Mark Chassman's Intro

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Today on the Servant Leadership Podcast, we welcome Mark Chasman. From starting in Hollywood's talent agencies to

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leading broadcast television turnarounds in Alaska to being one of the first 50 employees at Facebook, Mark has spent

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decades at the intersection of business, leadership, and innovation. What makes Mark's story so compelling isn't just

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his tech startup stories. It's the shift he made from chasing career success to discovering his true calling of helping

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people flourish. Through his work with the social leadership academy, the emerging leaders initiative, and now

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community transformation projects in Chicago, Mark has devoted his life to guiding leaders toward purpose, calling,

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and impact. Join us as we talk about what it really means to flourish, how to navigate seasons of burnout, and

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reinvention, and why servant leadership is the foundation of lasting influence.

Welcome Mark Chassman

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Mark, thank you for joining the servant leadership podcast. Chris, thank you for having me on the

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servant leadership podcast. You know this, but the audience might not know. You've been one of the most

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influential people in my life over the last decade. So, I'm really excited for you to share a bunch of insights.

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There's no pressure, but you have a fascinating journey. When you first reached out to me,

Mark Chassman's Corporate Journey

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Yes. The thing I saw was that you had held some pretty significant positions

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at some pretty major companies and I also saw that you were one of the first 50 employees at Facebook and I honestly

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thought your profile was made up because it looked so good. Talk a little bit about the journey that led you through

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your corporate world and then we'll get into a lot of what's happened after that. Absolutely. The journey that led me

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through my corporate world, I guess we' call it, was really about me thinking that my

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identity was something. Um, and going on that journey to kind of determine whether or not that's who I

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really was. And it was very early on because I grew up in Los Angeles. My dad was a Hollywood executive uh head of the

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Screen Actors Guild and the Writer Guild of America that my lens of, you know, path for career was going to be in the

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entertainment business. And so I had seen how hard he worked on behalf of others running a labor union. And I

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said,"Well, I think my path for entertainment is I wanted to be at the level that I was having an influence and

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impact on the decisions that were being made about what people were going to watch, what people were going to see." Um, found out that most of those people

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were started out as talent agents. And so, very early on, even before I went to college, I thought I wanted to

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be a Hollywood talent agent. and um went to school, business school, with the

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idea that I just want to learn general business, knowing that the place where you start if you want to be a Hollywood talent agent is in the mail room at a

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Hollywood talent agency. Well, that's where I ended up. And um when I got there, uh I very early on realized that

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the job of being a Hollywood talent agent at entry level was following

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orders and being doing what you're told to do. And uh I was one of those people

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who believed that I had ideas that I wanted to bring to my career, which is

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really about developing talent like the next generation of talent that they were going to embrace and get

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really excited about because I showed up on their doorstep. And uh not only did they not get excited about that, but

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they put me through the ringer of what it was like to become a Hollywood talent agent, which felt a lot like what I went

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through when I was going through pledging in a fraternity. And I had it had nothing to do with it. And uh I was

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thinking of how am I going to fasttrack my way to this and found out after 5 years that fast-tracking your way to

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anything in life uh is a delusion. Uh literally I burnt out of Hollywood

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after 5 years. Uh had all the reasons why other people, you know, made that happen in my life as opposed to me uh

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getting in the way of what was my potential. And uh as a result of that uh at 28 years old ended up not in the

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corporate world achieving greatness and affecting Hollywood and things that you watch on television or the movies but uh

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back in my parents' home sleeping in my sister's bedroom because my bedroom had converted to a library that my dad was

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now using completely lost about what my purpose was and where I was going and what I was trying to do. So the

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corporate life from there ended up being I had no money and wanted to make it

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and somebody said you know you might be good at sales and I said okay what do you think I'd be good at selling and

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said well what are you passionate about and I said well I still love entertainment and what it produces and what comes out of it and they said well

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maybe you want to go out and represent distribute films to uh you know outlets for motion pictures or maybe you want to

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go in the television side and sell advertising time for television stations and so the second one somewhat appealed

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to me. Thought that would be a quick jump into making some money. And that's where I ended up. And uh the career

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there was a 10-year career in broadcast television. Uh going from sales to an

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actual turnaround as a general manager of a station group in Alaska. Um and uh

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the exciting part of that was not only what the opportunity was, but to turn around a business when I had never run a

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business and found out I had no idea how to do that. Um, but actually being Alaska, having

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been born and raised in California and realizing that now I had to deal with the harshness of a reality in a climate

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and a community that I had no idea of how to navigate my way through. So that

