[00:00:00] Luke: All right, Mark England. How in the hell did you get into working with words and language in the first place?

[00:00:08] Mark: I've been asked before same question. Sometimes I tell the story of the first time I ever saw someone change one word and turn a story of a victim centric nature on its head, which I'm happy to share.

[00:00:26] And also, sometimes I start with when I began teaching elementary school PE in Bangkok, Thailand. And that's when I really started paying close attention to how I was saying what I was saying. Because when you have 25 nuclear-level excited second graders that you have to take from point A at a certain point in time, you get these kids.

[00:00:57] They know they're going swimming. And you have to get them across campus, dressed out, in the pool, swim the lesson, everybody survives, free swim, get them back out. Everybody gets dressed, everybody's got their stuff and back over to that same point at a point that you've got to become economical. You got to get good with your words. You can't waste them.

[00:01:25] So that's when I first started thinking about my thinking, if we want to get all Allen Watts about it, it's my favorite Allen Watts quote. When we learn to think about our thinking we become alive in a new way. And most people are not thinking about their thinking. They're just thinking

[00:01:44] Luke: They are their thinking.

[00:01:45] Mark: Yeah. And then they're just going with the first thing that shows up in their head. Okay, let's go with it. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot, actually. And then converse that. What could go right or better or smoother when we learn to pay attention to what we think, what we say and what we write?

[00:02:06] And so the business that we're in is we help people learn about the power of their words. Because people's language-- and when I say language, I'm talking about our internal dialogue and our external dialogue, what we think, what we say, what we write-- powerfully influences them for better and for worse.

[00:02:22] Most people don't have any education, practical education about how to use their language well. Did you have any courses in high school, Luke, about English, 11th grade English, about how to--

[00:02:38] Luke: The courses were, if you use the words that you use often you're going to be kicked out of the class.

[00:02:44] Mark: Right.

[00:02:45] Luke: The verboten words. I learned that pretty quickly after a few trips to the principal's office.

[00:02:53] Mark: And now give us a book report on 17th century Spanish gallions. It's like, I'm really interested about that at 16 years old. And then you got to write the paper a certain way, and you get graded. There's a whole other conversation, ladies and gentlemen, about our language than regular grammar, definitions, and spelling.

[00:03:16] Okay. And then I saw a woman. She went from, he did that to me, to, he did that to himself. She was telling a story. It was an emotional detoxification workshop that I went to in 2003 in Thailand. Very short story. I moved over there because I thought I was a tough guy. Moved to Thailand in 2002 and thought I was going to be over there for a year, Luke.

[00:03:41] I ended up being over there for 10, which still sounds strange to say, but that's-- yeah. And I had my second knee surgery and my fight career stopped. I like saying this. I turned myself into a grown ass man, baby. It's a technical term. And after about a year of not laughing-- I really don't remember laughing that year at all. Really, really taking that. I had three going away parties. It was a really big deal. I had my passport for two years. It was just some dude from Virginia, and I'm moving over to Thailand for a year. People thought it was Taiwan. They didn't know where it was. And so I go over there and fall on my face.

[00:04:24] And now I've got the proof, got the final piece of evidence in a case that I was secretly making, which is part of the reason I was fighting so much, mostly with myself in my head. That's what was fueling my fight career, was a victim story, a victim mentality. I just thought, that's the way I am.

[00:04:43] We'll run a language game on that later if you want. And so this event that happened, me in knee surgeries, and the whole thing stops. And now I've got the proof that there's something wrong with me, man. There's something wrong with me. I'm somehow doomed to fail. I'm a born loser.

[00:05:02] All the things that I was secretly afraid of in my head, now it's a case closed. Darkness descends, entrench of victim mentality lighted on fire. And after a year of that, it was the first time I ever remember experiencing wisdom in my life when, after a year of being miserable, I go, dude, are you going to be complaining about this when you're 55 years old?

[00:05:35] And I was like, you could. That was the wise part, that I could actually do that if I led myself. And I saw that version of me, and I was like, I'll do it. I'll take anything with that. So I was teaching at elementary school PE. Then right around that same time, our vice principal had come back from this fasting and detox resort down in Koh Samui. It's an island in the Gulf of Thailand.

[00:05:59] And he goes, they're doing some really cool stuff down there, man. I just did a three-day liver cleanse, and I feel fantastic. And you looked better. He was all shiny and stuff, and happy, and energized. And he goes, read this book. And it was The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity by Daniel Reid. And enlightened poop help me get down there. It's okay if we talk about poops.?

[00:06:25] Luke: Yeah, we talk about poops all the time.

[00:06:27] Mark: Yeah. And enlightened dooo changed my life. It was the thing that got me to go down there to this resort, which I kept going down there because it was helping. And then one fateful night, I went to an emotional detoxification workshop and saw this guy turn a story on his head.

[00:06:44] And I was like, that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. When I got a heated that to me story, we were warming up. He shouldn't have been kicking that hard. And we'll get to that. So I go thumb through this book, and it's all about Taoism, acupuncture, meditation, diet, exercise, sexual practices, how they see themselves as part of nature. Really cool stuff.

[00:07:11] Oh, and by the way, the thing that got me was on the first page. It talked about how a TCM doctor back in the day would stop getting paid when their clients got sick. And I thought to myself, well, if that isn't the most opposite thing I've ever heard in my entire life, they stopped getting paid when their clients got sick.

[00:07:35] So let's say that another way. They only get paid when their clients are well and healthy. Where's their incentive? Ray Charles could see that. And I was like, okay. I just kept reading, and talking about pooping, it showed sitting on a toilet. And what that does, it showed somebody squatting down, what that does.

[00:07:57] Luke: We just saw some Squatty Potties.

[00:07:59] Mark: Squatty Potties. Great commercial, by the way. They knocked it out of the park with the commercials. Yeah. Get Squatty Potties, folks. They're real. And so I was at the pool with the middle school teacher, Paul Marks, and we had the middle school kids, and everybody was doing free swim. And I was like, I got to go to the bathroom, dude. You got this?

[00:08:21] I go in there, and I squat down on the toilet. And I, at 27 years old, took the best poop of my adult life by an order of magnitude. I stood up, and the colors were brighter, and I was breathing better. And I was like, they're telling the truth. These people are telling the truth. I was like, I'm going down there.

[00:08:39] And then my third trip down this, again, emotional detox workshop, and this guy talked about words. He talked about breath. He talked about story. And he asked, is anybody stuck on a story? A couple of people raised their hand, but this one girl shot her hand up. And she told the story of a very bad, an embarrassing breakup, humiliating really.

[00:09:03] And the definition of a spell, Webster's, not mine, is a word or a combination of words of great influence. Goes both ways. It can be expansive spells or constrictive spells. And the sentence, the spell that held that whole thing together was he did that to me. And he had to repeat it a couple of times.

[00:09:25] This guy knew what he was doing. And that's a very important part in the enlisted perspective about how to help somebody change their mindset. We have a definition of mindset. It's the story that you tell yourself. That's what it's. And in order to help someone change their mindset, how fast the story goes is very important. Great rule of thumb.

[00:09:53] The faster the story goes, the harder it is to change. So we'll talk about the mechanics of storytelling a lot. The faster the story goes, the harder it is to change. And the fastest way to slow down a story is to write it down, get the words on paper. Get the scary words on paper, folks. You can pick up that 600-pound pen, get the words out of your head.

[00:10:13] And yes, fine, there might be a little sting involved. It'll be way easier than bumping up into that stuff for the next 20, 30, 40 years. And this woman had been four years later after it happened she hadn't gotten in any new relationship because this story was front and center, and it dominated her mental real estate and was forcing her to look at all men in a very negative light.

[00:10:35] And then he judo chopped that one sentence. He did that to me. He said, take that last word out. Take out me and put in himself. And it was such a radical departure from that story that she had been relentlessly telling herself. It was clunky in the delivery because she got it out of her mouth, and then it went up at the end.

[00:10:58] It's called uptalk. He did that to himself. Then you see it catch, and the breath came out. He did that to himself. Then she talked about how he lost friends and all this other stuff, and it was actually worse for him. And then she finally goes, it was never going to work. Anyway, that guy was actually really weird. And she walked out of there with a different story, and I was like, that right there.

[00:11:23] I've fallen in love. Take some beautiful women out of the conversation from time to time. But the two things other than that I've fallen in love with on site, might sound strange, was the first time I ever got choked in a jiujitsu class. I was a wrestler in high school. I pin you. You pin me. Very cool. Okay.

[00:11:43] The first time somebody choked me, though, I was like, that is terrifying and awesome, and I have to learn it. And I got obsessed. I competed and all that stuff, whatever. And then the second time was when I saw that. And it's held my attention since. 2007, January 17th-- I went down to that spa a lot.

[00:12:10] So 10 years in Thailand. First five was in Bangkok, teaching, and the second five was down at that spa, working as a counselor. So January 17th, 2007, I put my poster up next to all the other practitioners, and that was my first day on the job, right in the middle of busy season. I got booked immediately, and I've been full-time since.

[00:12:34] And the main reason is because I wake up and I'm still fascinated. I wake up. It's still attractive. And that's a gift. It's not something that you can will. Here we are. I'm going to do 50 years, Luke. I'm going to do 50 years.

[00:12:50] Luke: You're very fortunate to have found your dharma early on. Many people don't have the, I don't know, the good fortune, I guess, to find a way to create a career out of their passion and expertise. I feel very fortunate myself in that way. I do a few different things, but generally, it involves communication.

[00:13:18] Mark: 1,000%.

[00:13:19] Luke: Talking to people like you. Like we were saying downstairs, when I think like, oh man, I don't know if I can do another one of these podcasts, I interview someone, and I'm like, oh man, there's so much more to learn. I got to keep going. Just the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom and then refining that, curating that, and sharing it with the world is super fun.

[00:13:38] Mark: It is. It very much is. And I didn't know that-- I didn't know what it was going to turn into when I first saw it. I was mentioning before a lot of our coaches come from the fitness industry, about 60, 65%. Again, I've been doing this 16 years.

[00:13:58] We went on Barbell Shrugged, which was, at the time, in 2017, the mouthpiece for functional fitness. And we went on that show. And when that dropped, everything changed for us, and it will be forever changed. Shout out to Mike Bledsoe and those guys for having us on. And 10 years prior to that, I was doing a lot of work in yoga circles.

[00:14:22] People would bring me in for TTCs, to do language and story training, because it's very easy. Once the scary words are out of your head and on paper, you adjust the rate of speech and get some breath in there in between the sentences. The breath will unlock. And yogis like that.

[00:14:43] And then also, I kept running into the same sentence. That was really stressing a lot of these people out, is I need to find my purpose. I need to find my purpose. I would have people in tears using those words. So spell, a combination of words, which is a sentence that was greatly influencing the pictures that they were making, the feelings they were creating, how they were breathing, stress upregulation central. And I was like, I got to keep thinking about this. And I didn't.

[00:15:20] Because I only committed to this whole language thing after 10 years in the game, full time. I'll tell you, there's two things that happened-- well, three. We'll get to those if you want to. But here's a better formula than I need to find my passion.

[00:15:35] Because once again, when I saw this thing, even when I started coaching, I was like, this is just something I'm very interested in it. I had no idea it was going to turn into what it has and what it's going to. And so here's a better formula than I need to find my purpose. Explore your interests, develop your passions, and commit to your purposes.

[00:16:04] And you'll know what they are. So if you're interested in something, jujitsu, that's cool. And you get in there, and it holds your attention for two, three years. File that under passion, and keep going, and keep going. You got 10 years in the game, and if you're still passionate about it, file that under purpose, one of them.

[00:16:25] And then, again, purpose. You only get one. And you're going to know it immediately when you see it for the first time. That's usually not how it works. Did your enthusiasm and passion for podcasting grow with your skill?

