← The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex
The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex
From Wall Street Burnout to Mental Freedom: Evan Marks’ Journey Through Panic and Purpose
00:30:18
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- [00:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. At 46, I'm in a car, Greg, going to the train station, and all of a sudden my head starts to sweat. I think I'm having a heart attack. I got taken to the ER and it was actually a massive panic attack. It was just the years of chronic stress. I didn't want to be a traitor and luckily I did well, but I hated every moment of it. I had an identity crisis. I was in more pain than anybody knew. And this lasted 15 years. I suffered from fear of regret. I remember looking at my wife saying, this feels like spiritual suicide. I said, I gotta get out of this. I know so many people going through this. I saw a neurologist and he says, you have to retire. I didn't know what to do. I went back to school, 46 years old, to study psychoanalytical theory and neuroscience. When I think about your podcast, you are providing such a great road map, the game of possibilities.
- [01:19]
B
Hey, guys, and welcome back to Lobo Podcast. This is Paul Alex, and today we have a phenomenal guest. He goes by the name of Evan Marks, guys. So he's a seasoned mental performance coach with over 25 years of experience. Guess what? On Wall Street. That's right, guys. Evan has worked with remarkable range of people from athletes, CEOs to NASCAR pit crews. Guys. Helping them harness focus, managing stress and perform at their peak. So this is going to be a good one because you guys know how I am about mindset and stress. Okay? So, Evan, welcome to the show, brother Paul.
- [01:52]
A
Thanks for having me, brother. We had a nice conversation before we went live and I unfortunately, I'm on a time crunch. But, man, what a great story you have, man. It's really, it's really admirable of what you've accomplished, the lives you've impacted. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [02:08]
B
No, I appreciate you, man. So let's get to know you, dude, because this show, this interview is about you, Evan Marks. So what is it that you do now? Yeah, you're a mental performance coach. But how would you describe your mission as a mental performance coach?
- [02:24]
A
You know, It's a great question. So. And it's a very simple message. I create strong mental foundations for people in order to leverage them. Right. So for me it's, you know, performance is a very simple equation. Performance equals potential minus interferences. So once I better understand interferences and start to create new behaviors, we start to build really strong mental foundations. And from there, what are the possibilities? And that's leverage. How long does that take? I can't tell. Right. Because you always have to know where people start from. Where are they coming from? What was their programming early on? So sometimes we have to do a little rewiring in the face of any emotion to create new behavior, which creates a new experience in the brain, which is obviously then circuitry. So through the art of repetition, you know, I hear you talk about clarity, but we use a lot of intentionality also. You know, clarity, intentionality, or a dynamic duo. So with that repetition, that reminder, that consistency.
- [03:32]
B
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- [04:38]
A
It's a total mess.
- [04:39]
B
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- [05:57]
A
Anything's possible. Oh, yeah, right. It's real dedication and commitment to, you know, to really build this strong mental foundation.
- [06:04]
B
Oh, absolutely. And it's. It's also life lessons, experiences.
- [06:09]
A
Absolutely.
- [06:10]
B
The roads that we go to.
- [06:11]
A
Life is not linear.
- [06:13]
B
No, it's not, man.
- [06:14]
A
Right. But you know, you learn a lot in struggle, but also you learn a lot in success.
- [06:19]
B
Yes.
- [06:19]
A
Right. So both sides of that paradigm are important to learn, you know, and I always tell people my job is to bring the unconscious conscious, and then through repetition, we become unconsciously conscious, which means almost flow. So when you do that, that means behaviors are changing. Right. That's really habit formation. Yeah. So that is what we do. Whether you're a professional athlete, C suite executive, founder, obviously Wall street professional, which I did for 25 years. We know now that mental health is so important. Yeah. And actually asking for help is a strength. And not asking for help and dismissing how we feel, what our emotions are is actually a weakness. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I think a lot of overachievers know that now, which is. Which is a wonderful thing.
- [07:17]
B
No, it is. Especially with how open it is on social media. People are able to talk about, you know, how it really is behind the scenes. Right. Of being an entrepreneur or a high performer. Right. So I'm a big believer in asking for help. I'm a big believer in going ahead is being real, man.
- [07:33]
A
You have to be. You have to let it out. Listen to the internals, lead the externals. Yeah, Right. You can get away with it for a little bit, but if you really want to create a strong mental foundation and leverage the piss out of it, you really have to look under the hood and see where my interference is. What am I resisting? Where do I need help with? Practice. Then. Then you're limitless. Then, you know, then the world of curiosity starts to take form.
