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In this episode with Marc Champagne, we talk about mental fitness and how to pause and reset your mind. This will help you focus on the things that matter, whether for your personal life or for your career as an entrepreneur.
Sagi Shrieber interviews mega-successful creative entrepreneurs about the strategies, tactics, and mindset needed in order to flourish in all areas in life.
The deep and diverse interviews here offer practical tips and strategies, from entrepreneurship to health and wellness, personal development, and spirituality.
Commit First w/ Sagi Shrieber (Feat. Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, Jason Zook, Paul Jarvis, and more)
Episode 122: How Mental Fitness Can Save Your Life (Guest: Marc Champagne)
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Sagi Shrieber: Hey buddy, what's up? Today on the show we have Marc Champage. Marc is a mental fitness coach, but he came from actually building a huge app in the personal development space in the space of mental fitness, an app that was meant for journaling. And after that he decided to shut down his app and go with training teams and individuals and writing a book called Personal Socrates.
You will hear all about it. So it's an amazing episode. Marc is just an amazing person. You get so much value and ask so many great questions that you guys can all ask yourselves. This one hour, it just opened me up so much like emotionally. I really hope you enjoy this episode, everybody, and remember that this show is just sponsored by Commit First . We don't have any more sponsor. I just wanna make sure that you guys share the message. Please rate us on Apple Podcast. Please rate us on Spotify for listening on Spotify. We would love your review and your rating. That means the world to us. And if you share this with other people that find value in Commit First, that would mean just the world. Again, this podcast is something I'm investing a lot of myself into bringing amazing guests and I would love for this message to move forward. So if you can pause for one second, send it to someone you love, maybe rate it if this is not the first show you're listening to, and if it is right at the end, no problem. Just if you liked it, right? And let's begin. Enjoy show with Marc Champage everybody.
Everybody, what's up? And welcome to the Commit First podcast today on the show, we have Marc Champagne. Marc, What's up brother?
Marc Champage: Hey man, it's good to be here. I am jazzed up to be on the show. I mean, we had one call before this and went back and forth and the vibe is aligned. So I can't wait to to chat.
Sagi Shrieber: Definitely, man. And just to give the listeners a context. So, I was researching like, I actually don't think you guys know, like if you're listening to the show. So I'm working right now on personal development apps. I'm working on specific app that is supposed to come out July. It's all about affirmations and then another app. bigger app that I'll expose the details of that later. So I was kinda like listening to interviews of founders of like personal development apps out there. I listened to interviews by the founders of Calm and Headspace and Insight Timer, and then I got to this application called Jour or Alan mind.
And right now it's called Alan Mind, right? It was called Jour
Marc Champage: Yeah.
Cause it was acquired, right? And so that's where I got to Marc's podcast Behind the Human. And I was like, Huh. I mean, I just got to this podcast by mistake. But here's an amazing interviewer, has a very successful podcast interviewing amazing people exactly on the topics that I'm really aligned with and then you interviewed the founder of Jour which you guys work together and you built a bit it up to like 80 million users.
Yeah, my original app by KYŌ yeah.
Sagi Shrieber: And then yeah, so basically and then after that, listen to your interview with the I forgot her name, the lady who wrote the manifest book Christine or
Marc Champage: Oh yeah. Christina Rice.
Sagi Shrieber: Yeah, and she's also amazing and I got her book and listened to the book because 'em all about manifestation, like, I gotta talk to this guy. So I reached out to. I called and I found this like link on your website, like random link to book a call with you. You didn't even know you had .
Marc Champage: I forgot about it. I mean, to be honest, I think, I know it's there on purpose, but it's primarily there for in the team section, if you wanna book mental fitness sessions and whatnot. But I'm happy you clicked on that and booked the call, 'coz here we are.
Yeah. We're obviously very aligned
Sagi Shrieber: Definitely and so yeah, we have a great call and I wanna talk to you about everything and I guess it's, it's not gonna be the only show that I'll bring you on, but I think let's start with a bit of backstory. Right now you're helping people that are, have a lot of stress in life and a lot of responsibilities to kind of live a, to get into more of a wellbeing kind of mindset and life around them. But it wasn't always like that. You were one of the high-tech entrepreneurs in a way or you had your own app and can you tell us about that.
Marc Champage: Yeah. Well, first I mean, I think right now, at present day, whether it's stress or whether it's helping people, think at a different level. I mean, I'm just doing everything possible . Mental fitness to take to help people come closer or be more or have more access to mental fitness and the practices that are under that umbrella, which is really just anything to help train your mind right? This links into the back story because when I was running and I had spent about, you know, 10 or so years in the corporate space beforehand and left to excuse me, to create KYO which at that time, and ironically I've become good friends with the founder of Jour and day one and some of the other apps as well.
But at the time, there was nothing that existed, like a Calm or a Headspace that guided you into like common Headspace are doing, guiding you to meditations. But there was nothing like that that existed for journaling. And guiding people into a journaling practice and in our case, we were leveraging good quality sequences of questions and topics to guide people into the practice.
So I left that. The corporate world and like I said you know, I was there for about a decade. It wasn't one of those situations where I was unhappy with my job. It was just I had this idea and I knew I would regret not trying it. In long story short, we didn't, we didn't have 90 million users.
We reached 86.9 million people. But we had, you know, we had users in the six figures in terms of downloads and whatnot which we're super surprising with, they're proud of because, I mean, we had no app development experience. This was kind of our first rodeo into that space. And, you know, as much as we reached a lot of people and there were a lot of really great partnerships and brands that came in into the space. Financially we couldn't keep it going. The, the revenue model wasn't working on the app. And in that same year, when we hit 86.9 million people, I remember staring at the same Apple dashboards showing all the numbers, and my next step was to hit delete from App Store.