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taught me some things about uh ultimately how to lead and the hard way

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um in a turnaround of a business where the business was bankrupt for three years and in receiverhip taken over by

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um the Federal Communications, you know, commission and then resold to the ownership group that I was now a part

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of. the turnaround process of a business in a community that uh had all kinds of

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baggage that went along with it based on their clientele telling me that when I got there uh was a rude awakening to uh

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what it meant to truly learn how to be a leader, especially in the context of showing up

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with a mindset of how do I best serve as opposed to let me tell you and sell you on why you should be doing business with

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me. And that was really my first experience uh where I was thrown in a fire of

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learning how to show up um and turn a business which is just an extension of people trying to create something of

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value for other people into something that can serve and actually create that kind of value. And so that was that four

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years of that transition into the media world that is the online world early on and moving to Chicago uh joining America

Involvement with AOL and Facebook

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online uh when they had started to create a team of people who were now trying to monetize their eyeballs beyond

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the connectivity that we used to get through dialup connection on America online and I was part of the first team

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that was about okay build a sales organization in the Midwest that's why I moved to Chicago that could now monetize

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the business. And from the other experience I had, I realized that we're just selling some

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idea that people can connect their products and their services to an audience that we didn't know whether our

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audience was even wanting to engage. And so it was very very much back to those roots of servant leadership where I

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realized we just have to go out and have conversations with people, build relationships with people, and then determine if there's anything we do to

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serve them. And then ultimately over time, because basically all we're doing is selling connectivity to an audience

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through clicks and eyeballs watching their ads, we had to have them want to trust us to engage in that process.

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And so all along I'm saying all this because each and every one of my steps once I was awakened to the fact that I was learning how to be a servant leader

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were really my entire corporate life experience, right? that then led to a door opening

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after six and a half years at AOL and its decline as a valued asset in the

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marketplace. Um was a shift to Facebook where I was employee 43 of Billy hired

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you know just to now figure out how to monetize a business that now is starting to connect with people and their

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eyeballs. Um and it was interesting because I became the oldest employee at the time I was hired. My boss Mark

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Zuckerberg was 22 and a half years old at the time he hired me and uh it was very interesting now how do I navigate

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and serve in this environment so I'll leave that on the table so you can ask another question

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some of the things that I've learned from you over the years is when you show up you always show up to serve other people you know and you kind of have two

Mark's Journey To "Finding His Purpose"

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things that when I think of you I think about and you even talked about it here is when you show up it is to serve other

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people and this other piece maybe came from some rough patches in that journey of finding your purpose. When you think

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through finding your purpose, how did all this craziness leading up to this point where now you're at Facebook

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and even starting to think about after Facebook, how did you think about purpose? And as people are listening,

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what do you think are the life lessons that they should be thinking about related to their purpose? Wow, I love that. Well, I think there's

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seasons of life. And I think the majority of my seasons up until I was 40 years old was very much aligned with the

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way people think about a career, creating a career and then having that career serve you and then serve your

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family as opposed to having a calling where now what you are thinking about

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and how you're approaching life is really about how do you serve others and in serving them right you get to

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experience a life that is much more joyful and much more abundant. it. And that concept that I just kind of

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unpackaged right there didn't happen until I got to midlife and I had the

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crisis of realizing that my career was not the thing that was fulfilling me.

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Although I was doing well in the way that you might measure fulfillment, like making good money, having things, a

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house that I owned, being able to put my kids through college. I felt as empty as

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empty as possibly could be to the point where I got sick and ended up in a hospital where they basically diagnosed

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me of having burnout as opposed to anything else and realized that there was something off in the way that I was going about

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thinking and approaching my life and that in that midlife crisis which many people have when they realize if this is

Mark's Mid-Life Crisis and Calling

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all there is then what is this? I made the adjustment by being around

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other people who had got to the same place um and through having studied a book called Halime by by the name of Bob

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Buford to realize that I was in a place in a space that many people get to when their compass is not set right. And uh

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and that was the shift of really going down this path of trying to understand what am I really called to um which is

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really more about who am I and who am I here to be and what are the problems that I might be sent to solve.

