Personal Socrates with Marc Champagne

Building a successful business isn’t as simple as following a blueprint straight from point A to point B. In this episode Mike Haney is joined by Marc Champagne, the founder and creator of a very popular journaling app called KYO, a business he had to shut down even though it had had 87 million impressions on iTunes. Marc is also the author of Personal Socrates, a book about the practices of people he’s interviewed and famous people from history like Marcus Aurelius, Coco Chanel, and Robin Williams. Each profile in the book is portal into a question or prompt to help you think about your life, where you’re going, what you want, and how you get there. We talked about:

• How can you stand out when everyone is trained in the same system
• How Marc escaped the autopilot default of higher education
• Launching KYO with a clickable PDF
• The emotional toll of sunsetting KYO
• Pausing negative loops one small step at a time
• Why Marc wrote a book when there are so many digital options

If everyone is trained the same, how can you stand out?

The education system teaches standardized curriculum and the default path is to follow the herd onto the corporate ladder. Marc wanted to do things differently.

I just remember thinking we’re all essentially getting put into this exact same training protocol or program. If I want to stand out in any capacity, I’ve got to do something different. And that’s when I started getting up earlier, before the day was about to start, the training and whatnot. And I just started reading positive material and content. And at that time it was just blogs. And I remember SUCCESS Magazine was a big one for me, and just reading all these vignettes and whatnot. And it doesn’t take long to start picking up the consistent practices or the way people who are thinking, the people that being profiled in those stories. And they all seem to have some sort of reflective practice. Some sort of practice to help calm their mind a bit and think.

Escaping the autopilot of entering higher education

Finding ways to learn sales skills from an early age allowed Marc to get a strong understanding of the complete customer lifecycle.

I feel like I was on autopilot like most of the people around me entering into these programs, or at least preparing to get into college university. You need these classes, you need these grades, you get into this. And we’ll kind of see where it goes from there. Then from there, okay. Well what kind of jobs can you get with this type of degree? And one thing that I didn’t mention just growing up, I grew up in a really small town basically four hours in north of Toronto. But in the summers, I would visit family for extended periods of time near the city. So I was exposed to business at that level through an aunt and uncle of mine. And that kind of fascinated me that oh wow, there’s this whole other world that I could apply this commerce and marketing background, and get into this space. I knew just from some research that a logical entry point could be sales if I wanted to get into eventually some sort of product management or marketing, because then you’ve gone through the process of understanding a sales cycle or your customers

The birth of KYO with a clickable PDF

Before working on KYO full time Marc found an opportunity to test a clickable PDF version of the app at a conference and was able to quickly iterate based on feedback.

At one point probably about three months in or so, I had to attend this conference in Montreal for my day job, essentially. And it was a conference called C2 Montreal, which is still on today and just a wonderful event full of tons of creatives and great people there, pushing the boundaries essentially on thought. And I asked my brother and I said, “You should really come to this. Regardless, it’d be a great learning. And there’s a lot of good content. You’ll meet cool people and stuff like that, I’m sure will lead to something. But then we can also pitch the idea of the app.” And we had it InVision at that time. So it wasn’t an actual app. It was just tappable PDFs essentially. And we booked all these brain dates as they call them at the conference. And it was fun because I’ll never forget. I mean, people were really resonating well, but then they were getting kind of hung up in certain areas. So we’d finish that meeting. Then we’d call up the designer like, “Hey, this was confusing. Can you just shift this and update the InVision link? We’ll try it on the next meeting.” So we were iterating on the spot. And there was enough buy-in there I guess for us to say internally or at least among the two of us to say, “Okay, I think there’s definitely something here.” But I knew enough working on these big brands that there’s no way we can make this work if there wasn’t a really solid brand plan, and someone leading that and being able to do it, right? Kind of full time.

The emotional toll of sunsetting KYO

Shutting down an app used by 100 million people felt like an impossible failure and a 180 from the reactions Marc received when embarking on the journey to build KYO just 3 years prior.

the questions I should say that were surfacing at that time were how could we fail at such a colossal level? Most apps don’t even close to reaching a number like that. Most apps don’t even have 1,000 downloads. Here, we’re reaching nearly 100 million people. How do you screw that up? Right? I mean, that was the narrative. And like I said, I didn’t leave a job kicking and screaming and upset. I left the job where people were looking at me saying, “Wow, you’re so courageous for going to do this. I have an idea too. I want to do it, but I just can’t pull myself to do that.” And now I’ve got to come back. And basically, the tail between my legs having failed. At least that’s the way I was thinking at the time and wondering, “Okay, what will my ex colleagues think, what my family think,” who are all 100% on board. Our advisors. And we had some investors about to come on, like what are their reactions? And it’s one of the only times I’ve ever been very close to deep depression.

Finding a way back

To do our best work we must escape the survival state of mind and find small changes that we can make to begin creating.

We’re either in a survival state of mind, or we’re in a creation state of mind. We’re never in both, but we do our best work and best thinking in this creation state where we’re motivated, and driven. And hard to be motivated and driven when you’re fearing how you’re going to pay rent, and you don’t really know what’s going to happen next. But once I was able to answer that question of what do I want for my life, then all of a sudden a plan started to surface. And then I could see okay, well the app didn’t work out. But it’s opened up this massive network of people that I still have very good relationships with. I have this podcast that I can rebrand. Originally, it was branded KYO Conversations. That one doesn’t really make sense now since the app is no longer. So I rebranded that to Behind the Human exact same show, feed, exact same format of interviews and whatnot. So that was one little micro win. Okay. I can keep this going. And I’ve got a pretty decent flow that’s efficient that it’s not going to take a tremendous amount of time.

Pausing the loop by one small step at a time

Marc found that by intentionally putting action towards a plan he was able to unlock forward progress.

I was getting clearer and clearer, and mapping out a plan that aligned with what I wanted for my life. Right? And then eventually got to the point where I started writing the book because there was that realization that, “Wow, I mean, we’re all literally one question away from a completely different life.” Had I not asked that question what I wanted for my life, there’s no doubt in my mind I would’ve just continued to plunge into a deep depression. And I can see how fast that can happen. And it was that question that…paused the narrative and pulled me out. And the thing with the questions is that they continue to evolve, right? Now there are other questions that are really helping me become clear. Versus if I were to ask that same question again right now, it would serve as a nice check-in, but it’s not the question that originally pulled me out of a depression essentially. So yeah, so I think it was step by step. But step by step getting clearer and clearer, and then intentionally putting action towards that plan. Then all of a sudden something else unlocks, then there’s another one. And then there’s another one. And then really leveraging these practices of gratitude, especially in those high moments of stress to show, “You know what, even though I deleted this app and this business, and this is as terrible as that felt, I deleted that on a laptop that most people in the world don’t have.” I mean, that’s something to be grateful for, and I still have that laptop. So just small things like that can just pause that loop.

