affirmations

112: Marc Allen: I couldn’t make any money at anything

Intro Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:     Okay, Fast Leader Legion, today I’m excited because I’m going to get the opportunity to explore different sides that I probably have not explored yet and you’re going to get a chance to—Mark Allen was born in northern Minnesota and raised in Minneapolis with his two older brothers, one was a parent’s dream and the other was a parent’s nightmare. 

Marc has discovered through trial and error a proven set of principles that can help each of us live the life of our dreams doing what we love to do while adhering to compassionate conscious values. He is a well-known musician and composer having released seven albums of his music for the label he co-founded with Sky Canyon and Robert Powell. Marc is also an internationally renowned speaker, author and president and publisher of New World library. 

He has guided the company from a small start-up with no capital to its current position as one of the leading independent publishers in the country. Over the years he has written and published Allen books including Visionary Business an Entrepreneur Guide to Success, which brought his principles to those in the business world a life well lived, a life of happiness, inner peace, ease and fulfillment where you can contribute to making the world a better place for us all. Marc currently lives in Novato California with his wife Ari. Marc Allen, are you ready to help us get over the hump? 

Marc Allen:     I’m ready. Thanks, Jim, thanks for you show and thanks for all you do. 

Jim Rembach:     I appreciate it. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better? 

Marc Allen:     Oh, let’s see, current passion…well? It continues to run along several lines—there’s my publishing company, New World Library, that’s doing wonderfully and I love helping build that company to one of the finest independent publishers in the world. There’s my writing, I’m always writing something. My last book, The Magical Path, I’ve been promoting, and in fact, I am doing a year on the magical path, a year-long teleconference I’ve done once before as I was writing the book that went beautifully so I’m doing that. And I’m always doing music and there’s never a dull moment, I never get bored that’s for sure I just do what I love every moment.

Jim Rembach:     One of the things I found very interesting and getting to know you better is you’ve taken and created some serenity and sense out of a lot of the chaos that we often feel. So, when you start thinking about the path, and we also talked about the visionary business piece and you talked about these core principles and these philosophies and all of that, when you start thinking about creating some peace and serenity out of the chaos where does it start for folks? 

Marc Allen:     You know, I was just thinking about this this morning. I always start my day walking outside and letting thought go and kind of praying and what came to mind was the most important thing is inner peace and serenity that’s really what I always wanted as a goal. And I started affirming it the day I turned 30 is the day that changed my life. When the day started I had no job, I had no money, I had no family support, I was a poverty case musician whose band had broken up. By the end of the day I had a clear list of goals, I wanted to start a publishing company, record my music, write books and I turned all those goals into affirmations. And as time went on I realized the most important affirmation became the first one, at first it was the last then I move it to the first, that you have to put it in your own words, these are the words that work for me, I’m guided by spirit every moment this is serenity I have inner peace in an easy and relaxed manner in a healthy and positive way. 

And I just started affirming that the day I turned 30, I started affirming this whole list of goals and those affirmations changed my life, it really did. I ended up turning it into an experiment I said, okay, I’m going to start a company but I’m going to do it in an easy relax manner in a healthy and positive way in my own perfect time and that meant—I’ve been a musician in my 20’s and I love those hours you never did anything until one in the afternoon and I never was a boring person. So, I said, I’m going to start a publishing company but I’m going to keep my lazy schedule, I’m going to sleep as long as I want every day and take a nap whenever I want. My doubts and fears arose in full force said, “That’s impossible Marc, you got to work 60 hours a week on a start-up,” I heard this voice my father had said the same thing, everyone said the same thing, you got to work hard that’s the cultural conditioning we all pick up. 

Basically, underneath it is, it’s hard, it’s stressful to start your own company you’ve got to work hard it’s not easy. But I literally said to my doubts and fears pacing up a doubt it, I said, Look, if it doesn’t work I won’t be any worse off than I am now. I had no job at all I’d been fired as a busboy and dishwasher for being too slow. I did yard work for one day I said, “This sucks this is way too hard.” So, I was unemployed, I had no money no family support I was scrounging every month to get this small rent—my mom and I rent together, so even my doubts and fears had to agree with me so that’s how I got around my doubts and fears, I said, “This is a worthwhile experiment I’m going to go for my dreams. I’m going to continue affirming every day that I am creating success as a businessman and a writer and a musician in an easy and relaxed manner in a healthy and positive way.” 