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That was now much more faith grounded which I had none of growing up. I grew in a culturally Jewish home, agnostic to

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all things of faith. And at the time of midlife, I started to explore what I'm missing. And I was willing to open up

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the Bible, reading Old Testament and studying it, reading New Testament and studying it, engaging with other men in

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those types of studies to come to that place where ah what I'm missing is this

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thing that is not a career but is a calling and how do I live into that and

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found that the way to best try and live into that was saying well who else is stuck here and wants to go on that

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journey and really that's how you and I met because the creation of that after

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my media career was what I felt called to, which is create something that would help other people go on this journey,

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discover what they were called to as opposed to enhance their career and make that adjustment, that shift

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from a middle life crisis to something that didn't have to be. So there was the

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evolution of the learning there and then how it carried out in terms of when we actually, right? And it's so interesting because I

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it's always some luxurious or like unbelievable job that people have these hopes for and then

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they work their whole life to try and achieve that thing and in the end they a lot of people end up getting there which is great. Some

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people don't end up getting there, but even if people get there or they don't get there, they lack fulfillment, right?

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And and it's kind of your journey of when people look at you from the experience up through Facebook, it's

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like, wow, like you had everything that people work for, like great to work at

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these unicorns and do all these cool things, but it felt purposeless in the end and you found yourself lost. when

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when you went through that self-discovery, you learned a lot. And then you did take it and start an

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organization, multiple organizations, but an old an organization that then helped people figure out their calling,

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their purpose, uh, and what it looked like to be a good servant leader really, uh, without using that language in your

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curriculum and everything you did. But when you started that, what was the

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vision? Because I know you saw a lot of hurting people stuck in that same position. And what was the hope with

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that? Really great question. Well, I think part of the vision was, you know, I had mentioned Bob Buford were at halftime. I

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had the opportunity to actually fly out to uh meet him in Atlanta um before he

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passed away cuz a friend of mine introduced me to him. I was always raving about what he helped me do and uh

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and he made that introduction. And in talking to Bob about again, same thing. What was his vision when he started

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Halime, the Halime Institute, it was really about helping people not have to get to that middle life and get to that

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place of emptiness um and feeling disillusioned by what life was all about. But my goal was to think about

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that in the context of how can I do that at the quarter life and show up for the next generation with that orientation so

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that they don't even have to right get to that place foundationally at all

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because earlier on in their career they're getting exposed to thinking about right this idea of what am I

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called to what am I purpose to be how do I show up in that context uh as opposed

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to get into the trap of where the career right ultimately results it for me. And so that was the vision. And then it was

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I have no idea how to do that. Um I didn't see myself as somebody who was a academic or an educator. I just saw

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myself as somebody who had a heart for this cuz I had gone through it myself and felt like I should have known this

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earlier in life. Somebody should have told me. Somebody should have showed up for this. And literally just said,

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"Well, how do you go about doing anything in the way that I've tried to do things, which is more entrepreneurial, is just take a step

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forward and do it." So I started what was called the social leadership academy with three other people with the idea

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that why don't we come alongside next generation people aspiring to be entrepreneurs and in the process help

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them become entrepreneurs but ground them in this idea of purpose and calling and that's kind of how it began.

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Wow. So you saw these people with budding visions and some earlier in the

Coaching Others For More Purposeful Lives

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process, some later in the process who were coming alongside. You kind of knew some of the things that they'd be struggling with before they even hit the

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struggle points. How did you help coach them and how did people receive that coaching and teaching and just you

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walking alongside of them? Well, it depends on how did those people depending on the people

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embrace that. I think what I learned about it which was really interesting you know because there are a lot of right people who have programs that are

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coaching and the mentoring and the coming alongside and the teaching and the workshopping and all the things that we offer

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was that the thing that only mattered the only thing that mattered was that the other person felt like you are there

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for a relationship that is about care and concern for their well-being and

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that a methodology or some kind of curriculum or some kind of you know thing that most people then show up for

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this type of experiences look for is not really the thing. It's about who can you connect with and who can you build

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relationship with. And so the answer to the question is really there was hit and miss. You know, you're speaking fondly of your

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experience. We made a connection obviously or built the relationship and somehow I showed up and I don't know for

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the most part did things that were loving and kind to you or with you knowing that my my natural tendency is

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to be challenging and sometimes people go whoa who do you think you are trying to get in my face on this topic and

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others I wasn't their cup of tea but realized you know relationships work because there's mutuality relationships

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work because there's alignment in values relationships work because there's a sense that both people care for one

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another so I found that those were the ones that were the richest and actually led to what I hoped they would lead to

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is more purposeful lives that then translate to wherever they went off from that season of being part of this uh

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social leadership academy or ELI emerging leaders initiative experience that uh that they would go on and have a

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much more rich life but I knew that you know not everybody would say that was my experience.

