Podcast Episode 52 Transcript

Episode 52: Everything Zen: Stupid Simple Ways To Focus & Live Your Best Life

Participant #1:
The world of marketing is fascinating to me because it's absolutely linked with mind games that's it. The more I evolve in marketing, the more I start to realize that you know what I'm selling. In reality, I'm not selling little designs and webpage and podcast set up. I'm selling clarity. This is what I sell. This is my added value to my client clarity. So I help him or her to see more clearly what's inside her or him and the certain goals.

Participant #1:
Welcome everyone to the Prendamano Real Estate "PreReal" podcast. We're joined today by a guest who Beck and I described offline as we just want to hug the guy. He's got such an amazing Zen kind of feeling about him. Marc Picard is the CEO and founder of Stupid Simple Digital Marketing. He's living the life. I candidly wish I had the courage to live. Amazing man. Amazing story. So amazing that Rebecca nudged her way into this podcast. How are we doing, Becks? I'm good. Thank you. She really wanted to be a part of this. And, Mark, we really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Oh, all the honors for me. Thank you for inviting me. And before we jump any further, I just got to say, your podcast in terms of branding, and it looks so strong everywhere. I really dig on your whole digital presence, and it's very neat. So I don't know if you do 100% everything yourself. I don't think so. I think you surround yourself with the right team, and they are key players in your success. Your marketing people are good. Really. Congratulations for that. And I think if other real estate podcasters are watching or listening to this podcast, go take a look at what they do because they are really an example of how you should conduct the marketing of your own podcast. Absolutely. So thank you for inviting me. Well, that's very kind of you. Pete's in the corner raising his hand. We're pretty clear about the brains and the kind of push for all of the creative stuff. Becca handles all of the Ops, and Pete handles all of the creative without a doubt, that's not my gift. And it is there. So thank you for that. They are wonderful, amazing members of the family here, and they do a great job. And for me, this was something I went into kicking and screaming. I'm not the most comfortable guy in this kind of forum, if you will. And Pete saw this as a critical part for us to disrupt from our local market. There's a lot of podcasters now, but in our local market, there are none, really. And he thought it would be an amazing way for us to make these connections. And we say this over and over. Becks, the people that we've met through this show, it really is life changing. You guys have proven to be such an amazing inspiration, and it has opened up our eyes to there are so many different ways to do this. You fall into kind of routines, Mark, and you forget that you really do genuinely need to take the time to kind of lift your head up and see what's going on around you. And with that, you've got a pretty remarkable story. The audience likes to get a flavor of who the guest is and how they ended up where they are. So I believe you were born in Montreal. Yes. Yes. This is where the two dollar English accent is coming from. So you will see some random H everywhere. I have an accent, not an accent. And I now live in Spain. Yeah. I spent about eight years in Vegas. I performed more than 4000 shows with Seth du Soleil as a lead character. And now I own my digital marketing agency, stupid simple digital Marketing, where I specialize in personal brand development. So really, the people that want to become their own brand, I'm really specialized in two real estate investors, real estate podcasters. And that's why I'm here. That's how we got in touch. Everybody starts to know each other in that real estate podcast field. It's very cool. It takes a lot of courage to have a podcast if you're not comfortable in front of the camera. If you're not comfortable with a microphone, it takes a whole lot of courage to break through, go out there, talk about you and just realize that you are interested and you have an interesting story to share or to listen to other people's story. It takes a lot of courage to do that, because nowadays the podcast is sort of your business card, if I may say, because if someone wants to invest with you, that person has access to hundreds of hours of conversation of you. So you want a credibility check? Here you go. Hundreds of hours right there. So, yeah, I'm passionate about all this field of breaking. True. I'm also a mindset coach, and, yeah, this is what I do. Sorry, James. Go ahead. No. Okay. So can we go back to the beginning of the Cirque du Soleil thing is very interesting. How does one get involved in that? How do you get involved in Cirque du Soleil? Start. What made you want to do that? So I came from a gymnastic background. But then in my education, I went into performing arts. So I'm an actor by formation. Let's say I went to University to be an actor. So I got into a Cirque du Soleil because I directed a show in Montreal. One of the Scouts came and see the show and simply ask me for my video material. And I went to an audition and they signed me. It's pretty simple, but it takes a lot of work. In my case, it was really a dream since I was very young, since I was eight years old, all the way to. So I retired in 2017. It went from the little boy that was dreaming to be a Cirque du Soleil performer, elite character at Cirque du Soleil performer to the grown man adult that is driving on this trip and see a big pictures of himself on those bus because they still use my face everywhere. And I didn't recognize myself. And I was like, wow, now it's time for a shift. So I decided to leave everything behind in Vegas. I sold my house with the furniture in it, everything I left with one guitar, two luggage. And I was back in Spain with my twins. I have twins. My wife is Spanish, and it's a whole process of transformation. That is interesting because I was dreaming of doing that. But obsessively dreaming. I was a child, and I remember it's stupid. But before jumping into cold water, I was saying, if I don't jump in that cold water, I'll never work for Du Soleil, and I was doing it. And I was sort of programming myself at a very young age. That