[00:16:42] Luke: Yeah.

[00:16:43] Mark: For sure.

[00:16:47] Luke: Purpose is sometimes a stepping stone or a seed that's planted and then fertilized by your continued exploration of that to the point where all of a sudden other things start blooming and you diversify because you find that it leads to something else that was seemingly unrelated. And then now you have a bunch of buckets in your purpose wheel that are relative.

[00:17:16] You brought something to mind when you talked about spelling and casting a spell. It made me think of Jordan, not Jordan Peterson, Jordan Maxwell.

[00:17:26] Mark: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:27] Luke: You familiar with him?

[00:17:27] Mark: Very familiar with him. I saw him.

[00:17:30] Luke: Oh, really?

[00:17:30] Mark: I met him at an Awake & Aware conference.

[00:17:32] Luke: Oh, cool.

[00:17:33] Mark: Bill Ryan, David Wilcock, Jordan Maxwell, and Richard Dolan.

[00:17:37] Luke: Wow.

[00:17:38] Mark: They were all the keynotes in 2013.

[00:17:40] Luke: Great conference.

[00:17:41] Mark: Yeah, yeah.

[00:17:41] Luke: Yeah. He would talk about television, tell-a-vision, television programming, programming. And then all of the common law stuff, like when you're born into maritime law, it's a birth.

[00:17:56] Mark: The certificate.

[00:17:57] Luke: Yeah. All that stuff.

[00:17:58] Mark: The vaginal canals. The bank of a river, flowing the currency. Yeah. I got into him about 2004, '5. Same time I got into Ike and our man, Alex Jones. Him breaking down symbolism and sigils in the way that he did, I was like, what is this place we're in? What is this world? because it's not what I thought it was.

[00:18:25] Luke: It's wild.

[00:18:26] Mark: It's wild.

[00:18:28] Luke: Yeah. It's really interesting. Yeah, I love that.

[00:18:31] Mark: He was big dude. He's since passed. Yeah, he was tall, man. David Wilcox's tall too.

[00:18:35] Luke: Really?

[00:18:36] Mark: Yeah.

[00:18:36] Luke: Oh wow.

[00:18:37] Mark: Yeah. Totally not what I was expecting.

[00:18:38] Luke: Interesting.

[00:18:38] Mark: [Inaudible] married him.

[00:18:40] Luke: Oh, cool. Yeah. I love listening to Maxwell. It just expands your awareness about the world. It can either terrify you because you realize we're all under a spell, but it's like the stages of grieving. When you first learn, you're like, oh man, we're screwed. And then as you carry on through with it, hopefully at the end of that you become more empowered with that information. But that stuff is very interesting to me. Also, I interviewed a Dogon priest from West Africa a few weeks ago.

[00:19:14] It's already been published. And he was explaining to me how, to his people, the English language is a total hypnotic scam that's been perpetuated on humankind. And he would give me examples of words that they have in their language for which there are hundreds of iterations. Something like love, it's one word, love. Oh, yeah, I know what that. In his Dogon language, there's countless ways to express that.

[00:19:54] Mark: Flavors.

[00:19:54] Luke: Yeah. Just speaking of the energy or the consciousness behind words. And then there are other concepts for which there are no words because they don't believe they have any basis in truth or reality, like Native Americans from what they say. I haven't fact checked this, but they didn't have a word for ownership. You own that piece of land was foreign to them. No one owns it. It's all God, or whatever their perspective was or is. And there were many things like that in that conversation.

[00:20:23] I was just like-- like the thing with Western music, how at some point in history, they changed the Hertz. They changed the tuning to 440, and prior to that, a more harmonious or natural frequency is 432, or whatever it is. And it's like this big scam that's been pulled on us and we don't know.

[00:20:47] And the 24-hour calendar, the monthly calendar, the yearly calendars don't match what's happening in the cosmos. There's this mismatch. So it's really interesting, but there's a bunch of things that he pointed out like that that were like, yeah, you guys have been duped.

[00:21:03] Mark: Majorly.

[00:21:04] Luke: The way that we are taught to orient ourselves to our environment, time, language, music, all these things have been altered to something that's basically unnatural. But his perspective on language was really interesting. He said, all the Latin languages are all limiting in that way because of the frequency of the words and the narrow bandwidth of meaning attributed to words. And the fact that there are words for things that don't actually exist in reality. It is really interesting. This dude tripped me out.

[00:21:42] Mark: And then you start thinking, I can only use language to describe language. I can only use English to talk about English, me, myself, personally, because it's the only language I speak. And it's the guy that turned me on to Jordan Maxwell. He was an Ayurvedic doctor in Thailand, and he only told me this once, and I was like, I'm not going to ask any questions about that because I'm going to stare at this.

[00:22:08] I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to consider it. I'm going to contemplate it because there's three levels of thinking. There's thinking. It's when you do it once. There's considering, when you do it a few times, and there's contemplating, when you stare at something until it cracks. You get the secrets.

[00:22:21] And then he goes, the English language is a slave language. And I was like, well, that's a very interesting thing to say, and I'm going to contemplate that. I'm going to contemplate that. And brings up the Daoist saying of without rope, people bind themself. So how did we get to where we are with the English language?

[00:22:51] Did a group of people get in a back room somewhere and have Marina Abramovic great, great, great, great, great, great-grandmother on the witch line, do some spells, and they write down how the English language is going to be. And they're like, just let it loose. Don't know. What I do know is that the way that English language is used almost exclusively today, it is vague. It is externalized, it's vague, and it's inflammatory based on, first and foremost, people's breathing. So we're known as the language people. That's cool.

[00:23:30] It's great to be known for anything. We might as well be known as the language and the breathing people because we talk about it so much. And I love words. I find them fascinating, like we've discussed. And push comes to shove, it's about the breath. I want to help people use their words to become more reflective, contemplative, solid in their speech, aware of their language, more creative and constructive and in control of their words.

[00:24:00] And when that happens, the breath unlocks. We come out of these upregulated stress states and the breath descends and great things happen, including in relationships. How big of a part of relationships is listening? It's a big one. It's a really big one. We have a saying in the Enlisted Coaches Community, "Good breathing equals good coaching because good breathing equals good listening. And good listening equals good coaching, so good breathing equals good coaching." Yeah, most people's language is working against them, Luke. It is. It is. And it's fun to help people.

[00:24:46] Luke: Let's dive into some specific words.

[00:24:48] Mark: Sure.

[00:24:49] Luke: I have been for a few years, and I don't know, I guess I just picked up bits of information maybe from people like you that really look at the power of language and words. But I have developed a discipline where I do my best to avoid saying things in certain ways. For example, I don't like using the word "try" because I think if I'm trying to do something, I am, by the very nature of that word, not doing the thing that I want to do.

[00:25:27] Then there are statements, and when I hear someone use this one, I have to really hold my tongue. And it's something you hear people say a lot. Oh, this thing is killing me. You mention your knee injury. You go, what's wrong? Oh, I hit my knee today. It's killing me. I'm like, ooh. I just cringe when I hear someone give power to the idea that you're being killed.

[00:25:49] Mark: Yeah. Killer workout. I'll talk about this in a second.

[00:25:51] Luke: So I'll catch myself saying things like that, or I'll just roll out some examples and you can unpack whatever you want to unpack. I have a cold. I've got the flu. I think I'm getting sick. It's like verbalizing things that one seeks to avoid or doesn't desire. To me logically seems like you're going to imbue those realities with energy, and you give them energy.

[00:26:19] And energy is what brings the unmanifest into the manifest. So I've been, over time, extracting certain word patterns from my vocabulary just for the sake of my own benefit and just sensing that certain words make me feel weaker and others make me feel stronger.

[00:26:39] Mark: 1,000%.

[00:26:39] Luke: So what do you have to unpack about some of those words or other ones in a similar category that are, I guess, disempowering would be a good word for them.

[00:26:47] Mark: Sure. You want to play the most popular language game in the Enlifted Coaches community?

[00:26:53] Luke: Let's do it.

[00:26:53] Mark: Okay. We got about 400 coaches. We pulled them, and we got, I don't know, maybe 50. And almost everybody said, the should detox. The should detox. And oh, by the way, I don't  know what the ultimate hack is, like biohacking. In my personal and professional opinion, getting our language working for us and unlocking our breath and coming out of these stress states, that's the most basic, or it's one of the most basic.

[00:27:26] It's as basic as water. It's as basic as sunlight. And I'm a big fan of supplements, and we're talking about energy tools and all those things. Call me old-fashioned, everybody. I think all that stuff is going to have a lot better, a lot easier time doing what it's designed to do when people are breathing low and slow.

[00:27:49] Yeah, so the should detox, not if you're driving. I'm looking at the camera. If you've got a pen and paper, you can follow along because this is super easy. And then also, you'll get the numbers out there. 30-50-80, 30-50-80. We remember 30% of what we hear, 50% of what we write, and 80% of what we teach, share, or explain.

[00:28:22] So if anybody listening to this likes this language game, it's fun. It's simple. It works. Share it with somebody. See what happens. It's called a should detox. Pick a sentence. I'm sure you're aware of the word should and all these things. And we'll just for, shits and giggles, pick a should statement. And if you can, write it down.

[00:28:49] Luke: Can I do one?

[00:28:52] Mark: Yeah, of course. What should?

[00:28:54] Luke: The governments of the world should stop murdering people.

[00:29:00] Mark: Perfect. We're on with it. Very own brand. When you say the governments of the world should stop murdering people, what kind of energy does that create? All we're going to look at is energy. We could look at mental imagery. We're just looking at energy. What kind of feeling does that create?

[00:29:16] Luke: Anger.

[00:29:18] Mark: Perfect. 10's high. 1's low. What number is it?

[00:29:22] Luke: 6.

[00:29:23] Mark: And where is it in your body?

[00:29:26] Luke: My chest.

[00:29:27] Mark: Perfect. Everybody, those are very, very good questions. If you work with someone in a story capacity and you want to know what their emotional status is, those are fantastic questions. What are you feeling? Where are you feeling at? 10's high. 1's low. So now I know more about how that spell, that sentence, combination of words, influences you.

[00:29:48] And then also, to some degree, because most people, again, they're not thinking about their thinking, they just get consumed with the result of it. It puts them in an observation mode. They're like, oh, they have to observe themselves a little bit, which is good. Oh, what am I feeling? Hmm. Where am I feeling that? 10's high, 1's low. Okay, cool. So the government should stop murdering people. Take out should and put in could.

[00:30:16] Luke: The government could stop murdering people.

[00:30:19] Mark: Is there any difference between the should and the could?

[00:30:22] Luke: Yeah.

[00:30:24] Mark: Again, we're just going to keep it super simple. I'm Dr. Simple over here.

[00:30:28] Luke: Yeah.

[00:30:29] Mark: There's a difference in the energy?

[00:30:31] Luke: Yeah.

[00:30:31] Mark: Yeah.

[00:30:32] Luke: Yeah. Because it opens up a possibility that isn't there. It's more open-ended too. Because if the government should stop murdering people, then it's very black and white. It's either they're doing it or they're not. Could means maybe they could do less of it. Maybe they're not doing as much of it as it appears they are, and so on. It becomes a bit more broad.

[00:31:00] Mark: Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:01] Luke: Not so limited.

[00:31:03] Mark: And for the audience, write down a should statement and maybe it's, I should use my red light more. Take out the should. Scratch out the should and put in could. Say it again. One of the many benefits of playing language games is that we slow down the story.

[00:31:26] So we can pop the hood and take a look at what words are doing what. Like, oh yeah. Take that one word out, and it does change this. Most people's stories are going way too fast. And then it also gives people a feeling-- when someone feels the difference between this sentence with those words in them and this sentence with just a one-word difference, they're like, they can feel the difference, then people get the game.