Jim Rembach:     Okay, Marc, I know there’s probably a lot of skeptics that are sitting there and saying—with what you’re saying, how do you get anything done? 

Marc Allen:     I’ve found if I allow myself to be as lazy as I want to be meaning usually I sleep till 11:00 and then some days I take a nap at 3:00 or 4:00, I always take every Monday all to myself, it’s my day I have no plans. One Monday recently I realized I had laid down three times, sometimes a nap sometimes I just deeply meditate flat at my back but the next Tuesday I remember thinking how good I felt and I thought back, “What did I do yesterday? Oh yeah, I took three naps.” And I find if I allow myself to be that lazy after a while inevitably I get up full of energy, I get up full of energy and I do things in bursts not a speedy pace and I’m not forcing I’ve taken that inner pusher we all have and I put him way back I’ve retired my inner pusher I don’t allow him to do what he used to do when I was young and what most people have to keep saying, “Oh, you should work more you’re not doing enough, come on, if you only got up a little earlier…” my wife even used to say these exact words before she finally gave up and became a later sleeper than me, it’s 11:20 here in California she’s still sound asleep so I get up at eleven. I’ve retired that pusher and I just find—when I feel like it I do things in bursts and then I relax and it works, everything gets done. 

Jim Rembach:     You and I we’ve talked off mic so you say that you stay up till 3:00 and 4:00 so it’s not like you’re getting 15 hours of sleep at night. But when you start thinking about your timelines are just a bit different because I know a lot of folks are looking at productivity as something that they need to focus on and they’re using things like a Pomodoro method, where they do hard intense work for like 25 minutes and then take a 10-15 minutes break and they find that they get more work done when they chunk it and they do that deep intense work and it’s not that they’re doing fast work like you said they’re getting quality work done it’s just extremely focused. So, it sounds to me like you just have your own method that you’ve created that has just a little bit longer timeline. So, what do you do for short-term projects that need to get done? 

Marc Allen:     Short-term project…? I have this internal visual thing of a laser with multiple focuses in it and it switches from one thing to another. I do focus intensely on one thing I like to start things by taking a deep breath and relaxing from head to toe and remembering to relax deeply before and I even take a deep breath and try to let all thought go before I approach any project so then when I turn my focus to that project my mind isn’t cluttered with other things. I do take all these breaks throughout the day, longer breaks and mini breaks but it’s true, yes, when I focus on one thing that has my complete attention. 

Jim Rembach:     I think one of the things that is really interesting especially when you start talking about in an organization, a lot of my listeners are career folks needing to move forward particular projects or work groups or actions activities and so they’re saying that way, I can’t work that particular schedule, I can’t do those things because I have these constraints, I got to work nine to five or many times it’s like 8:00 to 8:00, right? And I don’t have much option around that. But when you start thinking about—when I heard one company was saying that, there’s no meeting Wednesday’s, so that during the work week they’re saying there will be no meeting scheduled because typically what happens is it’s meeting after meeting. 

Marc Allen:     Yes. 

Jim Rembach:     How can somebody who’s in an organization be able to take advantage of getting more productivity but yet not having the flexibility of a work schedule that allows him to sleep till noon, how could they actually do some of the things that you’re talking about? 

Marc Allen:      Each of us has our own rhythms, just biological rhythms, I just do encourage people take breaks even if you can possibly take a short nap even lay on the floor if you have an office door you can close even 10 minutes laying on the floor will really rejuvenate, work it out so that you can really follow your own rhythm. Because our bodies will tell us, our bodies are amazing, miraculous pieces of chemistry and whenever you want to relax, if you can relax. It’s amazing because then you become filled with energy again.