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Well, as you went through this process of SLA and Eli helping

Action Steps To Help Leaders Awaken

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walk alongside so many people, uh, myself included, what was the thing that you were hoping

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they would wake up to? You know, you talked about the quarter life crisis and then what were a couple of the things,

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especially as listeners are thinking, boy, I might be here and not even know it. There were action steps that you

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encouraged people to take to kind of save themselves from some of those later pitfalls that they were going to bump

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into. It's a great question. I mean, I think about really the word you use is a

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an awakening, right? How do I help people awaken people um to the fullness

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of their potential so that then they can experience right the abundance that this life has to

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offer. And I think I was going on the journey like I said myself for that would be cool like I'd like to

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experience what that is. that I realized the way to experience is to just go on that journey with others not really

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knowing where you're going is the best way to go about it. But now it's the looking back on. And I think that the

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who you surround yourself with is the everything about how you experience life. But we get to make the choice. And I had

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made the choice that I wanted to be with people who saw themselves as more who

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saw themselves as people who can create the life that they desired. and that they weren't un they were unencumbered

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by, you know, excuses or things happening outside of themselves to actually make that a reality.

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And and I learned for myself that the things that I desired and wanted that

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when I was 22, a lot of people kind of, you know, put that whatever bucket list together and say I hope to acquire these

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things or do these things or accomplish these things that I was able to accomplish 95% of those things. But

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based on who I was able to surround myself with who also had kind of a heart and a hunger for that kind of a life

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and I wish more people would know that you know when they get clear on the things that they actually desire and

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they want that once they decide and commit themselves to getting it then they have to make the choices about who

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they want to surround themselves with. And that's a hard choices to make because sometimes you think those people

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are the people that have been with you, who brought you into this world, who may have been your best friends at this

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point or that point in your life, may not be those people are going to get you to that next place that you want to go.

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And therefore, you have to be open to other people coming into your life. And I found that challenging because I would

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think I'm think of myself as more of an introvert that I get my energy from kind of me time, alone time, reflective time.

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But I also know that if I want to get the other things in life, you get it in the opposite. You get that by being and

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going on that journey with other people. So it's been somewhat of a challenge in that regard. But I wish Miller people

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would again embrace that and awaken themselves to they can create

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the life that they desire, but the way they need to go about doing that might be completely in opposition to the

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comfort that is in there now in order for that to happen. And even though I could have that as a conversation, then

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people have to make those choices. Well, you did a great job of creating spaces and groups where that happened

Surrounding Yourself With The Right People

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easily if somebody raised their hand and said, "I would like to find that." Yes. But a lot of people listening are in

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situations where they don't have a Mark Chasman coming into their city saying, "Hey, I'm going to put together these

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groups." They're wishing they had that. And I would love to hear what you would encourage those people to do as a next

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step in trying to surround themselves with the right kind of people. Yeah. I mean I think that part of again

20:56
my path on this was looking around myself and saying who are those people for me and really realizing that oh if I

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want that for me then I need to create it. And so there's the right finding people who can help you get what you

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want or there's creating that thing that you want by being willing to put

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yourself out there and navigate your way down a road to determine whether or not you know this is something that you can

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create. And what I found is that there were other people who wanted that and there were also other people who want to be part of creating that. So the benefit

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was it didn't fall on my shoulders completely. As I said, everything that you see in my resume says co-founder. I

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don't do anything as founder or by myself. If it's not a co- in cooperation and collaboration and communication, if

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a collective of others, I'm not doing it because I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. So, my encouragement

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would be obviously we're having a conversation. One, I'm always looking

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for people that that's what they desire. Um, not that I can always show up for everybody to bring them on that journey,

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but I've been training and developing people for some time who potentially could and uh that they raise their hand

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and say, "This is something I desire and I want." Um, and that desire and want, the way I think about it is I grow

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transformational leaders, right, who then really show up wanting to awaken

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themselves to their true identity, their true ability to influence, and then

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their true power to actually create what it is that they desire. And if they hunger for that, then we got a path to

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help them go down, whether it's directly with me in some relationship or others that I've coached up in some kind of a relationship.

Human Flourishing

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Obviously, we talk a ton about servant leadership on the podcast. And one of the things that I love about you

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specifically is that you just show up for people in unbelievably ways. Not

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just for me, but I've seen this in dozens and dozens of people. I remember maybe within the last 5, 10 years,

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probably 5 years, you started using different language. You talked about this concept of human flourishing.