That was, that was challenging because it wasn't just deleting an app or shutting down or I should say, even pivoting a business, it was like deleting a part of my identity for the last three years. And also this, and I mean, you're in this space, you understand, I mean, there's almost like this sense of responsibility to people that are using the app or using your service because it's not like we're creating parking meter apps. I mean, very useful. I have massive props to the people creating those apps, but in this space, I've seen it, I mean, these questions in a journal or a practice like this can literally save a life.
Right? And definitely improve many lives. So there's this, almost like this sense of responsibility which puts about a lot of pressure on the people that are making these products to be there, right?
Sagi Shrieber: So what happened? Why, I mean, why not work on the business model and why close the app, why shut down the app?
Marc Champage: We obviously, did everything that we could at the time to get it to a place where the revenue would be a little bit more predictable and so forth. At that time, I was spending a lot or putting a lot of effort towards raising some capital to keep it afloat, but this, just for people listening, just to set some context, this is before Calm. Which, you know, basically put a big stake in the ground before they raised a significant amount of capital and valued the industry out of over a billion dollars. Before that, it was very much, oh these are these wellness or mindfulness kind of woo woo apps and so forth.
Like there wasn't a lot of attention in the industry or the space. Definitely not from investors. And that started to change obviously. But we were probably just a little too early on that curve. And to be honest, at that point too, 'coz I've been asked before, like, do you regret doing that?
Or what? Like, what if you would've kept going? Like, what would the path be? And I don't look down that road because at that time I felt mentally full and over capacity and start to feel like, how can I be interviewing people and being kind of the face of what we're putting out there and then also the same time not feel mentally fit myself. So starting to feel like a hypocrite and that didn't align anymore. And I guess the other part that made it in the moment, it was very challenging, obviously, because that was essentially a trauma in my life to be able to delete that and then figure out now what to do.
But deep down inside I knew that, you know, I found the right work. It just means that just because this one vehicle didn't work out. Yeah. You know, financially, 80% of, of what we created there, I would say did work out because it's the only reason I'm speaking with you. It's the only reason I've got the book, Personal Socrates, the podcast, and so forth. But it's just one of those things that in the moment that felt like the right decision and it still feels like the right decision.
Sagi Shrieber: So let me ask you about this, because, you know, I'm very interested in the route that you're taking. I'm coming from starting to build a community and that's what I've done for the past decade. I've built a couple communities. This one is kinda like my third community building and I'm coming out of the point of like, wait, so I can, well, I'm really good at creating apps and you know, and stuff like that. So why not create an app for personal development and not be the mentor, the guy who writes the book?
Like, why not create like an app if I can? Because NAV has more validity for scale or more like potential for of scale. That's why people are thinking this, that's what I thought when I got into this. I know that it's gonna be hard, and now I'm starting to feel how hard it is when investors are laughing in my face.
Right. But, let me ask you, when you made that decision, you knew how less of a scale you have in a model where you're coaching and you're mentoring others. And also if you're doing it for companies, so what takes you there?
Marc Champage: You mean post app and like what I'm doing right now?
Because you did another way, you went from app into like the thing that is, let's say less scalable on a normal, like in any common high tech norm, right?
Well, I mean, on my side, like I said, there was probably almost, I'd say a good year, maybe even more of just kind of dancing around, trying to figure out, okay, like what's the path?
Right? I was doing a lot of freelance. Work a lot of brand strategy work, which is what the industry I had come from. What I was trying to do though, with any of that strategy work or writing, was to keep it somewhat in the mental fitness space. That's actually how I linked up with Maxim from Jour
You know, we, we ended up chatting and I did some work for probably, I think about a month with them writing and doing some podcast strategy stuff. So I was doing more and more. Of those types of gigs or that kind of work. And as I was doing that, what started to come up, you know, just in my own reflection in own mental fitness, was that like there's still something here with the power of questions.
And how questions relate back to mental fitness. Because for me, when I was in those dark moments after deleting the app, I mean one question literally saved me from a deep depression. And that's just what do I want for my life? And you know, in answering that, then the next question comes and the question after that, right?
Like, what do I need to do today? Who do I need to? Speak with, and that it just slowly started to chart a new path and bring back the motivation and hope of, you know what, Yeah. I, I am on the right journey. It's just, I'm in the fog right now and trying to kind of sort my way through. So that's where the book came through in that moment. So it just all started to feel natural. I was starting to talk about the idea of the book. The reflection was, wait, I've interviewed hundreds of people now either directly related to the app or for the podcast and they're all asking really powerful questions.
Say again, how do we bring those questions to people, but through a narrative that lands and relates to where you are at in your life right now? So in a way, the book, because that was the next step, the book is actually almost like an analog version of what the app was. In a way, the more I think about it, because it's really designed to meet people where they're at, and then people land on a question or a chapter with whether it's people from the past like Robin Williams or Picasso or Jane Austin, or people from the present day, like Ryan Holiday, James Clear, and so forth.
There's something in there for everyone to get started. So yeah, that was, I guess the catalyst or the jumping off point to saying, "You know what, I'm just gonna stay with this and I'm gonna just create kind of the one man show or one man business on this side and write and this bring these practices to people". Then the next big one really from that as the book had launched, and I was starting to do some of this because of the app, but there were speaking opportunities or working directly, and this is the part I really like, working directly with teams to onboard their teams into mental fitness. Like what is it, how do you integrate these kind of modalities and this way of thinking into your personal and professional lives.
