Inspire Someone Today
Inspire Someone Today
E147 | 66.1 & Beyond - Lessons from Africa to America | Marcus Frick
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What happens when you trade modern conveniences for a bicycle and a bucket in rural Zambia? For Marcus Frick, a resilience coach and former leader at the Mayo Clinic, his 27-month Peace Corps experience profoundly transformed his understanding of what truly constitutes a problem worth worrying about.
Drawing from experiences like biking for hours with a fever to get antibiotics or doing laundry by hand while villagers watched and commented, Marcus developed a perspective that now helps busy professionals recalibrate their relationship with stress. His simple but powerful framework—asking "Is anyone's life in danger?" and "Will we figure this out?"—cuts through the noise of perceived problems that dominate our digital workdays.
As a health coach at the Mayo Clinic, Marcus has observed that many people achieve health goals but struggle to maintain them because they rely on unsustainable methods. The solution isn't more willpower but rather establishing a compelling vision (like one client's desire to be "the fun, cool grandma") and implementing habits that work within real-life constraints. This approach aligns with his newsletter 66.1, named for the average age at which Americans develop chronic disease, which explores evidence-based approaches to extending not just lifespan but also healthy years of life.
For building confidence, Marcus emphasizes that action precedes feeling—"competence precedes confidence." Rather than trying to feel confident first, start with small, consistent actions that build skill. His own "daily minimum" of 100 push-ups and 100 air squats ensures forward momentum even on the busiest days. By applying the 80/20 principle, which focuses on the few high-leverage activities that yield the most results, professionals can simplify their approach while maximizing their impact.
Ready to transform your relationship with stress, energy, and self-belief? Marcus offers one simple invitation: "Just run the experiment. Whatever you're wondering about trying, go try it and learn—don't hold back."
Link to 66.1 - https://66point1.beehiiv.com/
Have you purchased the copy of Inspire Someone Today, yet - Give it a go geni.us/istbook
Available on all podcast platforms, including, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify
Zambia Experience and Perspective
Speaker 1I think the biggest thing that I got out of Zambia and continue to apply to professional life is an understanding of what actually constitutes a problem when you are sitting behind a computer screen and fairly removed from reality. In a lot of ways. I think it's common and it's easy to get worked up about a perceived problem. Someone's a little bit impatient about something. But if you zoom out and you ask yourself, one, is anyone's life in danger? And two, are we going to figure this out? And the answers are usually no, no one's life is in danger and yes, we will figure this out Then, okay, we can breathe and we can problem solve from there.
Speaker 1And because there was so little mediation in daily life in Zambia meaning you had to cook your food over a fire, you had to get your water out of a well, you had to draw water by hand, like I said, there was no running, no electricity. Cell service was very spotty. So if you factor all that in and you've been in that environment for two years, then you're not really going to get too fired up about someone forgetting to respond to an email or these other things that really are non-problems if, like I said, food security or clean drinking water has been.
Speaker 2Welcome to Inspire Someone Today podcast, a show where we dive into the stories and insights that has the power to create ripples of inspiration in your life. I'm your host, shrikant, and I'm thrilled to be with you on this journey of inspiration. Hey, my dear listeners, welcome back. We have new guest, new episode, and it's a joy to have somebody who is challenging the status quo. So what do I mean by that? What do you discover when you leave the boardroom for the bush of Zambia? What if energy, not time, is your most valuable currency? And what if the loudest voice holding you back is your own? Today, it's an absolute joy for me to sit down with Marcus Rick, the resilience coach and former Mayo Clinic leader, who is redefining how we think about stress, self-belief and success, from the wild terrains to internal shifts. This episode, my dear listeners, is about recalibration of mindsets, habits and human potential. So let's dive right in, marcus, it's a joy to have you on this particular episode of Inspire Someone today. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1Thank you for having me. Srikanth, Happy to be here.
Speaker 2And before we dive into your amazing work and insights, what's something about Marcus that doesn't make it to the LinkedIn headlines? What is that we don't know about Marcus?
Speaker 1One that probably doesn't make it to LinkedIn too often is that I really enjoy hunting. We were talking before the podcast started. I was out bear hunting with some friends this weekend and no bear in the freezer yet, but I found it's a great way to reset mentally, physically, but also it just makes the most sense to me to harvest my own meat, get the cleanest meat available, and fortunately I live in a very hunter friendly state where there's a lot of opportunity to harvest your own meat. So it's kind of my main hobby, if you will, outside of when I have some free time outside of work.
Speaker 2Marcus, the bear hunter, put that to the headline that would make it to LinkedIn sometime.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's probably not going to be my LinkedIn byline anytime soon.