was my goal. That was my dream. That was my goal. That was my dream. I achieved it. And then I wondered what's next. And that was really scary. I'm sorry to cut you there, but you just said some remarkable things at a young age. A lot of us fantasize about things that we want to be, right. You don't take it too seriously as a child, but for you to not only visualize, but then set up, like, many obstacles and tests for yourself, right? If I want this, I have to put myself into a place of discomfort. That's a remarkably high level, self aware tactic. Many people don't ever get to that point. For me. At the age of 45 was the first time I really began to do that. I was always a deal maker in my subject matter. Supremely confident real estate dealmaking. I've got it. That's my area, and I know it in my mind better than anybody. I have a higher level of passion and commitment than anybody. That's my thing. But that's a very small area that I allowed myself to feel that confidence, to be a young child and to recognize that you not only wanted to pursue this, but it would come at great sacrifice. And then to start making those sacrifices, like jumping into a cold pool is a remarkable thing. Mark, were your parents? Did your parents play a large role in this? Was there a mentor or someone that instilled this level of commitment and confidence, or is this just in your DNA? Both of my parents? They're not performers. They're not artists at all. Absolutely not. But they did encourage me to pursue my dreams, and they supported me that's for sure. It's interesting that you said that because I've never took that perspective on it. It's very interesting. Thank you for that input. I was really programming myself. And now I realized that it might be in my DNA because I'm an ultra runner. So I run those ultra endurance races that I ran three weeks ago, about 100 km nonstop. You run 24 hours. And it's for the mindset that I do this to confirm in my head that I'm not my own limitation. And maybe it's in my DNA. I think most of the people don't realize how easy it is to have a huge impact in your life by doing small changes on a daily basis. For example, don't snooze in the morning. Don't do that. Just wake up. Because if you snooze, you already start your day with the feeling of failure, you're already failing at something. So don't snooze wake up. How about you take a cold shower once? Just take your shower. Finish with cold water. Not as a suffering thing, just as a challenge for yourself to put your mind back into the present. It's with those small, microscopic changes. Take another way. Take another route to your work in the morning. Why not? Why always riding the same road? You know what I mean? Break the routine a little bit. It's small changes that create a huge impact in your life. And people don't realize how easy it is. So maybe I got lucky enough to realize it very young because I was doing it. I wasn't aware of it. But now that you point this out to me and thank you again, it's in my DNA because I still do it on a daily basis. Small challenges, small, very stupid small thing that bring me always closer to my goals. And I think everybody should do that. So those small little micro adjustments in the moment appear small. If you're charting a course and you make that micro adjustment ten years later, it is a deviation from the current path, right? Absolutely. And I'm finding that those small adjustments are anything but silly, they are profound. If you really do want to take a look and change. And I think Coronavirus gave a lot of us that opportunity to pause. All right? Absolutely. I absolutely agree with you. Absolutely. Karina virus was a tragedy. Don't get me wrong, but I'm going to be very careful with what I'm saying because there are some people that they lost, some closed ones and all that. However, I think in life, you need to see everything with the perspective of growth. And in that sense, I think for humanity, Coronavirus might have been a good thing for a fair amount of us. As you said, to take a fixed point on your life being home, being with your family, you cannot go to work, you're with your family, you're with your wife, your husband, your children, or even if you're alone with yourself. And you wonder, wow. Am I happy alone in my apartment in New York? Am I really happy? Is it the life that I want? Oh, my God. I haven't seen a tree in years, actually, because I live in a city and it's always work, work, work, sleep, work, work, work, work, eat, work, work, work, work, work. And I think there was a huge awakening for a fair amount of us. That the coronavirus, in my case, it was a huge awakening, for sure. Yeah, there's no doubt. And of course, I understand. And the audience understands that the perspective by which you're framing this, yes, there was loss. And yes, there was sacrifice, but that is an integral part of growth. Unfortunately, right. In order to recognize those things, you have to go through those difficult times. And it gave us the ability to sit back. And I use this analogy a lot, probably more than I should. But those vacations could go on. And as you're getting toward the end of the vacation, you do start to think I could do this differently, right? Like, there is a way to live. But then six or seven rolls around and you're ratcheting it back up and you're back in full swing. This forced us to think long enough to break old habits and replace those habits with new things. And we're starting to see that manifest now in the workforce, where we have business after business on here, they're all struggling with finding people to come back to work because people want to do things in a very different way now. So I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. I thought it was fascinating that you visioned this. You went and you made this happen now at your core and in your heart, clearly, you're a marketer, right from all of the product that we've looked at and all of the things that we've seen, you've created a persona for me, at least that you've shared enough where my instinct was. I want to hug this guy. So I wonder while you were at surface, Ole did the marketing side was that kind of behind the scenes? Were you a part of that process? Did you want to be part of that process? Yeah. I always have been an entrepreneur on the sideline. I was an artist, but on the side, I was