Personal Socrates With Marc Champagne

Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments

 

As humans, we tend to lean on emotions when reacting to everything that’s happening personally and professionally. We get carried away and come up with our own narrative in our heads. And with all the noise around us, it’s easy to give in, get stressed, lose our identity and lose focus on what we were trying to achieve. If your plans are not working out and the reset button is out of sight, this is the podcast for you. Marc Champagne shares mental fitness practices and reflective questions to help you find your way back to the right track. So tune in and learn how you can tap into your Personal Socrates and find clarity and intentionality.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Personal Socrates With Marc Champagne

Our guest on the show is Marc Champagne, the author of Personal Socrates. In that book, he interviews two people that have also been on the show, Cal Fussman and Chip Conley. We have lots of mutual friends. His big takeaway is how important it is to make time for quiet reflection. When he was out of a job and trying to figure out what he was going to do next, he said his full-time job was working on his mind. Enjoy the episode.

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Our guest is Marc Champagne who unpacks the mental fitness practices and reflective questions, shaping the lives of some of the most successful and brilliant thinkers in the world. He is the author of Personal Socrates, a bestselling book exploring the pointed questions that stimulate our mental fitness and teach us how to direct our internal narrative to work for us instead of against us. He studies the prompts and practices of legends such as Kobe Bryant, Maya Angelou, Coco Chanel, Stephen Hawking and our mutual friend, Cal Fussman.

He is the host of the Top 50 rated podcast Behind The Human and cofounded the journaling app Kyō, which reached 86.9 million people without any paid advertising. He studied mental fitness practices for over a decade and consults with Fortune 500 companies as a mental fitness strategist and practitioner. His favorite quote is, “We are all one question away from a different life.” Marc, welcome to the show.

Thank you, John. What an intro. I am jazzed to be here.

I always comment when something is so impressive and then it’s 86.9 million. We’re almost at 87 million. This is hilarious. It only shows your integrity to be so specific. Before we get into this wonderful book, which you were kind enough to send me a copy of and I was commenting on the packaging and these interviews are fascinating, it’s one of the things I so enjoyed reading on my trip. I could pick and choose where I wanted to go. I want to hear a little bit more about your story. You talk about it in your book but if you can start your story earlier, in high school, college or wherever you want that you got this entrepreneurial bug.

The entrepreneurial bug was never there at the beginning, to be honest. At least, I think that was the case. I remember I didn’t come out of university thinking, “I’m going to start my business or anything like that.” I wanted to get into sales. I had an uncle in the Toronto area and I was from a smaller city four hours outside of Toronto. It’s a mining blue-collar town. It wasn’t exposed to the world of business and sales. As a young kid, I used to spend the summers in Toronto with my aunt and uncle. My aunt was a VP over at Sharp Electronics and my uncle was the Candyman. He used to work for Hershey. Anytime he would show up, the trunk of the car would open and it was a party.

What I was interested in was the connection with all these different people, specifically with my uncle. He was one of those people that had a certain pulse and energy in the room that you had a good time with. You wanted to continue the conversation. He used to pick me up early in the morning and we’d go for these coffees. He got a hot chocolate for me and this was before university. He would pepper me with questions. “How are you doing? How is your grandmother? When’s the last time you went for a visit?”

[bctt tweet=”We are either in thrive or survive mindset.” username=”John_Livesay”]

The more I reflect on the path that I’m on and this lens of living life through a curious mind and having a book that’s called Personal Socrates loaded full of questions, it was those early days of being asked the questions and pausing to start to think and be more curious that fueled that journey into where I’m at. Before that, out of school, it was sales, which is asking a lot of different questions, being curious and trying to be as present as possible.

I had stints in analytics and market research until eventually, I got to this point which is where I was aiming for, get into product management and brand management in the healthcare space. While I was doing all of that, I had these mental fitness practices in the morning, which I wasn’t calling mental fitness because I didn’t have a terminology for it but it was essentially reading positive, uplifting content early in the morning before starting my day to put my mind in a state that was thriving, motivated or excited. It started when I was in sales because I remember at that time, they used to hire batches of people essentially.