[00:31:52] It's also games. Let's play some language games. People have fun. We've done a good job of simplifying the conversation about mindset, starting with the definition of it. You can ask the Google machine, what's the definition of mindset? And you're getting 17 definitions on the first page alone.

[00:32:09] And a lot of them are big picture, philosophical, clunky stuff that takes a long time to explain. Good luck implementing that in the heat of the moment when something happens because it will.

[00:32:22] And then we've also gamified it. We've made it fun for people to-- our parents told us, don't play with your food. We're telling you, play with your words. It wasn't fun with these things. So should, could. The government should stop murdering people. Could. The government could stop murdering people. Take out could. Put in can.

[00:32:43] Luke: The government can stop murdering people. I doubt based on their track record. But that feels even better.

[00:32:52] Mark: We'll get to the government here in a second. We're talking about the legend Luke Storey in the chair. It changes some energy.

[00:32:59] Luke: Yeah.

[00:33:00] Mark: Yeah. And let's just pretend that somebody was like, I should use my red light more. They go, I could use my red light more. Now they go, I can. Huh? And a lot of times you'll hear that, hmm, I can use my red light more. Because there's an art and science, everybody, to talking ourselves out of stuff. There's an art and a science to talking ourselves into things, and there's a big difference. So we're all about the how, Luke.

[00:33:24] Luke: You just made me think of another one.

[00:33:25] Mark: What'd you got?

[00:33:26] Luke: I got to go to work.

[00:33:30] Mark: That was easy.

[00:33:31] Luke: I have to go do this thing. I catch myself doing that, and I'm like, you entitled shit, Luke. You get to go do the thing.

[00:33:40] Mark: See, exactly.

[00:33:41] Luke: But I'll catch myself. Writing my book is a great example. From one perspective I can look at that as this impossible task. It's just like, oh my God, how many hundreds of pages? And how many pages do I have? I have to go work on my book. Versus, I could be flipping burgers at McDonald's right now for eight hours a day for $10 an hour. That, I have to. I get to go sit in my office on a computer and play with words, and it feels much better to think about, wow, what a privilege that I get to do this.

[00:34:20] Mark: 1,000%. And you're completely on track with the frequency of a have to, get to, must, should also. Pressure language, which we now call dramatics. Most people do not enjoy running their day off of pressure and obligation, which is what should create. I should use my red light more. I should drink more water. I should wait four minutes before I wake up in the morning and start scrolling Instagram. I should call my grandparents. All of that creates pressure and obligations.

[00:34:52] I was so enthralled. That's not quite the right word with what this woman said once right before a meeting. I forget what the rest of the meeting was about. And she just threw it out there. She goes, there's a billion people praying for our problems. And I was like, oh my God. When I thought about it, I was like, no shit. No shit.

[00:35:18] There are a billion mine, me, Mark England's problems, if I wanted to frame them that way. There are a billion people that are preying for the resources, the connections, the opportunities to be able to drive my truck down to Austin and come talk to people like you.

[00:35:48] Oh, I've got to drive down there. No, I get to drive down there. I got to get that email sent down. Now I get to. There are people with no hands that would pay a million dollars to be able to send an email to it doesn't matter who, about anything. They just would just love to type. They would love to type. So anyway, I go off on rants in--

[00:36:11] Luke: You bring to mind something I haven't thought about in a long time. Back when I was in a really dark place in my life, I forget where I even got this, but I remember it was printed on a piece of printer paper, and it said, life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you think about it.

[00:36:34] And it just brought [Inaudible] just because our reality is created by our perception, but in your world, it's not only what we think about, but the reality is created by the way we describe what we think about. That's where words come in. We have these thoughts in our mind. We externalize them and communicate them, whether written, verbal, and so on.

[00:36:56] And it seems to be the real power is not even as much as the way we're thinking about it, or maybe we accentuate or potentiate the way we're thinking about something by the word we use to describe it. So in a situation, oh, I have to drive from Virginia to Austin to do this podcast is a thought that's then transposed into words. And that is probably a more radical reinforcement of one's perception of driving down here than just having a random thought about it. And then you say it to a number of people. You talk on the phone. You're texting about it. You send someone an email. I got to do this thing. I got to do this thing. And all of a sudden, your reality is a super shitty long drive. That's the same drive that could have been--

[00:37:41] Mark: It's the same drive.

[00:37:43] Luke: It could have been a beautiful drive just based on some tweaks in perception in the way that one expresses that perception.

[00:37:51] Mark: Oh yeah, dude.

[00:37:52] Luke: Super cool.

[00:37:52] Mark: And the ancients knew this. The ancients knew this. Abracadabra. I did it this weekend in the CrossFit gyms when I said abracadabra. Hey, everybody, when I say abracadabra, what do you all immediately think of? Say it out loud. Magic. There's always somebody that goes to Steve Miller Band. Most people, of course, they think magic when they hear abracadabra.

[00:38:12] And that's not what abracadabra means. Abracadabra is Aramaic, which is an ancient language, and it translates to, with my word I create, or with my word I influence. And they would triangulate it and wear it around their neck to remind them of the power in the mechanism of the spoken word because they knew if they got that "wrong", or if their language was working against them, just say modern English, if they're telling themself a story about how their dad-- my dad always talks to me like a child.

[00:38:51] That person's getting the victim mentality. They're getting the victim-villain mental imagery, period. End of story. Because 2 plus 2 equals 4. The woman in that workshop, he did that to me. When am I going to get the credit that I deserve? She's so controlling. She's always controlling me. He never lets me think for myself. He never lets me think for myself. There's going to be two people in that picture.

[00:39:23] The person's spelling, and then the other person they're thinking about, and they're doing something to them, or not doing something for them. And then they've got to wait till that person is ready to respect you in the way that you're not respecting yourself, but you need them to do it so you can feel good about yourself.

[00:39:40] And this is all happening in your imagination. You won't even see them for a month. And it's stressful to be a victim. I understand the political climate quite well. We're not talking about victim blaming. We're talking about victim mentality explaining. Hey, guess what? There's a game to play. Your words, abracadabra, are powerfully influencing you for better and for worse. And you can use your words different and better to get a better outcome.

[00:40:09] Because here's what's going to happen. The words that you use, the thoughts that you hear in your head, the sounds that come out of your face, the squiggles that you make with a pen or with your thumbs, they're going to influence your imagination. They're going to make some pictures. They're going to make some movies, and they're going to create energy.

[00:40:28] It's going to create energy. And then it influences your body and your breathing. There are certain spells that will constrict this thing. Those certain spells will relax this thing. And if you want to get all Rudolph Steiner about it, since we're here, he said, any force that seeks to constrict or control is, by definition, Luciferian.

[00:40:51] And if the mass, the majority of people that are using the English language, which they are-- I've Googled it-- hadn't Googled it, but this is what I stare at all day long-- are using the English language in a certain way where it constricts their imagination, the pictures are up close and scary, and the energy that they're making is dense and heavy, and their breath is trapped in their chest, and the body is tight and rigid, then by definition, they are under a self-imposed Luciferian spell. And then that goes, it's just another way of saying that the English language is a slave language that people enslave themself with. And it just simply comes down to education. That's it. It's not rocket science.

[00:41:35] There's a fucking lift to it, for sure, dude, because that pen can feel like it weighs 600 pounds when it's time to write down the scary words. And most people's stories of ouch and pain and stinging woe-- don't worry about the government y'all. Don't worry about them. Go in there and get the stories of when you were mercilessly bullied in middle school. Get those out of your head and written down on paper. And I'm not talking about half sentences and bullet points. I'm talking about conversational writing.

[00:42:05] Write it in detail. Write it as if you were telling what happened because you actually are writing his thinking. That's a quote from Jordan Peterson. Get those words out of your head because there is a huge difference between a story kept in your head and a story written down. There's a huge difference. I'm going to take that you and put in me.

[00:42:25] There's a huge story difference between a story kept in my head and stories written down. This goes for me, you, you, her, everybody watching. A story kept in the head swirls. It's seemingly infinite. Where does it start? Where does it stop? There's the worst part again. Ouch. Story kept in the head takes up a tremendous amount of space, is extremely disorganized compared to a story once it's written down.

[00:42:52] And we're going to finish up the should detox here in a second. Play a couple more language games since we're here. Story kept in the head. The story's in you. You're still in the story. It's subjective. And that whole time, doesn't apply to the emotional body thing. Is very real, and the thing's on repeat. Byron Katie. Shout out to one of the goats. Got to spend five days with her in Kapalau in 2014.

[00:43:21] Luke: That's funny. You mentioned her. I was going to ask you about her because Byron Katie, the work, all the reversals. He did that to me. I did that to myself. I did that to him, all that shit. I've been in so many of her workshops and stuff and seen people just pop.

[00:43:36] Mark: Explode.

[00:43:36] Luke: Just become free, from what you're describing, in her methodology. Yeah. Super cool. That was life changing for me.

[00:43:45] Mark: That's where I learned about projections. And that's a very big part of helping people go from inflamed dumpster fire in their head to, hmm, let me think about that differently. And then she's big into writing too. Get that story out of your head. And once the story is written down, now it's finite. Now it's finite. And not only is it finite, it's now very organized comparatively.

[00:44:21] And if you're in a coaching situation, or let's say you just want to do this for yourself, now you can look at your words as opposed to-- and that makes your life a whole lot easier when you can observe the words externally as opposed to trying to-- and also, by the way, it slows the story down a lot.

[00:44:43] People write slower than they talk, and it's usually a less emotionally charged experience for someone to write a story down in detail than it is to tell it in detail. And also keep going. Most people will write in more detail than they'll tell the story in detail.

[00:45:01] Luke: And it provides instant objectivity because it's now outside of you, in front of you. It's not in you and of you. It's this thing out here in your lap that you just wrote. It's concrete and external.

[00:45:16] Mark: Oh yeah.

[00:45:17] Luke: Yeah. It's interesting.

[00:45:18] Mark: Yeah, the fastest way. The fastest way to slow down a story, we started talking about this earlier, is to write it down. The fastest way to break a spell is to write it down. We're big on writing. And then, okay, yes, there's some going to be some sting involved with the scary stuff, the abuses, the dog attack, the divorce, the bullying, the failed business, whatever it is.

[00:45:44] Here's some more truth. Okay, yes, it might likely sting depending on the severity of it. That's nothing compared to keeping that stuff in your head and bumping up into it for 20, 30, 40 years, because it's not in there and it's not doing anything. Go, it is. Our experiences, our stories, it's like a spicy Thai dish. Burns going in, smolders while it's in there, and it burns coming out.

[00:46:15] And if no one understands what I'm talking about, go down to your local Thai restaurant. Get that curry Thai hot. And when you do go, use a Squatty Potty. And assuming that everything moving according to plans, message me in 48 hours and let me know because now you'll get it. And that's one of the reasons why people have-- it's not like you can avoid these things. You can try to avoid these things because they're in there doing things, influencing how we see ourself.

[00:46:48] Luke: What about, in communication with others, definitive words? I find it counterproductive to say, you never pick up after yourself, or you always make me look small in front of other people, whatever, in relation, in especially in intimate relationships. I think this is really common. And those are some of those things that I've tried to weed out of my experience. What can you say about that as it relates to other people? Communication, conflict resolution.

[00:47:24] Mark: Yeah. Once the words are out of your mouth, game on. And so my advice is think about your thinking before you speak. It's a creative act to speak and share words with someone. And you never pick up after yourself. And if you learn about what words light things on fire and keep them, you're like, oh, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, Mark, they never pick up after themselves. Well, okay, it's sometimes. Sometimes.

[00:48:01] So you go for accuracy. And so you take care of that in your head before it comes out of your mouth. And then you're like, oh, well, they sometimes do pick up after themselves. And then you can communicate differently from a better position. How about this? The whole reticular activating system thing. You buy a new car. You start seeing that new car out all over the place. It works for our language too.