Jim Rembach:     One of the things that you talk about is one of the principles in building a visionary business is your T11 which talks about considering the spiritual and the mythical side of your business and then practice your own form of effective magic. So, when you start thinking about bringing some of that into work place or work environment that people aren’t familiar with, how can you actually do that to grow your business and grow your work group and get more work done? 

Marc Allen:     One thing that dawned on me was that everything is created by magic. It gets to be semantics and words and everything but you can look at it this way, I start when I did Visionary business and I went around speaking about it a lot. I’d sometimes just throw in near the end I said, “You know, it’s all magic, this is all created by magic. And I meant specifically—at first it’s just this dream in your mind, every business started it’s just a dream in some persons mind a piece of imagination that’s very ephemeral and fleeting just this idea that’s how it all starts, it all starts with an idea. Then if that idea gets emotional support and continued focus on, then whoever thinks of that idea starts getting these ideas that show the next concrete steps to take and It’s a very simple process that you can call magical. You can call it creative visualization or you can just call it strategic planning if you want or whatever you want but the whole process is magical, you could look at it that way—I look at it that way. 

Even Einstein, that famous wonderful Einstein quote where he said, “There’s two ways to view the world, one is as if there are no miracles the other is as if everything is a miracle, and he said I choose the latter, life itself is a miracle. The creation of any successful company is a piece of magic, that’s the way I look at it. When you do it becomes simple, the rules are very simple and the steps are very clear the older I get the simpler I see it. All you need is to visualize it you need to dream the idea. You need to keep focused on that idea and take whatever obvious small steps, they’re always small, small steps become obvious to move toward there. And then you’ve got to deal with all the doubts and fears and apparent obstacles that inevitably rise when you dare dream something expansive and different from what is, that’s it that’s the whole process in a nutshell as I see it. 

Jim Rembach:     I know that—I mean gosh, talking about being a musician, author, publisher, speaker, teacher, student, you didn’t come to this—you talked about hitting the point of 30 and things changing for you, we all have humps to get over in order to get to the point we are and a lot of times we talk about quotes in the show and I think you just shared it with that quote from Einstein, so I’m not going to ask you to do that again but can you take us to a time where you had to get over the hump and it made a difference for you?

Marc Allen:     My worst emotional humps was early 20’s when I’ve had these periods of depression and anxiety. And for that fortunately, I wandered into a Zen Center the Maui Zendo, and I sat there for five and a half months. After that and after that I realized periods of depression it just evaporated. The worst financial hump came, I did what I loved through my 20’s. I had that peace. I had two older brothers, one was a parent’s dream, did everything the parents wanted the other was a parent’s nightmare totally rebelled against them and fought. And then I came along and I realized it doesn’t do any good to do what your parents want you have to do what you want but it doesn’t do any good to fight them either because by rebelling you’re just empowering exactly the thing you’re rebelling against, I got that real deep and early. So through my 20’s I did what I loved, I just did what I love, I was a musician, I was an actor for a while, I was Zen person I did it back to the land experiment, I tried all kinds of things. I was a workshop junkie in Berkeley, we called ourselves, all kinds of things but I couldn’t make any money at anything I couldn’t make anything work. Looking back I tried on about 10 different careers and everything just fell apart. 

And then I turned 30, I had no money I was a total poverty case and that’s when I decided—I played a little game I’d played back to land experiment where we sat around a fire in this one family and this one couple said, “Let’s play a game we play at church camp. Let’s imagine five years have passed and everything is gone as well as you could imagine, what would your life look like? I don’t remember a word I said when I did it the first time, I was in my early twenties. But the day I turned 30 I remember that game and I thought, Okay, this is good to play, this time I’m going to write it down. And I took a sheet of paper, ideal scene in big letters, I imagine five years of past, so I 35 and I was middle age already but I was in shock turning 30 because through my 20’s I kind of believed I was still a kid somehow but turning  was this huge wake-up call. So, I wrote down ideal scene and much to my amazement I have a successful publishing company that cruises along and it doesn’t even my input, it’s so successful. I started but I don’t have to do these 60 hour week that was part of the ideal scene from the very beginning. And I write books and music and I made a list of all my goals and I started affirming it and I started my company. And my first three, four years were all losses, losses, losses because I did not have the three pieces you need to succeed in anything, the three simple pieces. 