We’d all be trained up in a matter of a few weeks altogether. I’m thinking, “If this is a sales role, how am I going to stand out of the pack if we’re all being trained in the same way?” That’s what sparked these early morning mental nutrition sessions essentially. I quickly started to realize that it doesn’t matter whether I was reading Success Magazine or biographies. Everyone that was coming up had this time where they were prioritizing reflection and journaling. I would write those questions down that they were leaving in the interviews or books. I would write or journal on them based on what was going on in my life. That essentially is what has led me to everything I’m doing.

If I heard you correctly, one of the big takeaways is to make time for quiet reflection. That’s one of the keys through lines you see from all these people that you’ve interviewed. Would that be accurate?

One hundred percent. It’s the superpower that a lot of people don’t talk about. Since the beginning of time, it doesn’t matter who you’re studying or where you’re going back. You can see those moments where there’s time. It was Ryan Holiday who brought this up in one of his books where US President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis was taking these long walks with no meetings just to think. It’s because we have the answers to our questions. We only need to let our minds process it.

Do you think there’s a connection there of where creative ideas come from? Even if we’re not under stress, people get their best ideas in the shower or taking a walk. Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and have to have a notepad next to my bed. I’m like, “This wants to come through.” I hope it’s brilliant or I can read my handwriting in the morning. Sometimes they say your dreams are trying to communicate but when you have an idea like that, whether it’s a walk, a shower or the middle of the night, “What about this,” it keeps flowing, that only comes when you quiet down and for some of us, it’s when we’re sleeping.

 

Sleeping, in the shower or doing some exercise where you’re in a flow state. The consistent thing that’s not present is typically that negative looping, fear state or anxiousness. It’s all of the things that arise when you turn on the news or hit social media. We’re getting hit day in and day out with that energy because it’s hard. We’re only ever in one of these states of mind. We’re either in the thriving state of mind where we feel energized, excited and ready to go or in a survival state of mind. We’re never in both at the same time.

We go back and forth all the time but the key is that can we recognize when we’re in those states of, “I’m feeling anxious and tight,” and acknowledge that and slow down. This is where the mental fitness stuff helps. You release that and get back into that state. When you’re sleeping, you’re typically not fighting to survive.

I love that a lot. I had an experience myself where I was dealing with so many challenges and phone calls. I’m trying to get my mom’s healthcare issues handled. I’m sitting in the parking lot of the dry cleaners taking call after call, responding to text questions and this and that. There are so many moving pieces and your brain is going, “What if this doesn’t happen and then that can happen?” If I reflect on that, I’m like, “That was a survival mode.”

When you’re in that mode, your brain can’t even retain information. It’s like somebody asked me a question and five minutes later, I’ve already forgotten what they asked me or what I’m supposed to do next. I’m writing something down every five seconds. If I could, at that point go mentally fit, I’m being stretched and I was already not resting, to begin with. It’s like an athlete.

It’s the standard state for most of the population, myself included.

We’re already a step behind. It’s like trying to run a marathon and you haven’t been training. It’s the same thing with mental fitness. Unless you’re giving yourself some downtime to replenish the tank, it keeps getting more deleted, is what I’m hearing.

[bctt tweet=”At any point, we are one question away from a different life. ” username=”John_Livesay”]

Let’s use your example as a use case because outside of the specific details related to your mother, there are a lot of similarities there. There are a lot of moving parts, decisions and actions to be taken. The stakes are high. It’s a situation that came somewhat out of the left field and rocks your routine and all of those things. That could be most people’s days.

Let’s put you back in the car at that moment and even take a few deep breaths to reset the body and slow it down. Often, you’re probably sitting there a little bit crunched over and tight. You can notice yourself doing that even working at your computer. You loosen up a bit, take a few deep breaths and that often resets things. This is where the prompts come in. “What is within my control in this situation?”

Logically, what’s the best next step in breaking down a couple of those steps that you have full control over like, “I need to do this.” You can layer on. This stuff is not new. This is coming back into stoicism practices but it’s a moment. Everything isn’t impermanent. A perspective shift of, “This sucks. No doubt. This is a rocky routine but this isn’t permanent.” In the blip of your entire life and for everyone reading, when we’re in these high-stress situations, it’s a line in the chapter. It’s not even the chapter often.