Speaker 2And talking about expeditions, one cannot miss the expedition that kind of intrigued me to reach out to you to know more about it, to hear more about it, and the expedition I'm talking about is the Zambia expedition. What drew you to Zambia? What did you hope to find there?
Speaker 1So, for listeners, the background is I was a Peace Corps volunteer US Peace Corps in Zambia from June 2017 to August 2019. So 27 months? A lot of people say it's two years. I like to remind them that it's more than two years, because when you're deep in the village like that all alone, it's pretty easy to feel like time doesn't pass very quickly. So, to answer the question, what drew me to Zambia? Gosh, it was quite the process really.
Speaker 1My senior year of college. I went to college an hour away from home, had never really left home for an extended period of time and really the only thing I knew I wanted out of life after college was a big challenge and I wanted it to be somehow valuable to other people. It's one thing to travel the world that's a worthwhile thing to do but I wanted to do more than just travel. I wanted to somehow be of service to people who could benefit from my skill set. So I remember very distinctly a conversation with a mentor in my senior year of college and I was kind of going back and forth on these different programs I could do that would allow me to travel, allow me to engage in meaningful work, and I was hesitant to apply to Peace Corps because, like I said, it's a 27-month commitment which, when you're 21 years old, you're like that's 10% of my life. That's pretty hard to wrap your head around. And not to mention the fact that we would be going to Zambia, which is actually I didn't know at that point where I would be going, but I knew it would be a foreign country. I knew it would be really far from home. I knew it would be somewhere where I would have to learn a new language or at least really develop my Spanish skills, which were rusty at best. So eventually, this mentor said if you really want an adventure, do Peace Corps. There's not really anything that compares. And I couldn't shake that line from my head, despite the fact that I had a girlfriend at the time and it was pretty hard to see how that was going to work out if I was going to be a Peace Corps volunteer.
Speaker 1So, to skip a couple of steps here, I applied to Peace Corps oh gosh, I think it was Panama, maybe Dominican Republic and I interviewed and they pretty quickly said no, you're not what we need. And the thought process there for me was to develop my Spanish skills. And the thought process there for me was to develop my Spanish skills. And then I talked to a whole bunch of folks who had been Peace Corps volunteers in the past and just to get their advice as to how I can make this work. And everyone said you should go through the application again and you should check that little box that says I am willing to go anywhere in the world and do any job you think I should do. I am willing to go anywhere in the world and do any job you think I should do. So you're just signing over the whole next two years to the best interest of Peace Corps.
Speaker 1And it took me a little while to warm up to that idea because really you're not going to end up in a nice, warm Central American country at that point. In a nice warm Central American country at that point the two biggest Peace Corps stations in the world were Zambia and Ukraine, and obviously not Ukraine anymore. There's other things going on there that keep Peace Corps from being there. But pretty quickly, once I checked that box, I was sent an invitation to interview for Zambia. They said I was being considered for an English teaching job as well as a aquaculture fish farming job, which I didn't know anything about so.
Speaker 1I ended up. I was an English major, so I ended up being selected for the English teaching role and, uh, yeah, four, six months later I got on a flight to rural zambia and then we got um three months of language and cultural training and then I moved to a rural village all on my own no other peace corps volunteers there and taught english for a couple years. To recap, what I was looking for was one a meaningful adventure that was going to test me, while two doing work that was beneficial to other people.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a very noble thought of doing work that is beneficial to other people and stepping out of your comfort zone, going all the way to Zambia not knowing what's in store for you. I'm sure you had your moments that changed your whole perspective, be it about life or about leadership. So what are those one or two experiences that shaped or reshaped you as a person?
Speaker 1So all of these moments circle back to me on my bicycle, because my village was 20 kilometers from a paved road, so there was a 20 mile bike ride on a gravel road, a dirt road. Every time I wanted to either leave the village or go back home from town. Sometimes there was a car available pretty rare and there were times when I was sick having to pedal out of the village to go get antibiotics for some infection that I had contracted in the village. Um, you'd end up with flat tires and other things and I think the the bike was just a metaphor really for doing things the simple way, the hard way, and, as far as those actual moments, one would definitely be biking out to go get those antibiotics. I had some sort of an infected wound and you're just mentally foggy because it had been a week, and I called the Peace Corps doctor. They were like, yeah, you need this thing. I was like, okay, I don't have it, how should I get it? They're like, well, go to town. It's like, okay, I guess I'm going to hop on my bike despite the fact that I have a fever and pretty good brain fog, because my body's fighting an infection and you just feel awful, and then by the time you bike in the hot sun for an hour or a couple hours, you feel worse and then you hitchhike the rest of the way to town once you get to the road. So it's just this moment of not really having. You don't have a choice. You can sit there in the village and then get really, really, really sick, or you can get on your bike, do what most people would consider to be a pretty difficult workout and dig the hole a little deeper in terms of your, your health, and then you can get your medication. So it's just a an access challenge that we're not used to handling. Most people in the us aren't used to handling anyway. So that's one moment, um.