Because at the end of the day, I mean, it's super simple. When minds stop functioning or aren't functioning optimally, I don't care what you're working on or what you're doing in your life, you're not doing it at your full capacity. Yeah, and probably most importantly, it doesn't feel good.
There's something off or you're not feeling well, or you're not feeling like you're fulfilled or whatever. It's different for everyone, but no doubt, when your mind's not functioning and we all deserve our minds to be functioning at maximum capacity. Like, I mean, why not?
Right? So that's how, I got into this current phase of what I'm doing on the mental fitness. I guess you can say landscape.
Sagi Shrieber: I love that and by the way, I really love the term mental fitness. It's the term I came across just I think a few months ago starting to research and I heard her first one founder of Calm, forgot his name.
Marc Champage: Yeah, Michael Acton Smith
Sagi Shrieber: Exactly, so he mentioned it on podcast. He was like, I wanna be like, you know, we're wanna be the number one mental fitness. I'm like, shit, mental fitness. Yeah. Right. Because when people say mental health it's usually in a bad connotation. It's not good.
Right? Like, it's like people are who have trouble and most people don't really have like really bad mental health, they just have, they need to work on the fitness, mental fitness. So it goes, it's such a perfect term. Not used enough, I guess, by the industry. And so and right now, so what would you say you are most fired about when it comes to mental fitness? What does it take for one, to get into a mental fitness or a high state of mental fitness?
Marc Champage: Well, I think the first thing I'm probably most fired up about just the term or where things have gotten to is, I remember when I first heard Michael Acton Smith mention the term mental fitness, and it was around right at the beginning of our journey on KYO and we were speaking in those languages as well. And I think at the time, it was the first time I had ever heard that term from someone else as well. And we ended up emailing back and forth talking about that. But now, it's starting to become more adopted and this is what I'm excited about because the motivation or I guess the excitement behind all of this is that people are starting to get to the same place that, when you think of physical fitness and you think, of course I need to do some sort of exercise or, or remain physically fit. Like it's just, that's not a nice to have, It's a requirement to be healthy.
Right, and it's starting the mental fitness sideof the things is starting to get to that point as well. And I mean, I'm biased obviously, but I think if you're gonna prioritize something, it should always be mental fitness first because it's your mind that tells you to go and be physically fit or to go and exercise or to be conscious of what you're consuming, whether that's nutrition for your body or nutrition for your mind, right?
Sagi Shrieber: Right.
Marc Champage: And you know, this is what excites me because when we start prioritizing our minds and what we put in it and how we process things, whether that's five minutes a day to start or just being, you know, just the practices to be more intuitive as the day goes on, I mean, It just leads to tremendous opportunity, right?
Whether, again, personally or professionally. And I think, again, just drawing the parallels people myself included, understand these links, but just like physical exercise. Just because if you don't like running or you don't like, You know, road biking or something like that doesn't rule out the whole category of physical fitness.
Sagi Shrieber: Right.
Marc Champage: And it's the same thing with mental fitness. So, you know, I invite anyone listening if you want to dive into the topic, like try the things that you know, put a smile on your face, like, list out those activities. Is it, you know, when you meditate, do you feel good after that, when you journal, do you feel good after that? Or take a long walk in, in silence and just see what's around you. Like, you make your list of mental fitness activities that then you can default to on a consistent basis for the, for the training, but also when you're in these moments where your mind feels overwhelmed, or there's too much going on, or you feel like you don't have control over the next decision.
You go to any one of those activities and it pops you out of that narrative. Resets gets you back on track.
Sagi Shrieber: Yeah.
Marc Champage: So, yeah. I mean, I think this is where we're heading. I mean, I think it's gonna become the norm. That'd be like, Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll meet you for dinner. I just, I have to get my meditation in, or I'm doing a round of breath.
Do you wanna meet me? And this is happening. I mean, I'm seen in my own circle of friends where I'm having meetings at Breathwork Studios, You know, we're meeting there to do hot cold therapy in a round of breathwork. And after this is when we're having a, a discussion versus, Hey, let's just meet for drinks or something like that. It's exciting.
Sagi Shrieber: Where do you live again?
Marc Champage: Yeah, I live in Toronto, just outside of Toronto. And the place I'm talking about is probably it's actually accessible to anyone worldwide through their app, but it's called "Othership" and they have a physical space. And then I'll send you guys a link as well.
Cause I think they gave me a discount on that link. Then they have a breathwork app, which is, in my opinion, the best one I've seen. Yeah, it's really good. I mean, I use it daily and as we know to use any app daily, I mean, there has to be a good motivation.
Sagi Shrieber: Awesome.
Marc Champage: Yeah, I'll, I'll send you the link, you can pop in the show notes.
I would love that and yeah, man, I mean, you know, it's definitely something that I'm also trying to get into obviously as much as possible. There's a few things when come to mental fitness, I think one of the things that is the strongest and hardest to cultivate is faith. I think it has to do with mental fitness activities like meditation and walking silently or walking nature or things like that are, you know, one thing, but also faith manifestation. I think that you kind of interviewed some of the people on, on your show does have a lot to do, right? With like the way that you can take care of your sanity in such a crazy world.
Yeah. Well, I kind of talk about this. I'm trying to think of, there was a profile in the book, I think it was on Marcus Aureus and the whole idea around his chapter was to audit your belief systems because, when we have a really strong belief system, those points and those anchors within the belief system are usually the things that help us get through the hardest of times or bring us back to some, some sort of sense of purpose or why we're doing these things, right?
Sagi Shrieber: Right.
But what often happens, is we're born into a set of belief systems, right? Whether that's religion or spirituality, or just like a way of operating, for example. And then. We don't often pause at one point in our lives to, to just, Okay, well wait a second, I'm evolving as my own human. Do those belief systems still check out for me?