Sometimes it’s subtle shifts. This is what I was picking up in the reading in the early morning. You’re reading these passages and all of a sudden, whatever is going on in your world is put into a different perspective. It allows you then to step into the day or wherever you’re at in the day and continue on your terms versus staying in that loop. That loop is where there’s so much unnecessary mental suffering that we all put ourselves through.

Speaking of suffering, let’s hear the story of your business.

You had to hype up that big number, didn’t you?

 

Yes. That’s the dream of a lot of entrepreneurs. Any hero, and you’re the hero on the show, has its set of challenges. There’s even a whole term about the valley of despair or the trough of despair. I’m thinking when people hear this story, they’re going to say, “That’s a real trough of despair.” Also, how this mental fitness, if it worked for you to get out of that, might work for me. That’s why there’s a real value in the way you write about it in the book. It is so engaging like a James Bond movie. Set the stage for us. Give us when this all started and what happened.

Thank you, John. That’s high praise from the story master himself. The stage was simply this. I found myself about three years into the journey. I had left this stable career in the healthcare space. I had this idea for a mental fitness app and specifically something very similar to what you can expect with a Headspace or Calm app where they guide you into meditation. At that time, there was nothing that would do that from a reflection standpoint or modern-day journaling.

That’s what Kyō was. I left that corporate space after doing some due diligence, testing and seeing that there was a market for it and went all in. After over probably two years is where I found myself sitting in this co-working space in Toronto, Canada. I’ve got the Apple dashboard up showing all the metrics for the app. I’m looking at one number and it’s 86.9 million. I’m specific with the number because I can never forget that number.

I’m looking at this and the next step is to hit delete from App Store. All the wrong questions start flying through my mind. How could we fail at such a colossal level? Most apps don’t even reach the eyeballs of a handful of people given the volume of apps and here we are. We had all of those Apps Store impressions. I’m deleting it. The flashbacks of my ex-colleagues that I was telling about this new idea and that I was leaving to pursue it and how they’re like, “You’re so courageous,” it’s almost like they wanted to say, “I have an idea too but good on you for doing it.” Now, what am I going to say?

There’s a whole story behind it and essentially, the business model of that app failed. I’m sure, we probably could have stuck around and figured it out but we were out of cash and mental capacity. Being in the space of mental fitness, I was starting to feel like a hypocrite. “How can I be trying my best to help as many people out there when I feel like my mind is about to explode given the stress of where we were at?” It felt like the right thing to do, even though at the moment, it blew up my world because it was a moment where essentially, it felt like I was deleting my identity for the last few years.

That is everything right there. I know that when I got laid off. After fifteen years, I felt like I lost my identity, not only my job. People who focus on their careers can relate to this as a challenge. “When something I’ve worked on and put my heart and soul into goes away for whatever reason, who am I without that title, job or all those success metrics?” That is why that story is so global and touching. As a society, you are what you drive, live, your job title and business card. “I am so and so.” Usually, it’s followed by your title.

[bctt tweet=”Do everything possible to start the day in a motivated state.” username=”John_Livesay”]

People go, “That’s the guy that started Kyō or Daily Calm.” It’d be like Tesla going out of business for Elon Musk. You’d be like, “He’s got some other things going on.” I’m sure that would be challenging. Part of why I wanted to interview you is this perception that the nonstop running, the avoidance of the quiet reflection, in my opinion, watching myself and others, is based on a fear of, “It’s never going to be enough. I can never rest on my laurels because the minute I do, it’s all going to fall apart and I’m going to be homeless.” You catastrophize everything.

You’re having all this incredible growth. There must’ve been a moment when you congratulated yourselves for achieving a goal, hitting a certain number and the press is coming. Not that you got cocky or took your eye off the ball. It goes back to health issues. I remember watching my dad die several years ago and realized, “Sometimes the doctors can do everything right. He can take his medicines on time and he still is going to die.”

That was the hardest part of that journey for me because I felt like anyone that has put their heart and soul into a project or a company and given everything, how could it come to the point where I have to shut that down?

It almost doesn’t seem logical, let alone fair.

It’s not fair. Once I was able to stabilize my mind, which took some time and I’m happy to share how that came to be, but in retrospect, the way I look at it coming back to that chapter of my life, that for sure was a chapter. That was a good chunk but it was a chapter into almost writing a new story for myself because, at the same time, I was hitting delete. I went into that project with the question, “What’s the worst that can happen?” If it all explodes and doesn’t work, I’m not leaving my job unhappy. I’m pursuing something so I don’t have regrets about not having tried it. During that journey, I realized that this is 100% the work that I need to be doing.