Speaker 1Another moment I remember is every sunday I do my laundry, and in the village you have to do laundry by hand. There's no running water, no electricity and a lot of the people in the village at that point would be walking to church, and the women especially just got a kick out of this white guy who's probably doing a pretty bad job, to be honest, at doing laundry. I didn't do laundry by hand before Zambia and they would kind of chuckle. They had no shame in stopping and staring and watching me on my porch doing laundry, and they would talk about me.
Speaker 1You would hear your name, but you wouldn't always know what they were saying, because they were speaking Bemba, and you felt like a zoo animal and you're all alone, there is not another American to confide in, and it's just a really, really alienating and frustrating experience, because you're doing your best, you're there for pure reasons, and you're like gosh, can you just go away please? And I think it's just an important reminder that one not everyone wanted you there. This is their home. Most of the village is either indifferent or even a little bit hostile toward your presence, and then it's also a reminder of how incapable a lot of people are really like it's a skill doing laundry by hand, um that that most people haven't developed, at least in the us here. So you realize how much you don't know and how people, just like I said, aren't necessarily in favor of you being in their village.
Speaker 2Doing your own laundry, bicycling. While these might sound like good stories, good anecdotes to hear, I'm sure these experiences have given you a whole lot of learning that you're now being able to put back into your professional life In retrospect. How is this shaping you to be the person that you are, to be the professional that you are today?
Speaker 1I think the biggest thing that I got out of Zambia and continue to apply to professional life is an understanding of what actually constitutes a problem when you are sitting behind a computer screen and fairly removed from reality. In a lot of ways. I think it's common and it's easy to get worked up about a perceived problem. Someone's a little bit impatient about something. But if you zoom out and you ask yourself, one, is anyone's life in danger? And two, are we going to figure this out? And the answers are usually no, no one's life is in danger and yes, we will figure this out Then, okay, we can breathe and we can problem solve from there.
Managing Energy in a Busy World
Speaker 1And because there was so little mediation in daily life in Zambia meaning you had to cook your food over a fire, you had to get your water out of a well, you had to draw water by hand, like I said, there was no running, no electricity. Cell service was very spotty. So if you factor all that in and you've been in that environment for two years, then you're not really going to get too fired up about someone forgetting to respond to an email or these other things that really are non-problems if, like I said, food security or clean drinking water has been a problem in your life so, basically, zambia opened up a whole different perspective for you, marcus, certainly, and with that experience, you are also now focused on other elements, which we'll talk in a bit, and one specific area that you're focusing is in the area of energy and stress management.
Speaker 2Tell us a bit more about it. What is it? How can we learn to protect and replenish energy? It's strange. On one hand, we're talking about not having that power or energy in a physical form in Zambia, and here we're talking about energy, the human sense of it, and how to conserve and replenish that energy.
Speaker 1Yes, yes, that's a good question. So when we were talking in preparation for the podcast, you were telling me that a lot of your listeners are pretty committed professionals working busy jobs in a lot of Zoom calls and meetings, probably slammed with emails, and we all know that by the end of a day like that, looking at a computer for 8, 10, 12 hours, you're tired and you're probably pretty stressed out. And I've worked. So my job at the Mayo Clinic is as a health coach. I'm trained and certified as a health and wellness coach there and I've found that a lot of times people are in these jobs that they actually enjoy or, at the very least, deem worthwhile, and aren't going to necessarily just leave the job because it drains them of energy. It's work that they find meaningful. So this advice to just peace out and go live off grid probably no, we're not going to do that. What you need to do is find sustainable ways to recharge and maintain that energy level so you can go for a five-day work week and maintain a high level of output. A couple ways we do that with my clients. One is I am such a strong proponent of a walking meeting. Obviously we're not doing that today. That would be a very distracting podcast. But if you have a one-to-one meeting with a co-er to touch base for 15 or 20 minutes, tell them hey, my camera's off because I'm walking. And if they think you're weird, tell them you're a lot smarter when you're walking. There's all sorts of research that says your brain is more active when you're walking. So it might sound outlandish to say that, but it's 100% true. So the walking meeting is one I think everyone needs a daily movement practice. You don't need to do high intensity interval training, hiit training, every day.