[00:48:30] They never pick up after themself. If I say that, those words are going to affect the lens. It's a lens, and it has a search and edit mission. I'm going to block out. I literally won't be able to see any times that they have.

[00:48:46] Luke: It's like that experiment where people dressed in white and the people dressed in black.

[00:48:52] Mark: Invisible gorilla.

[00:48:52] Luke: Is that what it's called? Invisible gorilla?

[00:48:54] Mark: That's exactly what that's called.

[00:48:55] Luke: And then a freaking gorilla runs through and waves at the camera and no one sees it because they're looking for how many times people pass the ball and whatever. I'm going to find that video and put it in the show notes.

[00:49:05] By the way, the show notes will be at lukestorey.com/enlifted, E-N, Enlifted. And we'll put the interview with Byron Katie and the Dogon interview and links to all your stuff in there. But tell us about that pattern recognition when we're saying, okay, my husband never does this, or you always do that.

[00:49:22] Mark: And then we always never. Watch out for those words.

[00:49:24] Luke: Then we start see our red Volkswagen everywhere.

[00:49:27] Mark: Yeah, for sure. Because the RAS, the reticular activating system, because everybody's got one. I highly recommend researching that. Because again, it is the lens. Your language influences it. It has a search and edit mission. So Red Volkswagen. You buy a red Volkswagen. How about the Broncos? New Broncos? Those are cool, huh?

[00:49:51] Somebody gets a new Bronco, and they're going to start seeing new Broncos all over the place. And while they're finding more and more new Broncos, it's called confirmation bias, they're going to be editing out green vans and blue automobiles because it's not the thing they're looking for.

[00:50:07] And I've got a couple of stories about this that I share frequently because they're fun and relevant, and they're quick. He never picks up after himself. I am now searching for all the evidence of him never doing that in my imagination and, I'm simultaneously editing out any times they have done it.

[00:50:28] So now I've created the fire in my head, and I'm about to bring you into it. And so when I know, okay, well, never, yeah, and then I go to sometimes. They sometimes don't pick up that for themselves. Well, they sometimes do. And then if you want to get really considerate about it, you wait till they do pick up after themself and go, I love it when you pick up after yourself. So you catch them doing something right. Great way to--

[00:50:57] Luke: These are good parenting tools too. Dude, I'm not a parent yet, but I'm transposing it onto future parenting.

[00:51:04] Mark: 1,000%. My favorite Einstein quote, he said, intellectuals solve problems. Geniuses prevent them. And when I prevent a problem in my head before it comes out of my mouth, let's just say when it comes to parenting, when I'm able to craft my words and regulate my rate of speech and keep myself in a more downregulated state and speak in affirmations-- how many times have you heard parents say, I hate repeating myself? They say it a lot. And you know why that is? Because they're repeating themself in negation. Don't do that. You can't get up and leave the dinner table until you finish your food. Don't talk back to me.

[00:52:00] So I'm making all the pictures of what I don't want them to do in my head, using the words. Those sounds are going in their ears over there. They're making the same picture. Now we're making the same pictures of the same thing, and I've pissed myself off, first and foremost, and my breath is trapped in my chest, which now I can't listen.

[00:52:17] It's called amygdala hijack. When someone goes into these stress states, their breath gets trapped in the chest. Listening skills tank. And then if you want to keep going, we inherit our parents' breathing patterns. We inherit our parents' breathing patterns.

[00:52:38] So how many times-- it's very rare-- does a child grow up in a high stress environment? That's another way of saying everybody's holding their breath. It's entrainment. It's entrainment. How often does that child come out of there cool, calm, and collected, and breathing well?

[00:52:59] No, everybody's like-- when the parents are doing that to themselves in their head and then thinking, and speaking, and writing that way in the home, it's going to affect the breathing. It's going to affect the vibe, the energy, and children grow up and take that out the door with them.

[00:53:20] Luke: Wow, that's so true. I observe in people just through pattern recognition from my own life. I can pretty much spot when someone had an abusive or alcoholic parent because they have a hypervigilant nervousness about them.

[00:53:38] Mark: Dude, they're jammed in there.

[00:53:39] Luke: People pleasing, pathologically, accommodating, there's a certain set of personality traits that are very indicative of a kid who's grown up in that hostile, unpredictable environment, which I did. It's just how I've been working through it over the years, and I'm able to spot it pretty quickly in other people. If you spot it, you got it right. And I go, oh man. Yeah, they have that thing. They're not relaxed. They're not breathing, what do you call it? Deep and-- your breathing thing.

[00:54:10] Mark: Slow low. Low and slow.

[00:54:11] Luke: Low and slow. Yeah. You can just sense that. And also, I notice, even as adults, we will entrain to the dominant energy between people. If I'm around someone who's an enlightened master, I start feeling pretty chill. If I'm around someone who's in that limbic system frees up, I have to work much harder to be low and slow in my breath and calm myself and set the template for how we're going to interact and the energy between us. It's much more work with someone who's not holding up their side of it, right?

[00:54:47] Mark: Yeah.

[00:54:48] Luke: Now, I have to be not dominant in the sense of controlling them, but just controlling my own experience of that person or the dynamic that we're sharing.

[00:54:58] Mark: That was the exact word I was thinking, sharing. We share space with people. We share energy with people. Obviously sounds, obviously sounds. How many people out there are thinking about how to make their sounds better? The quality of the sounds that come out of my face majorly dictate how things organize and orchestrate themself in my life.

[00:55:29] If I learned to play better sounds because we-- the analogy of being a musical instrument, I find, is very interesting. You get this thing. It's an instrument, and we're basically walking accordions. And we're never taught how to play the thing. It's like, okay. It's like somebody being gifted a guitar. Thank you for serenading us on the way up the today. I'm still talking about it.

[00:55:59] Luke: I'm going to do that every time someone comes on.

[00:56:00] Mark: It was amazing.

[00:56:01] Luke: Meet them on the porch like a wandering minstrel.

[00:56:03] Mark: Yeah. Yeah, we're walking up the drive, and Luke just opens the door, and he's standing up there gloriously playing his guitar, welcoming us. I was like, very cool. This is a first. Two stories about how our words influence our reticular activating system, and then in turn, shaped people's lives. This woman came in. This is a tale of two spells. It's a tale of two spells, a tale of a constrictive spell, and a tale of an expansive spell.

[00:56:46] This woman came in. She was very self-aware. She sat down. She goes, I'm struggling in my marriage. My husband thinks I'm attractive. I refuse to believe him. It's causing problems, and I know where it's coming from. I just don't know what to do about it. And I said, keep going.

[00:57:02] She told me the story of one Christmas when she was 10 years old, and her family goes to grandma's house, park the car, get out, walk in the back door, and her aunt is standing right there. And as soon as she gets in the back door, her aunt leans down and goes, my, you have a big nose just like me.

[00:57:26] Exactly. That little girl tenses up because our language influences our imagination, our energy, our physical body, and our breath. Just keep it super simple. And this little girl tightened up, ran in the bathroom, and Luke, what do you think the first thing she looked at when she got in the bathroom was?

[00:57:49] Luke: The beak.

[00:57:50] Mark: The beak, her nose, which was no bigger now than it was five seconds go, but in her imagination, she's got a hunker, and her reticular activating system goes, okay, cool. And then the next thing was, I'm ugly. And so the reticular activating system goes, okay, cool. Since you're ugly, I'm going to relentlessly point out all your flaws. And while I'm doing that, I'm going to edit out all the nicer things.

[00:58:19] Luke: Dude, you just reminded me of something funny. First time I took acid back when I was, I think, 16, friend of mine who was also on a lot of acid, looked at me and went, dude, your nose is crooked. I said, no, it's not. He goes, go look in the mirror. I go look in the mirror. My nose was bent as shit. Came off the acid the next day, looked in the mirror again, still crooked. I just never knew it.

[00:58:46] And from that moment on, anytime I looked in the mirror, I think, I'm not symmetrical here, man. And it stuck. There was no getting that awareness out of my head. And now I still have the same slightly crooked nose, but I just don't care or think about it. But that was almost verbatim example of that. Another one was I was playing--

[00:59:10] Mark: I put a spell on you.

[00:59:11] Luke: Yeah. Because you're mine.

[00:59:14] Mark: Yeah, exactly.

[00:59:15] Luke: Another one which I have not been able to solve, and maybe you could help me work through this, years ago, shortly after that period of a lot of acid, started playing in bands. And I played in a band with some older people that were much more accomplished and experienced than I was.

[00:59:32] I was the newbie, so I played bass because it was the easiest thing to learn the fastest. And at some point, we go into the rehearsal room. And typically, you walk in a rehearsal room. They'll have a bunch of mics set up. They're thinking there's going to be three or four people probably singing.

[00:59:47] So I play bass. I walk up. Wow, there's a mic standing there. I just started ad-libbing, some background vocals. I didn't know how to sing harmony, but whatever I was doing, I just thought, wow, this is fun. And I'm into it. I'm young, and didn't know any better. And the most experienced guy in our band, shout out to my friend, Ron A, I don't know if I'll ever forgive you for this, you bastard.

[01:00:07] But he was a really great musician. I used to listen to his records when I was in high school. He was the band leader. And at some point, he came up and took my mic away. He was like, no more singing. You can't sing. And from that moment until now, I am terrified to sing anything in front of anyone, except on rare occasion, maybe my wife because I know she loves me unconditionally. That shit never went away.

[01:00:32] And maybe I was off key. Maybe I'm not a great singer. I don't know. But just that belief put in my head and coming from someone, from my perspective, that held some authority because of his abundance of experience over mine, I never got rid of it.

[01:00:55] Mark: There's thousands of stories like that. Five days before I came down here, our next-door neighbor Jerry, he's what? 78, 77? And he was telling the story of how he was going to be the next Elvis. He would watch Elvis, and he's like, man, that's exactly what I'm going to do with my life. And he started singing. And he got in a choir, and he started dressing the part and all these things. And this went on for a few years.

[01:01:25] And then it was the time for the big Christmas play. And the teacher said, Jerry, I need to talk to you. And Jerry was convinced that she was going to ask him to sing the special parts. He's like, I just knew that was going to happen. And she came over to him, and she goes, will you just hum? And he said, I never sang since. He's like, I knew I was going to be Elvis. It's like, I knew it. He goes, I think it took the wind out of my sail, which is soft talk, the two stories that I just told, one of them.

[01:02:10] And then her husband, my, you've got a big nose just like me. And so I'll tell the other story, and then we'll finish up the should detox with the government killing, genocides and things. And then we'll keep going. Yeah, yeah. And you can see how that would get in the way of things. Her husband's like, damn baby, you look good.

[01:02:34] And she's like, you don't really mean that. The compliment can't get in there, man. The compliment can't get in there because of the search and edit functionally. And then there's the other sides of the coin where someone says something to you once, like, you go do that thing, man. My dad told me that once upon a time. This was in 2001. This was about a month before we moved over to Thailand.

[01:03:05] And he was in convenience stores for a long time. The stores, it was a low point. My mom had passed a few years earlier. My sister was making the news not the right way. And we were out at the farm. I forget what we were talking about. And I was like, yeah, I'm going over to Thailand for a year. And he just looked at me, and he goes, you go live your life.

[01:03:35] And I looked at him. I didn't say anything, but I was like, okay. Okay, I will. It gave me permission to go do the thing. And I've been doing my thing since, man. 2014, I give a workshop at a place called GradFly. And this guy was setting up a booth right next to it, and he comes up afterwards and goes, man, that was awesome. I agree with everything you were saying, all the stories and things. And I was working with somebody, and they're like, man, that woman had a breakthrough. And he goes, you want to hear a cool story about that? Words? And I go, sure. And he goes, when I was 12 years old, my grandfather took me out in the backyard. I forget the guy's name. We called him Davey.