23:04
Mhm. And when you said it, I was like, what does that even mean? But but it felt when you said it, I'm

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like that's what Mark does. He helps other people flourish and find their purpose, find their calling, and really

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flourish where they are. That's not necessarily exactly maybe how you meant it, but I was like, "Oh, I could see Mark using that type of language." Talk

23:27
about how this idea of human flourishing started to come into your world and what that led you into.

23:33
Yeah, it's interesting because it is really more of a That's interesting. Tell me more.

23:38
which is quite frankly the idea of using it as a term to for lack of a better way

23:44
cut through the clutter of all the the the noise even when I just said you know I I want to show up and help leaders who

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transform and go oh same thing what the heck is that you know or or oh I've heard that before what really what it is

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is it's it's just putting the relationship at the foundation of anything that

24:05
results in flourishing like and Then you get to define it. So me flourishing

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might be defined as well based on the now. Here's what it is. Getting out of the debt that I have on my credit card

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and getting out of the debt that I'm burdened with because I went to school and got several degrees and now I'm not

24:24
earning enough to pay off the debt. Flourishing might be getting out from under because that's what the person might

24:29
define it as. That's one person. Another person might say, "Well, flourishing for me is something greater. I want to

24:36
create a podcast about servant leadership that then brings people that I already have relationships, my

24:41
friends, to want to have conversations with me because I love being in relationship with my friends. And this just opens up another door to have them.

24:47
And then from there, flourishing now becomes something else, which is what I'm seeing in the evolution of

24:52
like you said earlier, the first day you started this podcast, you and I happen to be together. You were telling me about how excited you were to start this

24:59
podcast and what you were trying to do. And now you've taken it to a whole another place where now you're talking

25:04
even when we started today about what is flourishing going to be looking like going forward and now you're coming with

25:09
other mechanisms by which you can use not only the content but the relationships that you've now developed

25:15
to extend to your audience that is now showing up million people wanting to hear the people that you want to invite

25:22
into your life. So the point about it is it's a relational journey is what it is. And the ones that are most rich for me

25:29
are the ones that continue on the journey because the definition keeps evolving and changing and they still want to be around me to help them get to

25:36
wherever that next thing is. And some do for a season or reason and they say, "Okay, I had enough of you. Now I can go

25:41
on and flourish in the way I decide I want to go flourish." And others have been around for 15 years continuing on

25:46
that journey in a relational construct. Um there's two more formal pieces of it. One is I

25:52
call my mastermind groups. There's people been in this mastermind grouped experience with others who all are

25:58
showing up with this idea that they want to flourish to a greater extent with different definitions of what that means. And then they do the onetoone

26:04
time and coaching with me. And sometimes the onetoone coaching and time with me is what we're doing here, which is I'm

26:09
just showing up being me. And maybe you get some value out of it. I love it.

Finding Joy In Everyday Life

26:14
There's a difference too. Maybe you didn't say two types of people exactly, but some people are in this process of

26:20
they're flourishing at the time and they continue to evolve. And there's other people that it's they're in the same

26:26
season and it's a long season. It's been 10, 20 years and they might have ideas and passions, but they're in a season.

26:32
Uh, one of the things I've seen you do well uh, with so many people who are stuck in a season that they don't really

26:38
want to be in, but they feel stuck because they're worldly very successful people is help people understand how to

26:45
look at their life differently in a way that is true flourishing, not just worldly making good money and providing

26:52
for their family. How do you help people shift their mindset from I'm doing this because I have to and because I'm

26:59
successful and everyone around me is telling me that I'm the best to really finding joy in the everyday things in

27:06
life. Yeah, that's a great question. Well, there's the there's the how I show up in

27:12
those circumstances because of the design of me which is often very much

27:18
challenging, right? individuals to maybe try and gain a perspective that maybe

27:24
right now they can't see sometimes in a encouraging and sometimes in a more forceful way depending on who

27:29
the person is right and other times it's again it's just in in the moment of the now right how can I

27:36
help that person move a step in the direction that then becomes the next step in that direction because we often

27:44
get very stuck in our story and oftentimes again it's real life real

27:50
that has been building up over years and years and years and years of time. I don't show up as a psychotherapist to

27:56
unpack your past. I just naturally try and show up and say this is could be

28:02
your future and then try and help you move in that direction. Um and so literally what it is is just

28:07
showing up again and trying to identify what I would call blind spots. Not things that you may not know about

28:14
yourself, but things that are just, you know, you keep going in that direction. and you just you're going to eventually

28:20
hit the car that's next to you and run it off the road. It's like let's chip away at that blind spot if you'll allow

28:26
me to speak into you and help you see that whatever that is is just not serving it.