Speaker 1I really am not a believer in prescribing a certain exercise program to a broad swath of people, because different people have different interests. And if you're not interested in what you're doing for exercise, you're not gonna stick with it. So find what works for you. Interested in what you're doing for exercise, you're not going to stick with it. So find what works for you, find what you enjoy doing and just do that on a daily basis.
Speaker 1If you're working, if you're a busy professional, especially if you have a family, the morning is probably the best time to do that. Personally, I work out every Tuesday, thursday morning with some friends and we were all training for the same reason we want to be ready to hunt, like we talked about earlier, and uh, it's really just a great reset, physically as well as mentally and emotionally, just to get together with some friends with common values, common goals, and then great conversation flows from there. But also we got a good workout in and then the whole day it feels like you're running flows from there. But also we got a good workout in and then the whole day it feels like you're running downhill from there.
Speaker 2so those are a couple walking meeting and then a regular workout, ideally with friends good ways to maintain energy and from the work that you are doing at Mayo Clinic, I'm sure that you're also picking up signs of what stresses people. What are those stresses, the certain signs of it, and most people don't realize it before it's too late. So what are those signs that somebody can pick up? So that one is. We spoke about energy management, the other is the stress management.
Speaker 1So signs that someone is stressed out and headed probably in an unhealthy direction. One I notice a lot is attempting to control everything. It's the person who's emailing about every single possible contingency. Or they call, or they ask if you have time for a team's call and they say they want to talk about this meeting that we just had and they wanted to make sure we're all on the same page. And you're like why are we having a meeting about a meeting, a meeting about a meeting, and then what's going to keep us from having another meeting about this meeting, about the last meeting? And then you don't have any time left in your day and I think there's an important lesson in there about controlling what you can control, but also limiting yourself to worrying about only the important things, like we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1I think I have a strong understanding of what actually constitutes a problem, and if there's not a huge red flag out of the last meeting, I don't think we need to discuss it. We're going to just let life unfold, get back to your job, get to work. So if you find yourself wanting to have more and more meetings and sending more and more emails and getting lots of communication going, I think that either you have there are unclear expectations of you and you need to ask your boss what is expected, because you're trying to do everything when in reality that's not unlikely, not what's going to be expected of you, and then two just step away from your desk, go for a walk, go for a run, whatever you need to do, and see what problems actually bubble up to the surface, and then go work on those, because not everything can be a priority. So I guess I answered what's a symptom and how to address it there.
Speaker 2So not everything is a priority. That's a good one, because that's where it stems that, the wanting to be in charge all the time for everything.
Speaker 1That'll drive you crazy.
Signs of Stress and Healthy Responses
Speaker 2And close on the heels of managing energy, being better aware of your stressors. And aware of your stressors is also the fact that is stemming from a point of having that self-belief, self-trust. So what are things that one can do to overcome those limiting beliefs? You have written a lot on this particular subject. That's the reason why I'm drawing your attention to this particular piece is how do you silence that inner critic? How did you personally overcome this? What was your earliest memory of overcoming your own self-doubt, self-belief, and what can you kind of share with our listeners of identifying and overcoming those limiting beliefs?
Speaker 1I think step one is to just let it in. I think we get in trouble when we try to deny it. Whether you're worried about your ability to get fit, or your ability to earn a promotion, or attract the spouse of your dreams or give a good podcast interview, whatever it is Anxiety, fear, worry is there for good reason. It's a sign that you care. It's also a sign that you probably don't have quite the skill set you need, and that's okay. But if you try to deny it, you're not going to get any better. You will get more anxious and then, because you're not getting any better, you're going to get even more anxious, anxious, and then, because you're not getting any better, you're going to get even more anxious. So we let it in whatever it is, and then we run right at the problem, go in the direction of fear. I think there's a Seth Godin quote out there somewhere that says if you're afraid of it, you should probably just go do exactly what you're afraid of. Mind up, be Seth God, golden. And I guarantee you that wasn't an exact quote, but directionally accurate there. So we're going to, now that we've let it in, we're going to face the fear head on. And if your fear is oh man, we'll use the podcast example. Your fear is that you're not going to give a good podcast interview. How to tackle that head on?
Speaker 1One of my favorite ways to practice anything speaking is just to drive around alone and practice my responses to your questions. Or whatever the scenario is, if you're worried about attracting a partner that you're proud of, the partner of your dreams, then what do you need to do? You probably need to put a better product on the marketplace, if you will. Do you have a good haircut? Do you speak articulately, on and on and on. And then you're going to just go at the dating marketplace. You're going to go on dates and you're going to get your feelings hurt, and on and on. But what you're going to do is learn what's working and what's not, and you're going to build confidence through that process.