investing in different projects, some more successful, some less successful. And there was one particular project in Las Vegas. When you find a gap in the market, you find the right solution to the right problem. Everything is lined up and you're like, okay, let's create it. Let's go pimp. And you create the thing, and it just flopped. I lost money and it flopped. And a couple of months after, I was like, Why did it flop? And it's because I underestimated the power of digital marketing. Now we're back in 20, 13, 20, 14. So even the word digital marketer didn't exist back then, but then I was like, oh, my God. If I want to still have business project and all, I just need to study digital marketing, because that's a survival skill. That's it. If you want to survive in this world, you need to at least do some couple go Google research and know how it works. So I educated myself, self taught, completely course there. And then I start practicing on myself. And then I build a website for a friend. And then a friend of a friend. And then that friend of a friend became a client. And then a client led to the other to the other. And because I'm a life coach, I always ended up doing some personal branding development for people that want to become their own brand on social media. It's very easy for me to help them, because I understand how the mind works, and I understand how to dig inside their mind and get the best out of them. So it was from a failure that I created who I am right now and now I cannot complain. I even say no to clients. I'm in a place where I can choose. So in every adversity situation, when there's adversity, there's two options. Find excuses or growth. That's it. There's nothing around it. So I decided to grow. That's great. Sorry. Here I go again. James. No, I'm fascinating here, but go ahead. I've got some notes I want to catch up on. There's so many things I've been working on is so profound. I know when you talked about the mind and the mindset, I listened to your podcast and I find it so incredibly interesting. I, for one, feel like I am a person who can push through when it's the absolute right. I can dig really deep, but if I don't have to, I sometimes am like, so I found your podcast really interesting. I was telling James, actually, before we got on, I was listening to your last one this morning on my Run, and he talks about the song Let It Go, and I laughed hysterically, but, yeah, it's so interesting how you really can control your mind. You just have to learn how absolutely the problem is we over identify with the body mind. So maybe it goes back to when you say you want to hug that guy. And I start saying, I think I'm in peace. It's because I don't identify too much to my body mind. I don't identify too much to my ideas or stuff like that. I try to live as much as I can in the present, and I think the mind is a misuse tool. So that's why I created that podcast simply to give a tool to the people to use their mind in a better way, because I think fortunately enough, I think there's a lot of schools right now that teach children to use their mind in a better way. My girls, they're eight right now, and sometimes I'm surprised about they meditate at school and they do stuff like that. It's very cool. But our generation, we still come from the generation of everything is rational, and there was no real emotional education, really just a little bit, but it was slash religion, and it wasn't clear I created a tool for, well, for runners because my followers are 95% runners, so sort of like active meditation type of exercise. So while you do something else that could be running, training or just driving your car or cleaning your house or whatever you do, what I'm interested in is talking to your mind while you do something else, because I think this is where you get the most result. I'm not a fan of the word meditation necessarily, but I think that's probably what most people would title my podcast as sort of an active meditation podcast, let's say. But I do believe that if we teach the people to use their mind in a better way, the world will be a better place. That's really a strong mission that I have. I think people misuse their mind. They're too identified to their ideas, to their possession. They possess everything. We live in a world where we possess ideas. We possess material. But at the end of the day, you don't really possess anything. You know what I mean? That's a little bit the subject of my last podcast that you're referring to, where I talk about the concept of letting it go. When you reach the point that you need to let go, it's too late. You just need to not hold on to anything at the first place. You know what I mean? So life coach coaches is among the many credentials that we were talking about. What do we include as we introduce you here, we started business coaching about a year ago, and it's really had a significant impact on us. And I'm often thinking about that next step in that next level and wanting to really push myself to a place of more discomfort because, admittedly, I've fallen into the comfort zone that you talk about and how it keeps people from achieving really what their goals are. I think when you're in the comfort zone, you don't even recognize the potential of those goals. Never mind, have a clear path to get there. Did you have a life coach prior to this? How did you I have a million life coach. Everybody that I meet becomes a life coach. Everything that I do become a source of inspiration. I've learned so much running and sweating. I came back from a run right now and where I live, it's already 95, 100 degrees, but everything that you learn from running under the sun and sweating. Or sometimes I get some huge lessons from a farmer that lives not too far from where I live. And he talks about his cow and the way the mother cow protects her babies. And I have many, many, many mentors. I cannot name them. Everybody around me is that my children are my coaches or my life coaches. Children are not in your life. You're not in the life of your children to teach them stuff they are in your life to teach you stuff. You need to take parenting with Humility. So even my children teach me stuff just by being the way they are. So I don't have one coach. Everything that is surrounding me is coach mentors. You became a coach just right now. So again, the perspective is