28:31
And so it lands back on servant leadership. It lands back on that place of to best serve people sometimes is

28:37
just to show up long enough to be able to see what their blind spot is and then

28:42
continue to try and help adjust that mirror. Right? It's almost like the mirror on the side where you can't see

28:48
the car on the side there so that they can now see that blind spot and now do something about it.

28:54
And so again, it's not woowoo. It's back to relationship. If you're not willing to show up and be in relationship with

29:00
people over time, um I call the work that I do is longtail work, you know, for lack of a better way

29:05
to think about it. It's like I want to be in relationship with people over time. It's they have to decide whether they want to be in relationship with me

29:11
in that way in order for them to see that I'm here to just help them adjust that blind spot so that they can see

29:18
their way to whatever that flourishing thing is next and next and next and next. Yeah. One of the things that that I

Focus On Helping Others Rather Than Self-Focus

29:25
think you helped shift my mind on this and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this is often when people are

29:31
listening to something like a leadership podcast, they're thinking about how is this going to make me a better leader? Even the

29:37
servant leadership podcast, how can I be a better servant leader? But it's still so focused on me.

29:42
One of the things that I specific was when I get content, don't think

29:49
about what can it do for me. Think about how I can benefit other people. I remember you gave me a book one time

29:54
called the go- giving me this, but but when I got the book, I was like, that's an interesting

30:00
concept. And when I read through it, it felt so natural to me and I loved it. But I don't think a lot of people are

30:06
thinking about I want to consume content for the benefit of others. They're focused on I want to consume content for

30:12
the benefit of me. And if it benefits others, that's a plus. How do you help?

30:17
And what do you see in things like the go-giver and all the other material that I've gone through so much material from

30:23
you that has benefited me, but how do you help somebody realize like I can consume content to help other people and

30:30
in turn that will probably help me anyways? How do you help people walk through that journey?

30:36
Well, first I mean there's real science about learning. Um, for those who want to look it up, there's called the

30:41
pyramid of learning or the pyramid of retention. Um, the reality is that the pyramid of of of learning ultimately

30:49
gets to a level of active learning relative to passive learning.

30:54
The lowcost arena that we are most comfortable in is passive learning. It's

31:00
hearing a lecture, reading a book, right? Watching a video. Majority live

31:06
in there because it's relatively comfortable.

31:11
In a active learning environment, which is where I show up to show up, it's all

31:18
about we're going to engage in a discussion that may be challenging to the things you're thinking about and to

31:24
your beliefs. And if you're going to willing to engage and continue in that, then you're going to put into practice

31:30
things that go against those beliefs. And then if you're really willing to do

31:36
that, then you're going to now teach that to somebody else what you just experienced. Because in that is active

31:42
learning and retention. That is transformational. And only in that realm of learning is

31:49
there actual real change that actually happening. And so I show up for that. I

31:54
show for the active learning part and to the point not everybody is ready nor wanting to move from the passive

31:59
learning paths to that path. That's okay. The benefit is you're doing with

32:06
your work here in a podcasting environment. It's passive in that people

32:11
are just taking it in at their own leisure, at their own time, how much they want to take in, how little they want to take in. Nobody's there really

32:17
pushing the button sitting next to them challenging them. But you're seing the

32:22
potential for more active learning and entering that place where now you can transform. And the transformation is

32:29
truly right shift the person you were to become something that you're not.

32:34
And so I show up for that. Yeah. And in showing up for that, I need people like you doing what you're doing

32:40
to seed the other part because people never move from there. So your point, I gave you passive learning things to just

32:46
seed your interest in the things that I want to help people now adopt and

32:51
transform and get rooted in so that they operate naturally in that way because

32:57
that's going to allow them to have right greater flourishing in whatever the way they define it. So the go-giver is one

33:02
of those books that somebody gave to me back in the day that said and I like you read and go, "Well, this is me. I get

33:08
it." But I've had people that I give it to and I said, "Come back to me and talk to me about what you took away from it." And you never hear from them again.

33:16
And so they're still in that place, oh, I gave them a seed. They're still in the passive learning. Maybe they're not ready to, you know, go to that place of

33:22
even having a conversation, discussion around it, let alone have somebody challenging them in their beliefs, so they're not going there. But, you know,

33:28
it's just part of that learning pyramid. Wow. As you think through your season of flourishing right now, what gets you

Mark's Current Season Of Flourishing

33:35
really excited and where do you feel like you're most flourishing in the stuff you're involved in today? Well, what's getting me really excited

33:40
about is is it's interesting. For the longest time, I felt my call was to transform people to experience the

33:46
fullness of their flourishing. Mhm. I've been now called into a place, an

33:52
actual physical place in the Chicagoland area that is a disinvested community.