[01:04:30] And he goes, Davey, life's wild. You're going to get some things right. You're going to get some things wrong. There's going to be ups, and there's going to be downs. There's going to be twists and turns and zigs and zags. Just always remember to err on the side of being a badass motherfucker. And he said, when grandpa drops an F bomb on you like that, my whole world changed in an instant.

[01:04:57] He said, I took this big breathing language, words breathing. He said, I just took this big inhale in, and I looked up, and I saw myself as capable and confident, and I got this charge. And he goes, man, I've made a lot of mistakes, but you know what, I go after what I want. And then the cherry on the icing on the cake was, I like being me. He said, I like being me.

[01:05:19] And the people that I know that like themselves, the average people that actually like themselves, there's the people that go for it. It's the people that have gotten better at stuff that have gotten good at things. People that develop a skill tend to like themselves more. People that develop a skill, it's also a way of learning about yourself, tend to find themselves more interesting.

[01:05:46] And then also, people that just go after the stuff that lights them up, man, if you reverse engineer that, people that aren't good at anything and talk themselves out of making moves, how could you like yourself? How could you like yourself like that?

[01:06:10] In the honest recesses of your mind, I doubt that happens. And then that dovetails right back to what we're talking about. There's a difference. Why do I keep talking myself out of opportunity, and how do I keep talking myself out of opportunity? I want to know the how.

[01:06:29] And if we keep going with the conversation of the story that we tell ourself about ourself, which is our mindset, it comes back to words. What words are we using? And this is where mindset's going. This is where mindset's going. I love neuroscience. I love the big picture philosophy stuff.

[01:06:46] And the practical rubber meets the road is the words that build the sentences that build the stories. That's the new frontier, if we want to get a little Star Trek about it. So the government, let's fix these fuckers real quick.

[01:07:06] Luke: And I mean all of them throughout history, by the way. They're the number one cause of death throughout all of recorded history.

[01:07:17] Mark: Did you know that if you want to--

[01:07:19] Luke: Think about that.

[01:07:20] Mark: Yeah.

[01:07:21] Luke: They're all genocidal. It's not that we haven't done it right. There is no right because they're based on the premise of a person being bestowed with something special that gives them the ability or right to have authority over another or others, which is fundamentally false. So you can't win. There's not socialism, communism, democracy. All of it historically ends in the suffering, enslavement, and death of mass numbers of people.

[01:08:05] Mark: Do you know Mike Bledsoe?

[01:08:06] Luke: I've heard the name.

[01:08:08] Mark: Yeah. He's a legend in the--

[01:08:10] Luke: Is he the [Inaudible] guy?

[01:08:11] Mark: Yes, yes, yes, yes. He's here in Austin. He helped us launch Enlifted. We were hanging out with him the other day. Well, not the other day, but two nights ago. And he was talking about anarchy, and he goes, he says, talk about words in a psyop. When you ask the average person what anarchy means, they're like, you can't have anarchy. That's when there's no rules. Nobody has rules. Anarchy means without rulers.

[01:08:47] Luke: Exactly. I like this guy already.

[01:08:50] Mark: Bledsoe.

[01:08:50] Luke: Yeah. That anarchy, it's like a punk rock connotation, where you just picture roving gangs of bandits and nobody's in control, and all that.

[01:09:03] Mark: Mel Gibson. Mad Max. That's what people think of Mad Max when they think of anarchy. No, anarchy is without rulers. Just a couple of letters. Create a completely different mental landscape and emotional landscape. Governments can stop murdering people. Okay, so we've got out of the should, and we got to the could, and we got from the could to the can.

[01:09:33] That last part, they can stop murdering people. So if they stop murdering people, if they stopped murdering people, what would they start doing? And this is the exact point. We're thinking about thinking. We're contemplating words. What words do I need to put in there to create the picture of what I want to see? This is where all this stuff starts.

[01:10:05] Luke: They would start serving the people.

[01:10:09] Mark: Perfect. Plug it in. Governments can.

[01:10:14] Luke: This is tough to even get out of my mouth.

[01:10:16] Mark: I got an answer for that too.

[01:10:18] Luke: I can't even say it because it's so inconceivable. Governments can start serving people.

[01:10:25] Mark: Breathe in. Good breath. Full out. This is the number one way to socialize an idea, folks. I'll explain this in a second. Say it again.

[01:10:37] Luke: Governments can start serving people.

[01:10:39] Mark: Full breath in, full breath out. I don't know why. Third time's a charm.

[01:10:47] Luke: Governments can start serving people.

[01:10:50] Mark: Breathe in, breathe out. What happened when we repped that spell, combination of words of great influence, with breath? What happened when we got the breath in there?

[01:11:10] Luke: It makes the idea slightly more tangible.

[01:11:20] Mark: That right there-- remember Stuart Smalley?

[01:11:24] Luke: Yeah, yeah.

[01:11:24] Mark: Saturday Live.

[01:11:26] Luke: Yeah. The grandfather of affirmations.

[01:11:30] Mark: Yes. And gosh, darn it. People like me. And part of the reason that skit happened is because affirmations were such a joke. And in a lot of ways, continue to be that. And the number one reason people's affirmation practice is that their breath is trapped in their chest when they're repeating them.

[01:11:56] So talk about something that is practical, immediately implementable, and free and valuable for your audience. Anybody that uses affirmations, if you want to-- and I'm serious with these numbers, 100x the potency of your affirmations, read them just a pinch slower. And in between each one, do the full inhale and the full exhale.

[01:12:26] And what that's going to do, three different ways of saying the same thing, it's going to help you socialize the idea. It's going to help you take it to heart. It's going to help you embody it. And the main complaint people have with their affirmations is, I don't feel it.

[01:12:40] And the reason they don't feel it is because their breath is trapped in their chest and they just have this mental exercise. And some genius somewhere says, oh, just do it for 108 days until it sinks into your subconscious mind. You only need seven. You only need seven days with reading it slow and breathing really well.

[01:12:58] Because here's what'll happen after seven days. You're either going to get to matter of fact, or you're going to be really close. Consider seeds planted because that's what they are. What are affirmations? These are statements that I want to believe more strongly and in my life. These are words that I want to take root in my mindset, the story that I tell myself and propagate and fruit.

[01:13:21] And without the breath, I don't care how well crafted the affirmations are. I said it on Carl's podcast yesterday. It's like taking a handful of heirloom organic biodynamic seeds out to Walmart and throwing them in a puddle of oily water on the pavement in the middle of the day, Texas summer, and expecting something to happen. It's not.

[01:13:45] Good luck changing your client's mind-- I'm speaking to the coaches out there-- if their breath is trapped in their chest. It's not going to happen. Someone's breath is trapped in their chest. Again, this is the mechanics of story. The stuff that they want to get out isn't getting out. And if their breath is trapped in the chest, the stuff they want to get in isn't getting in. It's a locked door.

[01:14:05] Luke: That's amazing. I'm going to do that with my affirmations, bro. That's badass.

[01:14:10] Mark: Prepare yourself. Prepare yourself.

[01:14:13] Luke: It reminds me too of deep experiences with psychedelics and plant medicines. And anyone that's been there knows that when things get crunchy-- I'm going to say the best way-- it might be the only way, in my experience, to get through that crunch is in the breath.

[01:14:35] That is the key to get to the next-- it might be a microsecond when things are feeling squirrely incrementally, with each second of that inhale and exhale, you find you're able to break through that resistance or discomfort, and that might have something to do with why those experiences can be so profoundly transformational.

[01:15:00] And why, if you're someone that is mindful of the integration process, that they actually stick, and you become a different person. It's not just, well, I saw these colors and shapes and was laughing and crying a lot, and now I'm just back to my automated life. Things can change dramatically after a peak-- it doesn't have to be plant medicine, breathwork, or therapy, or whatever.

[01:15:24] But I think one of the keys there is that you're breathing into those realizations maybe. And just based on what you just said, thinking back that, you're locking that realization or understanding, or forgiveness, or self-love or a tangible experience of God or consciousness, you're locking it into your nervous system. So even when whatever's in your bloodstream wears off it, the effects of it are still there. They're locked in. You ever thought about that in the context of that kind of work?

[01:15:56] Mark: Yes.

[01:15:57] Luke: Because that's the only way to get through.

[01:16:00] Mark: Barrow.

[01:16:00] Luke: That's gnarly.

[01:16:01] Mark: I love that word, crunchy. I was like, I've never heard someone talk about something else with a crunch.

[01:16:07] Luke: You what I'm saying? There's those moments when--

[01:16:10] Mark: I know exactly what you're saying.

[01:16:10] Luke: Something comes into your awareness and you're like, oh, I don't want to look at this. I don't want to deal with this. It's too scary. It's too much. It's getting freaky. And then you'll start to contract. And if you have a good facilitator and they're around, they're going to-- what? Are they going to do? Put their hand on your chest. They're going to give you some love, some tactile, reinforcement, and they're going to say, just breathe, man.

[01:16:31] Take a breath. Take a breath. And you breathe, and all of a sudden, you passed a threshold that you didn't think you could get through, and then it's not crunchy. Then you're in it going, okay, this is malleable. I'm in my subconscious. I'm in the quantum man. I can get in here and actually rearrange things in a fundamental way that's going to keep them rearranged even after this experience. This has just happened to me so many times.

[01:17:01] Mark: Likewise. Even to think about talking about this on the-- but in 2009, a buddy of mine and I co-founded Ibogaine Asia.

[01:17:15] Luke: Oh, wow.

[01:17:16] Mark: And when I got out, he and his wife continued facilitating. But in about a year and a half, we ran somewhere between 50 and 55 treatments. And for people that know what that means, things get crunchy there.

[01:17:38] Luke: I've heard. Yeah, I've not had that experience. I've not felt called, as they say. Probably because every time someone talks about iboga, and they're like, dude, it's the father, or whatever, and they describe ayahuasca as the mother. I'm like, ayahuasca is no party in and of itself much of the time. So if that's the mother, and then you have this harsh disciplinary father in iboga, I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready to sign up for that.

[01:18:04] Mark: And people have asked me, or used to ask me, should I do that? And I'm like, I don't know. Are you pulled? Are you called? It's like, if you are cool, if you're not cool, whatever. And yeah, the volume is going to get turned up on this thing, also known as your things. And all you got to do is breathe. We're here in the room with you.

[01:18:31] And keep breathing. So yeah, that's very important. And also very important, no psychedelics necessary, with affirmation practices. Bro, it is a completely different world, completely different game, getting the breath in there in between the affirmations.

[01:18:57] Luke: I'm stoked. That's such a great tangible takeaway. What do you think about, when it comes to affirmations and goals and whatnot, the difference between a fear of failure and a fear of success? And I ask that because in my life, when I've expanded into greater expressions of myself, I find myself not wanting to do affirmations and vision boards and things like that because there's something in me that's like, you can barely handle the expansion of your life now. Don't make it expand more.

[01:19:37] It's like this governor on expansion, success, and success by whatever matrix, external, internal, whatever. And I've looked at that within myself and thought, oh, there's some part of me that feels much safer in plain, small, and therefore limits my possibilities and will actually stop me cold. And I'm not afraid of failing at the thing that I endeavor to achieve.

[01:20:03] And this took some inner work and awareness to arrive at this understanding, but I'm actually more afraid of achieving my goals than I am not because it's much safer to not achieve them and remain stagnant and safe and not crunchy, to use that word again. There's a crunchiness in breaking out of your cocoon and like, ah, the growing pains of like, oh shit.

[01:20:24] Now I have a family and a career. And the expectations that are created by expansion and success, to me, are way scarier than losing something that I have. It's like getting something that I want and then going, oh shit, you got the thing now. What are you going to do? Can you handle this? What's your take on that, fear of success versus fear of failure?