- [08:01]
B
Yeah.
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A
Of what am I capable of doing right? And that doesn't, you know, and it's interesting, Paul. It doesn't have to be this Herculean moment, these small, little subtle changes, these moments of small compounding effects. You know, what's interesting is that, you know, we talk about time. The only way to use time to your advantage is when you stack days, weeks, and months. Because all of a sudden, you look back six months from now, you're like, how did this happen? And that's using time to its advantage. Unfortunately, there's another side to it then, when you don't change. You know, Pat Riley used to say something, since we're in Bricklin, I might as well throw some Miami out here. If you're not getting better, you're getting worse. That's an old Pat Riley line. And it's so true.
- [08:52]
B
Yeah.
- [08:54]
A
So how do we make these changes? You know, you talk a lot about clarity and vision and goals, and it's step by step. You know, at M1, we always talk about you have to go, you have to slow down in order to speed up. But slowing down is just the. It's got nothing to do with gas. It's got all to do with intentionality. Once you start to get things right, watch what happens. It's like that hockey stick effect. It's just, you know, it's important.
- [09:27]
B
Yeah, it is, man. So before you were helping top performers and high level individuals with their mental clarity and their performance.
- [09:40]
A
What.
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B
How was life like for you before you became a coach?
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A
MAN? So I went to University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I was a D1 lacrosse player. Unfortunately, I blew my knees out not once, but twice. And I thought I was okay, but I was a student athlete and I actually had an identical twin brother, went to Penn with me.
- [09:58]
B
Oh, wow.
- [09:59]
A
And we grew up single mother. As my brother and I had an older brother was handicapped. Unfortunately, my father wasn't around. He ended up homeless and addicted to crack. So we kind of, you know, we were working at 12 years old, we didn't know much. So there we go to University of Pennsylvania. We had no idea it was an incubator for Wall Street. We should have known that since Wharton School of Business is there, and my brother got a job afterwards at a. At a hedge fund. I didn't even know what that was. And I was going to go become a consultant, which didn't fit my personality. And I ended up on Wall Street.
- [10:31]
B
Yeah.
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A
And I did it for 25 years. And unfortunately, I was pretty good at it, but I never liked it.
- [10:38]
B
Yeah.
- [10:39]
A
So I lived in the city for almost 20, 25 years, moved out to the burbs with my two young daughters and wife. And at 46, I'm in a car, Greg, going to the train station, talking to my assistant, and all of a sudden, my head starts to sweat and I can't see my phone. I think I'm having a heart attack. Now, I've already had two reconstructive knee surgeries. I have a new shoulder put in already, so I'm not an alarmist, but something was wrong. So I get back to my house. I'm walking up my driveway like I had 27 martinis, and I got taken to the ER. Wow. And it was actually a massive panic attack. Top of my game. On paper, everything looks great, but it was just the years of chronic stress and multiple concussions. And I saw a neurologist, and he says, the gray matter in your brain is significantly impaired because you have a decision to make. I said, excuse me. He goes, you have to retire. Why don't you become a coach or a teacher? I said, a what? I said, I just bought a house. I got two young daughters. I got all these investments. I go, I don't have time to be a coach or a teacher. He goes, well, you better think about it. And luckily, my wife was there. Right. And I was very fortunate to have coaches along the way. And one of these coaches asked me to come join her. So I took a 98% haircut, probably 99. I went back to school at 46 years old to study psychoanalytical theory and neuroscience. And six months later, I'm working with. I'm working with Jerry Jimmy Johnson's pick routines at Hendrick Motorsports. And that's how I started eight and a half years ago.
- [12:11]
B
Wow.
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A
Right? But I knew. So what's so interesting, Paul, is that when I blew my knees out in college, I was a student athlete, and I had an identity crisis. I was in more pain than anybody knew. I didn't know. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't know what it had to turn to. And this lasted 15 years, that I had to prove to people how good I was. I didn't want to be a trader, and luckily I did well. But I hated every moment of it.
- [12:41]
B
Wow.
- [12:41]
A
In the last 10 years, I remember looking at my wife saying, this feels like spiritual suicide.
- [12:45]
B
Yeah.
- [12:45]
A
I said, I got to get out of this. But all of a sudden you have to deal with responsibilities.
- [12:50]
B
Yeah.
