career path

093: Mark Nathan: I was leaving part of me behind

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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Okay, Fast Leader Legion, today I’m excited because we have a rising star that helps others teach how to lead the younger generation and he himself is one of them. Mark Nathan is on a mission to fit three lifetimes into one. The child of Burmese and Filipino immigrants along with his brother who is a break dancing Catholic priest and a younger sister who is a nurse and married to a Chicago firefighter, they all grew up with a great appreciation for the American dream but Mark didn’t quite know how to find the life he hoped for. At a young age, he had creative streak with an ambition to tackle large projects and love working with people. He assumed education and a good career was the path to his dream life but after watching some jobs struggles in his family he knew that that was not the path for him. 

Mark found a talent and love for acting, pursue a degree in career in theater and film which is how he paid his way to college. He took the drive and discipline that he learned as an actor and launched a successful film festival at the age of 21. After college he spend a few years in the corporate world as a recruiter but also built a successful direct sales business in his free time which allowed him to be financially free at 27 years old. Mark and his co-author David Anderson of The Delusion of Passion: Why Millennial Struggle to Find Success teaches others how to effectively manage the millennial generation. 

Mark also continues to grow multiple entrepreneurial endeavors and looks forward to joining the film world as a director and producer soon. Mark is a proud Chicagoan and live in the South Loop with his wife Meredith. They are expecting their first child in this fall. Mark are you ready to help us get over the hump? 

Mark Nathan:    Rock and roll, thanks for having me on Jim. 

Jim Rembach:     I appreciate having you. Now 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.

Mark Nathan:    Absolutely. I think you mentioned it right at the very beginning you’re talking about fitting three lifetimes in to one, and that is absolutely something I am so passionate about and so jacked about. I grew up with this mentality that I don’t even know if it’s a generational thing or an immigrant thing but I grew up with this idea that when you find the right job or career path that’s really supposed to be where you find your identity, and so I grew up with, go to school, get a good education, get a good job and it kind of find the career path that allows you to be who you are. Okay, well, I’m good at math, so maybe I should do this, I’m good at this maybe I should find this go down this career path and I’m kind of find myself in a spot where I just didn’t want to be limited to one thing the rest of my life.  I feel like I had lot of things that I wanted to develop inside of me, the creative side, and business side, the growing leader and working with people and so instead of trying to find my passion or discover my passion I started creating a life was passionate about and that happens with every decision that you make, every action that you take. 

And so, that’s what I’ve been jacked about, I’ve been very excited about recently because we’ve seen a lot of people especially with this book. This book just came out not too long ago, The Delusion of Passion: My Millennial Struggle to find Success, there’s so many people in our generation that have been dealing with the same thing they’re trying to find a life they’re passionate about like it’s hiding behind the corner of something or it’s behind the next promotion and really it’s about creating a life that you’re really excited about living. So, that’s what we been focused on more recently, the book and sharing the love from some of that and it’s opened up a lot of great doors and started a really great conversation, so we’re very blessed. 

Jim Rembach:    So, I’m a Gen X’er right? My kids are known 13, 11, 8 I don’t get exposure to a lot of that millennials type of thinking, type of perspective and outlook and I had the opportunity to watch you and David on a recorded webcast. There was a couple of things that stood out to me and when you started talking about your drive and desire and things like that, there’s a really something that’s missing from that whole helping people to understand their direction piece, what motivates them, what their drives are, because people of my generation and before me we don’t have as nowhere near as many choices as the younger generation has. Finding that passion and understand what motivates and drives you is hard.

Mark Nathan:    Absolutely. And one of the things that we’ve seen when you’re talking about how many options there are, it creates almost a little bit of the stagnancy. Like well, I’m not really jacked about what I’m doing right I’m sure I’ll find something later. If you’re smart and you’re talented, you’re want to work at least a little bit hard there’s a world of possibilities out there. And so, it almost create a little bit the stagnation while you’re waiting for the next thing. I’m sure I’ll find something better, I’m not going to really do something about this, Oh, I’m at a placeholder job right now but I’m sure things will get better, and meanwhile you have an opportunity to grow at the job you’re at right now or you’ve got this opportunity over here just potential start something with a friend. And you almost pass up on these opportunities because you just assumed that there’s—well, there’s going to be something better I’m sure. 