Delete the app and shut down the business. The backup plan does not feel aligned. Now, what? That’s when it felt like all hope was essentially pulled out of the wind out of my sails. Those were the dark moments but also, the moments where I came to that realization. I’m sure you saw the quote on the back of the book that we’re all one question away from a different life. Had it not been for the question that I was gifted by the gentleman that’s on the cover and a mutual friend of ours, Chip Conley, I don’t know where I would be.

 

I was headed into a depression because I worked in mental health before that in my past life. I saw the signs. I felt physically sick in the morning waking up and not knowing. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t have a plan. I had no idea. Everything blew up and I was left rudderless trying to figure out, “What am I going to do?”

Let’s paint the exposition a little bit. It’s not like you’re this 25-year-old single guy and no one’s depending on you. You’re married and have a child.

I’m married and we have a child. We’re in Toronto, the most expensive city in Canada and in a place that was always supposed to be temporary. We were before that living in Montreal. We sold our condo and rented this place.

That’s the exposition that I love reading about in the book. The pain of all of that is like, “That’s gone. Why am I here? I’m in the wrong city. Everything I’m doing is wrong.”

It felt hopeless. It was a physically and mentally painful time but because of the work and exposure to having interviewed hundreds of people in this space, they took that time to still their minds. They were asking a very different set of questions. They weren’t asking questions like the ones that I was asking that were driving me into a hole like, “How could it fail at such a colossal level?” There are no issues with asking why-type questions to see where you can learn and develop. Those are dangerous questions that can loop and continue to keep you in there.

It’s the difference between, “I made a mistake and I’m a bad person. I’m a stupid person. I’m worthless.” That distinction is getting a C in school and you’re not a D person. You had all these interviews as part of your company that you had done for the app and that’s how you were able to turn this into a book. Is that how that evolved?

[bctt tweet=”My full time job was working on my mind. – Marc Champagne” username=”John_Livesay”]

Yes, but before that though, while I was in that spiral, the key priority that I focused on was I said, “I have to continue and keep the gym membership even though I can’t afford it.” I need that morning time to do everything possible to start the day in somewhat of a motivated state.

It’s a level of self-love going on there. It’s not selfishness and this is what I want the readers to take away from this. There’s a difference between, “I’m going to go get a facial and I’m keeping my gym membership for my sanity.” I’m not going to splurge on a two-week vacation when I don’t have money coming in but I need this. If I don’t have this foundation and this stress release, everything is going to get even worse and not better.

My full-time job was on my mind during that time. It had to be because it was those sessions at the gym and in the middle of the day when I felt like the pressure was rising, I would stop, take a quick walk around that neighborhood and reset. It was in those moments where the realization was made, “Who have I interviewed or networked do I feel comfortable asking for some advice?” That’s when I wrote the email to Chip Conley explaining a bit of the background of what happened. As you know, Chip, replies to all these things usually in short emails but it was probably the shortest and the most impactful email. It’s because he provided a question. He said, “What do you want for your life?”

For me, that was the question that paused the loop and the path into depression and led to many other questions like, “If this is what I want, what does my day look like? Who do I need to speak to?” It started to bring the plan back, the motivation, the hope and all of that. That’s when the idea sparked for the book. I have been collecting and curating questions for years because of the business and the podcast.

I still do that on the show but this was the first time that I’ve ever been in a situation where one question changed everything. I felt like the app was a medium in the work that I’m still doing. If you were able to see the app, you’d probably be like, “The book is similar in the sense of the objective of providing interesting narratives with powerful questions and practices.” That’s what the app was.

That’s the other big takeaway I want to pause for a second for everyone to connect those dots. The time, the creativity and the outcomes of things you’ve worked on that may not still exist are not worthless. They’re still in you and they can be repurposed and make you the Phoenix of coming out of all of that, which is what your story is and that’s why it’s so powerful. Was there someone you interviewed? Some of these people are alive and someone people were gone. Was there anybody you wanted to interview that you’re like, “That’s a big wish list,” and when they said yes, it even exceeded your expectations?