Right.
Marc Champage: .And sometimes they do and there are elements of it, but oftentimes they also don't. And if we don't stop to, to ask some questions, internal questions of ourselves, then all of a sudden, you know, it feels like we're just, we're we're running around in the world kind of scattered.
Right? Whereas when, you know, for me, like some of those belief, like stoic philosophy is a fundamental belief system or guiding set of principles for me that I know when things are feeling wild, they're out of control. I can pick up, book by Ryan Holiday or pick up Marcus Aurelius , his book of meditations and I know that literally within minutes of just reading any of that text, it pauses whatever's going on in my mind and allows for a perspective shift. Be like, Oh, okay, this is another way I can tackle this, or the what I'm feeling or the circumstances going on in my life right now. Probably not as bad as what I'm reading here and if they were able to maneuver that situation, so can I. Right?
And that's what mental fitness is and that's the training, right? Like cuz if you, if you're doing that every day and it only has to be five minutes or couple minutes, like just to get started, and then all of a sudden you'll start like as something comes in, All right, this is the pause I need. Instead of just reacting, I'm just gonna take five minutes in the middle of the day and reset my mind so that my mind isn't being dragged down all day or for the rest of the week, which then leads to the mental health ,right?
Sagi Shrieber: Right.
Marc Champage: That's the stuff, and this is where the training allows us to really, I think it's the Spartans that say this, like sweat more in training and bleed less in battle. . I mean, it makes sense, right? Put in the training and then you have the luxury of the pause when life happens.
Sagi Shrieber: Definitely. I think doing meditation since I was like 20 something years old, definitely like it shifted the way that I'm able to experience setbacks and also when I'm angry, I can reset faster or, you know, things that are happening around me. You know, I can exactly, I don't have to react when you're mindful, right?
When you have mindfulness in you, you don't have to react, but you really have to work on it. Like, this is like a muscle, right? So you have to keep working on it. So you have to keep meditating to keep finding that, going back and finding the spot in your busy life. And how do you deal with corporate people that you know, most of them are, you know, in a go go mentality, you know, leave me alone, like we do my job kind of thing. How do you train them for doing those kind of things?
Well, I'm just, I mean, it's been fun actually rolling out some of these sessions because the thing is at least the way that I do it is I always have two goals in mind. One, leaving people individually, even though we're doing this as a group making sure that the prompts are individual so that everyone participating leave with their own personalized set of practices that they know will help their mental fitness training or get them started.
Marc Champage: But then the other goal in there is for everyone to feel the benefits of the practices, in the moment work together. And that usually shows up with gratitude type practices or most recently I start, I kicked off a session with a nine minute breathwork sequence. I didn't tell like upfront when we, we booked everything cuz, I knew that people would be like, ah, I don't know, breathwork, like what's, what's that all about?
So I just, you know, I had like one little line about the breathwork and I did one session virtually first with this group, and I just literally started off with two or three deep, inhale and exhales. Nothing crazy and that was just a little teaser.
Then all of a sudden they say, Oh, wow. Yeah, I feel a little bit more relaxed and just kind of level, set the minds. And then we got into the work and then the next week, we did something in person and I did the nine minute session. And that's all , I shouldn't say it's all, but it's probably the majority of what people talked about after said, I never realized how much something like breathwork could you like just reset our minds? Right?
So, you know, anytime we do any of these sessions, I always ask, we always check in as a group said, you know, one word, how's your mind feeling right now? And in that group, you know, they had a company meeting or a company dinner the night before and stuff. So this was the first session, 8:30 AM session. And most of the checkins, myself included, cuz I went to that dinner as well, were, you know, my, I feel tired, my eyes are heavy. I feel a lack of energy and whatnot and within nine minutes, completely different group.
Completely. You know, people are energized, ready to go, they're curious and whatnot. So, to answer your question, there's two things. One, when and then I share those experiences, like thankfully through testimonials and whatnot. Just say, Hey, this is, this is what you know, your team can experience as well.
If that doesn't work. I mean, the blunt statement is just this, like, especially in the last couple years, I hear it. So they hear it. Your team's minds are full, they're overwhelmed. I mean, we've had to deal with more pressure than we've probably ever had to deal with in our lives, just given all of the pandemic related things and everything that ripples from that.
Sagi Shrieber: Yeah.
Marc Champage: I mean, it's no surprise that minds are stressed out and like you, it there's the mental health rates are through the roof. Like it's the highest it's ever been. So that's my line is usually just let's do something to help relieve some of that pressure and train our minds to work for us instead of against us.
And I'm not saying that, you know, what I'm doing is the end all, be all. It's one method into mental fitness, but my approach is, and just like what's in the book and the podcast is just very practical and quick starting points. Because simple works like simple, we stick with as soon as it gets complicated and all of a sudden this is gonna take me an hour every day and I'm just getting started, we drop it, it doesn't work right?
Sagi Shrieber: Yeah, 100%. And you know, so here's the thing I'll tell you, so I'm working on the, for people listening right now, hearing this for first time. I'm working on the second app it's about mornings and how you start your day, right? So I'm looking at critical, right? So like what are the basic things that you can do right now to start your day off right?
So that's why we we're gonna have, we're having gratitude and informations and vision items, stuff like that. Can I ask you that I wanna get into kind of like your personal routines and kinda like let's start with your morning routine, if that's okay. Like, or if you have one, Do you have a specific set of things that you do in the morning or every time something new?
Marc Champage: Yeah, I have an approach to the morning, I guess I could say.
Sagi Shrieber: Okay.