First, product or service that I had. I had really good books from the beginning we published creative visualization or layout and I did well but I did not have good marketing and I did not have financial controls I didn’t even know the concept what I started it. So, at the end of like four years I hit my financial bottom, I was deeply in debt. Our distributor collapsed and we didn’t get paid for six months’ worth of sales of books so our publishing company was almost bankrupt, I was almost bankrupt, I definitely hit my financial low there was just one problem after another. And then two things happens simultaneously, one is I just heard a phrase of Napoleon Hill as I was driving in, he said, “Within every adversity is an equal or greater benefit.” And I literally pulled over on the freeway wrote that down and put it in big letters and underneath it I put within every problem as an opportunity, I put it in my own words. And then even a little while later I was reading the Bhagavad Gita, of all things, 5,000 year old wisdom from India and it said, “Even in the knocks of life we can find great gifts.” And I wrote that down so I had it on my wall, so whenever people would say—they’d come in the office we got another problem, we haven’t been paid yet or we don’t have any money in the bank we got to get cash, this is a problem. I would acknowledge the problem but immediate I start looking at that list and I’d say, “Okay, what are the opportunities in this situation? What are the benefits? What are the gifts? And I found an amazing thing, once you ask those questions you start getting answers that really motivated me then the next step became obvious you have to find another distributor that pays you on time, “okay, that’s good. 

The other thing that happened at the same time is I did a simple process that’s in several of my books called, The Core Belief Process, I’d like to say underlying beliefs instead, because I realized when I was almost bankrupt and all this anxiety was arising it was centered in my stomach. When you have anxiety like that there’s a wonderful simple process to do, Core Belief Process that really helped me is just asking yourself a few simple questions, one, what is the problem? We all know that, but it’s good to express, okay, the problem is I’m bankrupt, I’m nearly broke. Then you just say, what are you feeling physically? Oh, my stomach is churning, my necks have tied on, and then what are you feeling emotionally? You just name it, I’m agitated, I’m frustrated, can just name that. Then a very good question, what’s the worst that could happen? And you explore your worst fears, we could go down we could go bankrupt I remember getting to, Okay, I could be a drunken bum lying in the gutter slowly, painfully dying and no one knows or cares in the least, that was my worst fear. It’s very good to look at these, the worst fears you could imagine because you end up realizing the chances of the worst fears actually coming to are very slim. Then you ask, and I’ve done this process hundreds of times and workshops with hundreds of people and it’s always the same, then you ask, what’s the best thing that could happen? When you ask, what’s the worst? People immediately launched into, well, I could go bankrupt. Then you say, what’s the best? People almost always go, huh um, ahh, ahh—and they pause and they get, they’ve been focusing on the worst possible scenario and they haven’t even asked themselves what’s the best possible scenario, we haven’t even gone there, so that’s why this process is so great. You say, okay, wat’s the worst that could happen? 

Alright, I’ve explored that, now what’s my ideal scene? What’s the best? For me, it was, Oh, I could find another distributor that paid us and we could make a profit and I could pay off my bonus, which is exactly what happened. The best-case scenario is what happened once I dare dream. Then you just say a simple question, why isn’t the best scenario happening? Well, it’s because in my case I fool with money, I’m out of control, I can’t handle money that’s what came to mind that is the deep core belief. When you answer that question, why isn’t my ideal scene happening? What’s stopping me? You’re getting down to this underlying conditioning and programming you have that is blocking you from achieving your dreams. Once I realized, ahh, I believe deep down I’m a fool with money I’m out of control, I don’t understand it whatever I have I just blow. Okay, once you get down to that underlying belief it’s expressed in a simple words possible the words a five year old can understand, you find an affirmation that totally contradicts it and counteracts it that you can believe, that your subconscious can say yes to, and I talk a lot about finding the right one that works for you it’s an individual thing, but I found the words I am sensible and in control of my finances. I’m creating total financial success in an easy and relaxed manner a healthy a positive way. I wrote those words down. I kept saying that I kept affirming whenever that anxiety would arise my subconscious grabbed on to that I suddenly became sensible and in control suddenly finances became totally simple and easy, and they are very simple, you just have to make more than you spend that’s bottom line finances are not complex. Then my whole camp in , the right bookkeeper walked in that turned out to be my CFO that showed me about financial controls, everything turned right around in a few months and within about six months or so I was out of debt. 