Why write a book when there are so many digital options

The tactile nature of a physical book makes it more accessible and “comfortable” despite all the available digital publishing options.

what’s interesting to me is that even though we’ve had so much technological advances, and audiobooks, and podcasts, and all of that, there’s still something about a physical book that is special to all of us. It’s the medium that I feel like never goes away. It’s been around since the beginning of time, and it’s got a staple in there. And it also happens to be for the most part one of the cheapest ways to consume this information. Versus let’s be honest, something like KYO which had a monthly subscription on the content. And there’s a lot of similar content in there. Or I should say the structure is quite similar when it comes to prompts, and practices, and how to implement this in your life. But I feel like a book is a little bit more accessible.

just asking the question what am I pretending not to know? I mean, most of us know if we’re not eating properly, or if we’re not prioritizing our health, and we’re not doing the things that we know will result in a better outcome. And this isn’t to cast any judgment or shame on ourselves, but we do have to acknowledge those elements. Because then we know what they are. Then we can start becoming intentional to shift that. Right? And just use the example you provided with James Clear’s profile in Atomic Habits. Now you can set up the systems and habits that will help essentially optimize for the person you’re trying to become.

Increasing self awareness to avoid negative choices

Marc suggests creating an intentional practice of identifying the things you enjoy doing the most and create an awareness of when you are making a choice that may negatively impact your ability to do them.

if you start the morning off with some mental fitness and you specifically pick the things that you know that you’ll enjoy doing to get started, then what those practices continue to do is to boost your self awareness so that when you’re in those moments where your willpower is down, you want to make a choice that you know is not something you’ll be proud of after, again, you have that luxury of the pause. That can remind you of, “Okay. Well, wait a second. My objective here is to be in this place or at this place in a certain period. Is this going to help or not? And how am I going to feel after I’ve eaten this or did a certain action that is not supporting that plan?”

Because without that, we are just on autopilot. And when we’re on autopilot, I mean you can see this just walking into a supermarket. If you just go in there and follow the flow, you’re going to come up with a grocery cart of garbage when it comes to nutrition. I wish it wasn’t the case, but unfortunately that’s just how it’s set up. And that’s how the end caps are set up. That’s how the advertising’s set up. So whatever we can do, slow down, pause, and think, and ask them questions the better off we’re at. And the higher probability that we’ll achieve those objectives that we have.

Marc Champagne: I’m looking at the Apple Dashboard, which has all our analytics from the last two years. And there’s one number that is just glaringly huge or calling my attention. And it was the number of App Store impressions that we had gathered, I guess you could say year over the two years. And we had no paid media. This was all organic. This was all Apple features, and country features, and then collaborations we had with content and stuff like that. And the number was 86.9 million people. And my next step after looking at that number was to hit delete from App Store. And there was a very host of reasons of what led to that. The biggest one being just financially, we couldn’t continue, and mentally we couldn’t continue either. We were at our end, and our business model wasn’t working essentially is the short story of it. But the emotion during that time, or the questions I should say that were surfacing at that time were how could we fail at such a colossal level?

Ben Grynol: I’m Ben Grynol, part of the early startup team here at Levels. We’re building tech that helps people to understand their metabolic health. And this is your front row seat to everything we do. This is A Whole New Level.

Ben Grynol: In this episode, Haney sat down with Marc Champagne. Mark is an author of a new book that’s coming out called Personal Socrates, or Socrates depending on the way that you pronounce it. Or Socrates if you’re Greek. Anyway, no need to wait. Here’s Haney with the intro.

Mike Haney: Our guest today is Marc Champagne. Marc is a podcaster for the show Behind The Human, which has interviewed dozens of guests. People ranging from business leaders to writers, about who they are and how they’ve become who they are, and how they work through some of the same challenges that we all work through, keeping a positive mindset following through on the things we want to do, thinking positively about our lives.

Mike Haney: Marc has distilled a lot of that work and his work as the founder and creator of a very popular journaling app called KYO, a business he had to shut down even though it had had 87 million impressions on iTunes because the business model wasn’t working. The story that kicks off the book that he’s just written called Personal Socrates, about the practices of these people he’s interviewed and people who he’s not interviewed. Famous people from history like Marcus Aurelius, or Coco Chanel, or Robin Williams. Each one of these mini profiles in this book is a way into a particular question or a prompt to help you think about your life, where you’re going, what you want, and how you get there.

Mike Haney: So things like what is my art reflecting? How do I protect my soul? How can I ask the most powerful questions? How do I become irreplaceable? And each little profile is also paired with a very practical exercise, whether it’s a thought exercise or a journaling exercise to help you act on these prompts. So we talked to Marc about his background, how he went from being a pharma executive, or a business analyst within the pharma field, to starting and then shutting down his journaling app KYO, to now becoming a mental fitness coach, and the author of this book, Personal Socrates. So here’s our conversation with Marc.

Mike Haney: It looks like from the press page I saw for the book that you have a lot of podcast schedules.

Marc Champagne: Yes. I mean, there’s about 56 or so. I’d say half are probably recorded at this point. Yeah. It’s been quite the journey, but I have to say I’m enjoying flipping the mic around.

Mike Haney: I was going to say, how’s the experience been as somebody who is so experienced at being on the other side and really being an interviewer? And we’ll get in more to your podcast and how you approach it, but what’s it like being the one being asked questions?

Marc Champagne: Well, it’s a great question. I mean at the beginning, it was a bit awkward. I mean, I’ve been doing podcasts kind of on and off throughout the journey, but not at this volume, obviously. And I think after maybe about the first week where things really started to pick up, that then there was a bit of I don’t want to say flow state, but there was a bit of a sweet spot that was reached just as if when you’re having a good interview as the host of someone else where you can kind of, you’re just listening, you’re drawing the connections, and things are just flowing. That started to happen on the other side with the book because people, it didn’t matter what questions were asked. There was enough comfort to start drawing connection points to if someone brought up a profile or something like a Picasso profile, and relating that back to another one, or relating it back to how people can actually use this practically. It just started to feel a little bit more natural and conversational, which is great. Because then now they’re like that. And just in general, being behind the mic for me just lights me up. I mean, there’s nothing that gives me more energy and a smile at the end of doing something than doing this. So I’m just grateful honestly.