Marc Champage: And I can explain that. So for me, again, like, just to set up the context, it's been at least 12, maybe 15 years at this point of having some sort of mental fitness practices every single morning or at least Monday to Friday.
Yeah. I only share that because if you, if you've never done anything, you know my examples, there might be parts of it that, that work, but the whole flow of it may be like, this is crazy. Like I would never do that. Right. So for me, I, for the most part, I get up anywhere between 5: 30 and 5 45 and from that time period until about 7:00 AM is purely reserved for the training of my mind and body.
And so there's usually right now, and the reason I say have a, like a intention or a flow to the morning, not necessarily like this rigid set of practices is because of, of this reason. I've noticed over the years that when I drop the pressure of saying, All right, when I get up at that time, I have to meditate, or I have to journal, or I have to do breathwork and instead approached it.
I'm getting up and prioritizing time for me to train my mind and body at this time and what happens within that time period will evolve and shift depending on like what I need today, the consistent fact. So, and that, that just relieves for me, again, it relieved so much mental pressure of just like, okay, I have to do this, you know, versus I have a list of things that I know again will help me and I pull from those things.
Cause I know no matter what I do on that list, It'll work, it'll do something right. Yeah. So on the list usually is for sure journaling. I would say journaling is, is my baseline or consistent practice, just probably no surprise coming. The backstory. Yeah. And I usually combine that with some sort of reading or content that mental, mentally nourishing. So what I mean by that is either a book, a biography, or like something that is fueling my mind with positive content or forcing me to reflect and learn. Same thing with podcasts. You know, one morning it might be, Hey, I'm gonna put on a podcast, but I'm gonna pick one that I know is gonna energize and motivate me to get going.
Yeah. So that's, that's the content piece. Lately like I mentioned earlier, I've been doing breath daily, and I'm using Othership because the guided breathworks sessions are just they're combined with really upbeat music and there's all different, just like what you expect from Calm with their daily calms, there's also daily breathwork tracks. So it's always different and it's always different patterns of breathwork. And you can pick whether you want to be upregulated or downregulated or a mix of both. So that's usually the very, after a big glass of water. It's the first thing I'm doing is breath work.
And then I usually get into some sort of physical activity exercise of some sort. And then it finishes off with that like learning and journaling piece. And then I get into my day and around seven, I call this whole period before 9:00 AM the pre-day. And it's the most important period of the day for me by far. So you have all of that kind of mental and physical prep. And then around from seven to 8, 8 30 is when I'm writing usually. Then I drive my son to school. Then the regular day starts.
Sagi Shrieber: Wait, by the way, just to say, because this is podcast for father entrepreneurs, you have kids, right?
Marc Champage: Yeah, six year old and six month old. Two boys.
Sagi Shrieber: Like a very young baby, amazing. Okay.
Marc Champage: Then you know, all that happens then I drive my son to school which I love. So we, you know, it's a little period or moment to bond. My wife picks him up afterwards, so I have the majority of the day to continue with the regular kind of work tasks and whatnot. But yeah, that's how my my day flows. And usually by the end of the day, and this is not always the case, but usually right before I go to bed, I might do a quick little journaling session, pen to paper, so there's no blue screen or tech or anything like that.
And it's just usually some gratitude or setting some intentions for the next day. Just, again, just doing anything possible to set up my sleep now. Right. So that my mind's not full, for example. Right. And he like, it takes minutes. Like, this is why I'm so lit up, up with this work like that takes minutes and dictates whether I'm gonna sleep well or not.
Right. Yeah. Like this is accessible to anyone. Yeah.
Right. I mean, I, yeah, again, I can definitely relate. The one thing that By the way, what are your go-tos for books right now?
Yeah, I usually have a couple on the go. And they're, they're kind of classified into like that morning reading versus evening, just a little bit lighter type thing.
So the morning usually is, is very much. Motivated or, or, or spark me to think differently. So I just, I'm looking at, at my bookshelf right now two books that I'm, I'm really enjoying. Just finished 12 Notes by Quincy Jones. That nice. That book was unbelievable. It's a book that I'm actually gonna, it's, the reason it's still on my bookshelf or on my desk I should say, is I'm gonna go through the highlights and probably write a couple pieces about it.
Then the one I just started was I forget the author's name, but it's the Naval Oh, Naval Overcount. Yeah. His what is it called? The al Alka. What? Not The Alchemist? No, the Al. No, the Al. Almac. Alchem, Okay. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Okay, cool.
Al. Sorry, Al Almanac. I can't speak this morning. Almanack. Yeah.
Yeah, so that one's really good. And it's again, it's just you pick that up and it, it forces you to think, you know, a little bit differently, your shift perspective. Yeah. I love nav
camp. And that's really cool. So. I, I find journaling the thing that I like all these, like I practice from time to time.
In my morning routine I sometimes read. By the way, are you into, into Buddhism at all?
Yeah, for sure, for sure. I haven't read anything recently. But I would say Buddhism and a lot of like, I mean the, our journaling app was called Keo, which is the Japanese word for today. There was a lot of like ancient Asian philosophy and whatnot.
Looped into, I just like the, the. The zen aspects of a lot of those teachings. Right.
And, and so I have just a, a Buddhist chanting book. Budd
Budd? What's that? What's that called? I'm gonna write that. It's
just like you just write down on Amazon. Buddhist Chance in English. Translation to English. Just Okay.
Order that I got it for free in a meditation retreat. Like just, Okay. Just the Book of Buddhist chance. It's, it's not so big and there's a lot of chance and they're translated to English from Poly and just reading through those sometimes is like, you know, it, it makes you kind of again, think differently.