33:58
And all the research that goes into determining why it is a disadvantaged

34:03
community shows that it's overburdened because on 38 data points it's missing

34:09
this and you can imagine what that might look like. We talk about that as you know inequities in a particular

34:16
community uh food deserts they don't have grocery stores their mortality rate

34:21
is 15 years less than the community that's 5 years down 5 miles down the road for them. And so now you're going

34:26
into a community where you say, "Well, how am I going to show up and try and help transform, right, a place

34:35
relative to what I feel comfortable in, which is showing up to try and help people transform people."

34:41
And so I'm excited about the challenge here because it's interesting. It's a there's no way to do whatever this is

34:48
alone. Um it really is principle based around what we're talking about here is

34:53
you show up with your hands open you say how can I serve is really if you're going to go in any place and and it's so

34:59
it falls in line with kind of the operating system that you know has been

35:04
developed in me over the years but we're now got a big vision that the community is wanting to get

35:11
behind but now you've got to bring along the public side the private side the

35:16
philanthropic side and it's and what are those sides? They're just people who work within these kind of interesting

35:23
constructs about how they naturally are showing up for their job and get them to

35:28
see a bigger vision and believe that it can happen. And then you got to develop leaders within the community who

35:34
actually live in there and reside there who can now carry this vision forward. And so the work is very challenging,

35:40
very exciting. Uh at the same time, I'm continue to ask myself and in my prayers

35:46
ask whether or not this is what I'm called to. Um because it doesn't move at

35:52
a pace that I naturally am wired to move at. Yeah. Um you kind of sense my pattern is

35:59
fairly quick and this is a very slowmoving process and machine. So I'm

36:05
excited about it but very challenging. Well, and even that I think sometimes people want to be in seasons that are

Finding Peace In Your Current Season

36:11
really quick because they already can see the vision and they're like, "Let's just make it happen." And sometimes the

36:16
timing is not up to us. You know, we're just called to be in that season for as long as we're called to be in it. Exactly.

36:22
How do you find peace in that? Well, it's interesting. A component to

36:28
it is one of the last things on my bucket list. And I'm 64. Um, I am no way, shape, or

36:36
form interested in retirement. The concept, the idea of that. I'm

36:42
interested in running through whatever that finish line, whenever that finish line is, full speed. Um, so what keeps

36:49
me excited about this is this is a long tale. We just talked about that opportunity.

36:54
And I've got to find the joy in the everyday of the relationships because that's what keeps me keep wanting to

37:01
show up. And so I've developed those kinds of relationships that's wanting to keep me every day waking up and showing

37:07
up for now people in this community who are looking for what we're talking about. Somebody who can come alongside

37:13
them, help them flourish to a greater extent than they might already be defined as something. And a lot of those

37:19
people are defining it as I'd like to be a more influential leader leader in my community. And so oh I can show up for that.

37:26
So that's the way I'm looking at. because it's that thing on my bucket list. The component of it that's the

Potential Involvement In A Soccer Club

37:32
thing on my bucket list really has to do with something that in the context of what we're talking about doesn't even

37:37
seem like it makes sense. Well, I'll throw it out there. It's actually being a a a co-founder in a professional

37:44
soccer club that then will reside in this community, create a sense of community pride, and

37:50
then create something that, you know, that can people can rally around because

37:56
that's a passion of mine. It's been for years and years. I've loved the sport of soccer and uh so it it potentially integrates

38:02
into this vision v vision potentially. Yeah. And so I'm seeing that as oh well if that happens then I get to check off

38:08
that last thing on the bucket list. But if that's not like you said what God's

38:14
calling it to become then that's okay too because it's really an extension of what I'm already doing.

38:19
Wow that is so powerful. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah love to let me finish this with 10 rapidfire

Ten Rapid-Fire Questions

38:26
questions. Okay. Where I ask you stuff and you just say the first thing that comes to mind. No wrong answers.

38:31
Okay. Who's the first person you think of when I say servant leadership? I think of this gentleman that I've been

38:38
a student of. His name is Bob Proctor. Okay. Uh five words that most describe

38:43
you. Oh. Um I think again authentic,

38:49
um hungry, enthusiastic, passionate. Passionate. Um,

38:56
I think I'm I'm uh open and uh I also think I'm I'm can be

39:03
challenging all of that at the same time. All right. Favorite book or favorite movie? Oo. My favorite book as I read at 22 was

39:11
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And the second chapter is specifically about faith, applied faith. And it was

39:17
the first entry point to me exploring my faith when I had no context for that.