remarkable for someone like me. I want to give a little bit of backstory for what ended up being my passion above all passions, far beyond even real estate, which I had convinced myself was my only passion. Growing up in the city, you're not exposed to Mother Nature nearly as much as you should be. So I got to the age of 30 where I never really had, not talking about silly things with Boy Scouts. I'm talking about real experiences out in Mother Nature. When I was 30 years old, I made a deal for someone. As a bonus, they took me on a trip. Actually, it was a hunting trip. I know it's not for everybody. It wasn't for me at that time. I said, gosh, really? I've got to go sit in the Woods. It was so foreign to me firing a gun at an animal like it cut against everything in my DNA. And I mean everything. But I went. And the plan was we'll just go and observe and see what happens. And the first morning, we're out in the Woods, sitting on the ground at three in the morning, the guy kind of goes off and does what they do. And you're sitting there for a couple of hours with nothing but your thoughts and your fears and your anxieties. Right. This is the first time I did this, but I call it when the lights come on. There's a few moments when the sun starts to come up and everything gets on its feet, the birds start singing, the animals start moving. It was legitimately, a biblical moment for me that centered me in a way that I didn't even think was possible. And from that, I started to expand upon and grow upon that experience. And I spend a lot of time outdoors now. But how do you get someone like me who went and I pursued a farm? We have a farm up in Pennsylvania. We have the chickens, and we do the organic eggs, and we have pigs and cows. And it's a hobby farm, right? Goats. And we enjoy being with the animals. There's something about putting your hands in the dirt and cultivating the crops. It's just something that, for me, is connected in a major way. But I'm still in the comfort zone, right? That's the anomaly when I go there. So how does someone in my situation take that next step? How do you get to that point where you've opened your mind to coaching from everyone? It struck a chord with me when you said, your kids are a coach. You're right. You're gleaning things from children through the eyes of pure innocence, with unabashed emotions and unabashed reactions without kind of the societal constraints that we place on people. For me to be 30 years old and never have had that experience for it to never have even entered into my purview is insanity, right? How do you take that next step? And how do you start to accept that you want to do things differently and you want to expand who you are and what you are? Of course, we have a business to run, and we want to continue to grow on that. But I also want to grow personally. Right. How do you take that next step? In your case, we'll need to define what's the comfort zone because there's no one size fits all. Answer. All right. And be very careful with any life coach. That sort of gives some bland answer to those things because everyone is different. Your comfort zone is different than somebody else. So probably with you, we would dig into your comfort zone. Where did that comfort zone idea started? We'd probably take a look at your education. Probably. It's something you inherit from your parents. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something among those lines related with your parents. Are your parents business people as well? Are they in real estate? Okay. Your dad is dad. Mom both. No, just mom. Just mom. All right. Successful. Yeah. She's the namesake for the company. She founded it in 89. All right. So it's the little boy that worked for Mama here, so we'll need to speak to the little boy that worked for Mama since you're very young. I don't like the word brainwash because it's not brainwashed. It's okay. But it's just the way you see life that was enhanced by your parents. And now what you do is you don't know any better. So you're good at that. So there's a complicated relationship between you and your parents. You know what I mean? Maybe allowing you to be something else. I don't want to dig any deeper on your podcast in your personal life. It's not the place for that. But if you ask me, what would I do with someone like you? This is what I would do. We would start from there and see where the comfort zone started. And slowly, the outcome is, no matter which route we think we take, the outcome will be that you will see with a little bit of practice, you will stop identifying to that comfort zone. And naturally, you will still operate as a podcaster. You will still operate as a full time real estate investor, but you will freaking live on your farm because you can do it. You can do it tomorrow. Everything is in your head. You can do it. You can surround yourself with the right people that take care of business in town while you move while you live on your farm. You can absolutely do it after that. Of course, there's stuff you need to take a look at what's your monthly spending to make it realizable. But this is what I would do with you. Start from understanding where that conference zone starts. Where was it created in your life, why it was created in your life and would move on from there. So I appreciate you taking the time to Peel the layers back. I think it's important for the audience to understand what really a life coach is and how important, how deep and how profound of an impact they can have for us again, just on the business coach side, it's made such an unbelievable impact, and that leads into your personal life. But I'm a big believer, Marc, if you want to take the next step, whatever that next step is, it's irrelevant if you're a doctor, if you're an attorney, if you're a real estate agent, it doesn't matter. You can't just layer systems on people, and you can't just give tools to people because they just stack up. If you don't get in the right mindset and you're not in a place where you are making a very concerted effort to accept these systems, engage with these systems, believe in it. You can't grow. You can't get to that next level. And a big part of my job is to empower my people, to be receptive to these tools that we give them and to get them excited about what that next step looks like. In an industry where we have many of