Marc Champagne: I really believe in this work and I really believe that it’s applicable in so many different categories and industries that like I also like, especially on the health side. I also like, because it’s so important obviously. And I shared a bit of my story with CGMs, but just that one question can literally change our health outcome or how we see it for example, or how we get started. So I’m just excited for that. I mean, I feel it’s helped me. I’ve seen it help thousands of others. I’ve seen questions literally save lives. So there’s a whole theme to this journey, whether it sells or not. I mean, I’m just excited to see what comes of talking about this stuff.

Mike Haney: Well, let’s start with, I thought we’d sort of break this into maybe a few sections. I want to talk about you, and your journey, and how it got to the book, and then some larger questions about the book. And then I thought at the end, it would be fun to dive into a few of the questions themselves and more about what they mean to you. But I figured I’ll just rip off your opening and start with who are you?

Marc Champagne: I knew it. I should be prepared for that one, right?

Mike Haney: I’m probably not the first one who’s asked.

Marc Champagne: It shouldn’t, but it still catches me off guard. Because I know how guests feel on the other side and purposely, to avoid job titles I should say. So I actually appreciate the question. And to answer that now, as we speak, because I really do believe that at least for me, who I evolves over time. And even though there are values and certain characteristics that I think remain, right now, I would say I’m probably at my most curious and present. And I like to self-identify with just doing really everything possible to be present. Especially with everything that’s going on and just to truly, truly enjoy the journey. I know we hear that all the time and I’ve read that 1,000 times in books as well. But to really be able to enjoy it and be part of what’s happening now to see where to go next. So yeah, I’d say I am a curious, present person as we speak, and someone who is fascinated by good quality questions and just connecting with other awesome humans.

Mike Haney: I’m curious looking at your background, you have an interesting journey. So talk to me about, let’s kind of get up to the book. How do you get from a pharma business analyst to a podcast host and a mental fitness coach?

Marc Champagne: Yeah. Sometimes I wonder about that myself, to be honest. Because definitely if you would look on the outside and especially if you’re in the pharma world. I mean, this is definitely not the path. But there are some behind the scenes aspects that in retrospect, when you know these facts, then it makes all perfect sense. And what those are is when I graduated university, I remember I graduated with a bachelor of commerce and a focus in marketing and communications. And I was looking for a sales role. And this role with Novartis Pharmaceuticals came up. And long story short, I was hired. But at that time, I remember the way they did, and this was just over a decade ago. The way they did the training is everyone essentially went through these big buckets of training. In my case being in Canada, the head office was in Montreal. Everyone would get flown out, and essentially you would spend four weeks in Montreal with either in my case, being trained up on the science because my background was business. And the reverse, if you came up with a science degree or a PhD or something like that, you got trained up on the business side of things.

Marc Champagne: And I just remember thinking we’re all essentially getting put into this exact same training protocol or program. If I want to stand out in any capacity, I’ve got to do something different. And that’s when I started getting up earlier, before the day was about to start, the training and whatnot. And I just started reading positive material and content. And at that time it was just blogs. And I remember SUCCESS Magazine was a big one for me, and just reading all these vignettes and whatnot. And it doesn’t take long to start picking up the consistent practices or the way people who are thinking, the people that being profiled in those stories. And they all seem to have some sort of reflective practice. Some sort of practice to help calm their mind a bit and think.

Marc Champagne: So for me, that turned into a journaling practice. And I did that for about 10 years throughout my whole career, getting up a bit earlier. I would take in this content or knowledge. And then obviously the sources as time went on evolved, it went from blogs, to books, to audio books, and then podcasts. But the practice in itself, the reflection always remained pretty similar. And that was just taking in that information, and pulling the reflective questions that were being left or discussed. And then I could then reflect on those based on where I was at in my life and what was going on from a career perspective as well.

Marc Champagne: And it worked really well. I was doing well at my job. I mean, it was on a typical corporate path, kind of changing in roles every couple years. Went from sales to analytics or as an analyst as you mentioned, which is one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done. Probably the most I’ve ever learnt in one go or in two years. But man, that was tough. So a lot of the mental fitness was applied there.

Marc Champagne: And then at the tail end, I finished off in product and brand management. Working on essentially these hundred million dollar brand strategies. And at that point, that’s when I started traveling a lot. And there was a frustration with what was available from a digital journaling perspective. Because at that time too, Calm and Headspace on the meditation front, they were starting to launch or pick up steam from a mainstream perspective. And I remember thinking, “Okay. So if people are clearly open to being guided digitally when it comes to this wellness space, and now it’s starting to be a little bit more accepted that these practices can help across the board. But there’s no one doing anything like that on the journaling front.” And frankly, people still talk about journaling. What I used to get all the time was like, “You’re talking about the 12 year old girl, right? In her diary about the boy at school type thing.” Which was nothing wrong with that, but that’s not how I was using the practice. Right?

Marc Champagne: So anyway, to answer your question directly, this is where it all shifted. I had those practices going for a decade. There was a frustration. There was a desire to try to build a digital solution. And in this case, it was an app called KYO that guided people through a journaling practice using prompts. And that’s essentially what pulled me out of that industry and has sparked everything that we’re talking about today essentially.

Mike Haney: I want to go back to what you’ve mentioned about being a commerce major in college. And then shortly after that, even as you go into this sales role in pharma, that you’re already starting to think about positive practices and things like journaling. A lot of the questions in the book, and we’ll dive into more of these later, seem to me to be about identity and understanding who you are. What was your identity at that point in your life when you’re deciding, “I’m a 21, 22 year old, who’s going to major in commerce.” What did you think you were going to do? And what was your identity at that point?

Marc Champagne: That’s a good question. I mean, at that point, I feel like I was on autopilot like most of the people around me entering into these programs, or at least preparing to get into college university. You need these classes, you need these grades, you get into this. And we’ll kind of see where it goes from there. Then from there, okay. Well what kind of jobs can you get with this type of degree? And one thing that I didn’t mention just growing up, I grew up in a really small town basically four hours in north of Toronto. But in the summers, I would visit family for extended periods of time near the city. So I was exposed to business at that level through an aunt and uncle of mine. And that kind of fascinated me that oh wow, there’s this whole other world that I could apply this commerce and marketing background, and get into this space.

Marc Champagne: I knew just from some research that a logical entry point could be sales if I wanted to get into eventually some sort of product management or marketing, because then you’ve gone through the process of understanding a sales cycle or your customers and whatnot. Plus I just love like I said from the identity now, connecting with other people. That’s been a consistent throughout my time.

Marc Champagne: So at that point, I think coming back to the identity question, it was just experimentation or trying to figure out what felt right. I don’t know what words I would’ve used back in those days. But thinking back, essentially that’s what I was doing was just trying to jump into the world and see kind of where I would land with the skills that I had, and the education I had.