Question. Yeah. Or. Right. It's like, you know there's so much wisdom. It's like you start your morning with wisdom. What could go wrong after that? Right. It's like so I love that as well. And I, I really connect to that breath work. I, I do breath work. Right now. I'm working on my own type of meditation that I call, I, I, I tried to call my meditation genesis basically because I think we.
We're actually bringing to life everything that's in our mind, right? So it's chance that you start with the creation. So br it starts with breathworks going into inner, kinda like going into the mode, right? And after that connecting to visualization and, and, you know, creating the world that you want in the world and and connecting it to, to everything they have going now.
But anyways,
every, all of that. Well, well, just, just on that though, I mean that's, that's why I've really enjoyed breathwork because on the holds, you know, this is where I get lit up because given my. Prompts, Yeah. On the hold. And I've, I've started recording some tracks for other shift. But, you know, if you, if you're going through a sequence of nine minutes and there's not, or there's three breath holds in that sequence, those are three opportunities to provide a really good prompt or sequence of prompts to your point, you know, to either design your life you know, in the way that you want to, to design it.
Then, you know, next could be visualizing how you're gonna. How you're gonna feel, like what's gonna show up. And you are stacking on another practice, like the breathwork itself, setting your, your, your body in this, like the physiology of what's happening in your body is supporting the visualization. And that clear, like, that's what I like about these kind of practices.
When you stack them on together like that, they're so much more powerful. Right. Sorry, interrupt
more, right? Like Yeah,
totally. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You get the extra points. Yeah, exactly.
No, it's awesome. I, Yeah, that's why I love it. I think I'm like, I love experimenting with. And, and I think you coming from experiencing some of Joe Spencer's meditations, did you know probably Joe Spencer's meditation?
Yeah. So it's like, it gives you so fired up. Like, once I, once in one of those meditations, I started crying. I'm like, Shit, I, How can a meditation make you cry? You know? So it's like I, you know, a lot of people don't understand how your emotional state could change your life. And therefore Oh yeah. And, and breathing work a lot of the times is really what one of the things that really helps it.
Right? So it's like your breath work and then it's fitting your heart and, you know, and, and consuming it into your heart. And like there's only like, you totally using the internals of our body, kind of like to, so, Yeah, I love that. But again, coming back to like, one thing I'm struggling with is journaling, which is funny.
Like there's your superpower probably, and it's like I never was able to journal. I don't know why. I'm like, I'm, I tried and I'm, I'm looking at this blank piece of paper and I'm like, . Yeah. I dunno. I, what am I gonna write? And and as a kid I journaled a lot as a kid, but Okay. But I, I don't know why now, as in a good adult, I just really find it hard.
Do you have any like specific, a couple tips to, to maybe get on stuff? Yeah. Yeah.
Well first of all, I would say you are, you're 100% journaling. It's just we need to expand the definition of what journaling is. Cuz you're, you're not alone in this, in this, this camp. Because often and, and like what you just mentioned, we think of journaling as like pen to paper, blank notebook, just a way you go, right?
What's on your mind type thing. But if you, if you really think about the practice itself, The practice behind journaling is reflect. And we all reflect, We all ask questions. We all, you know, think about certain things. It's just whether, just like anything, whether you want to do that with more intention and train your mind to ask better questions, Train your mind to find those, those moments of calm or stillness to, to kind of zoom out and respond versus re react.
Like that's, that's where it goes to the next level. Mm-hmm. . So we're all, we're all. Whether we know it or not, it's just whether we're doing it at a level that supports the person or the the desires that we have for our lives, right? I think I, I always like to start there because at least opens up what we're talking about, and all of a sudden there's a whole other world of possibility here because now you look at, okay, well let's take a look at my day.
Maybe I can squeeze in, you know, five or 10 minutes after lunch for a walk and instead of, you know, throwing on an audio book or, or music or whatever, I'll just walk. With a question in mind or something, right? Like what am I, what am I seeing feeling? What am I hearing in the whispers, right? Like that, you know, the questions like that normally lead us exactly to where we need to go.
Whether, again, whether that's in our personal life or During our, our, our work days, for example, right? Yeah. Like, hey, this is, this is the unlock, Like this is the strategy that needs to, to unfold. So it's that stillness like that, that journaling on your walk, that, that makes impossible, right? Yeah. Or it's an audio note in an app, or you're, you're, you know, you're writing just what's on your mind or what's what the block is and so forth.
Like this is where I, I obviously highly encourag. Prompts and questions to help because mm-hmm. It is, it is tough to just open a blank sheet of paper or, or digital paper or just a blank canvas in general. The prompts though, you know, even something as simple as starting the morning off, just asking yourself like, How do I feel today?
You know, and where do I feel that in my body? Do I, do I feel stressed? Do I feel good? You know, like, where's that showing up? Often just by doing that, and you can do that while your coffee's brewing, your tea, steeping your first glass of water, like whatever it is, like looking at those moments in your day that are always happening, you know, you, you start the day acknowledging those emotions and you, you know, you release them often by just doing that.
And the, the opposite of that, though, whether we do this or not, those emotions are still there. Yeah. And there's, they're gonna follow us into the day whether we, we consciously realize it, and they just pack into our minds and they affect our conversations. This is what I mean, coming back to the work doing with teams, right?
Yeah. This is where the minds start to become jammed and overwhelmed until you reach a breaking point. But there's always, there are always those moments. Chip there's, there's someone in the book and that I've interviewed a couple times, Chip Conley that he, he was think he still is, he was a mentor to Brian Chesky at, at Airbnb for, for many years.