our top producers are one or two generations older than I am. They're not as receptive to technology. They're not as receptive to a new way of doing things. We started a book club here as a way to just connect with everybody. And once a week, we get together. We talk about the chapter. I share a lot of my personal insights and let them know it's okay, right. We're going to do this together. We're going to grow together just to get people in the mindset of being comfortable and connected. Something that Rebecca does brilliantly is a connector, and she's actually in the process of becoming a certified coach for our agents because we saw how important this was. So you've taken this and I really applaud you for you have the digital marketing side, which I want to get into. You've got your strategic services, you've got creation, and then you've got development, right, three different categories, and we'll get into what all of those categories mean. But if the consumer or the target or the customer or the client is not in the right mindset to accept, receive open arms and have a really clear vision of where they want to go. It's just another system. It's just another vendor. And for you to not have been trained professionally from a very young age is remarkable to me that you've had these instincts. That not just that you've had the instincts, Mark, because I think many of us have the instincts, but you have the courage to act on it. That's remarkable. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. It just feels natural. You know what I realize? The more I work in marketing. The world of marketing is fascinating to me because it's absolutely linked with mind games. That's it, the more I evolve in marketing, the more I start to realize that you know what I'm selling. In reality, I'm not selling little designs and web page and podcast set up. I'm selling clarity. This is what I sell. This is the added value. This is my added value to my client clarity. This is why a client pay me. So I help him or her to see more clearly what's inside her or him and certain goals. Business goals and personal goals. Sometimes they really go hand to hand as well when you're personal investors. But as you say, for example, in your case, we're going to take you as a case study. If the ultimate goal is to go live on that range that you have, it's very limited financially. The financial part and the personal part is very linked. So I'm selling clarity because I think more clearly we're going to see inside someone and someone's intention. We will have a successful marketing campaign and more results. We're going to get out of all the branding work that we're going to do together. After that, the logo, it's just a drawing. If there's no vision behind it, if there's no digging, if there's no clarity around it, the logo won't have an impact. Do you know what I mean? So I'm digging in the rest of the iceberg. The logo is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm digging in the rest of the iceberg. So we're at a place where, as I've said, we want to grow. We want to take the next step. And Rebecca and Peter have been amazing partners over the last several years in cleaning up kind of how we got to where we were and then kind of resetting who we were. And now we want to project that to the world, right? Are we too far down the path? I'm trying to get to who is the audience for you? Who is the client for you? Would you be able to step into an operation like ours and provide services? Do you prefer to work with startups and you want to take it from kind of concept to completion? Where is your sweet spot spot is? My sweet spot is really working with people that want to become their own brand on social media. So the people that aim at becoming influencers or like the word influencer, this is really where I can perform. Well, however, on the side, I have a client that is one of the top special effects makeup seller in Canada. They sell for half a million a month and makeup and Silicon and all those things to do those crazy special effect makeup, and I lead a team of eight people for that business and their marketing. So it's something very different, but I can still do it. But if you ask me where I can really excel is when people want to become their own brand. So right now, for example, I'm working with Austin Lini from the Construct Your Life podcast. I don't know if, you know, Construct Your Life podcast, Austin Lee could be a good guest on your show. And what I'm basically doing with Austin is coaching him, coaching him to see more clearly in what he wants to expose to the world. Because when you go on social media, it can be very overwhelming for someone to go on social media and you're like, okay, I want to become my own brand. What does it mean? How do I do? And then you start posting random things and your grid doesn't make sense, and you have no strategy. So this is where I perform well to really coach someone on her or his social media and see how we can push to the next level. So for me, one of the goals was I didn't know quite what my gift was. I knew what it translated into Insofar as work product, but I didn't quite understand what it was at its core. So I've worked very hard with the coach and with Rebecca to Peel back those layers and identify what it is that I do better than anybody in my field. And I've become very comfortable with that now, and I want to share it. I feel like I have a gift in real estate that a client. Many years ago, a Rabbi had said, and I didn't understand at all. He said, You're very close to God in these matters, and I didn't get it. But I believe now that I have a gift that I want to impart to others. I don't want to grow a brand because I like to take a selfie like the team will tell you, you can't get further from that personality. For me, it's really a struggle to share those things on social, because it's just at my core. It's not who I am. We have a gentleman that comes in and does training for us here. And he encouraged me to take video of a place that I enjoyed a memory with my son, and I didn't quite get the exercise. My complaint was I have predicted now the last several markets to a team when it was going to happen, which market you should be getting into, which market you should get out of. It's documented it's in the newspaper. It's on podcast. It's out there, and people