Marc Champagne: And then I was put into, I don’t say this in a negative way, but I was put into the system. A corporate system that when I left that world, I wasn’t leaving unhappy or I wasn’t leaving dreading driving into work or the people I was working with. I was actually quite content. But there was this element of I know I’ll regret not trying this. And I don’t know where that came from to be completely honest with you, because I don’t come from a family of entrepreneurs other than one of those uncles in the Toronto area. But there was just something inside of me that I really think probably because of all the mental fitness practices for that decade was loud enough to make an impact.

Mike Haney: That takes it nicely actually, very naturally to the next place I want to go. I want to get to the beginning of the book and the moment that you open the book with. But I think to set that up, I want to go back to the beginning of KYO and that more moment when you left industry and decided to become an entrepreneur, and sort of throw it all in on this app. From a just practical standpoint, was that gradual? Was this something that you did as a side project where you still had the security of a full-time job, or was there a moment of just sort of leaping into the unknown and going man, I hope this works?

Marc Champagne: Yeah. I mean there was a bit of both. I mean, probably I think maybe three or four months of building, or I should say mind mapping the app in the evenings. I remember at that point, my wife was pregnant. I mean you have kids, you probably recognize this. She was exhausted by 8 PM. So that was kind of my second shift when she went to bed. And I was lit up by the project, right? It was just so different and so new. So I was mind mapping it.

Marc Champagne: And then I linked up with my brother-in-law, who we really got along really well. We were interested in a lot of similar things. And he was an entrepreneur, and still is, and had an IT business. Nothing near development. And we joke about that now, but at least something outside of what I was doing day to day, which was strategy, and product management, stuff like that.

Marc Champagne: So we started mind mapping working on it together. And he had a designer on his team, thankfully. So then all of a sudden we started getting some mock ups going. And at one point probably about three months in or so, I had to attend this conference in Montreal for my day job, essentially. And it was a conference called C2 Montreal, which is still on today and just a wonderful event full of tons of creatives and great people there, pushing the boundaries essentially on thought. And I asked my brother and I said, “You should really come to this. Regardless, it’d be a great learning. And there’s a lot of good content. You’ll meet cool people and stuff like that, I’m sure will lead to something. But then we can also pitch the idea of the app.” And we had it InVision at that time. So it wasn’t an actual app. It was just tappable PDFs essentially.

Marc Champagne: And we booked all these brain dates as they call them at the conference. And it was fun because I’ll never forget. I mean, people were really resonating well, but then they were getting kind of hung up in certain areas. So we’d finish that meeting. Then we’d call up the designer like, “Hey, this was confusing. Can you just shift this and update the InVision link? We’ll try it on the next meeting.” So we were iterating on the spot.

Marc Champagne: And there was enough buy-in there I guess for us to say internally or at least among the two of us to say, “Okay, I think there’s definitely something here.” But I knew enough working on these big brands that there’s no way we can make this work if there wasn’t a really solid brand plan, and someone leading that and being able to do it, right? Kind of full time.

Marc Champagne: And that’s when my brother-in-law said, “Listen, why don’t you come on board? Join me as a partner in my existing company.” And he’s like, “You can help me out a bit on the marketing side,” but 80% basically my time would be to build out this new business and launch this app. And eventually, our naive plan of if it all works out, we could sell off or hire someone to run his past company, and we can go all in on KYO essentially. It worked out in different ways. But essentially to answer your question, there was a bit of a bridge there. Because it wasn’t just okay, I’m going to drop this really well paying job and secure job. There was this element of okay, I’m going to join another company. There is pay there. It ran out pretty fast, but at least to make the decision. There seemed like there was a solid plan.

Mike Haney: That’s good to know. I think as a kind of set up to the, I think the enthusiasm and the promise at the beginning helps kind of set up the emotional resonance of that moment that you open the book with, which is essentially the end of KYO. And I really resonate with that. It grabbed me right away. It’s a great opening to the book, because it just emotionally pulls you in. And I’ve also started a couple of businesses that did not end the way I had hoped they would end or thought, I think probably like you. Yeah. And I would suspect you’ve probably found, I now am grateful for the way they ended and that they did, because I’m happy with where I’ve ended up. But I also just, I appreciated the sort of rawness with which you described the emotions of the moment of the end of KYO. So I’m wondering if you could just tell that story and a little bit of what that felt like.

Marc Champagne: Even just thinking back, I’m looking up right now. I’ll never forget the Apple Dashboard, because the way the book opens is essentially my laptop screen’s open, and I’m looking at the Apple Dashboard, which has all our analytics from the last two years. And there’s one number that is just glaringly huge or calling my attention. And it was the number of App Store impressions that we had gathered, I guess you could say over the two years. And we had no paid media, this was all organic. This was all Apple features, and country features, and then collaborations we had with content and stuff like that. And the number was 86.9 million people. And my next step after looking at that number was to hit delete from App Store. And there’s a host of reasons of what led to that, the biggest one being just financially, we couldn’t continue. And mentally, we couldn’t continue either. We were at our end, and our business model wasn’t working essentially is the short story of it.

Marc Champagne: But the emotion during that time, or the questions I should say that were surfacing at that time were how could we fail at such a colossal level? Most apps don’t even close to reaching a number like that. Most apps don’t even have 1,000 downloads. Here, we’re reaching nearly 100 million people. How do you screw that up? Right? I mean, that was the narrative. And like I said, I didn’t leave a job kicking and screaming and upset. I left the job where people were looking at me saying, “Wow, you’re so courageous for going to do this. I have an idea too. I want to do it, but I just can’t pull myself to do that.”

Marc Champagne: And now I’ve got to come back. And basically, the tail between my legs having failed. At least that’s the way I was thinking at the time and wondering, “Okay, what will my ex colleagues think, what my family think,” who are all 100% on board. Our advisors. And we had some investors about to come on, like what are their reactions?

Marc Champagne: And it’s one of the only times I’ve ever been very close to deep depression. I definitely was in some sort of depressive state because I felt sick physically waking up in the morning during that time. Because what was happening as well is that one of the questions I asked myself before leaving pharma was, well what’s the worst that can happen? And the worst that could happen is it doesn’t work and I come back. There’s the backup plan. Whether it’s the same company or not. I mean, at that point in my career, I had enough experience that I could probably get into most companies.

Marc Champagne: And going through the two or three years of building KYO, I guess. Yeah, it was about three years. I mean that’s where I realized wow, this work and mental fitness, this is where I belong. I mean, it felt good to work what I was doing before, but this just connects to the core. And now I just deleted the vehicle that was keeping me in that work. And my backup plan just did not feel aligned. I mean, it’s the last thing I wanted to do was to go back to my previous industry, because I know that I’m in the right space.