- [12:51]
A
And I know so many people going through this. And like I told you before we started this podcast, we talk about, you know, my job is to understand emotions and emotional patterns, to assign new behaviors which creates new experiences. But when we talk about fear, we talk about fear of rejection, judgment, embarrassment, whatever, Fear of loss, whatever it may be. But I think I suffer from fear of regret. Like, I knew I didn't want to live this life, but I kept living it. So when I think about your podcast, it's really the. You are providing such a great roadmap for the game of possibilities.
- [13:38]
B
Absolutely.
- [13:39]
A
And by the way, you may not be right. Win the game of best decisions, but you'll never know if you don't take the risk.
- [13:49]
B
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Life, life, life is all my story. No, and that's a wonderful story, man. There's so many things I want to touch upon. I mean, I think for a lot of people listening, you know, this is a self help podcast and entrepreneurship, but a lot of people, they're trying to take the first step, man. They're trying to take the first step in, you know, taking extreme ownership of their life by making a conscious decision to go ahead and actually execute on an idea that might work out for them in the future. But for a lot of people, they can't get over that idea of actually doing it. So you being a mental performance coach, what do you say to somebody who is battling self destruction every day? And they were exactly where you were at in Wall street for several years, and guess what? Because they were prideful.
- [14:36]
A
Ooh.
- [14:37]
B
So what do you have to tell them?
- [14:38]
A
So you know something? Something's called self exploratory questions. So. Right. So I'm doing this interview with you and you're asking me questions. So you're obviously in the seat of influence. But self exploratory questions, when we ask ourselves questions, puts us in the seat of influence for ourselves, which is really a great state of consciousness. So as you're taking a walk, as you're listening to this, start asking yourself questions. What is it I want out of life? What do I think is holding me back? What am I really trying to accomplish? You don't have to answer them. But what these questions do they start to stimulate your unconscious? Because there's a lot of reasons we do what we do. Sometimes we don't know why, but to break it down even better than that change. We all need to change certain things. And like I said earlier, it doesn't have to be herculean, but you got to start being able to trust yourself. So how do you start trusting yourself? Go to bed earlier, wake up earlier, take a cold shower, work out, exercise. These little changes, even though we're not talking about business yet, you start to trust yourself that you are intentional with what you want to do. These are core things. You don't have to read 900 self help books to understand this. The first self help book, the same as the 901. These are core tenets that can really change the way you feel and respect yourself. And then when we talk about business, you start to trust yourself. But we know business doesn't happen overnight and nor does change. So once you start to get in this thing mentally, you start to really believe that you say something and you will do it. People don't think about that sometimes. Like what does sleep have to do with it? It's really trusting yourself that you'll do what you'll say you'll do. Watch. Right. You start to build that trust. And then when we talk about doing something that's outside of your comfort zone, whether it's business, whether you have a 9 to 5 job and you want to do a side hustle or you want to start a business. Right. You start to really trust yourself. You start to really understand how you think, which is metacognition. And you also have the ability to know that you're able to take risk because you trust yourself. Yeah, right. People think they have to do something so big. I just gave you four things and they're free. Free. Watch what happens. Yeah, yeah.
- [17:13]
B
Small wins, man. Small wins will allow you to go ahead and win the game.
- [17:17]
A
They add up. Watch. You know, we always talk about money compounding. Watch. When behavior compounds.
- [17:23]
B
Absolutely.
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A
You will be blown away.
- [17:27]
B
Get 1% better a day.
- [17:29]
A
It's cliche, but it's true.
- [17:30]
B
It's the. The most things that sound so cliche, brother, are so true in life.
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A
You know, I think half my life is a cliche now, but I agree with you.
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B
Yeah, no, absolutely. Trust me. So let me ask you, okay. What's your vision for yourself personally and professionally now that you're doing something that you actually feel fulfilled helping other people? Where do you see yourself, your vision for yourself personally and professionally in the next five to 10 years?