And before that, ran hosp a boutique hospitality hotel chain for 25 years called Ua de Viv. And sold that. Yeah. And. He talks about this idea what I, what I'm, what I'm mentioning as, as like psychic toll, that, you know, it's like, you know that feeling that that builds up in your neck or your shoulders and it starts to feel tight or it's just to burn a little bit.
I mean, that doesn't just happen overnight. It's usually, you know, days and weeks and potentially months of emotional psychic toll that is building. Then all of a sudden you get to this point and you're like, Oh, I need a massage, or I need to do something. My back hurts. Right. And just slowing down right, Right now.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, just slowing it down and asking yourself, Yeah. Okay. Well why, Like, how do I feel and, and what's fueling that, that these emotions essentially, so then you can make some quick chorus cracks. Yeah.
And I'm, I'm, you know, Yeah, I'm, I'm going through a period right now where I'm like really strained in a way.
Sure. But I'm also like an injury right now. I have a crap rib and scratch fracture in both my feet right now. And I've, and my baby's not sleeping well, so anyways, it's
like kind of Yeah, it's combination.
Sagi Shrieber: Yeah, it's a combination. And I'm like, is it emotional though, or is it like, like, or is it physical?
I don't know. Anyways. But, but yeah, man, I, I'm totally with you. I. And, and it's interesting thinking about journaling in another way, like reflecting and everything like that. It's very interesting. Going back to questions and I wanna like go going to the questions because I know it's also a big part of what you do and it's all about your book.
Everybody, just so you know, go on Amazon, get personal Socrates right now. Amazon or any other right, or Yeah. Thank you. So by the way I haven't checked if there's the audio
book.
Marc Champage: Yeah, absolutely. It was recorded in this, this booth. Okay.
Sagi Shrieber: Awesome, awesome. So I, I'm going to get the
Marc Champage: book right now.
That's on Audible and Apple. Apple Books. Okay,
Sagi Shrieber: awesome. So, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I mean, so in terms of, Oh, and by the way, I remember now why I haven't got it yet, because I'm waiting for the one that I ordered from Amazon. Because I, because the questions, it's like the thing you read in the morning, right?
It's that. Yeah. And so, yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so questions lead us and do you know what, Do you know like the term affirmations?
Marc Champage: Yeah, of course. Right. So yeah,
Sagi Shrieber: there's does do anybody who doesn't know, like there's affirmations, which are positive statements that help you rewire brand in your mind and, and reset limping beliefs.
And there is affirmations, which is a concept that is saying instead of an affirmation, ask a question. , Right? Ask that information as a question. So it really reminded me of that. And just another note, really this morning we have this, like in my, in my team, I have a UIUX design agency, and we have our Daily Insights now.
So every, every day, every one of the team members shows insights. And one of them shared Steve Jobs commencement speech where he says, Connect the dots. And he was like, And he asked you a question, he's. Every day, ask yourself this question, If this was the last day of my life, would I be happy doing what I'm going to do today?
And I was, I thought about you. I'm like, Oh, yeah, right. . So I, Yeah, Yeah. Great question. Right? Great question to ask yourself in the morning. So what are your questions that you ask yourself nowadays?
Marc Champage: Oh, I'm glad you added the nowadays because I mean, to me a quality question is always evolving with Right.
As your life does. Right? Right. Like, so for example, like that question I asked, you know, what do I want for my life that saved me from some serious mental health challenges or pulled me out of that? But if you ask me that question today, it's like, it's a nice check-in to, okay, how are things? Am I still on the right track?
But now I find. The questions that that come up most just because there's, I've transitioned, especially with the book and everything going on, there seems to be a lot of really interesting opportunity that's popping up and I'm doing everything I can to. Make sure my clear, my mind is as clear as possible to actually go down the right path.
And the one that supports, you know, what, you know, the, the, the business I'm trying to build and, and the person I'm trying to design for myself personally. Mm-hmm. and just making sure that I'm not also just getting caught up with the momentum of whatever's happening and all of a sudden in six months from now and be like, Oh shit.
You know, that like, , how did, how did I get here? I mean, all of a sudden, you know, I'm in, I'm not, where I'm, you know, to borrow some language from James Clear I'm, I've climbed the wrong mountain. Right. Right, right. And so for me then questions like clarity type questions like I shared earlier, like, what am I hearing in the whispers or like, what, what feels or sounds most true right now?
And it's amazing, man. Like if you just take even five minutes just to calm the mind and still what's happening, All of a sudden what, you know, at two minutes ago felt like, wow, there's so many things going on. All of a sudden you have what, what, what I would describe as like laser-like focus to be like, you know what?
all of this stuff is noise, but this here is where I should be directing my attention. Right. And that's, that's what I feel is so powerful about good questions, right? They, they give us that moment to, to, to, to, to pause. They give us that stillness and they allow us to be very clear. And then the next step from being clear is, Intentional with what we do, right?
Like, are the things that I'm doing each day, day in, day out, are they supporting, you know, me or what I'm trying to build or pushing me farther from that person or that product or service or whatever it is. Right? Right. So just, just the pause, like, I have the, the book open right now, and I, I'm thinking of, of your work as well, and I'm thinking there's a prompt in there from Scott Beski who was.
The founder of Behan and, and now VP over at Adobe, and his opening prompt in the chapter is, Why am I building this? Mm. You know, just to like, get caught up. You like, cuz it's so easy to get caught up and go and build to build, build. And then you get to this point and you've kind of forgot why you started in the first place or you've iterated your way to like a completely different offering that may be right, but but also may be completely off from the whole reason why you started this and, and worse off the examples he gave me.
you know, a degree off from the path in terms of what your customers actually want. Right? And that's when it gets, you know, that's when it gets, and that's what happened to us, right? Like, you know, all of a sudden now you don't have customers that are paying, you know, for what you're building. So, you know, I'm rambling a bit, but a, a question like that allows us to just pause and realize, Okay, well maybe, maybe I am off course.