Marc Champagne: But now I have no plan. I have a one, maybe it’s about two at that time. It’s a bit of a blur to be honest. A two year old at home. We had moved from Montreal to Toronto. So now we’re in the most expensive city in Canada. We’re in a place that was always supposed to be temporary, we can’t afford, we don’t like. And I have no job. And frankly, no plan for the first time in my life. So it was devastating and it was terrifying. And I was halted by fear ironically. Because I say ironically, because I had interviewed hundreds of people at that point for the app and to grab their mental fitness practices and grab the questions they were thinking about. And they’d been through this stuff, but I was so clogged up with fear and anxiety, that I couldn’t even remember that. Until eventually, some time set or went by. And I was able to really dial into the present moment and some gratitude practices to pause that internal narrative, and finally get to a question of what do I want for my life? And that was the unlock, because that led to the next question. The next question after that. And eventually, a plan started to surface, and essentially here we are.

Mike Haney: I’m glad you used the word narrative there, because that kept coming up as you were walking through that moment. And I really resonated with that feeling of how could I screw this up? What will people think? Right? External audiences. How did you start to shift the narrative from this has been a failure, not just to yourself, but to other people that you talked to. Because I had those same conversations. I did a similar thing. I left a decent paying job, started my own company. It was totally outside the industry, and I would have those conversations at dinner parties. “Boy, I wish I could do what you were doing.” And I knew that I was struggling. We weren’t making money. The prospects were a little dim, but you just have to sort of nod along. And even now years later, people will ask about that business. And I’ll have to sort of go, “Well, yeah it existed. And yeah, we sort of passed it off.” And I don’t know that I even have a good narrative right now, at least externally for what happened to it. So how did you start to shift the narrative not just for yourself, but for other people? What is the narrative now that you say about that business?

Marc Champagne: Well, I mentioned it briefly at the beginning. But that business unlocked an area that frankly I didn’t really knew existed other than waking up early in the morning and running some of these practices personally. But to actually that to become my job. And also at the time when the app started, I started the podcast alongside. So that was still rolling. And eventually once things settled down a bit, and what I mean by that is that the fear was released. I don’t even want to say 100% because it’s not even near that, but just enough to start thinking a little bit more clearly.

Marc Champagne: Basically at that moment in my life, there were glimpses within the day where I was able to come out of the survival mode. Right? Because we’re either in a survival state of mind, or we’re in a creation state of mind. We’re never in both, but we do our best work and best thinking in this creation state where we’re motivated, and driven. And hard to be motivated and driven when you’re fearing how you’re going to pay rent, and you don’t really know what’s going to happen next. But once I was able to answer that question of what do I want for my life, then all of a sudden a plan started to surface. And then I could see okay, well the app didn’t work out. But it’s opened up this massive network of people that I still have very good relationships with.

Marc Champagne: I have this podcast that I can rebrand. Originally, it was branded KYO Conversations. That one doesn’t really make sense now since the app is no longer. So I rebranded that to Behind the Human exact same show, feed, exact same format of interviews and whatnot. So that was one little micro win. Okay. I can keep this going. And I’ve got a pretty decent flow that’s efficient that it’s not going to take a tremendous amount of time. While I can start exploring different, at that time, at least some different freelance jobs around strategy, around speaking about mental fitness. I started doing a bit of work with some agencies that were in the coworking space that I was working out of in Toronto. That was actually directly related. They were an agency that they had brought on some pharmaceutical clients. So it was a natural fit for me to help them there.

Marc Champagne: And those were all just bridges I think to just keep moving forward as I was getting clearer and clearer, and mapping out a plan that aligned with what I wanted for my life. Right? And then eventually got to the point where I started writing the book because there was that realization that, “Wow, I mean, we’re all literally one question away from a completely different life.” Had I not asked that question what I wanted for my life, there’s no doubt in my mind I would’ve just continued to plunge into a deep depression. And I can see how fast that can happen. And it was that question that paused, right?

Marc Champagne: Paused the narrative and pulled me out. And the thing with the questions is that they continue to evolve, right? Now there are other questions that are really helping me become clear. Versus if I were to ask that same question again right now, it would serve as a nice check-in, but it’s not the question that originally pulled me out of a depression essentially.

Marc Champagne: So yeah, so I think it was step by step. But step by step getting clearer and clearer, and then intentionally putting action towards that plan. Then all of a sudden something else unlocks, then there’s another one. And then there’s another one. And then really leveraging these practices of gratitude, especially in those high moments of stress to show, “You know what, even though I deleted this app and this business, and this is as terrible as that felt, I deleted that on a laptop that most people in the world don’t have.” I mean, that’s something to be grateful for, and I still have that laptop. So just small things like that can just pause that loop.

Mike Haney: This is probably a good moment to describe the book for folks who haven’t seen it yet. And I’ll do the brief version, and you can expound on it as we dive into it more. But it’s essentially a series of short profiles centered around questions designed to help people unlock some of these kinds of challenges. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What’s holding you back? How can you optimize? How can you change some behaviors? Sort of seeing through the lens of both people you’ve interviewed and people that you haven’t. Historical figures, as well as modern figures, which makes for an interesting eclectic mix of folks.

Mike Haney: And I want to actually jump ahead to another question I had because I like the way that you frame that dichotomy of a survival mindset versus a creative mindset. And I think that really resonates. But one of the reactions I have, the book is a lot about philosophy and state of mind. And I would say I am by nature, a skeptic. Some might say a cynic. Some might just say a grumpy old man.

Mike Haney: But whenever I read books like these, and I read a lot of these because like a lot of folks I think in this position that I’m in, middle aged person trying to figure out what have I done so far? What do I want to do next? I look to these kinds of books to help unlock these things. But the voice that always comes in the back of my head is, “This is great for people like me who have the time, and luxury, and freedom, and position in life to sit and ponder such things.” And as you just referenced with so many people in the world couldn’t even afford the laptop you were using to delete your career essentially, there’s a lot of people in the world who are just trying to pay the bills and feed the kids and certainly probably want more out of their life, but just don’t have time or certainly don’t feel they have time to do this level of kind of pondering. And it’s clear from your experience as you describe your upbringing and your life, that you’ve had moments where you felt like you’re in that position. So how do you think about the audience for this book, and how do you think about this book reaching not just the tech entrepreneurs who are always trying to optimize or do better, but the people who couldn’t afford that laptop?

