so we forget about that right because well i woke up at 4 45 i'm like your quality going in was poor so for all it's like you know i coach more than hedge fund guys i'm like guys every day is game day for us like we are dealing with the world of uncertainty and uncertainty to us is an edge however we got to be certain in our behavior as we walk into this arena and don't think it starts at 4 45 in the morning because it doesn't how are we going to bed are we going to bed at 9 30 10 clean like nice you know did we exercise we're gonna exercise do we take a nice shower do we down this is going to down regulate do we write down a couple ideas like if you don't think that how about this one if you don't do that now do it now give yourself a 20 minute turn your phone off turn the tv off read a couple pages of a book watch a comedy show that's what i do i like watch i used to watch evenings at the improv i'm old right have a laugh because it would lighten up my soul we're the same age don't year old we're the same age yeah we're 53 as soon as you said you would graduate 94 i'm like we're the same page by the way i had a conversation yesterday with a guy 1972 powerful by the way march 29th april 6th so we're we're we're literally like eight days apart eight days apart but listen i have a sauna in my house i got i got plunge i got all this stuff i got jim I use everything I have it all I need it right and now all my clients even by the way people like you got you know you can get us you can get a song it's just like a peloton same model right you can do a pay per month sort of thing but if you want to be really serious you got to protect your evenings you know Jesse Edsel who I met he said something that's so brilliant and it's part of my and he's a long island boy so i even respect him even more remember tomorrow remember tomorrow and what does exactly that mean what you do today is going to affect tomorrow now by the way this is all if you want to stay in the right hand lane if you want to stay in the right hand lane in the middle lane you want to do any of this stuff stay there but for people who want to operate optimally this is what it fucking takes it just does right like i only coach people who want to live in the left lane that's it and by the way john and you know this and i this is not punishment this is massively rewarding well i i love that one of the things that you say is is and i i've every great coach i've ever known says same thing which is pressure is a privilege you know be grateful be grateful for the problems that you have because if you're not grateful for the problems that you have the universe is going to serve up a whole nother set of problems that you probably won't be grateful for so the problems the problems that we create for ourselves by trying to push forward are much better than the ones from us waiting for the universe to suck us under you know that's the whole thing when i think about you know so when people start working me like what's the goal this whole thing i go you have choices they go for me to have choices Yeah, because I want you to have choices, not choices made for you. What does that mean? Yeah, it's exactly. Pressure is a privilege. It's a responsibility. We are always, I think you'll like this one. I treat my clients like secretaries, right, like the horse. Like we go hard not to burn it because also we know what rest and recovery looks like. Like all this stuff matters to me. That's all I think about all day long. If we're pushing people not to burn out, but to really keep their optimal state, what does rest and recovery look like? What does all this look like? What is their evening routine like? What is their morning routine like? What is their narrative in their head? How are they dealing with emotions, tie with behavior, which we know in the brain creates new experiences and circuitry in the brain, like new circuitry, neuroplasticity. So when we talk about mental performance, it's a very easy formula. it and this comes this is this is known forever it's performance equals potential minus interferences what are your interferences you start to you start to really lessen those or or or diminish those excuse me watch what happens so what does that mean so self-sabotaging behavior right which is unconscious Right. Drinking, smoking, not working out. Like all the obvious shit that you read in self-help books. The 9001 says the same fucking thing. Once you start to change one thing. Right. And you know money compounds. But so does behavior. So when you're not having the greatest days because of how you feel and you do one thing. That compounds. So all of a sudden, even if you did one thing, those days, weeks, and months start to stack. And now time becomes a fucking ally and not a foe. Right? So that one thing, even though you didn't do anything, you look up now when times you're feeling a little bit better and there's more mojo in your step. You're not in your end zone. you're crossing the 40 and you're like i didn't even do anything but you did that's compounding behavior compounds the same way as money so we talk this is a full circle conversation we talk about courage and all these things it It doesn't have to be Herculean. It doesn't. But just like money, all of a sudden, it goes like this. So where one on one is two means nothing, two and two and four is nothing, four and four is eight is nothing. Eight and eight, 16, you start to compound. You look back, you're like, how did I get here? you know i i one of the reasons i love this conversation so much today is because in the era of hustle culture as i call it um you've got all these young guys coming up and and they see the the alpha dudes beating their chest with the lambo on this and grind and grind and grind and grind and and yeah