don't engage with it, right? And I'm sitting here going, hey, I know this stuff, right? And look at my track record. The engagement is so limited. And he said, Go out and do a video about a memory with your son. So I went down to the park begrudgingly. And I was like, hey, this is where my son closed first fish, and it exploded like the interaction with people. I didn't get it. That mattered so much to people. But telling you, twelve months ago, get out of multi families and into M property and M property is now up 150% like, almost no engagement at all because you went from an intellectual relationship with your audience to a heart related relationship with your audience. So people identify to you as a human being. There's emotion now, not just knowledge of like, because one plus one equal two that will happen unintellectual anymore. So there's an emotional connection with your audience. What's important on social media is to grab the attention of the people. To grab the attention, people will need to have the sensation that there's a benefit for them or sort of interest, right? They get an interest in you by having a relationship, they get something out of it and that something can be knowledge entertainment. There's a lot of Realtors that do little crazy dance on TikTok. This is entertainment. Why not? Or an emotional connection. So in that case, people reacted well because probably what you were offering was entertaining. You were probably educating them on something, so they had an added value plus an emotional connection with them. And after that, the more you're going to do that. What's going to happen is people will have the desire to see more if you stay consistent and you do it consistently. Whatever rhythm of posting that you have, there's no right and wrong. As long as you're consistent, people will desire to see more of you. And then this is only after that they will fall into action and actually contact you and want to invest with you. And it's already happening. In your case, of course. But usually this is how we're it goes

Participant #1:
clearly. I want to continue to grow our channels because I genuinely want to bring this knowledge to people. I want to show them that commercial real estate is not this scary monster. It is for my money, the best way to build generational wealth. And there are pathways to do this now where we can impart this knowledge in a very scalable but meaningful way. I'm struggling with. Okay, how do we finalize what the product is? I know you talk about content management, content planning, content coaching, communication, all of the editing, brand identity. If we were to work with you, would you be able to help us put the kind of framework around what is the final product going to look like and then help us go back and build the audience to get us to that product. What do you sell? What do you sell? So that's the question. It's the knowledge. It's the expertise. What do you sell? I'm asking you again, what are you selling? I don't know. You say because wait. You say you sell knowledge yeah, but what are they going to do with their knowledge, with the knowledge that you give them? Hopefully they're going to monetize it and set up for themselves a pathway to live the life they want to live. Exactly. This is what you're selling. You're selling a way for them to achieve their dream life. This is what you're selling in reality. Okay. And the way you achieve that can take many different shapes and form. You can develop an ecourse as you can become a consultant, as you can share information for free on social media. People will also invest with you slowly. But I think you really need to connect yourself with what are you selling? What you're selling, and why are you selling it? This is the first thing you need to have, like, Crystal clear in your mind, Mark without question. That's what I'm doing. And admittedly, I haven't solved for it myself. Not because financially I can't. There's other issues that I have to get my arms around to accept. That, right? The programming, like you said, literally, I was knee high to a grasshopper and I was on appointments with my mother from the time, literally, my earliest memories. And I so desperately want people to be able to learn and profit from beyond the scope that we're in now, our clients do amazingly well. But beyond that, this is not a game that's reserved for the elite anymore, right? There are ways now that you're able to invest. And there are pathways that previously didn't exist. And the digital world has given us so many different ways to do that. And it's becoming a passion of mine to make sure that people know that out there. There is a way to financial freedom. There is a way to this. I have to fix what's between my ears first for me to enjoy that, right. But that's what I want to sell. That's what I want to share. That's what I want to impart to other people is their pathway to living without sounding cliche their best life. When I looked at your page and started to follow you, that's all that just kept resonating with me is this guy is living his best life. And how did you get to a place where you had the courage to take those steps and to break from those chains and deviate from the path that we all seem to fall into in such a dramatic way? I mean, you went from performing on the strip in Vegas. Your faces is on these posters. You are that recognizable person with this amazing show that's known worldwide. And then the next pictures are you pointing to? This is the only traffic, and it's cattle in the middle of the street. You recognize that's a remarkable transformation, right? Yes, it is.

Participant #1:
But actually, it was a slow process. I knew to break with

Participant #1:
my childhood of dreams. I knew it was time for me to grow up. I knew I had to make some room in my life to have adults dream. Let's say that I knew it was very clear. So that's why I resigned my contract back in 2017. I didn't sign for another year. That was clear. But I didn't know exactly where I was going. I moved to Spain. I've saved enough money to live for a while, where I was getting paid fairly well at and I've made other investments, and I had a little bit of passive income coming in and so organized myself. Well, I started investing back when I was 20, so I was lucky enough to have a margin and reorganize my life with two children.