Marc Champagne: Well, it was part of the reason to go down a traditional format of a book let’s just say. I mean, what’s interesting to me is that even though we’ve had so much technological advances, and audiobooks, and podcasts, and all of that, there’s still something about a physical book that is special to all of us. It’s the medium that I feel like never goes away. It’s been around since the beginning of time, and it’s got a staple in there. And it also happens to be for the most part one of the cheapest ways to consume this information. Versus let’s be honest, something like KYO which had a monthly subscription on the content. And there’s a lot of similar content in there. Or I should say the structure is quite similar when it comes to prompts, and practices, and how to implement this in your life. But I feel like a book is a little bit more accessible.

Marc Champagne: And then just on the idea of not having time or not having the means to take time to think essentially, because this is what this is. Journaling, there are different definitions of it. But at the core of it, it’s reflection. And it doesn’t matter where you’re at in life, what’s going on. We’re all asking questions. So we’re either asking good questions, or we’re asking progressive question, or we’re asking bad questions and we’re not getting to the places that we want. But I can guarantee that as we get clear, no matter what’s happening. And this can take five minutes in the morning or 10 minutes. It’s why the book is set up in profiles in the beginning. I mean, I just finished recording the audio book. There’s six to 12 minute long profiles. And they’re designed in that way strategically so that can be your mental fitness. At least you’re starting your day with six minutes, reflection for your own mind. And you’re priming your mind. To then not react and actually respond in situations.

Marc Champagne: So for someone really struggling, I was there. You’re probably in a fear state. So maybe there’s a gratitude practice in here or a question in here that can pull you out of that. I’m thinking of, there’s a guy out in New York that’s in this book Chris Schembra who runs all these gratitude dinners around the world. And his simple prompt or opening prompt is who haven’t I thanked lately? Just taking a moment to send a message or thanking even a stranger on street, A makes you feel better, but also makes them feel better, and can instantly shift your mood out of whatever you’re dealing with to then get you closer to where you’re trying to go.

Marc Champagne: So I would say it’s written for people that don’t have any practices like this in their lives, or it’s written for people like myself who have had a practice like this, but is continually trying to upgrade the questions. Because like I said, a question today is only a quality question if it’s well timed and it relates to what’s going on. And then if I’ve done my job with this, people should have favorite profiles and favorite questions that differ as they go through their life.

Mike Haney: Where do you still struggle as somebody who’s had a practice like this for a long time? I read all of the practices that you described in the book. And I thought boy, these are all great. And if you put these all into practice, it feels like you’d have it all figured out. Of course, we know nobody does. And we all still struggle.

Mike Haney: But as somebody who’s done this now for I guess probably decades had some sort of a practice around reflection and thought. And I like the simple framing of it like that. What are your current struggles? What are you working on? What new practices are you still trying to adhere to or figure out?

Marc Champagne: I’m human like the rest of everyone listening. I think the difference though with anybody that really prioritizes this work is that we’re gifted the luxury of the pause. So as things come up and as life unfolds and happens, and I mean listen, I’m in this pandemic as well just like everyone else, which has caused forced pause and reflection for a lot of people. And there are a lot of things that are outside of what we can control. There are also a lot of things that we can control.

Marc Champagne: So for me, as I’m gearing up, this is the first time I’ve ever written a book or released a book. And I’m grateful to have started to receive some positive feedback, and starting to see some initial rankings and whatnot on Amazon. And I’m immediately reminded not to fall for my own hype, because that’s essentially what happened with the app. But it’s so easy to fall into that. “Wow, look. The book is ranking in this business category on Amazon. It’s got to be a good thing.” I mean, this is my first, but that can’t be bad. But yet, wait a second. It doesn’t matter. Essentially, bring in some stoicism here. Try not to react too much on the positive or negative. Celebrate that. I’m not saying to just release it and not think about it. Be proud because there’s work, obviously a lot of work that has taken place to get some of that early feedback.

Marc Champagne: But also, the more I can be reminded and remind myself through these practices, and I’ve reread my own profiles in here, because this stuff works. Jerry Colonna is one that I had to go into recently to remind myself that everything is impermanent. And I think that’s the key with all of this that life continues to happen. Work stresses, personal stresses, relationships stresses, that stuff continues. Then there’s also the flip side of this that we can prime our mind and try to continue to grow and whatnot, but that stuff never stops. So whatever we can do to just put in reminders to remind ourselves that we have this bag or we have this toolkit of practices or tools that can help in all these scenarios. And I’ve got to rely on those as well.

Marc Champagne: Same things that most people are like comparing, “Okay, well I did this. I’m following this recipe, and this author was at this place in their first journey.” I mean just pause and remind myself I’m on my own path here. And try everything possible to literally go through the process as clear and as intentional as possible, because then I’ll be able to see what’s next.

Marc Champagne: And I know the gift of this whole thing is that I know there is a next, and I know that I’m on the right path, and that it feels aligned. And it’s not about what it was before, which was get as many users in the app, convert them, and retain them. It’s about being clear, enjoying this process, trusting that journey, and knowing that the work and the effort will pay off in ways I can’t even imagine at this point. That’s the exciting part of it.

Mike Haney: Going back to those people, the part of this audience who are coming to this book or similar books without a practice in place, it feels like there’s often a gulf between knowing what we should do or what might help us if we want to put it that way and not put a should kind of value judgment on it. And what we actually do. So many of us run around knowing we should meditate, and we’ve tried Sam Harris’ app or Calm for three days and then fallen off. One of the things that made me think of this question was one of the chapters you talk about the practice of writing down five things that you want to do every day. And that looking at those things every day, particularly if something keeps coming up, that that can give you the confidence that it’s something you want to do. And I thought it can also go the other way potentially where you see the same thing every day for six months and it’s still not happening. For various reasons, right? Maybe logistically, it can’t happen, or you just can’t cross that hump. You can’t make that thing happen.

Mike Haney: So how do you talk to folks who are just trying to get started, trying to get on this journey? And maybe you’ve gotten at this a little bit in terms of making this a very micro practice in a way. Relates to the atomic habits chapter, I think. Little tiny bits of things, maybe that’s part of the answer. But how do you think about that gulf between knowing what we want to do and knowing what would help us if we could just make it happen, but then actually putting these into practice in a regular way?

Marc Champagne: Well I think again, it starts with the clarity piece and a question that can help there. And this actually ties really well with health and especially nutrition, something that I’ve used myself. And it’s just asking the question what am I pretending not to know? I mean, most of us know if we’re not eating properly, or if we’re not prioritizing our health, and we’re not doing the things that we know will result in a better outcome. And this isn’t to cast any judgment or shame on ourselves, but we do have to acknowledge those elements. Because then we know what they are. Then we can start becoming intentional to shift that. Right? And just use the example you provided with James Clear’s profile in Atomic Habits. Now you can set up the systems and habits that will help essentially optimize for the person you’re trying to become. Right?