Cal Fussman for sure. Cal’s the opening chapter of the book for a reason. I didn’t put two and two together but you said a couple of lines about the conversation you have with Cal. I was like, “I listened to that episode.” It probably was when all this stuff was going around in my life. During those walks and gym sessions, I had podcasts in my ear very strategically picked. I wasn’t listening to long rambles on Joe Rogan. I was listening to stuff that I knew would be uplifting and motivating.

I sent a cold email to Cal because his shows were so motivating and are needed in that mental state that I was in. I asked him to come to the show and he agreed. It was one of those moments that I write about in his chapter. I’ll never forget this because I was still in that house in Toronto. I was at the kitchen table. I almost unplugged the fridge because I don’t want to make any noise. No one can see us but I’m in a podcast recording booth at this point. We’ve evolved a bit but I remember Cal shows up on the screen.

From someone that considers himself an interviewer or someone that wants to continue down that track, he’s one of the best. I remember I asked the first question and all I could think about was, “I’m going to mute the mic, shut the hell up and let him go.” That was a powerful moment. As the book started to materialize and I started to look at a mix of the people that I had interviewed that would be good for those chapters, Cal came to mind and full circle, which was a beautiful moment for me. I’m still very grateful for when I sent him the book, he invited me on his show and that hit the heart.

That’s a big moment. That show has had so many incredible people on it. To be in the same category has always been a thrill for me as well. Things are fantastic. Not only is the book a hit but companies are hiring you to come in and give mental fitness to their teams. Tell us what else is going on and who’s your ideal audience.

The team front is exciting. I wish I had this stuff when I was in sales or product management. I’m coming back to some of those companies I used to work at as a mental fitness strategist essentially and showing what’s possible. If I think of some of the things that I used to do putting together these brand strategies on these $100 million brands, I want my mind to be as clear, focused and thriving as possible so that I can think at my best, feel good and have a good time. That’s what these practices do.

For me, it’s a mix of showing, “Let’s take a look individually at your rituals and routines or how your days are structured and set up. Let’s first spend some time getting clear on where you’re at and where you want to be personal but also with your business and the brand. It’s no different. Let’s get intentional with, ‘If this is where you want to be.’” It’s like when I was left with the question, “What do you want for your life?” “If this is where I want it to be, then what do I need to do? How do my habits, systems and my calendar support that journey?” Lots of times when we slow down to look, we’re almost self-sabotaging.

[bctt tweet=”When the mind stops working, so does the business and the brand.” username=”John_Livesay”]

It’s almost like if you use the analogy of, “I want to get physically fit, not only mentally fit,” I look at my calendar of activities, “Did I go swim, go to the gym or do anything physical? Did I stop at Amy’s Ice Creams three times a week? Did I order pizza twice a week? Is that the calendar of someone who’s into fitness?” Probably not. It’s the same for mental fitness. I love this so much.

Marc, you’ve given us so many quotes and questions. I can’t wait to share them all. “My full-time job was my mind,” has got to be one of my all-time favorite quotes from anyone who’s ever been between jobs. If people want to find out more about the book and you or hire you to come in and get the team mentally fit, where should they go?

Thank you so much. We could talk for hours so this was a treat. BehindTheHuman.com is my site and that’s the book, the podcast and all the details for the teams I’ve been working on. If you’re one of those teams, I’d love to chat with you. At the end of the day, when a mind stops working so does the business and the brand or whatever is around that. I feel that having gone through all of this, it almost feels like a moral obligation to get these practices out because they’re all accessible.

It’s only a matter of reaching people on the other side with a narrative that makes sense and is relatable. Why I keep the podcast running is because I always have new narratives, new stories and entry points. If you take the first step in your marathon or running training, all of a sudden, it becomes easier. You’re doing it intuitively. When we can train our minds like that, we feel good.

“When the mind stops working so does the business.” That’s the mic drop moment. Thanks again, Marc.

Thank you.

 

Important Links

• Personal Socrates
• Cal Fussman – Previous Episode
• Chip Conley – Previous Episode
• Behind The Human – Apple Podcasts
• Kyō
• Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course

 

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Tags: Intentional, Mental Fitness, motivation, Self Reflection, Self Sabotage, State Of Mind