Participant #1:
After that, I left. Yeah, I left Vegas after that, I left for India for a couple of months. I just left for India. So that was a huge shock for me. I did, like, a silent retreat in India, and that was very special for me to be in front of such level of property. Not just how am I going to pay my bills at the end of the month and not Social Security? Poverty, like, I'm five years old and both of my parents are dead and I eat garbage property like the real deal. And when I came back in Spain, I sort of realized that I was living in luxury. Oh, my God. It was in Vegas, but still, I was like, my God. And then with my wife, we started to adopt some very little habits, like, do we need this? Do we need this thing? No. Let's give it away. This thing. Let's give it away. And this thing and this and that. And we live now on maybe about an acre of land, maybe a little bit more on a small house not too big, comfortable and uncomfortable enough, let's say, because we still need to chop five tons of wood in the winter to keep us warm. But I appreciate it. And we live a minimalist lifestyle. However, yesterday we were at the beach, we had drinks at the beach, and we still have a normal life. We're not a bunch of hippies that we still go shopping. But I just found out that focusing on your spending and really making the reflection. Do I need this? Do I need, like, two cars? Can we organize our life with one? Do I need 10,000 membership to every platform, Netflix, Hulu and blah, blah, blah. Do I need that? Like, am I spending enough that much time in front of the TV? Do I need a huge plasma screen with the huge movie theater system? Do you really need it to be happy to be happy? I realized that not. And the more I was tripping myself from everything that we didn't need, the happier we got and we're happier than ever right now. And the fact that our monthly cost is so low, I can work with the clients that I really want to work with and my wife, she's a food influencer. So she's a Baker. She does that. That's it. She make a living out of Instagram. She has a workshop in town here, and people just contact her on Instagram because I coach her a little bit. And on the background, of course, there's some manipulation behind it. I help her. But she became her own brand. She became her own brand, and she's an influencer. She's a Baker, and she has her own business. She does what she loves. And, of course, we have challenges in life. But I don't know. I just found out that we live in a culture and mostly in real estate podcast. And I'm so grateful that you have me on your podcast because I have the feeling on the real estate podcast we really talk about only about how do you increase your income and how do you generate more income and more and more and you grow. But rarely we talk about how about we take a look at your spending a little bit and see what we can do there. Maybe you're just spending too much money, then that's it. How about you live in more contentment? How about you develop a sort of resilient, more resilient lifestyle, and then maybe you won't need to build that much passive income. You will need some passive income is great. It's outstanding. Be a passive investor. This is awesome. But then you don't have that pressure of performing and not failing. And in my case, searching for clients and getting more clients and getting more work because I have bills and bills and bills to play to pay. No, my life is cheap, cheap. I live. We have a high quality of life, and it's so cheap, so cheap. The monthly cost is ridiculous. That's the route I choose to live. And I hope more people would do that. Well, that's the reason we were excited for you to be here today. So often, too often we fall into these patterns on the show where this show and other shows, where it's just about what's the greatest tip and trick. And who's what again, there's a Zen about you. And we said, let's take this opportunity to talk a little bit more personally and let's open up a little bit more to the audience and share some of our challenges, some of our goals where we wanted to go in life. And you're right. I take a great pride when people ask me, I drive a Dodge Ram. I'm a simple guy, but even that is it's a Dodge Ram. There are people that are in such difficult circumstances out there that as you were saying, that I almost felt guilty that I drive a Dodge Brim, right? Like it was a badge of honor for me that you won't find me driving a Mercedes. Not that we can't, but it's just not for me and where I've been glib of, well, I'm a simple guy. Simple pleasures. There are far more simple ways to live, and it does require a complete recasting. I think of the mindset. You run unbelievable distances. If our research is correct, you're running like 30 miles a day. Is that correct? Not quite. Yeah. I run a half marathon a day. I run in miles. I run 70, something like that. 70 miles a week. That's crazy. Then depending if I have races that could be go away higher than that.

Participant #1:
I live in the paradise of trail running, so it's very easy to go out and just run in the mountain. It's so beautiful.

Participant #1:
Okay. I have so many questions. First of all, what made you want to be a long distance runner? And how long have you been running these half marathons every day?

Participant #1:
Okay. As far as I can remember, I always like to go there. Even as a child, I really like to take my bike. And I was seeing the park so tiny on the back of the landscape and taking my bike and go there and realizing, wow, I went there with my bike. Wow. I did a lot of biking. I always ran a little bit, but it's really when I moved to Spain that I took it more seriously. So it took me years. You don't run an afmarathon a day from one day to the other. It's a slow build and it's built on passion. I don't really take a look at what I eat. I don't have a coach. I'm not either a champion. You know, there's some Champions that are supported by coach and all that, but I have a sponsor, but I don't have a coach per se. So it comes from passion. It comes from, really, the passion of going outside in nature every day. But it's a slow process for anyone that is running like, let me give you a trick. Okay. It's better for you to run 1 mile a day than 7 miles a week once a week. Get into the habit of getting out of stepping outside for 1 mile every day, seven days a week instead of going once in the weekend for 7 miles. So there's a quote that I wanted to touch on with you. You said we live in a world where we take hot showers every day, our great grandparents to cool or warm baths once a week. The notion is that people look for excuses to. Oh, my God, not start, right? My life is swallowing excuses every day. I go pick up my twins at school, and people know I'm an ultra runner. It's every day. So you're an ultra runner, right? Yeah. I wish I could run, but my knees. I wish I could run, but it's too hot right now. I wanted to go run today, but it was raining. Oh, yeah, I would love to run, but I'm so busy and all the time, I'm like, Man, you don't realize that if Jeff Bezos can have big biceps. You can run. Like I'm telling you, if that guy takes, I don't know how long it takes. Every day, probably an hour, 2 hours, maybe more if that guy takes the time to train, you have the time. So people were professional to find excuses. And my wife knows me so well. You know what my wife tells me when I'm running ultra races, she sent me a voice smell on WhatsApp? Because we cannot call, and she's saying, you know, Mark, it's okay if you don't finish the race, it's okay. It's a long race because she knows she's playing in my brain. She knows that. I hear that. I'm like, no, I'm finishing the race and every time. And don't get me wrong. You're talking about running and all that. I'm lazy too. Don't think like, I'm like, yeah, let's go run half a marathon. Yeah. Sometimes I look at my shoes for hours and I'm like, I don't want to go. I don't want to go. My wife comes in the background, and she's like, you don't have to go today.