Marc Champagne: First, you need to know who that person is. In my case, let’s use an example that I literally struggled with GERD or heartburn since university, was put on these PPIs, proton pump inhibitors. For 15 years, essentially. And I mean, the studies for those things are six months if that. I think they’re even shorter. And it was just, I remember if ever I stopped taking them, I used to take one a day. And I would get this massive pain, as if I was having a heart attack.

Marc Champagne: As a child, I probably definitely was not eating that well. But as an adult, I wasn’t pounding back spicy foods, and a whole bunch of processed garbage, and stuff like that. And I still had this problem. And I moved several times around the country over here, which means I just had different family physicians several times. Everyone just kept renewing the prescription. Never really asked questions.

Marc Champagne: Until finally, I started writing down on my own yearly goals that I want to get off of these meds. It’s something to me that doesn’t feel right. I’m still quite young, that I’m on a daily medication like this, that it seems like is not required or is reversible at least, or preventable. And that goal was on there for years until I finally decided to answer that question, like what am I pretending not to know?

Marc Champagne: I’m pretending not to accept that it’s going to take some work. It’s not just a matter of stopping these and replacing it with a vitamin or something like that. It’s going to take some work. It’s been years being on this, literally over a decade. So mentally commit to working with someone to actually get off of these meds.

Marc Champagne: And thankfully I can say I have, and I worked with an integrative doctor or an MD, transitioned into integrative medicine. And a lot of that was linked to just diet, right? And not the regular things you would just stereotypically think, but just looking at processed carbs, and looking at the combination of foods. And that’s where we were chatting before we hit rapport. But that’s where I was on a CGM for many months. And that was an eye-opening experience. It was taking all of this data and all of this information and making some changes.

Marc Champagne: And within a six month time period of doing the intentional actions, because I was clear on where I was trying to go in the beginning, now all of a sudden the opportunity or the result presented itself. And for my case, that showed up as I’m 100% symptom free. I haven’t taken one of those pills in over eight months.

Marc Champagne: So to get started, I think you have to identify the areas in your life that mean the most to you, right? Where are those buckets? What’s of most value? What’s going to get you out of bed and motivated every day to continue to work on it, because it’s challenging?

Marc Champagne: One of the things I had to do was completely come off gluten. That’s not the easiest of things. So it was just again, reminding myself well why am I doing this? This is why. And going back to that objective.

Marc Champagne: You mentioned it, but starting slow and micro adjustments. And then those micro adjustments and micro practices add up and they stack up to get to bigger results over time.

Mike Haney: I like the what am I pretending not to know? I think the book struck me as a mix of some very helpful big picture questions. And I should say, I like that every profile and chapter distills down to an actionable practice, whether that’s journaling, or a kind of question or thought exercise that you can run yourself. But some of the questions seemed aimed at answering some of those very big picture questions. And I think the arc of the book between get clear, live intentionally, and expand the possibility sort of walks through that. Figure out as you said, where you’re trying to go first, and then start thinking about how you might get there. And then some of the questions like what am I pretending not to know felt more practical and acute, and does seem to relate well to the health and wellness space. So given that that’s the space we operate in and the folks who listen to this are operating in, I’m wondering if there are particular questions that you like in the book for health and wellness applications for people who trying to unlock those parts of their life.

Marc Champagne: One thing that can help is just identifying the practices, or activities, or people in your life that put a smile on your face immediately. Right? That’s a great place to start in this process to understand that if you do any one of those single things on a daily basis, that you’ll be in that creation state and that positive state, which then sets you up to work on anything else, for example. That motivates you to stay on track with your exercise or stay on track with your nutrition. But just really doing everything possible to be able to flip your mind into that status as often as possible. I mean, that’d be one.

Marc Champagne: The other, I think is just, I mean nutrition is probably the biggest thing, right? That we can really work on. I mean, between nutrition and sleep. Again, before being full-time on this book, I was working with those functional medicine docs. And we interviewed a ton of different experts across all different fields of longevity. And everything came back to the basics, and specifically around what you put in your body is either fueling health or fueling disease. So there’s the question. I mean again, and often we were pretending not to know that what we just ate is healthy or not. We know. We’re super smart individuals. I mean, we just ignore our own cues essentially.

Marc Champagne: So I think just again, if you start the morning off with some mental fitness and you specifically pick the things that you know that you’ll enjoy doing to get started, then what those practices continue to do is to boost yourself awareness so that when you’re in those moments where your willpower is down, you want to make a choice that you know is not something you’ll be proud of after, again, you have that luxury of the pause. That can remind you of, “Okay. Well, wait a second. My objective here is to be in this place or at this place in a certain period. Is this going to help or not? And how am I going to feel after I’ve eaten this or did a certain action that is not supporting that plan?”

Marc Champagne: Because without that, we are just on autopilot. And when we’re on autopilot, I mean you can see this just walking into a supermarket. If you just go in there and follow the flow, you’re going to come up with a grocery cart of garbage when it comes to nutrition. I wish it wasn’t the case, but unfortunately that’s just how it’s set up. And that’s how the end caps are set up. That’s how the advertising’s set up. So whatever we can do, slow down, pause, and think, and ask them questions the better off we’re at. And the higher probability that we’ll achieve those objectives that we have.

Mike Haney: I love that idea of starting upstream from the particular practice, whatever it might be, right? Trying to eat better, trying to make sure you work out that day, trying to make sure you do your meditation. The notion of putting yourself in the right mindset to make that possible or the idea of starting off with something that makes you smile, that if you are in a good mood, and you’re feeling good about yourself, and you’re feeling proud, and you’re feeling confident, you are going to be more likely to do those things that you know are going to make you feel better, as opposed to if you’re feeling down, it’s so much easier to make that choice to just go, “Well, screw it. I’m just going to eat the Lucky Charms and not the healthy breakfast.”

Mike Haney: That actually leads nicely into I want to walk through a couple of the questions. The one that that made me think of that I had written down here was who am I optimizing to become? Can you talk a little bit about that question, the profile?

Marc Champagne: Yeah. I mean, that’s a big one. That’s the one we’ve been mentioning from James Clear who’s turned in to be quite the habit expert, or at least one of the, probably one of the most successful nonfiction authors of the last couple of years with his book Atomic Habits. And I love the question and I love I guess the sub questions that are in that profile. Because again, they pause that autopilot. There’s who am I optimizing to become. But then there’s basically also, you can think of that in a different way of am I climbing the right mountain? And whether that’s related to your health and fitness, your career, your personal life or relationships. I mean again, are we just flowing? Or are we flowing down a path that we want to be flowing down? And again, it takes that pause and some reflection.