When I find the right path for me, maybe there’s going to be fireworks or maybe some magical thing will happen I’ll just know but the reality of the situation is we talked about in the book you just going to kill what’s in front of you. And really life is just about this chapters and this opportunities if you’ve got an amazing opportunity with your job or with working with a friend and marching some—whatever it is, do the best you can with what you’ve got and where you’re at. Find the way add value as much as humanly possible to your current situation and what you’re going to learn from that and the people you’re going to meet, the skills you’re going to develop that’s going to unlock doors for the next opportunity and that’s going to unlock the next opportunity. Person’s that’s grown their career, yourself, anyone that you study it’s really just this kind of series of lessons you’ve learned and skills that you’ve developed and they all just going to build on each other. So, when you’re talking about so many options, it’s so many options that people almost stay still and stagnate themselves while they “evaluating their options.”

Jim Rembach:    What you just said right there from my perspective, I think that’s happening across every single generation because I’ve spoken to some of my friends who are sitting at retirement age and their saying, “I don’t know what I wanted to do. I want to do something I know I don’t want to do what I’ve been doing exactly I want to try something else but they don’t know what and there’s just like overwhelmed with all these different choices and don’t know how to take and identify internally what really gives them or what has given in passion and that how they can thrive in that next opportunity wherever it may be. A lot of time I don’t think that people realize that you going to have to shuffle sidestep sometimes in order to find that opportunity to go forward. It’s kind of like the Frogger game, generating—putting myself in there but you’ve got to move a little left in order to go forward and then maybe you have to go back to and go a little bit right but ultimately you’re keeping your eyes forward and you keep trying to go in that direction.

Mark Nathan:    Absolutely. And that was one of the biggest, I think, struggles for me, I got started with this idea, I’m the child of Asian immigrants, so were basically brainwashed from the womb to be a doctor, okay, you’re going to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer those are the options you got. And so, I grew up doing that and actually even when I was applying for colleges I was applying as pre-med for the most part. And I remember just thinking, “Men, this is just not going to get me—while I like the idea of financial security of being a doctor, you know things like that, I just knew that that wasn’t really going to be for me so when we’re talking about taking sidestep, man, I remember that was the biggest think to let go off. For the last handful of years I’ve been thinking, “Well, here’s how my life is going to progress.” But if that’s not leading you down the path that you want, well you got to take a side step a little bit and see, “Okay, what path could this be?” and what path do this open up? 

And so, the idea of taking a step to the side and evaluating other options I think is good as long as there’s still forward movement. A lot of people they don’t really side step they just kind of side look but they don’t actually do anything about it. So, taking an actual step into another venue or another direction that’s when I transition into the art world and pay my way to school being an actor and direct and producing short independent films. But then even when I was transitioning into business I founded a film festival when I was 21 and that kind of open the entrepreneur door. I remembered transitioning a little bit more in to business, I was really excited about starting things and the film festival (9:42 inaudible) but I didn’t have a lot of traditional business experience, I don’t understand the business world. So, I figured, okay well—and some advice I got, well, why don’t you work in the business world for a little break, get some experience and get exposure. I was an actor, I use to make fun of the corporate guys. I would make fun of my roommate that would wake up at seven o’clock in the morning putting on his shoes and giving on the awe with everyone else, I make fun of that guy and then a year later I am that guy. But I just realized, okay, well if starting something and developing this entrepreneurial business muscle is something that I want, well then yeah, let’s take a side step and develop my skills in that arena but that means that I have to let go of this in order to develop this new path and….yeah, it’s scary. 

Jim Rembach:    It is but I can tell you…I have the opportunity to have a couple conversations with you and we’d exchange e-mails, I had an opportunity to preview the book. You’re a person of inspiration in lot of ways and so that means for me I know that you’re seeking it too and then you just share a lot of that and how you go about seeking it. And so we look at quotes to help inspire us, is are quote or two that you can share with us that inspires you?

Mark Nathan:    Yeah. I love the quote real simple but I just love the simple quote, “Write the future.” And it’s really something that’s in your control. I  think everyone thinks the future is something that is out of your control and it’s something that dwells long as this happens or maybe if this happens and if the company is doing well, or maybe if I get this this raise, maybe if this happens and it just puts you in the passenger seat in your own life, you’re constantly waiting for other things to happen so that your life can now begin, you’re waiting for other things to develop so then you can finally move forward. And really you’re fully a thousand percent in control of how your story plays out. And maybe it was just the film background and theatre background and just seeing stories unfold that’s what you do when you’re in that world you’re telling stories that’s what it is. But you see stories develop and if you’re just seeing your own life and your own story and your own career, your own path as a story, we’ll your fully in control. So that means what you’re doing right now is a chapter that sets up the next chapter and when I really started understanding that and really thinking about life, like the story that I’m writing it took me out of the passenger seat and put me in the driver seat of my own life. 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a great perspective. You and I had the opportunity to talk a little bit and you’re mentioning something about your presidential aspirations and even your brother, the Catholic priest, learning multiple language and what his aspiration is. And you shared something with your father and he had a reply but I think you…share with the audience.  

