Ryan Alford (Host) (2:27)

No kidding. What's the biggest blind side? I mean, you're working with enough people. What are people missing? There's usually something that's out of their own perception and it'd be easy to go. It's self awareness. It is that, I'll give you that. But there's something, man. What is it, Evan?

Evan Marks (2:41)

It's people try to dismiss emotions. What happens is when you don't acknowledge emotions, you know what happens? It gets on the field. And what does that mean? They're unconscious. When I train people, we live in the world of responding, not reacting. I coach athletes, business owners, CEOs, and obviously Wall street professionals. The biggest thing that you need to take away is mental space. Emotions are just data. We can label negative emotions positive emot, but in the end of the day, they're data. The question is, how do you put space between an emotion of how you feel and actually how the hell you want to behave? That is a conscious choice. When you talk about blind spots, when people say I can't believe I did that again, that is reacting. Imagine if you had the power of choice, the power to say, I can feel whatever I want, but I also have that power to choose a behavior. And what happens, Ron, is that it starts to form new experiences. And then neurologically, at M1, we always say we marriage the why and the how. Why do I do what I do and how do I get better? Take psychological theory meets the latest research in neuroscience. And what happens is when you start to experience things differently, you really start to build new habits and new networks in your brain. And that soon after repetition, repetition, repetition becomes your default action. Then it's about blind spots. It's almost like stop reacting. Give yourself a chance to respond. It's a game changer for anybody.

Ryan Alford (Host) (4:03)

We talked with every time about our kids before we came on and we teach them and in life we know this too. You know, playing sports and doing what we do, whether you play golf or whatever you do, you got to practice over and over and over again to be good at something. And repetition creates muscle memory. And then it's less thinking and more doing and having success from it.

Evan Marks (4:23)

And we know this.

Ryan Alford (Host) (4:23)

We're smart people. Most people listening to this show are smart people. But for whatever reason though, we don't apply that same principle or a lot of people don't. I didn't, I do now. You don't apply this principle of this muscle memory and knowing how the right way to respond and taking coaching and taking learning and taking feedback to then apply the same way in business and in life. People need to get their head around that opportunity or you're always living within limits.

Evan Marks (4:51)

You know what we say at M1 always says that you have to slow down in order to speed up. Slowing down has nothing to do with the gas. It's really the art of intentionality. As you become more intentional with this practice, with repetition, you start to build this foundation that you can leverage and there's the speed up. What we're saying is very intellectual. When you read one self help book, it's the same as the 900th one want. If you don't execute on it and you have to give yourself room to grow. It's what do they always say? Quit tomorrow. Keep going because you don't know when it starts to click, when it starts to connect. Give yourself a chance. When we talk about things intellectually, there's such an emotional component about that. If you're able to acknowledge that and tolerate it long enough, the doors of opportunity swing wide open. One of the most important give yourself a chance, quit tomorrow. Hang in an extra day. You will be massively, pleasantly surprised.

Ryan Alford (Host) (5:44)

What are some of the techniques that you guys do at M1? What's the mental exercises, the coaching exercises, the things that people can do, the highest performers, did they come by this by nature or nurture? It's always fascinating to me, the 0.01%. Did they just learn what you teach? Were they just ahead of the curve or were they built that way? Two parts there how you help people.

Evan Marks (6:07)

What's the last one? You know, nature or nurture? I believe anybody can do this. Now listen, I'm not 6 5, 290 pounds so I'm not going to try out for the offensive line of the Cowboys. There are certain limitations. We don't live in the positive psychology camp. We live in the opportunistically reality camp.

Ryan Alford (Host) (6:24)

I like it.

Evan Marks (6:25)

But when we talk about mental resilience, perseverance, anybody can do this. So why did the Kobe's of the world, the NJ's of the world, the Tom Brady's of the world, obviously some of them were gifted, there's no doubt about it. But you cannot take away the resilience of these superstars. Kobe Bryant's working out after winning an NBA championship at 4 in the morning. This guy didn't make teams. MJ didn't make 18s. Tom Brady was whatever they missed. Aero elephant. Anybody can do this. It really is giving yourself the opportunity to go and see what's possible. We always talk about emotions. Emotions are important. Without emotions, you can't make decisions. Why are emotions the enemy? They're not. They're actually just data. If I said to you, ryan, I give you permission to feel whatever you want, all right, so almost like, let go of the rope now. Let's put mental space. Take a breath, a pause, then we have a chance to choose how we want to behave. I can't guarantee results, but I can guarantee you you will experience something different. Now, if we put down the word consistently, we always say, consistency with evidence builds confidence. If we are intentional about that one soul practice, it puts you in a different lane. If you're able to give yourself space, we call it mental space. To choose something, to choose a behavior that serves you, it's game over. Because then you start to what? You start to trust yourself that you are not a slave to people's emotions, actions. We have the power to choose. And who would not want to have that in their mental arsenal?

Ryan Alford (Host) (7:56)

Yeah, you would. You would choose it every time. Yeah. And what's interesting is we're coached, especially as men growing up, we're sort of built to hide the emotion, to kind of sink it away. I don't even know if it's always intentionally coached into us. It's just sort of the way it is. And I think for good, bad or indifferent, men are pretty good at swallowing the emotional side of it.