[01:20:44] Mark: A lot of times, it's two sides of the same coin, fear being seen. If we fail, we're seen. If we succeed, we're seen. That's usually what it is. Yeah. And that tanks more careers, coaching, music, fashion, MMA, the fear being seen pimp hands more people harder than anything else.

[01:21:15] Let's just say coaching. The fear being seen tanks more coaching careers than all the other stuff combined. It's not CRMs that are kicking people's asses. It's that fear of being seen. People will do Cirque de Soleil mental gymnastics to get out of putting themselves in a position to potentially go do the thing. Yeah, get it. I totally get it. Again, Dr. Broken record over here, write the story of the success down.

[01:21:57] Write the story of the success down. Write it down conversationally. Get the words out of your head. And then here's the magic. It's four stepping. There's four steps, hence the title. Get it on paper. Write it out conversationally. Step two, read the damn thing. Step three, read it slow, 30% slower than your normal rate of speech.

[01:22:26] What happens when someone slows down their rate of speech? I don't know if we've talked about this or not, but it's quick and simple. The breath loosens up. That's a big deal. Because like I said, if the breath is trapped in the chest, the stuff you want out of you isn't coming out. The stuff you want in isn't coming in.

[01:22:40] And then let's just say it's three paragraphs, four sentences each. So that's 12 sentences. That fourth step, read them and breathe. So you read, just like you did with, the government can start serving people. And you read that story with breath, and watch what happens. And that's how you socialize a new story. Just use the word story. So let's say someone, they have a fear of success.

[01:23:24] What does that mean? That means they're not comfortable with the story of the success. If they're not comfortable, they're going to, again, mental gymnastics to not do it. And if you do that exercise with the words, those words on paper, and the breadth of story of you being successful, it will become more comfortable in how you feel.

[01:23:47] And you're just like, oh, yeah, okay, cool. I can't handle that. Actually, you'll see how you can handle it as opposed to seeing how you can't handle it. Now, most people are so underwritten, Luke, and I'm not talking about insurance, dude. It's like the scary words and stories are kept in their head.

[01:24:06] And the exciting words and stories are kept in their head. And none of this stuff is rocket science. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to understand it. Get your words on paper. Okay. And usually, it's clean up the house before you throw the party. Go get the junk out of your head. The times when you were bullied, the divorce, the abuse, the time you missed the free throw shot to win the state finals and everybody called you dummy, dumb dumb or whatever it was, get all those things out of your head on paper. Four step them.

[01:24:40] Watch what happens. There's going to be a lot of stuff that comes out of you, including water out of your eyes-- most people. It's very normal. It's good. It's great actually. And then get the words. My driving teacher said, when I got in the car, 15 and a half years old, he said, look where you want to go because you're probably going to go there.

[01:25:00] Get those words where you want to go, what you can do, what could possibly be possible if-- whatever. Get them on paper, and get the breath in there, and watch what happens. It's a scale. Most people are praying for a sliver of confidence. If you do a good amount of work with your story, there's-- the promised land after confidence is comfort. And if you want to knock something out of the park, make it easy on yourself and become comfortable with the story of you doing that before you go do that.

[01:25:39] Luke: Boom. Beautiful. Going back to communication and conflict resolution or creation, another common habit people have is saying, you make me feel blank. And that one always irks me because I know that no one else can make-- and I'm sure I have done it. That's how I know. But no one can make me feel anyway.

[01:26:09] I can't make you have a feeling. Like right now, if I'm like, Mark, I am instilling anger in you. Go. I literally can't make that happen. But I could say something like, Mark, wow, that's maybe the dumbest shirt I've ever seen. And the meaning that you attribute to what I just said is you're going to make yourself angry if you choose to do so if you don't have that awareness. Unpack that of making me feel a way-- and this goes into our insane cultural sensitivities now with the languaging police.

[01:26:47] Mark: The victim Olympics.

[01:26:48] Luke: Yeah. Being offended by words. I'm going, what? Are people insane?

[01:26:53] Mark: That's the point.

[01:26:55] Luke: How can a word hurt you? You hurt yourself with your interpretation of the word.

[01:27:02] Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So it's not divide and conquer. It's confused, demoralized, then divide and conquer. And so there's a weaponization. There's a point to the insanity driving narrative that people are being subjected to, and it's heartbreaking. I don't consider myself an overly compassionate person in one sense.

[01:27:35] I don't consider myself mean either. I'm pretty in the middle, and it breaks my heart that children are getting train-wrecked with the transgender conversation right now because that is paradox of choice. That thing is weaponized. And it is one of the prongs of breaking the nuclear family.

[01:28:07] It's called paradox of choice. It's in sales. A confused buyer says no every time. And if I'm confused about what I am today and will likely have to make up a new identity tomorrow, how can anyone else become comfortable and integrated in that? Now that's about as evil as it gets, going after the kids like that.

[01:28:31] And then also, another half of that whole thing is munch housed by proxy disorder. That's when parents will make their children sick in order to get attention. You look that shit up.

[01:28:46] Luke: Right.

[01:28:47] Mark: It's a fad.

[01:28:49] Luke: Parents who lack--

[01:28:50] Mark: And there's atrazine in the water. So it's more than a fad.

[01:28:55] Luke: Dude, it's funny. This morning, I found a dead frog in our pool, and I was like, my pool is turning the frogs gay. My poor wife.

[01:29:08] Mark: Turn the freaking frogs gay.

[01:29:10] Luke: Anytime we find a dead animal, she gets really sad. I was just going to throw it in the yard. She's like, are you insane? We need to bury it, pray over it. And I love her for that. But yeah, I was just thinking about, man, if that's doing that to the frog and we're swimming in there, we got problems. I got to get the ozone cracking or something. But anyway, I digress. But yeah. it's like this--

[01:29:30] Mark: I know I just opened up something that we could spend 30 minutes on.

[01:29:33] Luke: Yeah. And it's good. We got a little bit of time, I think.

[01:29:38] Mark: Your question was, you hurt my feelings, those things.  Again, at some point in time, if we want an out on a personal level, on a relationship level, on a familial level, on a community level. It's an inside job. 9/11 has got nothing on how much of an inside job our-- no one's coming to fix my story. Nobody's coming to fix Mark England's story. That's my business. That's my responsibility.

[01:30:17] And that's cool because if it wasn't that, things would be really weird. It comes down to an education about how my words influence me. And if I'm uneducated about who is responsible for creating my feelings, then I can fall victim to, you embarrassed me.

[01:30:47] Luke: Oh, that's one. You embarrassed me in front of those people.

[01:30:51] Mark: Yeah. Exactly.

[01:30:53] Luke: The alternative is how about becoming unembarrassable and becoming unoffendable?

[01:31:01] Mark: Exactly. That's the late-stage goal. And that's particularly all Daoists talk about.

[01:31:07] Luke: It's a worthy goal.

[01:31:08] Mark: It is. It's so up there, man.

[01:31:11] Luke: Yeah.

[01:31:11] Mark: It's so up there.

[01:31:12] Luke: I've made some progress with that. Being in my own little microcosm of public figure in my little world, I get criticism from time to time. And I can base how much progress I made on how little or much I get triggered by that, of the critiques. And it's like, some of them will get me. Now, I don't respond. I'm that smart.

[01:31:39] By this time, I don't engage with insanity. But I have noticed over time, many of them, I either find it funny, and I'll ask myself, is that true? I go, shit, they're actually right. There is some truth to that critique. And that's a huge key to freedom. But beyond that, if somebody's being really mean, I really do feel an honest sense of compassion for them.

[01:32:06] And then on a bad day, I'm like, I'll show you. I don't do it. But I'll have a lot of thoughts in my head of what I'm going to say back to them, that it's just going to cut them down to the chaff. And I don't do it, but years ago, I was much more easily offended. So it's like I have a benchmark now of what if one could live their life and just being completely unoffendable? No matter what you throw at me, I won't take it personally.

[01:32:33] Mark: The Dao would say it. When you cannot be brought up by someone's praise and you cannot be brought down by someone's criticism, then you are centered.

[01:32:41] Luke: Right.

[01:32:42] Mark: That's the definition of being centered.

[01:32:43] Luke: That's great. Because the other end of it is important too, not drinking your own Kool-Aid and letting things go to your head. The pride cometh before the fall kind of thing. I heard someone else say it like this. If you take the credit, then you're prone to take the blame.

[01:32:59] Mark: Good one. Very good one. And what you're talking about is psychological and emotional immunity.

[01:33:08] Luke: Oh cool. I like that.

[01:33:09] Mark: Yeah. And so you've developed your story with words, better words, to a degree where your tolerances, your parameters for being offended are way less than they used to be. And then you convince people that they're victims from a very young age. It's like sticking some weird substance in someone's arm with a bunch of fucking spike proteins in there. And then their immune system is erased. People's psychological and immune systems are being erased.

[01:33:41] Luke: Oh, word. Huh. That's interesting.

[01:33:44] Mark: Oh yeah. And that's as real as anything else.

[01:33:46] Luke: Yeah. That's deep. Wow. I'm going to keep working on that. I'm having fun with it. The other day this guy, watching one of the podcasts, took the time to grab his phone or computer, find my website, go to the contact page, send me an email saying, you know what? I'd like to enjoy your podcast, but those stupid ass pants you're wearing make it look like you're sitting there sipping cacao with your 14-year-old girlfriends.

[01:34:15] Mark: Damn, bro. Tell us how you really feel.

[01:34:17] Luke: He was really pissed about my pants.

[01:34:19] Mark: What about your pants, bro? Send us a picture of your pants.

[01:34:23] Luke: He was probably not wearing any pants. But it was awesome because I read it, and maybe for a second, bristled up. I was like, wow, what? And then I looked at it. The first thing I did was like, well, does he have a point? I said, yeah, I'm a 40-- no, what am I? 53-year-old man. Yeah, I dress ridiculously sometimes. It is probably hilarious and off-putting, but that's just me. I don't care. This isn't a fashion podcast.

[01:34:51] Mark: Doesn't he know about your background in fashion?

[01:34:54] Luke: Yeah, I should get a little bit of leeway.

[01:34:56] Mark: Whoever said that, Luke's cooler than you are.

[01:34:57] Luke: I should get a little bit of leeway there. But it was a great barometer to test my level of sensitivity and how seriously I'm taking myself. How dare he say that I am-- so I've read that, and I thought, he's actually really funny. That's great, man. And I got a kick out of it, and I emailed him back and was like, man, you're right. I wear some funny stuff. I said, thanks for listening anyway. I recommend if the way I dress bothers you, but you still enjoy the content, then maybe don't watch the videos and just listen to the audio, and you won't know what I'm wearing. And then he sent me back a really polite email after that, well, I'll give it another shot, whatever. We had a great exchange. And maybe he's still listening. Maybe you're watching right now, sir. Forgive me for forgetting your name, but--

[01:35:47] Mark: We had a similar experience.

[01:35:48] Luke: Those are fun when those come up and you see like, wow, this is my choice, how I'm going to contextualize this feedback. And the power is in my mind and in the discipline I have to how I'm going to frame like, okay, someone handed me a picture. How am I going to frame that? How much meaning am I going to assign to it?

[01:36:08] And that was an easy one because it was such a superficial criticism. I've had worse that hit closer to home or harder to just roll off the back, like the duck rolls. Some of them are easy than others. If someone really knows how to get in my wounds that might be still active, it's harder. But over time, it gets easier, and I love that. Would you say psychological immunity?

[01:36:33] Mark: Psychological and emotional immunity.

[01:36:35] Luke: Yeah. That's really great. Imagine if more people in the world and maybe a few tens of thousands of people that hear this will start to apply that. Imagine a world where people didn't get offended by a tweet and have it ruin their whole day.