Mark Nathan:    Oh, yeah, my dad’s fine. My dad’s a Burmese immigrant and just super blunt and all this kind of things but my brother, who’s a Catholic priest, was a breakdancing Catholic priest, and he was pretty excellent if you’re looking for a good way to entertain yourself for a few minutes. If you search YouTube for probably great breakdancing priest or something—awe were on Family Feud as a family, me and my brother, my sister, my wife and all that kind of stuff. And so we were on Family Feud and my brother is literally dancing circles around Steve Harvey and he’s got the whole priest garb the whole deal. He’s developing—he’s on his, third-fourth—moving on fifth language now and I call it his Pope training because in my head he’s going to be Pope. That’s not his goal and his aspiration, he’s on God’s plan so am I quite honestly. But he doesn’t have ambitions to be Pope necessarily but he’s learning a bunch of languages so in my head that’s what you do when you’re a Pope, you have to be able to speak 70 languages and so I’m running for president in 2040, I appreciate your vote if your listening, obviously there’s a couple of more chapters between now and then. But with that I told my dad, “Dad you realize at some point you may have a son, one son that’s Pope, and one some that’s President. Do you understand that Dad?” My dad just replies, “Mark you are sick. You are mentally unstable.” That may be true dad. But as Jim was saying now, the great ones are. 

Jim Rembach:    It is true. We often, especially from a posthumous perspective we only hear about the greatness of some of this folks. But the fact is if you look at their day and age they were considered loonies. 

Mark Nathan:    They may have been. Yeah, there’s a lot of people they just way have a curve one thing to talk about in the book. David in one of his chapters, he just talks about how many people hated Martin Luther King, just the percentages while he was alive, it was 60% -70% disapproval rate no one like the guy. If you look back now it’s kind of what you’re talking about. 

Jim Rembach:    Yeah. And I heard a perspective on kind of what you’re talking about with Martin Luther King and those people who were pushing the norm and what the societal mindset is at that time and they’re referring about Colin Kaepernick sitting down during the national anthem and during the NFL games. It opened up my eyes to something that I didn’t see because initially I saw somebody who was totally disrespecting our country and it really calls me to step back and say hmmm maybe there’s something different here. And I think what you just said about Martin Luther King is a great point. Is it ahead of the curve and getting labelled as looney and then everybody else jumping on that band wagon? Is that keeping us from moving forward it’s not just side stepping it’s back stepping, re-back stepping too much when we do those types of things? I really appreciate you sharing that and giving me the opportunity to share that about Colin Kaepernick because when I first saw it, I was upset. I was really upset and heard that different perspective and even talking about how there’s a verse of the Star Spangled Banner which we don’t sing which talks about the killing of slaves in D.C. So, there’s just a lot of things we don’t know about because they’ve kind of been lost in history that really we shouldn’t just to conclusion, so thanks. 

Mark Nathan:    And I think the biggest thing that people have to remember about respect or open mindedness is that that’s not limited to one specific point of view respect is respect, open-mindedness is open-mindedness. It’s so funny there’s a lot of people that constantly are just yelling at other people for not being open-minded but their yelling at people mainly because they don’t agree with that. it’s like, oh, what I believe is open-minded and if you don’t believe that your close minded—well open-mindedness means that you can believe what you believe absolutely but that also means that that person has the right to believe what they believe and you don’t have to agree but you don’t have to be offensive while you’re doing it. You don’t have to agree but accepting that they can believe what they believe is important to the dialog. While I don’t necessarily agree with how Colin Kaepernick has been handling all of it, as if I’m going to yell at him about being respectful, well, I should also respect him and the choices that his making as well. And people turn things really personal, really fast and this ideas of open-mindedness and respect and love these are ideas that are important to apply no matter whether or not you agree with someone or agree with them wholeheartedly or not. You don’t have to agree with them but accepting them is important. 