Speaker 1With the podcast example, we're going to just keep going on podcasts and learning what stories resonate, what verbal tics we have and, for me, probably get some new headphones next time, that type of thing. But it really just requires reps and they're going to be really ugly reps before. They're the reps that you dream of, the high quality reps that you're shooting for. So now that we've one, let the fear in two started to run at it. I guess I already started talking in this direction, but we're going to iterate, do more of what works, less of what doesn't, and as you just continue to accumulate the repetitions, the reps, then your confidence builds and good things happen from there. It's a I mean Alex Ramosi is probably the one that I've heard say it the most that competence precedes confidence.
Speaker 2Competence precedes confidence. Yes, that's a good one, yeah, so you got to just practice.
Speaker 1Get good, Then you'll be confident.
Speaker 2These are some good tips as well. First is, let it in. Acknowledgement is the key. First and foremost, acknowledge that there is an issue, there is something that you are worrying about, you are fearing about, and then take it head on. Any personal experience that you can share that kind of helped you to kind of manage it yourself. First.
Speaker 1That's every day. That's every day, you bet, for anyone who's trying to get better, gosh, I mean. Zambia is a good example. Fitness is a good example. You've heard a lot about Zambia, so we'll talk about fitness.
Speaker 1Coming out of college, I was, I would have told you I was reasonably fit. I was not fit, I was just tall enough that I didn't look overweight. And I remember very distinctly a trip with two friends to Maine the fall after my senior year of college. We were on a hike and then we started running back to the car just for the challenge of it and I could not keep up. I wasn't even close to keeping up with these other two guys and it was a pretty.
Speaker 1It was a very sobering moment for me and I was, frankly, really embarrassed and also motivated because, kind of like, like we were just talking about, I ended up seeing that that was not who I wanted to be.
Speaker 1So you look at the fear I wouldn't have called it fear then, but shame or whatever and you say, okay, so what needs to change? And step one is moving a lot more and training hard and keeping that, that painful memory in the back of my mind so I wouldn't be in that place again. And then while I was in Zambia actually did a lot of training, a lot of running and eventually got to the point where I was like, okay, I can keep up with pretty much whoever I want to probably not like an Olympic level athlete, but otherwise I'm good to go and went on a lot of runs with friends and did some workouts with friends and that was a good. It wasn't that I was trying to compete with them as much as that exact scenario was the big pain point that prompted the whole change. So it was an affirming experience to go through that again and keep up.
Speaker 2So that's one example from my life, thanks, and Marcus, in the work that you do as a coach. This was your own example. You were able to dust it off and keep going. But for a lot many people, once that initial inspiration or motivation fades off, is where the challenge of sustaining it comes through. So what is your tips, or how do you kind of help your clients to go beyond that initial motivation or inspiration?
Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
Speaker 1I'm glad you asked so for the clients I'm working with. A lot of them are they've achieved their ideal health outcomes at some point in their life, but they haven't been able to sustain them. So maybe they're what I call the yo-yo dieter, where they gained a bunch of weight, they lost it all, they were feeling great, but then they gained it back. And I think what happens is they get to these goals through unsustainable means. It's not that their motivation or their desire to stay healthy has gone away, it's just that they have kids to take care of, a demanding day job. And if they lost weight by training twice a day, seven days a week and weighing every meal and counting calories and so on and so forth, those are just unsustainable habits so they fall by the wayside. So to fix that we need to do two things. One is to get really clear on why we're making this change and not just. It's not as simple as I want to feel better, I want to have more energy. My favorite answer to this question from a client is I want to be the fun, cool grandma. She has three kids at home, her parents are 65, 70, overweight, not able to be active, and she sees herself headed in that same direction, doesn't think that's fair to her children or grandchildren, is worried about the example she's showing her children right now. She has lost the weight in the past, but again through unsustainable means. So we get really really abundantly clear on what it looks like to be the fun cool grandma really abundantly clear on what it looks like to be the fun cool grandma. It's taking trips with the grandkids to amusement parks. It's taking family vacations to the lake home, so on and so forth. It's being able to get down on the floor with your grandbabies to play with them, dancing at your granddaughter's wedding. And then we have this vision that's so clear that it's essentially just pulling us into this ideal future.