Participant #1:
I'm out. No excuses. We're good. Because again, to go back at what we were talking at the beginning. If I start finding excuses for not going for a run, then I'll find excuses for everything in my life. Because what I've noticed from the people that shove all those excuses of my throat every single day, usually they're not business people. They're not entrepreneurs. They work for someone else. They're in that comfort zone, and they always have a project that they never realized. So it's a pattern. It's a pattern that the people have. And that's why I'm so strong on my social media to stop that bullshit of finding excuses and step outside. It's raining. Yeah. Remove your drain jacket. Just go outside and run under the rain. Feel that rain. Just go. It's fun. It is fun. Just go. Don't find excuses. Just step outside. Put your shoes on and step outside. And it's something that I apply everywhere. Even like the client that I coach, they pay me a fair amount of money. I'm like, I'm not going to start posting for you. If you want to become your own brand on social media, I'm going to support you. But you will put those shoes on, and you will run those miles and I'll support you. Don't worry. I'll encourage you. I'll remind you, I'll help you create content. I'll help you along the way. But you will run that freaking marathon, not me. If you want to become your own brand. So it's something that I apply in running. But everywhere in my life, the comfort zone that we talk about, right? Even those of us that are entrepreneurs that are poor, we have areas that we struggle in that it's difficult to get out of the comfort zone for a myriad of different reasons. For me, it's been fear. One of my first posts, I made way back in the beginning was about fear. One of my agents came and said, You're encouraging us to do this, but you don't understand. You're really good at it. You're confident you're this, you're that. And I said, Hold on a minute. And I said, I'm going to do this video right now with you in front of you. So you understand. I've been driven by fear my whole life. It's awful. The fear of not getting the deal done, the fear of not working the hardest, the fear of disappointing a client, the fear of missing a Mark on a pro former. It's not out of confidence. It was driven out of this awful place of fear. And it is really a transformative process to get out of that mindset and to try and retrain your brain. And you led with this in the beginning, and it ties in now those little wins don't hit that damn snooze button, force yourself to do things that are uncomfortable. It will bleed into everything else that you're doing. And it becomes if you're honest with yourself, Mark, it becomes freaking exhausting. Coming up with the excuses to not get done, what you want to get done. And then before you know it, you open your eyes and ten more years came off the calendar like this, and you're still in that same place, and you still have those same excuses, and you still haven't taken that step. Absolutely. For you to be able to harness that reprogram. That is amazing. It's why I was looking forward to this so much. I wanted to hear more about how you did that. This was it something that just was innate in you? Was this through extensive training, and how far would you be willing to go with the client? And it sounds like each person is their own case, but it's about unlocking those lids that we continue to place on ourselves, really, for the most part, and recognizing that we can go to the next level. But you have to be in the right mindset to do that. What is the best way, Mark for people to reach out to you to find you? If they wanted to engage with you on your services, they can go on my website, stupid Simple Digitalmarketing dot com, and all the links will be there. If not probably down below. You will add the links in the description, and people can reach out to me on Instagram, email or whatever. So stupid, simple digitalmarketing. Com. Okay, this was really an eye opening chat for me. There are some things that I want to work on. I do want to build the brand. I do want to bring this kind of knowledge to others, to hopefully inspire them to take the next steps. But I also want to take the next step. So if it's okay, I'm going to contact you offline as well, because I feel that at 46, I'm finally at the place where I think I'm ready to kind of go for what's next on the horizon. So this was really great. It was inspirational. Your story is amazing. I applaud you for the courage, and I envy the life that you're living. I really do. It's remarkable. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me on that show. And by the way, I want to tell you something before we stop recording Casandra. You know Casandra in Greek mythology. Yes. So you know, the story of she was cursed, of the gift of divination. But also, Apollo was mad at her, so he cursed her with the she couldn't convince anyone. So she knew the truth. But no one believed her. That's a beautiful character. So I don't know. There's something you were saying that you predicted seven market cycles. You were saying that right all the time. And it's cool. The word Casandra is very cool. It's the name of your mom. I understand. Yeah, but there's a deeper meaning to that name. It's very cool. So thank you for having me on that show. It was wonderful. Very cool. And again, good job on your marketing. Good job on everything that you're doing is so much work. People don't realize how much work it is to manage a podcast. Record the episode schedule, edit everything, create micro content. This is so much work, so much work. So Congratulations. You deserve every ounce of success that you have. And anyone. The podcast is available on itunes, probably on Apple podcast. Leave a review that's going to help them share it. Care the episode. It's going to help everybody if you feel it's an added value for you, for sure. Well, I really appreciate the kind words and the inspiration, and we'll be in touch. The Casandra tying you're the first person who has caught that. And again, I'm going to give you that virtual hug again. Yeah. You just got this thing about you, man. Mark Picard, everyone. Thanks for joining us. As always, everyone out there, as Mark said, please feel free. If this is delivering value for you, please leave a comment or a post or share it. We're having a lot of fun here. We're growing. We hope you're growing with us. And as always, everyone out there, please. You stay safe.