Jim Rembach:    I think it’s a great point. I know that when you start referring to the side stepping, taking different pass, making decisions when you first had done the pre-med and saying, “hey, that’s not the path going to the theatre…all of these different things, there’s humps that we need to get over and it causes us to ultimately move forward, if we make that choice and you’ve done that in a lot of way. First of all you already have my vote, I appreciate it. But can you share a story about the time when you’ve had to get over the hump and it really helped you move forward faster?

Mark Nathan:    Yeah, sure. There’s 17 million but I remember getting—when I was transitioning into focusing a lot more of my time on business versus the arts. It was really difficult because when you’re not just doing something for work it becomes who you are, it becomes part of your identity, it becomes how you introduce yourself and how people know you and especially with the world of social media how people know people know who you are very quickly they can search back for years and months and know who you are and you been up to this point. And so when I built my young career as an actor and being in the film world and that was something I was really, really excited about doing and then when I started moving more into the entrepreneurial world it was a little difficult to let that go. 

And it was more than just, what are you doing for work, it’s almost like you feel like you’re leaving part of you behind.  Or you feel like, what if I never come back to that? You hear about all these stories about people that had dreams and then they started doing other things and then in 50 years later they’re just this the little flicker of a dream alongside of them wishing they would’ve done wishing they would have done that. And I just didn’t want to be that person I don’t want to be the person full of regrets of a lot of things that I wish I would’ve done or wished I would’ve stuck with. But what gave me a lot of solace and especially now looking back on it, you know if you abandon things or you leave things because you don’t have a plan or it’s just based on your life circumstances or whatever that’s when you have regret. You regret things when you leave things but it’s not a real choice, it’s not your choice someone else’s choice or whatever. And when I started looking at my life like there’s just this chapters, there’s this chapter of my life that I’m focused on. There’s a chapter of my life that called best, there’s a chapter in life I’m learning this skills and developing this part of me. We’ll that also doesn’t mean that you can’t, later on in another traffic come back to it. Now that I’m a lot more financially stable, I got a couple of more business goals that I’m trying to accomplish for some of the products that I’m working on but I’m really excited about getting back into the directing and producing world. 

But now I’m going to able to do it with a lot of more financial stability, a lot more security. And being able to tell the stories I want, but you know, a couple of chapter’s later, right? And so a lot of people they leave chapters of their life behind but you know it’s a couple chapters later right and so a lot of people the lease chapters of your life behind or what not but they don’t really have a plan in which to get to it if that’s something that’s really important to them. And I think it was really helpful to just see my life as okay there’s chapters and whatever chapter you’re in focus and give it everything you got. And you’ll learn as much you can while you’re in that chapter and ultimately there’s going to be another chapter. For me that gave me a lot of solace when I was transitioning, when I was moving from this to the other thing. It was good to know that my life is constantly developing still.

Jim Rembach: That’s a good perspective, the put it on chapters. And so when you start talking about the things that you’re looking at doing—film industry, becoming a father—that’s awesome. 

Mark Nathan:       My wife’s a redhead, so I’m hoping for little brown babies with red afros, that’s what I’m hoping for. 

Jim Rembach:    I’m praying for that for you my friend. Okay, when you start looking at all of those future chapters it goes back to what we were mentioning a moment ago—options you’ve got a tone of options, so if you were to start thinking about one goal, how do you chunk this down? What would be one goal in those future chapters? 

Mark Nathan:    One goal in those future chapter—we’ll looking back on it the chapter I was really focused on a couple of chapters ago, the one major thing for me was being financially stable, being financially free to be able to make the choices that I wanted. Because I knew that was going to unlock a lot of the other sets, right? And so, that’s why when I left the acting world and I left the artistic world, I enjoy doing it but I didn’t really enjoy auditioning for some random commercial holding some random product that’s not why I was an actor, I was an actor because I enjoy telling stories that I cared about, and so really I wanted to be financially stable so I could have a lot more control over the things that I did. And with the business chapter of my life here we’ve been able to meet a lot of great people and accomplish some pretty cool things so far, but we’re totally not done, we’re completely excited about continuing to develop a lot of this entrepreneurial muscles so that as we move in to the film world there’s just a lot more independence, there’s a lot more solvency, you know you have to depend on everyone to do everything for you. So, this next couple of chapters are obviously fatherhood’s really excited as well, and I’m really excited about that. But financial freedom was really important and this previous chapters and right now kind of wrapping up and developing this business savvy, cause everything politics there’s a lot of business that are running the country if that’s the path we end up going on. There’s a—you know, when you understand how you run it like a business, an effective business and a business that takes care of it’s people and its constituents and its clients, it’s going to work out well for you. So, to me wrapping up this chapter well and continuing to develop that muscle is really important to me. 