Speaker 1And then all we have to do I say all we have to do it's really difficult, still it's quite simple. It's not easy we have to backfill this momentum and this vision with sustainable habits Not just habits, but sustainable habits. Knowing that this client works, has kids, is a wife. We're probably not going to be executing two workouts a day. It's ridiculous to think that we'd be weighing every meal and counting all of our calories. But what are the big picture things we can do that are going to get us 90% of the way there. She, on her own, cut out soda, revamped the family meal planning, got back to doing workouts. So to answer the original question, step one get that very clear. Why Get that what we call, at least in the wellness coaching field, a wellness vision? What are we going for? And then backfill it with not just the right, not just habits, but sustainable habits? I think that's where a lot of people get hung up. It's not a lack of willpower, it's just we create a system that's too complex, too difficult to maintain when life gets busy.
Speaker 2And I love the phrase, the vision that you had the fun. Cool grandma. I think this is like what should your future self look like?
Speaker 1Yeah, then you know really quickly am I on track or not? Because the fun cool grandma can't have three different chronic diseases, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2Okay, if you're ready, we'll get started with the power of three rounds. So close on the heels of the fun, call Grandma. What is three advice that you would give to your future self? Three pieces of advice to your future self.
Speaker 1I'm 31 right now. Let's go 10 years out. I'll have kids, be married, hopefully with all that, and it'll be a pretty different life from where I'm at. So one keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. Two always over-communicate. Most of your stress is just because you're not having a conversation you very easily could. And three don't be so worried about getting to where you're going, Just enjoy where you're at.
Speaker 2That's slowly piece of self-advice to your future self. What are three micro-experiments that you have adapted from your self-development standpoint?
Speaker 1One is fasting, and when people hear fasting they think like we didn't eat for 72 hours. For me, it's just not eating. If I'm not hungry, a lot of times it's on a Monday, because on the weekend my girlfriend's a great baker, so we might've had a few extra desserts and maybe had some drinks with friends. And you feel a little foggy mentally and honestly I'm not that hungry because I've been eating a lot, and again, it's from Zambia. There wasn't always food available, so you just learn what it actually feels like to be hungry and I noticed I'm a lot mentally sharper, a lot more level-headed, less reactive. So I fast at least once a week, maybe no more than 24 hours. So it's not really that dramatic of a fast, it's just not eating. Another experiment Well, entrepreneurship is always an experiment, right, it's free. You know that too, and that's one I've been experimenting with for three, four years now.
Sustaining Motivation Beyond Initial Inspiration
Speaker 1You never know what business could work. We tend to overvalue our ideas, especially early on. So I've tinkered around with I still have a newsletter. I'm writing a digital course business, a Talo brand that I'm building with a friend, obviously this coaching business. So I mapped it out the other day. I think I've tinkered with 10 to 12 different business models, and the cool part about that is you just learn so much about yourself and you develop skills that you just aren't forced to develop in your traditional nine to five job. That's so true. Yeah, you know just as well as I do, probably better. Uh, the third experiment, kind of in the way of entrepreneurship, but writing. You see my journal here. I'm always writing something and doing it by hand. Um, there's a way to.
Speaker 1for some reason, writing by hand is a much more impactful way to clear my mind, and I often end up writing my way to a lot of the answers I've been missing.
Speaker 2So this is all kinds of writing, just not journaling or reflecting all kinds of writing.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's a lot in here about business questions.
Speaker 2A couple years ago there was a ton in here about relationships, so it's really just kind of the question of the day I'm sure, for you to write, for you to experience life as you have experienced so far, you would have had impact to multiple sources, be it books, be it mentors or podcasts. If you were to give three recommendations of any of these, what would those three recommendations be?
Speaker 1This is hard. These are good questions. I want to hear your answers too. Yeah, yeah, I want to hear you answer that one after this.
Speaker 1Books. It really depends on your stage in life. It's hard to say If you are a young man trying to make sense of your romantic relationships with women. I cannot emphasize enough the way of the superior man in today's day and age that that title might be a little controversial. Suck it up and go read it and you're gonna learn a lot. It's good for you.
Speaker 1Podcasts I think there are. Everyone can make a podcast now. It's not that hard. Most people don't prepare nearly as well as you do, as thoroughly as you do. So kudos there. I appreciate that it's. It's fun to be a guest when your host is prepared. It's brutal when they're not.
Speaker 1A couple really, really thorough hosts that I enjoy. One is Cody Sanchez, probably because all the way in on the entrepreneurship train right now, and then Chris Williamson, modern Wisdom. Cody Sanchez's podcast is called the Big Deal Podcast. Both just really thorough hosts. And then one more book I would recommend is Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. Are you familiar? I am not Okay.
Speaker 1So the notion there is there's no reason to die with a whole bunch of money in your bank account and his one-liner is basically he's optimizing for fulfillment, not necessarily wealth.