Jim Rembach:     You’re talking about doing a lot of personal programming, personal understanding, mindfulness, there’s a lot of things that are going on here that I think we all can learn from and we typically don’t explore these things especially when we’re stuck in, the typical day to day. If it’s our typical day to day or have it on our routine, we won’t stop and listen to the things that work that Marc is telling us, thanks for sharing that. I know you got a lot of stuff going on, everything from the online learning several books—publishing, music writing, all of that stuff. If you were to say you had one goal right now, just one, what would it be? 

Marc Allen:     One goal—well, I would like to help the entire world achieve peace and prosperity for all that’s sort of my major goal. I have achieved my list of personal goals that I made the day I turned 30 and I did realize looking back the most important work is this internal work. In fact, I think ninety-nine percent of the important work I’ve done has been internal. Eckhart summed it up in the Power of Now, beautifully. He said, “If you get the inside right the outside will fall in a place.” That’s exactly what I’ve found to be true. You deal with the doubts and fears that inevitably arise when you dare to dream. Dealing with those doubts and fears does have like magical results. 

As soon as you really resolve that, whatever it is that’s blocking you from your success because you can plan for, you can work, you can work endlessly hard but if underneath it all you’re thinking in some way you’re not capable of it or you don’t deserve it or you don’t have the right education or something, it’s the wrong time, just used to be better in the good old days things have changed whatever you believe will block your success. So, the most important work is the inner work letting those beliefs go and we are coming to realize it gets down to really deep core beliefs like, is life a struggle? Is the universe—is it limitless and abundant? Or is there some kind of—is there not enough? Is there scarcity in your life? Those beliefs are what you need to work with and once you resolve all that and if you can come to understand we live in abundant world there’s infinite possibilities it doesn’t have to be a struggle at all. Look at most plants and animals and things, they’re living in joy in the moment life can be a beautiful experience but we first have to do the inner work to see that and once we see that everything blossoms including success in business. 

Jim Rembach:     And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

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Alright here we go Fast Leader listener it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Marc, the Hump Day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Marc Allen, are you ready to hoedown? 

Marc Allen:     I’m ready.

Jim Rembach:     So, what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today? 

Marc Allen:     Oh, just my belief that it’s hard to attain world peace and prosperity. I have to turn that around.

Jim Rembach:     What is the best leadership advice you have ever received? 

Marc Allen:     Be kind to people. 

Jim Rembach:     What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Marc Allen:     Affirming that I am creating success in an easy and relaxed manner in a healthy and positive way for the highest good of all.

Jim Rembach:     What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life? 

Marc Allen:     Those affirmations that I often do that it lead me to relax and be in the moment.

Jim Rembach:     What would be one book, and it could be from any genre, that you recommend to our listeners? 

Marc Allen:     Visionary Business by Marc Allen. 

Jim Rembach:     Beyond that, we’re definitely put a link to that one on the show notes page, but what other book? 

Marc Allen:     Oh boy, one other book—The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

Jim Rembach:     Okay, Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/MarcAllen. Okay Marc, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? 

Marc Allen:     Dare to dream your ideal scene, it’s actually just what I did the day I turned 30 and from that make a list of goals and turn those goals into affirmations and affirm every goal and take the next obvious clear steps in front of you and just let those doubts and fears go they are not helpful, they’re not serving me or the world. 

Jim Rembach:     Marc, it was and honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the Fast Leader legion how they can connect with you? 

Marc Allen:     Thanks Jim. My website is marcallen.com. 

Jim Rembach:     Marc Allen, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot! 

Thank you for joining me on the fast leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

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