39:23
Yeah. Favorite food? I'm a tacos guy. I like, you know, carneasada tacos, chicken tacos.

39:30
Love it. All the tacos. Favorite thing to do in your free time? I'm a lake person or water person. We

39:36
have a place in Wisconsin on a lake. I love just being on water and then I'm a

39:42
snowbird in Florida during the wintertime on the Gulf of of of Mexico or Gulf of America depending on if we're

39:49
taking our guidance from on that that I love. So, I just like being around just nature and water and and that kind of a

39:56
thing. What's a surprising fact about you? Oh. Um, people may not know what this

40:01
even is because of my age, but I was on a television show uh that was called American Band Stand. Um,

40:08
never heard of it. And I I was I danced on American Band Stand. No way. It was a show by a guy named

40:14
Dick Clark who back in the day he would introduce new musical acts and then have

40:20
people who would be dancing on the show while these musical acts were performing. And so uh again

40:27
generationally your dad would know American Band Stand Understandably you wouldn't but uh yeah I was a dancer on

40:34
American Band Stand. Wow. All right. Uh favorite place you've been? Ooh, we just went on a trip around

40:40
the world, my wife and I, this last year and uh it was a Serengeti Tanzania.

40:46
Wow. Where we literally got to see I call Lion King live was our experience played out before our very eyes. It was it was

40:54
fascinating just to be able to be out amongst the wild and look at this is who

41:00
created this, right? You know, I mean, God's creation and see all the animals

41:05
and be up close to that. Um, we took a balloon ride that was flying over this

41:10
the Serengeti Desert and uh, yeah, amazing. Is there anywhere you haven't been that

41:15
you still want to go to? Absolutely. I mean, we're going in uh, my my wife and I like to bike ride and

41:21
we have some friends who also like to do that. We've done three tours with a kind of company that has small group tours in

41:27
different areas uh, that are bike tours and we're going to Croatia in September. Wow. So, we're kind of, you know, again,

41:33
have a big list of things that places we'd like to go and things that we'd like to experience. Um, so yeah, the

41:38
list doesn't end because we can't go everywhere and be everywhere all the

41:43
time. So, uh, yes, that's where we're going next. All right. What's the best advice you've ever received?

41:51
The best advice that I've ever received is, you know, the life that is your life

41:56
is the life that you've created by the person you've become. If you want to right a bigger life or

42:04
you want more out of life, then you need to become a different person, which then lends back to who are you going to

42:09
surround yourself with that can help you become that? That's good. And finally, why do you think a podcast on servant leadership

Why is a podcast on Servant Leadership important?

42:16
could be important for people? Well, I think it's it's extremely important to be able to hear other people's stories

42:23
about, you know, how they, like we all do, struggle in life trying to find our

42:29
compass for making life work better. And I think at the again foundation of

42:36
making life better is to develop a servant's heart. And I had to come to that realization,

42:42
like I said, the hard way. It was literally thinking I was having a heart attack, going into the hospital, being told I was burnt out, and realizing that

42:49
what I wasn't was didn't have was a servant's heart. Like, how did that all come together? And when I started developing a clarity

42:56
of understanding that when you develop a servant's heart and you show up for what others are looking for in their lives at

Closing

43:03
the moments they're looking for them and you try and serve, that then things come back your way. And I started to realize,

43:09
oh, this is at the core of what people need to know. Wow. Well, Mark, thank you

43:14
for being on our podcast. I'm so thankful for you and your friendship, and I don't know if our podcast was

43:20
would even exist if not for you walking alongside me for so many years. So, thank you. Well, for stepping into this ongoing,

43:28
never- ending path of growth and transformation. Um, you are the model of

43:34
what that looks like. And I think the encouragement for anybody who's listening here is that they can also get

43:40
on that path if they surround themselves with people who are desiring that for their lives. And uh this life can be

43:48
very very very very rich if you're hanging around with people who are very very very rich. And I mean that at the

43:54
heart level, not in the bank account level. Wow, that is so good. Well, thank you

44:00
Mark. And I'll make sure we include some descriptions on ways people can learn more about the stuff you're involved in

44:06
and maybe start to flourish a little bit more as well. Absolutely. Appreciate it, Chris. Thank you, brother. Thank you for listening to

44:12
this episode of the Servant Leadership Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please give it a thumbs up and leave a

44:19
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44:25
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44:30
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