Power of Three: Advice and Experiments
Speaker 1So you take here are the things I want to do with my life. Maybe it's take a trip with your spouse, maybe it's build a business, whatever. And then you bucket them into different stages of your life, because you're probably not going to take this big ski trip when you're 80 years old. You should probably handle that when you're 30 or 40. But if you're a big train fanatic and you like to take train trips, you can probably postpone that for later in life when you're not able to be as active. And then he's got all these. He's a gosh, I think. He's like a natural gas, he's a trader of some sort finance guy and so he's got all these models for optimizing your finances for maximum fulfillment really a worthwhile read. You can get all the way into the weeds of the models or you can just read it and say, okay, I should probably book that trip and do that thing I keep talking about nice thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 2You gave me something to pick up and read.
Speaker 1What are your answers there, Sri?
Speaker 2I think I kind of concur with you on the book bit of it, depending on the stage of life that your habits, your tastes changes. For me, a couple of books that had great impact earlier on when I was in my leadership journey, this book from Robin Sharma, leadership Without Title that headline itself resonated so much with me. Leadership is not about the title. Leadership is about the impact that you want to create.
Speaker 2So, that's one book that had a great significant impact on me. The other one is Darren Hardy. I'm a big, big fan of Darren Hardy. Darren Hardy's book the Compound Effect is one good read that kind of opens up a lot of perspectives for what you can be. The recent one that I have really enjoyed reading was this book called us the one thing. Oh, I know that one. Yeah, the one thing.
Speaker 1So if we have a keller, if we there's keller keep going, though I think you. I think it's worth the readers hearing, or the listeners I, I think.
Speaker 2uh, from a podcast standpoint, one podcast that I definitely recommend people to listen to is Matt Abraham's Think Fast Act Slow. I'm not getting the title right, but it is Matt Abraham's, from the Stanford Business School. Okay, let's get to the last of the power of the round question here. So before we get in there, maybe a power of the round question here, so before we get in there may be a bit brief about 66.1. What is it and how did you have such a huge fan base? And if you were to pick three best articles from 66.1 till date, what would be those three best articles?
Speaker 1Okay, what is it? It is the twice weekly newsletter that I write and the goal of 66.1 is to, like we're talking about earlier, help you build the, the build your health for the long term so you can be around to dance at your granddaughter's wedding. We're not trying to get big and buff, necessarily, we want to build for the long term. 66.1, the title came because 66.1 is the average health span of an adult in the US. If you're not familiar with health span, it's the years lived without the chronic disease. So on average in the United States, an adult will have a chronic disease by age 66.1. So that's what? 66 and 40 days or so, 36 days Not that old, really not that old.
Speaker 1I've seen a lot of people suffer that fate in my job at the Mayo Clinic and it's unfortunate how the audience came to be LinkedIn. Everyone, all the newsletter subscribers, are through LinkedIn. So you alluded to some of the content I've shared. A lot of it is people interested in building their habits for longevity and that pulls them on to the newsletter. And then there was a third part to that question. You'll have to remind me.
Speaker 2What are the the best articles on?
Speaker 166.1 one people really like is kind of a hot take. That I wrote on ozempic for weight loss and you're gonna get me going here, but, um, basically, if you look into all these journal articles supporting drugs, pharmaceuticals they're generally funded by the pharmaceutical companies, probably not a shocker. But it's not pure science and Ozempic's no different. They created a study, they being Novo Nordisk. You read to the bottom of this study and the authors are tied to Novo Nordisk and in the study they gave a control group Ozempic, or, excuse me, they gave a control group just a lifestyle intervention, no Ozempic. And then they gave another group the lifestyle intervention with Ozempic. The Ozempic people lost a little more weight not a ton than the control group while they were on the lifestyle intervention. Then they just cut the whole thing off and had no intervention for either group and the Ozempic people regained pretty much all the weight that they had lost and the conclusion of the study is basically to keep weight off, you need Ozempic, which is super messed up because they also stopped this lifestyle intervention that had people exercising and eating clean and sleeping enough and doing all the things you need to do to live a healthy life. So probably longer answer than you're bargaining for.
The 66.1 Newsletter and Health Span
Speaker 1But that's one of the articles, and then another one that I've received a lot of positive feedback on was kind of a controversial. I guess that's a theme here is swimming upstream, against conventional wisdom. But uh, I wrote a piece on alcohol and health and there's a lot of people out there saying no, alcohol is the way to go, you should never drink, alcohol is bad for you, and I think they're right insofar as if you look only at the biological effects of alcohol, it's not going to help you out. But what people don't consider is the social effects of alcohol, how happy hour tends to be a gathering of friends, and you know that. Um, I mean, generally people are familiar with the notion of happy hour and you typically feel better after you spend an hour or two with friends, having lighthearted conversation, some laughs, and I tend to view alcohol as a kind of an accelerant for that experience. Should it be a daily thing? No, but is a happy hour every now and then with a couple beers, uh, a net positive for your health and your longevity? I would say yes. So that's another 66.1 article.