[01:36:47] Mark: Dude, it's an allergy. Just look at it like that. Everybody, again, Dr. Simple over here. What words are in your head that you're allergic to? Let's say I had a cat allergy and a cat comes up and jumps on my lap and then I start sneezing and got my eyes red and watering and cause and effect.

[01:37:13] What's the difference between that and every time I think about when my girlfriend broke up with me in high school, at that party, and I get emotional about it? What's the difference? Is there much? Every time I come in contact with a cat, I have this reaction. Every time I come in contact with a particular story, I have this reaction.

[01:37:43] Good news is it's easier to take care of a homeopathics and some magic tubes and things like that. It's easier to take care of a story than a cat allergy. You get the words on paper. Get those words out of your head. If you have repeating thoughts about yourself that you are having negative reactions to, yes, pen's going to be very heavy.

[01:38:14] Part of you will probably scream, don't write them down. Because a lot of these stories of a negative context, they want to stay in their preferred environment, which is in the head, left to their own devices. Now you extract those things, and there's going to be some friction.

[01:38:35] I'll tell you what. It's like going to the gym. Jordan Peterson. Confront the dragon. Get the gold. That's how you increase your psychological and emotional immunity. You know what else is really funny? Of course you've had this experience. Somebody says something to you that would have offended you, let's say seven years ago, and you're like, flinch. You're like, huh, whatever. That's a great check-in. Have you had that experience?

[01:39:10] Luke: Oh yeah.

[01:39:10] Mark: How nice. That's what I'm taking about.

[01:39:12] Luke: All the time. It's the payoff. It's the payoff. Yeah. Even if it's possible in that situation of using it as grist for the mill, of finding the truth in it, not only can it not be offensive because you don't choose to be offended by it, but there might be useful information in that.

[01:39:33] Even if somebody's coming at you with the intention of hurting you and dragging you down to their emotional level of suffering, like in the case of the guy that didn't like my pants, I'm not going to change my pants. I think they're funny.

[01:39:45] Mark: 14-year-old girlfriend, though. That was big.

[01:39:48] Luke: Whatever. I don't care. I love cacao. I don't think I know any 14-year-olds, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah. He was on point. But there's been other critiques. That's not a great example, but there's been other ones that bristled me a little bit, and I went, oh, hold on. Let me see if there's some truth in there. And they actually were, and they were instrumental in me editing a way that I talk or behave that's inauthentic or that isn't productive.

[01:40:17] Even when someone is trying to hurt you, sometimes the things that really get under your skin get under your skin because there's some truth in them that you don't want to face or look at. And that's why the dagger gets in because there's a place for it to go because there's a part of yourself that you're like, ah, eff you. The faster I come back with a defense is probably an indication that there's more truth to it.

[01:40:46] Mark: Yes. And where you were breathing when the feedback was given. If someone's breath is trapped in their chest, which most peoples are, and they get some feedback that hits a button, they're going to fly off the handle, and their reaction is going to be-- that's a low-- someone's breath trapped in their chest, that is a telltale sign of a lower or depressed psychological, emotional, intellectual immunity. Breath, low and slow, that is a very good determinant of someone who has developed their story to a degree.

[01:41:26] Dude, I've had some brutal pieces of feedback given to me. And over the years, what I've found-- and some of this is not brutal. Some of it is just like, I've had all the ranges. And what I find is when I breathe well while I'm experiencing that, I'll get to the gold a lot faster. I'll get to the gold, I'll get to the nuggets, I'll get to the truth if there's any applicability to it. And therein lies the evolution.

[01:42:11] So people talk about revolution. Do they know what they're asking for? Breath trapped in the chest, whether it's one person or a hundred thousand, that's revolution. All the stuff is coming back around again, including the guillotines. Breath, low and slow, that's evolution. That's when things change and move forward. And so if someone wants to have revolutions in their life-- I've worked with a woman who said, I've had the same relationship with five different men.

[01:42:42] That's what that was. And she had a story about her dad who cheated and got kicked out. And her mom told her when she was growing up, you can't trust men. You can't trust them. They're dogs. They only want one thing. Don't even try. Even though she went out, and of course she wanted to, that breath trap, that was a stressful story.

[01:43:02] Want to have a quality relationship with a man, but I can't because they're all dogs. And so story kept in there, word stayed the same, breath trapped in the chest. The whole thing keeps coming back around again. Unlock the breath, and we get evolution. And the goal of Enlifted is to unlock the breath of humanity. Why not take a swing at something?

[01:43:27] Luke: Cool. I like it. Oh what about swear words?

[01:43:31] Mark: Love them.

[01:43:32] Luke: I have some friends back in California named Zen and Bunny, and they don't swear, and they're not prudes. They're just more so zen. And he might hear this. Hey, Zen, if you ever hear this. And he sent me some book, I forget what it was, or gave me a physical book actually, that was about, I don't know, just the negative energy of swear words and stuff. So they don't swear around their kids, therefore don't swear, and so on.

[01:44:02] And I just noticed that about him. And at that time, I sweared much more and also on the podcast and got some negative feedback from time to time, mostly from people that want to listen in the car with kids and stuff. Not that people were offended necessarily, but just like, dude, this is great information. I'd love for my kids to hear it, but you swear a lot.

[01:44:23] So it's something I've thought about, and it's not a moral thing. Making a certain sound with my mouth that is the F word, what does that mean unless you attach meaning to it? But I have noticed over time that, especially on the podcast, I'm doing less of that, per the request of some of the listeners if I can do so while maintaining my authenticity, because frankly, that's the way I talk in real life and I want to be real on the show.

[01:44:53] But I also have noticed there are some speakers that I really enjoy and respect who I know swear a bit in their personal life but never do so on stage or in their workshops and things like that. And I've just taken cues from that. There must be something to that. And so I've taken that cue and done less of it myself.

[01:45:18] What's your perspective on the impact of swear words? And if it's the sound of them, it's the origin of them, the association, how do those words impact us? Are they right, wrong, good, bad? What's your take?

[01:45:32] Mark: Yeah, it's a personal choice. I drop F bombs, and I like to laugh. And I find that when I use a certain amount of spicy words, I laugh the amount that I want to laugh. When I started tracking that, I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then I started paying attention to people who I consider to be funny and laugh a lot. And those people swear a lot.

[01:46:03] There's something there. I don't know what that's about as far as I've taken it because that's as far as I wanted to take it. We had no f-bomb February, no fucks February. We did that in our community. Everybody had a rubber band, and every time you drop one, just snap, snap, snap. And people are like, dude, my wrist is about to fall off.

[01:46:30] It's like going on a fast. Your mom said, don't play with your food. I'm telling you, play with your words. They're your words. And so if someone is interested about it, same thing with plant medicines. If someone's pulled, if someone's like, oh, that's interesting. Never thought about taking out the four letters.

[01:46:48] So take it out for a month. See what happens. And that was one piece of feedback that we got from our podcast. They had that same experience with the pants and the cacao. And this woman said the exact same thing. Great information. I wish you all didn't cuss as much, or even at all.

[01:47:09] I want to listen to this in my car with the kids. And I bristled at first. I was like, just don't listen to it then. And then we had a discussion about it, a constructive down-regulated discussion about it and played both sides. And then you sent her an email, and she was really appreciative of it.

[01:47:30] And so that's us. It's not that we're taking our own medicine. We're using our own magic, which is, pay attention to yourself, and know that you're participating in a story. You're telling yourself a story. And I'm bristling. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. What's going on here? What's going on here? What words am I using?

[01:47:56] And then my mom, she didn't cuss much at all. And when she did, man, got the attention every-- talk about bristling and puckering up. She dropped an F bomb, and everybody in the house stood at attention, and it was not her thing. So it's personal. I'm cool with it.

[01:48:22] Luke: Yeah.

[01:48:23] Mark: I like it.

[01:48:23] Luke: I find sometimes that substitute words just won't suffice when there's a certain sentiment that you're trying to express. A great example is when you talked about the guy's grandfather saying, man, go get a motherfucker, or whatever. It's like, how else could you say that without using that word and achieve the impact that it deserves?

[01:48:48] Mark: I don't think there's another word that you could have used for that. Stub your toe and go, oh, shoot.

[01:48:53] Luke: Made the point.

[01:48:54] Mark: Stub your toe and go, freak.

[01:48:56] Luke: When I hurt myself and I get pissed, I use the C word, the verboten C word. It's just the word that comes out of my mouth when I like hurt myself, stub my toe, that kind of thing. Alyson knows. Doesn't particularly bother her. I'm sure it's not that pleasant, but not because of the meaning she's assigned to that word. It's just like, oh, damn, dude. But yeah, that's the only word that gets that anger out of me quickly.

[01:49:23] Mark: Hey, man.

[01:49:24] Luke: Yeah. So I'm not going to be saying a word on the podcast because it's unnecessary and not appropriate. I don't need that word to convey any of the feelings I experience having conversations like the one we're having. So therefore, it doesn't fit within the lexicon of what we're doing here on The Life Stylist. But man, that word, it's useful in the right moment.

[01:49:47] All right. Last ones I want to cover with and we'll let you get out of here, what about-- and these are these pernicious words that, man, I've worked so hard for so many years to eliminate from my vocabulary, and I've made some progress, but it is difficult to completely eradicate them, and that is, or are, like, you know, sorta kinda, um, and uh.

[01:50:17] Mark: Guess, possibly.

[01:50:20] Luke: Why do people do those? Is it insecurity? Are people afraid that they will lose their audience's attention if there's a gap in sound? Because sometimes words arrive. We're all channeling these thoughts from who knows where, and sometimes it takes a moment for the vocal cords to catch up to the mind. Therefore, there will be natural gaps. If you're breathing up high and nervous and afraid of how-- this is my own experience.

[01:50:57] Mark: You're answering the question. You're just talking about soft talk, everybody. No, this is good. This is great.

[01:51:01] Luke: I ask someone a question, and then I answer it for them.

[01:51:05] Mark: It's the gateway drug to the rest of your knowledge.

[01:51:07] Luke: I don't like that habit, and I'm sorry to the audience when I do that. It's probably annoying, but sometimes I'm just working through things. So when you see a speaker on stage, for example, who's a professional speaker and has a confidence in the speech they're delivering, they won't say, um, like, you know, sorta, kinda at all. And those are the speakers that really grab your attention.

[01:51:32] And what I notice when I watch really great speakers like that is that there are commonly a lot of pauses, pregnant pauses, and they don't lose anyone. In fact, it draws many because you're waiting for the next word. And if there's a bunch of ums, and likes, and you knows, and kind ofs in there, it makes them feel amateur and unconfident and therefore lose credence.

[01:52:02] Mark: Yeah. It's called soft talk.

[01:52:04] Luke: Soft talk. You said that word earlier and I wanted to go back to. So unpack your version of that. Hopefully I didn't steal your thought--

[01:52:09] Mark: No, no.

[01:52:10] Luke: With my perspective.

[01:52:12] Mark: What you talked about is a large part of why people use the amount of soft talk that they do, which soft talk, is the gateway drug to the rest of your language, because it's the easiest thing to address because there's only a handful of words. There's something fun and funny about it, even though the chronic effects can be devastating. And all you do is pluck the word out. So maybe I should get back in the gym.

[01:52:53] And you're like, oh, yeah. Listen to Luke and Mark talk about the power of words. Take out the maybe. I should get back in the gym. Should. I could get back in the gym. I can get back in the gym. I can get back into the gym next Monday. It's almost like I'm procrastinating. Take out the almost like. I'm procrastinating.

[01:53:18]  So people pill use soft talk. I guess I'm drinking too much coffee. People use soft talk. Part of why people use soft talk is to not have to change anything because if I'm guessing about whether I'm drinking too much coffee, if I take out the guess, I'm drinking too much coffee. Now I've got to do something about it.