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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Jim Rembach:    Alright, here we go Fast Leader Legion, it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay Mark, the Hump Day Hoedown is the 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 robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Mark Nathan are you ready to hoedown?

Mark Nathan:    Let’s hoedown. 

Jim Rembach:    Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being even better today? 

Mark Nathan:    Without a doubt wanting to move on too fast. I think after you start seeing some of the rewards in anything you doing you try to move on to the next stage or the next chapter and how this types of things you stop doing the thing that got you there. So whatever it is your industry if it’s just grinding, if it’s serving people whatever the work is to getting things built the wanting to move on past that, too fast has been a struggle for sure.

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

Mark Nathan:    Earn the next level of mentorship. And the keywords is earn. Everyone would love to be mentored by Michael Jordan playing basketball but even if you got that level you wouldn’t even know how to take advantage of the time. There’s no way you’ll be able to (25:44 inaudible) all of the things he brings to the table so just knowing that earning the next level mentorship—the mentors have gotten my life for now, there’s things I can learn once I master those things doors are going to open up, opportunities are going to open up and I can earn the next level of mentorship.

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

Mark Nathan:    Whatever you want you have to be willing to give it away. And if you want more time in your life—I can’t remember I move you once but I think maybe it was—heaven almighty whatever Bruce Almighty, but they talk about—if you want to be a more patient person be ready for someone to show up in your life that will test your patience. Whatever you want you got to have an opportunity to prove that. And so, whatever you’re wanting in life, if it’s more money, we’ll you going to have an opportunity to invest your money in something. If you want time you’re going to be willing to invest your time people so that they can take things over for you so you can have the time you want. Whatever you want you’ve got to be willing to give it away. And it also separates from the love of it too something you haven’t doesn’t ruin you. 

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

Mark Nathan:    I think for me it’s this idea of convergence. So, if you just think about your eyes, you have two eyes so it’s focus on the thing, but just having two eyes focus on a thing gives you so much more depth, it give you so much clarity, it gives you broader spectrum and so what I think I’ve always been good at is the multiple things at are on our play whether it’s relationships here, this project over here, being able to take things I learn from one arena and apply the same principles or apply the intangibles or whatever I learn over here, I apply into the other arena and I apply this over hear and I learn this lesson over here where I learn in a completely different context. But how can I benefit this project from other things that I been doing.

Jim Rembach:    Okay Mark, what would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, and it could be from any genre?

Mark Nathan:    There’s a book called “Bringing out the Best in People” that I think was pretty huge and helpful because as an actor you get very self-focused, as a leader and someone that’s very much an organizer and driver and maximizer all those types of things it’s very much about—I tended to default to being very self-focused. And if I’m working with a group they tended to be—a way that I can accomplish the things I want. But really if you’re going to lead that’s bringing out the best in all the people that around you and not focused unbelievably helpful.

Jim Rembach:    Okay, Fast Leader Legion you could find links to that and other bonus information from today show by going to fastleader.net/Mark Nathan and we will also put a link to, Delusion of Passion: Why Millennial Struggle to Find Success. Okay Mark, this is my last hump day hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 19 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? 

Mark Nathan:    For me I would bring back the balancing skills, I think everyone got something they’re good at but then there’s something that could be a good balance if they develop. My wife she is like all heart. So, when she developed the pragmatic business sense of her, she became a pretty huge force. When you got friends that are great team players but then they have to learn to develop the ownership and the expertise to really be able to lead. For me, was always want to work hard, I have a lot of drive and a lot of big plans but with just the humility and the servitude that you have to go through the grind of just giving and serving and taking care of the people around you—you know a mantle of leadership as an opportunity serve more people, period case close. That’s something I learn over five, ten, fiftieth years plus and if I could bring something back with me it would be that because for me that was the balancing skill set that kind of rounded out Mark Nathan. 

Jim Rembach:    Mark it was an honor to spend time with you today. Can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you?

Mark Nathan:    Absolutely. If you want to connect with me, you can find me at marknathan.me or you can check out the book at thedelusionofpassion.com and we available on Amazon and e-book and audio book in every way possible on the planet, you can find us there and I appreciate your support. Thanks for having me on, Jim. 

Jim Rembach:    Mark Nathan, 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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