Marc Champagne: And it’s why I’m so lit up by this stuff. Because like I said, even starting with the podcast a few years back, 100% of the guests there, and 100% of the people I was studying even before this when I was back in the pharma world were doing this. I mean, there’s a profile on Marcus Aurelius in the book. I mean, this goes back thousands of years. You have to just think. And I think we’ve lost a lot of that, because there’s been so much that’s been automated for us. And there’s been so much focus on productivity, that we’ve lost that luxury of just slowing down and being okay with the discomfort of nothing happening, which allows our brain to actually then process some stuff, right? It’s like when ideas come up in the shower or ideas come up on a run. I mean, that’s not a fluke.

Marc Champagne: So coming back to James’s question, it’s just a great check-in no matter where you’re at. And I use that one often as well, just as a quick sanity check on okay, or I should say like a temperature check. The things I’m doing, are they supporting, or are they pulling me away from where I’m trying to head?

Marc Champagne: And it’s a great way to also see when certain, let’s call them opportunities come up that seem fantastic, that may be kind of bright and shiny objects type thing. But at the core of it, if we really again pause and go past the surface, it’d be nice. But it’s probably not well aligned to my core objective. And I just had that happen to myself where I haven’t gone anywhere or at least left the country in a good year and a half, or since everything started. And there was an opportunity to go to Miami for this conference and interview someone over there in early November. And I remember thinking, “Wow, that’d be fun.” I’ve never been excited to go on a plane in my life, I don’t think. And now there’s excitement to leave and actually do something a little bit different.

Marc Champagne: But when I paused the next morning and really thought about it, yeah it’d be fine. Sure I definitely would probably meet people and there’d be some opportunity. But ultimately, it’s kind of a bright, shiny object. It’s more the lure of traveling and doing something different since we’ve been so grounded over the last couple of years that was really the motivator. When I’ve got some serious book launch activities, and everything related to that, and specifically around mental fitness, and corporate work and stuff like that. That’s the mountain I’m trying to climb. And if I kind of repel off of it to just swing over to the next one, I’m just slowing down my progress at that current mountain.

Marc Champagne: So I mean obviously, everyone’s examples are different. But it’s a great profile I think in question, in series of questions to really understand if you’re heading the right direction. And most importantly, if what you’re doing day in and day out, whether those systems are supporting the direction you want to be heading in.

Mike Haney: You mentioned Marcus Aurelius, that profile. And that was one of the other ones I had here I wanted to get to. And I know I got to let you go in a couple of minutes, but I wonder if you could talk about that profile and the question that led it off, how do I protect my soul? And specifically, what stoicism means to you, and how you came to that, and how you integrate it in your day-to-day life.

Marc Champagne: Yeah, I hadn’t brought that one up. Because that was one when I was going through it and doing the research for his profile, that I had to go through the process myself. There’s a few profiles in there. Picasso is another one where I was going through some of those activities for the first time as I was writing them, and really witnessing kind of the power of those prompts. And in Marcus Aurelius’ case, it’s a profile designed to get you to think about your belief systems essentially. Because at the core of our life, or how we process situation, or handle decisions and whatnot, usually we default back to our belief systems. There’s some fundamental philosophies that I’d say traditionally we’re given from our parents or from prominent influences early on in life. And either we stick with those, or we completely abandon them, or they don’t resonate as much as we go through life, or we start kind of thinking of different things.

Marc Champagne: But often, we don’t actually take the time to think are those belief systems, are they in check? Do I really believe in them? And if not, what do I believe in? So that we have a really core grounding kind of principle, right? Or core beliefs, I should say. Because in Marcus Aurelius’ case, I mean he for those that don’t know, I mean pretty famous Roman emperor, stoic philosopher I guess you could say. And went through some wild times. I mean, he went through the death of over 13 of his children. I mean again, at that time, people were having a lot of kids and there was a lot of disease and whatnot. But as a father, I mean I can’t even fathom processing the loss of one child. Right? And people that have been through that, it’s horrific. And then he was dealing with these plagues that were wiping out 15 million plus people, and these giant battles and whatnot. How did he handle that?

Marc Champagne: And what was apparent or pretty obvious was just this grounding belief system. That he had this philosophy to help them dial back and say, “Okay, there’s a purpose to this.” And for him, philosophy is obviously based on a lot of questions, and then going in, and unpacking what you can or cannot control for example. So that was one area for him.

Marc Champagne: And then for me, I have an aspect of that. That didn’t come from my parents. What came from my parents was to be a kind human, and treat people with respect, and try to walk into most situations with a smile on my face.

Marc Champagne: And then the other two big ones are philosophy, which Ryan Holiday is the one that kind of tipped me off on that work along with just listening to many podcasts with Tim Ferriss. And that’s really, really been a huge game changer for me in my life. Just learning more about philosophy. And speaking of small little practices, the one that I do every morning as my coffee’s brewing, I’ll read one page from The Daily Stoic, one of Ryan Holiday’s book. And it’s just one passage describing a moment in time or quote from a philosopher. And it just shifts perspective. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in your life. Like okay, I’m not the only one that’s going through this, and here’s how they handled it. And maybe this is how I can do it as well. And again, it just gives that small little shift.

Marc Champagne: And then the last thing that I rely on quite heavily in my belief system is that if you put in the effort, if you put in positive and good energy into your work and into your relationships and everything you do, results will come. And if I speak to myself in a negative way and I don’t respect the work I’m doing, or I don’t respect myself, I mean I can expect to receive that back. We are the language essentially that we speak to ourselves. So if we can again, acknowledge and understand how we’re treating ourselves and others, and flip the script if it’s negative or something that you don’t want, then all of a sudden things just start to happen, right? That’s when the flow starts coming in, and people start calling, and opportunities start showing up. That’s no surprise when you start getting into this work.

Mike Haney: I think that’s a really lovely place to end it on. And that idea of talking positively to yourself. I think what the book really unlocks is a language for people to talk to [inaudible 00:54:06] which is the language of questions, and what that opens up for you. So the book, which I haven’t even mentioned the name of yet is Personal Socrates out later this month, I believe October 19th. Congratulations on finishing the book, and good luck on your continue journey.

Marc Champagne: Thank you so much for your time and the energy you put into this conversation. I can feel it. And it was really, really, from my perspective great conversation.

Mike Haney: Great. Thanks so much, Marc.

Mike Haney: I realized, so Ben, our Head of Growth Ben Grynol normally runs our podcast. He’s sort of the head of it, and the Zencastr account just through his name. So I realized if I’m not logged in as Ben-

Marc Champagne: Because I use Zencastr for my podcast. I’m like, “It looks a bit different. I don’t know.”