- [18:03]
A
You know, it's. So I started M1 Performance Group about a year and A half ago, after being with a group for quite a long time and learning a lot, and I had no social media exposure, never been on a podcast, I didn't have to. I was on the hedge fund world. I didn't need to be involved in any of this. So at 53. Well, 51 was a learning lesson. You know, I do a lot of one on one coaching, which was important to me. I think one on one creates impact and I do group coaching. But I've realized now how important mental health is and mental performance is like, everybody needs this. I think it's paramount. So my big word that I think of a lot is impact. So as M1 expands and we have our clients and you know, clients don't last six months at M1, they last five years. Right. What we do is we build new levels of mental performance and we keep leveraging it, but you know, for us we want to have some more significant impact. So podcasts, more stage work, really letting the message out that what we're talking about on the mental performance side, anybody can do. Right? This isn't meant for the multimillionaires and billionaires. Anybody can start. And that's very important to me. And when you talk about these programs, you can do stuff. Anybody can do this stuff. Not everybody was born on home plate.
- [19:35]
B
Correct.
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A
Lot of guys I know started with nothing and they have so much. They had. Their backgrounds are so diverse that like, you know, it's interesting. I'm not discounting that people were victims in life. I am saying that you have a choice if you want to be in victimhood. That's the truth. Right? You may have not been the problem, but when you're in victimhood, you are the problem now. So the question is, if you're the problem, then you have an opportunity to be the solution.
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B
That's anybody.
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A
And that's true. Is it easy? No. Does it get easier? Yes. Does it take courage to start a journey like this? Absolutely. Is it linear? Absolutely not. That's why, you know, and I heard one of your poscas. If I can just go a couple seconds longer, we're going to go back to a cliche. It's the company you keep, right? What's your environment look like? And if you don't have the right one, go find one.
- [20:49]
B
How do you find one?
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A
Listen, you know, I think social media has its pros and cons and you may not get it right first time, but go out there, go see, go to events, go to meetings, go to networking things I don't know. If you admire somebody, send them a note. Do a Jesse Itzler move where you send them a handwritten note. I don't do 50 of those. I don't know. Do something. I can tell you one thing, you will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
- [21:29]
B
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Doing imperfect action is better than doing no action.
- [21:34]
A
Amen.
- [21:35]
B
And at the end of the day, what else do you have to lose? You're going to be stuck in your same situation anyways and taken inaction.
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A
That is the golden rule, isn't it? It's true. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
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B
So let me ask you, in your view, what makes someone mentally resilient and high performing regardless of their field? Because you were a high performer in Wall Street. So how were you able to stay resilient, mentally resilient and high performing even though you didn't enjoy what you did for years?
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A
Well, you know, it's interesting. I wasn't that resilient then, right? Cause I had to leave. So I didn't take care of myself the way I should have. I didn't express what was going on. I didn't have an outlet to share my emotions. So in a way I might have looked resilient. But inside it wasn't as it seemed. So the real question is, how do you build resilience? Obviously, we know when you see the goggins of the world and stuff like that, you got to do hard things. But resilience also comes from sharing how you feel. Because what happens is when we dismiss how we feel the pain we're in, whatever it may be, and we push it aside, it comes back. But it doesn't come back one fold. It comes back fivefold. It shows up in behavior when it's most unexpected or it seeps into things in your life. Resilience definitely is doing hard things and taking risk taking. And you can feel the nervousness, feel the emotions.
- [23:17]
B
So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text, but which u do you listen to is it we could buy a house in Tulum, get optioning those options. We could lose everything. Or let's do a little research, get your head in the trade and make the investment decision that's right for you. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart when did making plans get this complicated?
- [23:52]
A
It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the.
- [23:55]
B
Secure messaging app that brings the whole group together.
- [23:58]
A
Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone.
- [24:07]
B
All protected with end to end encryption.
- [24:09]
A
It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com but when you can't express them, it doesn't stimulate the resilience you want. That's important. Like, I've done triathlons, I've been a D1 athlete. I put myself in a lot of precarious situations, money wise and, and trading and investing. But I was scared half time. But you have to let people know, right? You don't maybe don't to tell everybody, but you need a trusted ally to express how you feel. You know, as a coach, oftentimes we talk, you know, I hear things that nobody else knows. Right. There's got to be an outlet, right. That doesn't diminish resilience. I think it leverages it. So when I think of my own experience, I wish I had the courage to share. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. And that's the truth. You know, when people see me, they, I'm like, that's not the whole story.
- [25:16]
B
Yeah.
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A
And maybe that's why I do what I do now.
- [25:18]
B
No, it seems like you're paying it forward, man. You know, you got into this field because of fulfillment, helping other people so they don't have to relive the situation that you did. You know, not being able to ask for help, not being open minded about it. I mean, myself, I came from an industry in law enforcement where, dude, you're at a, you're part of a good old boys club.