Evan Marks (8:17)

Let's flip that script. Say, you know what, Ryan? You're entitled to feel disappointed, embarrassed, judged. You can have fear of rejection, failure, whatever it may be. And if I say that's not a weakness, I go, you know what the real weakness is? Is when you react when you have an adult tantrum. And also you wish you could have taken that back. Let's flip this. You feel whatever you want. You have to. We're human beings. We live this human experience, allow it, acknowledge it. We always say, behavior changes before feelings. When I'm happy, I'll do this. When I've made this much money, I'll do this. Doesn't work that way. Because what happen is as behavior changes and we start moving down the field, eventually feelings change. But if we're going to wait for a feeling to change, I'm like, I don't want to be this way. I don't want to feel this way. We're still at the five yard line. We could have been on the opposing team's 20 already. It's all about conscious behavior. And how do you get that that's mental. Giving yourself this mental space is a game changer. And how do you get there? It's repetition. It's reminding yourself to take a pause, reminding yourself to ask a question. What am I trying to accomplish? Right. Where do I want to be? How do I want to behave? And when you ask yourself questions, we call them self exploratory. You know what it does? It puts you in the seat of influence.

Ryan Alford (Host) (9:32)

Talking with Evan Marks, he is a mental performance coach with M1 Performance Group is saying, a lot of times we're fire, aim, ready as men. And what you just crystallized for me was, let's get back to ready, aim, and then fire. Because if you do it the other way around, you're not hitting the target. I'm a move fast guy. I am. I can admit it. And it's worked for me on the whole. But I've also realized the pitfalls that it can have when you don't stop to kind of ask these important questions and that you don't truly get ready. Because a good friend of mine named Christopher Lockhead, one of the smartest guys I know in marketing, and he says we need to think more about thinking.

Evan Marks (10:12)

That's called metacognition. Amen. It's true. You've had success. When we get curious, like, imagine if what this kid from M1 Performance Group is saying is true. What could it have looked like? But what could it look like now? I'm not a motivator, motivational guy. Even though I'm a New Yorker and I speak with a lot of passion. I'm all about momentum. Motivation is a fleeting feeling. It's the momentum that takes you across the finish line, but it's really putting yourself in that seat of what if? What if I slow down? And that's nothing to do with speed. We don't have to go back. You can't tweak inconsistency. You really get consistent with your behavior. Name a door, it's going to open, and that's how you get better.

Ryan Alford (Host) (10:53)

If you got other things figured out and then you unlock that, it does. It truly becomes the world is your oyster.

Evan Marks (10:58)

You could take that proverbial step back and get that internal footing and take that breath. What do I need to do now? What do they say when? What's important now, that's seconds, but it puts you in a different state. We talk a lot about when we talk with clients about aggressive patience. Patience sounds very passive. Just be patient. Aggressive patience is almost like a jaguar in the Rough where you know, the heart rate is going down. The intentionality is there, the focus is there. So when you said ready, aim, fire, that's what aggressive patience is. How long can you sit in the pocket? Think about, like Tom Brady's, as Edelman's coming through the middle. Everybody's coming on. He can feel it. But he has that composure, he has that breath. He's slowing things down. Imagine thinking about that as a practice, how much more effective you could be. We're talking seconds. Time can be an ally, but time can be a nemesis as well. How is time an ally? We're talking about repetition because we know stacking. Days, weeks, months, stack. And when you look up five months from now, time is an ally. How did I get here so quickly? It's a nemesis also, because nothing changes if nothing changes. We aren't intentional about improvement, about understanding our minds and our behaviors and our emotions. Time doesn't work for us because all of a sudden, it's January 26th. Wow. Nothing's changed.

Ryan Alford (Host) (12:23)

Intentionality, that's the key word that I keep coming back to and locking in. There's a lot of motion and there's a lot of activity that lacks intention. It's seek intention. It's not taken with intention. We do things because we're seeking to find the intent. I've done this. I'm going to find some intent. I'm going to stack all these things up. An intention will manifest itself. No intentions on the front end. That's the key here. That's what I keep coming back to.

Evan Marks (12:48)

And everything you talk about, what am I trying to accomplish? What you're saying is extremely from the past. You all seek validation. We don't validate ourselves, so we start stacks. Procrastination isn't the lack of effort. It's the fear of a future feeling. What we do, sometimes we stack all these. I got to do this, this, this, and this. And we know nothing gets done. I'm gonna go to the gym. I'm gonna go five times a week. You don't even go once. Start small. We always talk about money compounding, but behavior compounds the same way. Trust me, 2 and 2 and 4 means nothing. 4 and 4 and 8. 8, whatever. 8, 8, 16, nothing. But as you go up this megaphone, there is a threshold you go through, and then you're like, wow, I am so glad that I was aggressively patient with myself. To give myself the opportunity for performance is an easy equation. Performance equals potential minus interferences. If we're able to minimize interferences, which is a lot of unconscious behavior. The equation explodes, the commas comes down. We can focus on potential and what we need to do.

Ryan Alford (Host) (13:51)

Performance goes Evan, where can they learn more about what you're doing and how to take performance to a higher level?

Evan Marks (13:56)

We have a awesome website my team has put together over the course of a couple years now it's m1performancegroup.com. We put out four posts a week on all social medias which is is LinkedIn. I'm Evan Marks, Instagram's emark72. We're on Twitter. I think it's emark72 as well. I should know that, but I don't. Our website has a lot of articles, a lot of insight and we have a lot of podcasts that we've been on and we have a discovery button. If this is something that where you want to take your game to a different level, I'm here.

Ryan Alford (Host) (14:24)

I love it, brother. You're doing some great things. I really like your approach and just your overall vibe, man.

Evan Marks (14:29)

Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate that.

Ryan Alford (Host) (14:30)

Hey guys, you're to find us Ryan is right Dot com. We're going to have all the links to Evan's stuff. M1 Performance Group. Go check that out. I cannot understate, overstate. I can't put enough emphasis on how important it is to get your mind right, to unlock ultimate potential in business, in life, in relationships. Guys like Evan will help you. We'll see you next time on right about now.

Ryan Alford (Show Intro/Outro) (14:54)

This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast network production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.

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