Whether it's your life or your business and your professional. Yeah,
Sagi Shrieber: no, definitely man. I mean, I, that's my biggest fear. My, I, and, and I'm trying not to, I'm using fear. I think to fuel me not to really like, you know, hold me back. But I, yeah, it's, I do have this biggest fear where like, I have so much going on.
What am I doing? Like that is off my course, right? How am I not listening to my intuition? And one of the things he said makes so much sense. And I, I worked with with the coach. I, so for me, I, I had a hard time getting into, Because I don't know. That's me and most, I think most Israelis are like, that, are very kind of just, I dunno, cynical or not cynical, but like, you know, don't gimme that woo woo shit or self love shit like, you know, Israel, like, we're fighting for every breath here.
So I, I don't know, it's like so when it came to gratitude, I knew it was an important tool for me for my mental fitness. So I got, I got a, I got a coach who, she's just the most great, grateful person I know, like I met her personally in sum of greatness. Oh yeah. And I was like, By the way, are you coming this year?
I, I'm not, I've never been. You're talking about Louis House event?
Okay. Please do. I'm planning on being there September. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. All right. So, so so she's just amazing. I hired her and she worked with me in gratitude and one of the most profound experiences she, she gave me was when she was asking questions, it was like, sgi, and I was like rambling about like, and about everything that I have going on and what I don't know what to do.
And like, she's like, What are you doing out of love? And what out of fear?. I'm like, Holy shit, . Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and then like it made you think like for days. And and then a couple times we went into meditation, and then in the meditation there was the question. , What am I channeled to do now? Like what?
You know, and, and everything, just like the questions lead you every single part away. Yeah. And yeah. And when you stop to ask you for, just ask yourself the question. Like, listen, meditate for a second, Sit down. Listen to all the others around you and say, What am I, you know, channeled to do? What, what am I here to do?
What should I focus on? Or the question will the answer?
Marc Champage: Let me give you another spin to gratitude. Maybe this will help with your, your gratitude practice and, and everyone listening, you do, let's do, let's do it together. It takes seconds and literally can completely exchange your, your mindset. Good. So, Y and we, we'll do this now, but you can use this at any point.
If, if you're, again, something comes up in, in, in the day that that pisses you off or throws you off your game, close your eyes and you think of who is that one person that. you're super grateful towards, but have not thanked lately. You know, like bring them to your, to your mind. And, you know, just think about like, why, like what, what makes, what, what fills your heart about that person?
What have they done? And what would you like to say to them? And the next step is, is a simple one. You can either express that message to them or just send them a text message. Like right now, just say, Just thinking about you. Hope you have a good day. And here's the thing that happens. I mean, you just made their day.
Yeah. They'll probably write back saying, Thanks for making my day. Now they just made your day. And what's not happening in that moment is your mind is not spinning in a survival state of mind. Your mind is now in a, in. Happy, motivated, grateful state, which is the thriving state, which is where, I mean, Tony Robbins talks about that.
I just wrote a chapter on hiphop. He's, he's fresh in my mind, but he says it, you know, in a thriving state of mind, answers flow. You know, they come naturally. They're there. You know, we see the, see the path in a lousy state of mind, they're slow, or they're just non-existent. So this is just a way. Easily shift your mind literally within seconds.
Right. You give yourself a little dopa or a little neurochemical cocktail of dopamine and serotonin. The feel good emotions. Yeah. Instantly.
Sagi Shrieber: That's amazing. I love that. And, and it's such, again, such a simple, again, like you said, the simple stuff, you know, that that can change your life. Yeah. People don't understand it's the frequency that you cruise at whatever altitude, right?
It's like that emotional frequency crews at will will determine your success in your happiness together. And yeah, you know, or lack thereof. It's just amazing how, you know, small exercise like that can bring you higher. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so bro, man, I, I, I would, I can talk to you for hours, but we need to wrap this up.
I know. Yeah, same. We should, we should definitely get back and also talk about how you bring these mental fitness practices into your kids' lives. I would love to, Yeah. Ask about that. I would love to also ask about your upcoming work that the things that I know you're, I dunno if you can talk about it, but you know, the I know what you're doing on a podcast right now with the Australian.
Marc Champage: Oh yeah. KPMT.
Sagi Shrieber: Yeah. Yeah. So, so, I mean, there's so much to talk about, but I wanna drive people for, you know, two main things right now, guys. First of all, go find behind the human and subscribe, follow whatever, where you are. And then also get the book, Press on Socrates. Thank you, because I think it's one of those best things I, I'm, I can wait for it to arrive, so I.
Start checking in the morning, you know, like reading it as part of my stuff in the morning. And thank you man. Thank you for being who you are. Oh, thank
Marc Champage: you. Received, and I mean, it's You know, conversations like these for me, We're recording this in the morning in my time zone, and it's just, it, it's, it's set my path and my energy for the day.
So I thank you for that and thanks for everyone who, who made it this far in the conversation and for listening and, and just for being the awesome human you are. Awesome,
Sagi Shrieber: man. Thank you so much. And everybody remember, oh, by the way, Marc, where is the best place to follow you online?
Marc Champage: Yeah, I mean, the best behindthehuman.com.
Yeah. You can find the, the the podcast app behind the Human or myself is @MChampagne on Instagram, but everything's over at behindthehuman.com. Cool.
Sagi Shrieber: Okay. So behindthehuman.com. Yeah. Sound good? Thank you so much and we'll bring you back again.
Marc Champage: Absolutely.