Speaker 1And then, oh, there's another one, eight, I think it's called eight habits to make your life count or something like that One of those click bitty bloggy titles. But it was really fun to write and again, I've heard some positive feedback there and it's just my best take on how to spend your days. Well, and I think it's part how I'm wired, part just the life I've lived. Between being in Zambia, where life was a lot less predictable, and now working with cancer patients at the Mayo Clinic, where you realize that nothing is guaranteed. I tend to spend a fair bit of time thinking about how am I actually spending my time? Is this worthwhile? Am I helping people? Am I doing the things I want to do? Am I living on my own terms? Which sounds like an exhausting line of questioning, but I think anyone who's living a good life is regularly asking themselves questions like these. So I rolled that all up into a newsletter issue as well.
Speaker 2No for sure. I can personally vouch for it. Reading your articles do open up a lot of questions for the readers. Congratulations on that, thank you Great. So that's the power of three-round segment, marcus, thank you. Thanks for sharing your insights. We'll check along. We'll come to the last part of our conversation. So in the work in the coaching area that you work on, it's also about creating a lot of confidence and clarity amongst your clients. If we were to ask you, as a high-performance coach, what are those habits that you have consistently seen that has helped your clients to build confidence?
Speaker 1show up the way they have showed up for those conversations I think the biggest one is a daily movement practice, and I call I keep it that general because you don't have to be, like I said, blowing yourself up in a HIIT workout. You don't have to be doing a certain weightlifting routine. There's no have-tos, it's just finding that daily practice, or at least regular practice for physical movement, it unlocks different chemicals in the brain. But I think the biggest thing is you're reminding yourself by moving. You're reminding yourself that you are capable it's that simple of doing something hard, and it's going to take you a lot further than standing in front of the mirror and telling yourself that you are enough, or you are capable or you are T yeah, just go do the thing.
Speaker 1And there's something about moving your body that I've seen it over and over again Just sends confidence to the moon in my clients. It's that simple, very simple. Yeah, I have clients. Often what I tell them is, if we're not doing anything in terms of a regular exercise routine, we're going to start with 10 minutes two times a week, which doesn't sound like a lot and it isn't. But when you go from zero to 20 minutes, the change in your mindset and your energy levels is absolutely exponential.
Speaker 2And are there habits or rituals that you practice on a daily, weekly basis that focuses on building this momentum, not the outcomes. Just keep the momentum going.
Speaker 1One for me that keeps the momentum going is I have what I call a daily minimum for exercise and, no matter what's going on, I will do 100 push-ups and 100 air squats. I might not get to the gym and do my ideal workout, but at least I know I'm not going backwards when I do those things.
Speaker 2So daily minimum is what I call it. That's again a micro-experiment that, if not anything, do those mini workouts, yes, yes, that's again a micro experiment that, if not anything, do those mini workouts, yes, yes. And lastly, marcus, any framework or mental models that you use, you refer where people can reset when their vision is blurred in terms of confidence or clarity.
Speaker 1One I always go back to is the 80-20 principle, and that's not typically a fitness framework, but it applies to fitness as well as business and finance and wherever it came from initially. 80-20 or Pareto principle essentially says 80% of your results are going to come from 20% of your actions. So, similar to the one thing, it's worth finding those high leverage opportunities and pulling those levers. We don't need to do a thousand things to get back on track. We probably need to do one or two. So if you're kind of stuck in the muck and confidence is nowhere to be found and you're just not where you want to be, I would say start there, identify the 20% of things that contribute to 80% of your confidence and go, do them, because it's probably simpler than you think.
Speaker 2A great way of looking at it is the high leverage activities. Focus on the high leverage activities for the confidence to kick in.
Speaker 1Yes, you don't have enough time to do everything, so just do what matters.
Speaker 2Great Marcus. This has been one great conversation. Thank you for sharing your early expeditions from Zambia all the way to being that clarity coach, the confidence coach for a lot of your clients. Wishing you lots of ongoing success Before we say goodbye. This show is all about creating ripples of inspiration. What's your? Inspire Someone Today. Message for all the listeners.
Speaker 1Just run the experiment. Whatever you're wondering about trying, go try it and learn, don't hold back, run the experiments Exactly.
Speaker 2Thank you for joining us on this episode of Inspire Someone Today. This is Shrikant, your host, signing off. Until next time, continue to carry the ripples of inspiration, stay inspired, keep spreading the light.