[01:53:41] I think I should probably spend more time with my wife. If someone is thinking and maybeing and guessing about those things, 95% of the time they know they are and it's easier for them to soft talk around it than solid talk straight into it and make some change. And then also, people will use soft talk when their breath is trapped in their chest, when they're insecure around other people and fearful that a strong, solid position in something will ruffle feathers.

[01:54:14] So if someone's got a big people pleasing tendency, they can use soft talk there. And yeah, if someone uses that, if someone uses soft talk for long enough, they'll create, indecision. And if they stayed there long enough, then they will identify themself as indecisive. And once someone identifies themself as something for better and for worse, punctual, indecisive, a great communicator, lazy, you get better at the thing. It's very odd.

[01:54:57] Luke: You get better at the things you don't want to do--

[01:54:59] Mark: Oh, 1,000%.

[01:54:59] Luke: By doing them.

[01:55:00] Mark: You can get better at being a flake. Once you identify yourself as a flake, you now just got-- it's about 30%. You just got 30% better overnight at being a flake. Teddy Atlas said, it says like, when someone wins a championship, they identify themselves as a champ. They get 30% better overnight. Yeah. When someone identifies themself, after they've presented enough evidence, also known as repping the thing out, doing the thing that they're consistent-- oh, I'm a consistent person, they just got 30% more consistent. It's the power of identity. And I'm a non-book recommended person, and the Talent Code by Daniel Coyle is a phenomenal book for that. I've taught on and off. I haven't taught with it in about three years, but I taught on and off for that book for a decade.

[01:55:48] Luke: That's badass. I like it. I want to let people know how they can further engage with you. And doing my research on you, it looks like you have two things going on, Procabulary, which is a great play on words, and Enlifted. And you guys, as you mentioned before, do coaching and stuff like this.

[01:56:06] Break it down for people that might already have some coaching or speaking business how you might be able to help them. And I think this is something that I want to start highlighting more when people have different training programs. If you're someone listening, we're talking about purpose earlier and you're in a career or job that doesn't serve you or is no longer aligned with your values, morals, ethics, interests, passion, whatever, I want to encourage people to learn how to do something else and make a living at it.

[01:56:47] I think a lot of people don't know you could become a health coach, or a life coach, or a language coach. There are ways to build your own biz. I just said, goddam it. There are ways to create something that allows you to contribute your gifts and your talents to the world without necessarily having to work for someone else and have a job that you don't like.

[01:57:09] And many people like having a job, and they like their job. I personally can't have a job. I hate it. I don't do well as an employee. I've tried it, and it didn't serve me. But I'm excited to talk to people like you that not only have a body of knowledge, but can actually train people in your methodology so that they can go out and do whatever it is they want to do. So tell us how that all works. And then we also have a code for people with your courses, which I'll share in a minute.

[01:57:36] Mark: Yeah. So Procabulary was the predecessor of Enlifted.

[01:57:41] Luke: Ah, okay.

[01:57:42] Mark: Yeah. Procabulary has been retired and all the action is at Enlifted.

[01:57:48] Luke: Noted. I really like that word, though.

[01:57:50] Mark: Dude, I love that word. I love that word. My business partner, when we decided what we were going to call the thing when we first started the thing in 2015, he goes, there's one of two things we can call it. He goes, we could call it Procabulary. And I go, stop.

[01:58:05] That's it. I got the hair on my arms. Yeah, it did exactly what it needed to do. And like I said, the action is at Enlifted. So we certify coaches. And we certify coaches in the art and science. And it's where level one starts of dismantling the victim mentality because that's where you're going to meet your clients 99.99% of the time, is in the stuck and suck, the problems, what they need help with.

[01:58:34] And very rarely does someone book in for a coach when the sun's out. They need some assistance. And when you start scratching the surface of those stories, there are more stories and then other stories of a victim centric nature. So like I said earlier, clean up the house, then throw the party.

[01:58:53] So our certifications, level one and level two-- we'll just talk about those two-- they're both nine weeks long. One thing that sets us apart from other coaching certifications-- and I'm also ignorant about what else is going on in the coaching space to a degree, because I'm too busy doing our stuff.

[01:59:15] And when I've talked to, let's say Paul Chek, we were on his show a couple of weeks ago. We told him how we structure our trainings and some other people that have been in the game for a long time. They look at me like I've got two heads. And here's why, is because all of the classes, so level ones, all of our level ones are capped at 10 people. And all of the trainings, they're taught live by me.

[01:59:42] Luke: Wow. Nice.

[01:59:44] Mark: Yeah. So I deliver all of our trainings.

[01:59:46] Luke: Do you find you get more compliance from the enrollees when it's a real live thing? I'm in a writing group right now, and it's every Tuesday at 7:30. I don't care what's going on. I'm not going to miss it. I would be mortified if I missed it. A, I want to be there. B, I feel like it would be embarrassing to not show up just because, oh, I feel like watching TV or something. If that was an online class, honestly-- I'm probably enrolled in three online classes just over the past few years. I've never even logged in.

[02:00:16] Mark: Yeah.

[02:00:17] Luke: I'm embarrassed to say that, but I just haven't.

[02:00:20] Mark: And that has nothing to do with you. It's just the nature of the beast and compliance. How about engagement?

[02:00:33] Luke: That's a better word.

[02:00:34] Mark: Yeah. It gets a lot more engagement, and we could totally scale this thing and we're not. You know why? Because we're in the badass coach-making business, and that's how badass coaches are made. And also because we approach it as such. Okay, fine. It's coaching. We're talking about transformational wordsmithing here.

[02:00:53] You're talking about helping people get the scary stories out of their head that have been in there negatively influencing them for God knows how long outside of them and get the breath in there. And when that happens, emotions, that is going to happen. So it is important for a coach to be confident, and competent, and skilled, and know how to breathe when the heat gets turned up in the kitchen, emotionally speaking. And like I said, we're in that coach making business.

[02:01:27] Yeah, fine, it's coaching. That's what we got to call it. It's more than that. It is an art. It is a craft. It is a practice, and we approach it as such, and we teach it as such. And that is unique in the game. That is very unique in the game. And also, we're on group 40 Q1 of next year March, 2024.

[02:01:55] We're on group 40, 41 and 42, and I'm only doing the first 100. I'll be done teaching directly in about seven, give or take, years. Seven, seven and a half years. And I want to spend time with the coaches. I want to get to know them. I want them to-- and it's 1,000% real.

[02:02:18] I want them to take some of my excitement and enthusiasm and passion for this thing and infuse it into their coaching. And it doesn't work with videos. It doesn't work with 300 people in a certification. I'm on a rant. It doesn't work with 300 people in a certification with biweekly check-ins and some self-paced quizzes. It's not how you create world-class coaches. And so, yeah, that's--

[02:02:44] Luke: Respect.

[02:02:44] Mark: Yeah, thanks, man.

[02:02:45] Luke: Cool. So you guys, we'll put this in the show description, but you can go to enlifted.me, and use the code LUKE to save 10% off the coaching certification courses, or use LUKE100 to save 100 bucks off the self-paced course. Does that sound accurate?

[02:03:02] Mark: Yes, that's very accurate.

[02:03:03] Luke: Okay, cool. I just read what's in my notes.

[02:03:04] Mark: No, it's great.

[02:03:05] Luke: And I appreciate that. I got one final question for you and you might want to just rapid fire this one so we can get you out of here because we got to take a couple of pictures. And don't let me forget. I want to give you a book.

[02:03:15] Mark: Okay.

[02:03:15] Luke: As a gift, which I know you're going to love the shit out of. See, there was no other way to say you're going to love the shit out of it. How could I emphasize it?

[02:03:24] Mark: That got me more excited about something I was already excited about.

[02:03:27] Luke: Yeah, yeah. My last question is this, who have been three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life and your work?

[02:03:35] Mark: Barry Musgrave was the guy that was running that emotional detoxification workshop that I saw in 2003, and he was my first mentor in this work. He still works. He still lives in Athens, takes care of an ashram there, and he will work with one person per day. And he's been a very positive force in my life.

[02:04:03] Very well self-made man. He's mentored Adam Chin and I. He's my business partner. We met him in Thailand. I had no idea who he was. Just met him in-- he had shorts and t-shirt. And he said, you create your own opportunities. This guy's from Farm Boy to self-made. Yeah. You create your own opportunities and just getting to hang around someone that operates at a very high level and watching that, I'll take part of that with me forever.

[02:04:43] And then my dad. Yeah, my father. When he told me, he's like, you go do that thing, man. I was like, all right, I'm going to go do it. It's all I needed to hear. And then I can also bring in Jordan Peterson, if I can have four, because that does dovetail quite nicely into what my dad said.

[02:05:11] Luke: Your dad's family, so we can count him as a given, so I'll afford you the four.

[02:05:14] Mark: Yeah, yeah. Jordan Peterson said people need such little encouragement. People need such a little encouragement. And him giving me that, it's like, okay, I won't need to hear that again. Yeah.

[02:05:28] Luke: You reminded me of something my dad used to tell me when I was a kid that I hated and now see the value in. He'd have me do something hard. I climb up a mountain on a horse that was scary or whatever, and I said, dad, I can't, because I was a soft Californian kid brought up by my mom, and I felt like there was a lot of things I couldn't do. And I'd be like, I can't.

[02:05:51] He goes, there's no such word as can't. Goddamn it can't doesn't exist. He was hardcore. And it used to piss me off. But in hindsight, anything is actually possible. And then I'd try to intellectually out someone. Well, what if I wanted to jump off the Golden Gate bridge and survive? You can't do that.

[02:06:11] So I beat them on a few occasions, but the general sentiment was high value and something that I've carried with me. I think that was instilled in me, in my entrepreneur. I'm just going to try this thing, even if it sucks and even if I fail. It's such a gift when you have a parent that pushes you in that way, for sure. I think mine was maybe a little harsh about it at times, which he would admit, but the idea was there. No, you can do it. You can do it. There's no such thing as can't. Beautiful.

[02:06:40] Mark: My dad told me. I've never had a corporate job or anything like that. I delivered pizza in college, waited tables outside of college, raked leaves for the last six months before I went over to Thailand, taught elementary school PE for five years, and then that's it. I've never been in a cubicle, dude. That would be a very bad fit.

[02:07:05] Luke: Congratulations. I tried it for a couple weeks. I had a telemarketing job when I first got sober.

[02:07:11] Mark: Did you?

[02:07:11] Luke: Yeah. They'd locked me in this cubicle. And then you'd have this set of leads they'd feed you every morning, and you couldn't bypass the leads. I think we're sound like long distance. I was in Koreatown in LA. Yeah. And so they'd give me the leads, and they'd tell me, you can't skip them. Even the shitty leads, you got to pursue. And I'd be calling, I don't know, gas stations and businesses like, hey, have you thought about the long-distance rates, blah, blah, blah?

[02:07:39] This is in like the late '90s. And I couldn't skip the good leads. I couldn't pursue the shitty leads, so I would cherry pick and start calling the good leads. And I didn't know that they were like watching my computer. They had a camera or something on, and so they called me in the manager's office and said, man, we told you the rules. And they fired me on the spot. And that was the very last office job I ever had.

[02:08:02] Mark: Man, some people aren't for it.

[02:08:04] Luke: I'm like, you're setting me up to fail. How am I supposed to not cherry pick the higher quality leads here? I'm trying to get a commission, folks. Yeah, that was the end of it.

[02:08:15] Mark: Yeah.

[02:08:16] Luke: Well, that is the end of that story, and that's the end of this podcast. Dude, thank you so much. This has been a fascinating conversation and one with a topic about which I'm really passionate and interested, so I learned a lot. And just a pleasure to meet you and share your expertise with the audience.

[02:08:32] Mark: Thank you. Thanks for having us on. Thanks for listening, everybody.

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