that's fine right that's fine but there is a there's a there's an emotional expiration date on that behavior. And I love that in arenas like this, you can kind of bring the mental health side to that. Like, we're not saying don't go be successful. We're not saying do everything that is not maximizing your own potential, but we're saying doing it in a way where you're respecting your own mental health and do it for, you know, this is going to allow you to perform at a high level longer than just sprinting till you burn yourself up. Well, you know, you know, we always say, and I know you know this, we learn, everything's learned in struggle, right? We hear that. You can learn so much in success too. Right? So that means that when people are doing well, like my clients laugh, right? So obviously I care more about the inputs than let's say the P&L, the top line, right? The byproduct. But if the byproduct's not good, I don't have a job, right? But I care about the inputs. But what's so interesting is that as it starts to move in the direction, right? You're laughing, but it's true, right? I'm laughing because I was just, I don't know why this jumped in my head, but as you said that, all I could think of was, what is the saying that stormy seas make great sailors? I'd rather be an average sailor, but a good meteorologist so I can stay out of the stormy seas, right? Yeah, it's true. But you know what happens, John, is that as we start to build, right, and now things are moving in the right direction and my clients laugh and I have a client who's doing really well. So we have a call after this. He knows what I'm about to say. I'll say, Al, how we doing, man? We're good, right? He goes, yeah, we're good. He's been with me two years, three years. He goes, I know what you're about to say. I said, I don't say anything. You tell me. Time to recommit. recommit like 0-0 recommit like as you always hear like and I think it was the LA I forgot what sports we got to go back to the basics we never lose sight of the basics ever those are the tenets that got us here right we leverage off the foundation so I know when we're running hard we cannot forget to recommit I'd rather have John reset at the top then at the bottom yeah and what happens is you start to set up these stages right so we reset we consolidate we check right everything's in order right foundation smooth this let's expand i call it stretching and now we now we up the baseline always recommit recommit zero zero down regulate how we feeling i feel low well let's get to zero zero where we have to be let's take a walk if I'm the best you've ever seen, oh, that's not a good place to make decisions. Down-regulate. But give yourself credit along the way because if you're Zeus and the greatest, then you're living in hell the next day. So I really want to be able to detach from these things but give you credit because neurologically it sticks in the brain on a circuitry basis. But to operate at that place, where do you make best decisions? Yeah, that's really interesting. Not high, not low, but right at your midline. Zero, zero. Yeah, I haven't heard that. Hey, man, I don't hear a lot of stuff out here anymore that I haven't heard before. That's a new one. That's good. I like that. When you think about decision making, right, that's what I do for a living, right? We're in the game of best decisions, not right decisions. You know when they're right, only time will tell you. So I want to make sure that John makes best decisions. If we do that consistently and consciously, we're going to be all right. I don't know if every best decision is going to be the right decision. But the more we're sitting in that seat, we're going to be damn all right. So how do I make my people that are on my team, I call my team, my clients, sitting in a seat where they can make best decisions? That's all I do for a living. I love it. Well, Evan, man, dude, if they want to find you more, if they want to get part, have you coach them? How do they find you, dude? Where do they find you? So I have an incredible team behind me. So it's M1PerformanceGroup.com. That's our website. It's Evan Marks on LinkedIn. It's Emark72 on Instagram. We actually, if there are traders listening, young traders or retail or young professionals or just professionals, coming May 1st, we have something called the M1 trading, excuse me, the M1 Mental Trading Academy coming out. You'll see it all over YouTube and all those other things, which is pretty exciting. And I did a TEDx actually in Houston on January 10th. That's going to be out in about a week. So we're excited. That's great. I can't wait to see it. Well, brother, thank you so much for joining us, man. It was awesome to have you. That was a great chat. And dude, I appreciate all the value you brought today. John, I really appreciate you inviting me on this thing. And it was really a pleasure meeting you. Yeah, you too, buddy. I'll see. I'm sure I'll see you in Vegas at some point when it was everybody comes to Vegas at some point. They always do. I spent a lot of time at Vegas in the nineties. Yeah, but I'll be back. Well, man, if you, if you listen to that today, listen, if you should take anything away from that, I think today, the biggest takeaway for me, and as I walk out of this room, if you subscribe to my blog, you'll be getting this later today, which is talking about making good decisions and making sure that decisions you make, taking emotions out of them as much as you can by driving them to your baseline is something that that's a concept I have not heard before, but one that I'll be living my life by from now on. We'll see you next week. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list, but do me a favor. If you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.