- [25:39]
A
Absolutely.
- [25:40]
B
Every, everybody holds their feelings in everybody's macho. Testosterone is in the air, man, and no one wants to talk about how they feel. But then also within first responders is a high suicide rate because of that. Right. And that's behind the scenes. That's not shown in the media, man. But there's a lot of officers out there struggling, you know, and my, my, my advice to you guys is ask for help. You know, it doesn't make you guys.
- [26:03]
A
Weaker, it makes you stronger.
- [26:05]
B
Stronger.
- [26:06]
A
You know? You know, it's interesting. There's this whole, you know, we know what material wealth is, you know, cars, houses. But ever since COVID or maybe before, maybe with Simone Biles, all these things, there's a holistic wealth movement happening. And that holistic wealth movement is quality of life. Yeah, is, is. I don't know what happiness is, but I know what joy feels like accomplishing things. It's really shifted and not, you know, comparing or envy and stuff. Like that. I think we're starting to see things differently.
- [26:40]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [26:41]
A
And having these sort of conversations is so important. They should be modeled, and people should know that there are people out there who are willing to listen, and it's a sign of strength. I want to once again emphasize that. And by the way, as Nick Saban says, who I think was an incredible coach, we all have this massive capability gap. Be curious to see what that looks like. And by the way, it's not linear. We get knocked in the head a couple times, but we learn a little bit. And that goes back to resilience. Take risks, but make sure they're not reactive risks, but they're responding and thought through. Right. We're in the game of best decisions. Only time tells us if we're right.
- [27:27]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [27:28]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [27:29]
B
Yeah. So what would you say is one piece of advice you would give to our listeners that's listening to this episode right now for boosting their mental health starting today.
- [27:44]
A
One of the simple things, and I know it's been around for a while, is pen to paper, journal a bit. But now when I say journal, be consistent, right? Consistency with evidence builds confidence. Right. You can't tweak inconsistency. You don't only journal when things are bad. You have to journal when things are good. Pen to paper, brain dump. Get it into that sort of rhythm about, like. And it's very simple. This is what you write down. This is called feed forward thinking. What did I do well today? I don't care if you woke up early. It's the only thing you did well. What do I need? What do I want to get better at? Right? Not I want to put down the Snickers. I want to get better at eating more fruit. This is not positive psychology. This is just feed forward. I'm not a very big positive psychology guy. I'm a big positive attitude person. So the way we reframe things really affects our narrative. So my recommendation to everybody, I did this well today. I want to get better at this. So now we know. I don't want to go back to the cliches, but the energy flows as some garbage like that. We start to think differently. So now we talk about sleep, nutrition, exercise, you know, mindfulness, right? Breath work. Put these into your daily routines and be consistent. Do it for a week. And now add a little journaling to do some brain dumping. Before you go to bed, send Paul a text on the cast and tell me what you think. Right. Do that two weeks in a row now we're talking how time plays into this. Do it for a month. There's certain guarantees. If you drink a lot, you're going to feel like shit in the morning. That's a guarantee. If you do this, you're going to see change. Yeah.
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B
Just by taking the action, guys.
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A
Just by taking the action.
- [29:45]
B
I love it. I love it. Evan. And Evan, you got to come on a second podcast, dude. I know you're ran out of time here, but where can my audience find you, dude?
- [29:54]
A
I'm on social media. Mark72. On Instagram, on LinkedIn. I'm Evan Marks. We have a website, m1performance group.com. we have a lot of podcasts on there, some great videos, some great written blogs and content about performance. And my team's done a very good job on it. So I'm pretty proud of it.
- [30:15]
B
And then you guys cater to almost everybody in every niche or specifically a certain group.
- [30:21]
A
We cater to high performers and decision making roles. Love it. Pressure is a privilege to us. Yes. It's a responsibility and those are the people we cater to. Yes.
- [30:33]
B
Love it. There you guys have it. Evan Marks, mental performance coach. Guys, leave a five star review on Spotify, Apple and YouTube. Thank you for making us top eight in all categories across the board in the United States right now. Guys, we are doing this for you guys and for your guys. Mental health, this is self help.
- [30:50]
A
Amen. Amen.
- [30:51]
B
That's what it's about. You got to get your mindset right before you go ahead and handle business is what I always like to say. Guys, with that being said, I'm Paul Alex. This is the level up. We'll catch you on the next one.
- [31:20]
A
Sa.