(281) Marco Howen: Achieve Peak Performance through Inner Peace

(281) Achieve Peak Performance through Inner Peace with Marco Howen

Marco is a former tech and business-focused serial entrepreneur who discovered its true self through a journey of aligning head and heart. 

Some of the magic we covered:

-        Going from Entrepreneur to Zentrepreneur

-        How to manage stress

-        Going with the flow of life & taoism

And so much more! 

VIDEO OF THE EPISODE: 

🎬 YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/pQNjikZD1rs 

 BOOK:

📖 Check out my book on Focus: The Magic of Focus

📚 If you’ve read the book, please rate it here: Leave a Review

📋 Check out the Substack Blog: https://thefocusbee.substack.com/

WATCH NEXT: 

🎬(202) Why Personal Development Leads To Spirituality 

🎬 (179) Reconnect With Ourselves & Eliminate Overwhelm with Thomas Anderson

🎬 (216) The Life Changing Art of Surrendering & Wu Wei

EXCLUSIVE: 

🔥If you want to access exclusive VIP High Performance Coaching – contact me here: https://katiestoddart.com/contact/

🎯FREE Weekly Magic & Focus Insights: https://tinyurl.com/WeeklyFocusBee

🚀 Download your FREE Full Focus Guide: https://tinyurl.com/TheFocusGuide

ABOUT Marco Howen:

Marco is a former tech and business-focused serial entrepreneur who discovered his true self through a journey of aligning head and heart. He helps people align their material and spiritual selves and take the necessary steps to maximize peak performance through inner peace.

He went on on a personal quest in 2017, culminating in the launch of his zentrapreneurial journey in 2021. All these life experiences have shaped him into who he is today: a speaker, teacher, and coach.

CONNECT WITH Marco Howen:

✨ WEBSITE: https://www.zentrapreneur.com

📷 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/marcohouwen/

🌟 LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcohouwen/

CONNECT WITH KATIE:

✨ LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/thefocusbee

🎤 PODCAST: https://thefocusbeeshow.buzzsprout.com/

🌟 LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestoddart

📝 BLOG: https://thefocusbee.substack.com/

ABOUT THE HOST:  

💫 Hi, I’m Katie – engineer turned entrepreneur. I am the founder of The Focus Bee, award-winning, international, high-performance company, that provides coaching, workshops, and trainings on sustainable high performance and leadership. 

🚀 As a keynote speaker, I frequently speak at summits, conferences & podcasts. For my weekly podcast ‘The Focus Bee Show’, I interview thought leaders, speakers and authors. 

🔥My mission is to empower people to lead with Alignment & Purpose & Joy so that they can Connect with the Magic & Thrive!

Transcript

Katie: 0:00

Welcome back to the FOcus B show. This is Katie Stoddart here, aka the Focus B. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic. Such a joy to be here with Marco Huen. Marco is a former serial entrepreneur, and he now supports entrepreneurs, leaders and executives to maximize their peak performance through inner peace. He believes that true peak performance can only be attained when we align cognitive, emotional and spiritual intelligence. Marco, wonderful to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining.

Marco: 1:04

Thank you, Kathy, for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Katie: 1:08

Your mission is all about maximizing peak performance through inner peace. It's something that deeply resonates with me. That's why I'm very excited to dive into today's topic. The first question is, you talk about Zentrapreneur. So, entrepreneurs feeling Zen, how would you define that? And what do you think it takes to go from being a busy hustling entrepreneur to being a more Zen like entrepreneur?

Marco: 1:35

Oh, there's so many ways to go there. So when I, when I started off and I created Zenrepreneur, now, always three years ago, good. Three years ago already, it was all about the mission of getting entrepreneurs ready to see that they are there to create what they are there for based on who they are and not based on anything coming from outside. And the Zen came in because, well, it all goes through being Zen. I'm not a Zen Buddhist and I will never be, but it's all about the word, which is really being centered. And so Zentra intra and entrepreneur was actually the way I wanted to go. That's where the name came from when I started off.

Katie: 2:21

Interesting. And what do you feel are some of the tools people can use to be a little more Zen and centered?

Marco: 2:29

So let's start at the end. I love to say to my customers, my coaches, very often when they are telling me all how things are not working out, even so, they use so many tools, I say meditate more because at the end, but I really start with the end because that's not for everybody and not at every stage of your world, but that's where it goes. It's deepening your own space and through that, getting into a state of being more relaxed in spite of all, all adversity coming up and so on and so, okay, we started with the end. Let's go to the beginning. The beginning is about awareness. Be aware that you're stressed. Be aware that you got triggered, not even changing it, because very often that's not what it is about. If we already know, that's where we can already. Well, you can pinpoint it, then we can say, I want that, or I don't want that. And we can start. That's the first tool. And it's always the first tool. I always say it starts and everything starts and ends with awareness of self.

Katie: 3:55

Yes. I was just thinking about my case, so I shared. Just before that, I hosted this workshop in Swedish. And it was the first time me doing it in this foreign language. Now meditate every single day, have a streak of over a thousand days on inside timer. I am highly aware of my state all the time, and it was intense in the last two days. So I'm thinking I'm probably not the only person listening to this who meditates regularly, has high awareness of this state. What do you recommend to change your state? And I'll just share that what I did do was breathe. Did breathing exercises. The square. Four in, hold. Four out, hold. And 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out. And positive visualization of the event. But at the end, what really helped me was when I actually delivered it for my swedish teacher and it went okay. And then I could relax. And I'm thinking, well, sometimes we don't have that in life. You know, sometimes maybe a founder is listening to this and they're going to deliver super important page to a really big investor. And maybe they don't have that pre training opportunity like I had with my swedish teacher. And maybe they meditate, maybe they do the breathing exercises, and maybe they have a clear purpose, tangible purpose. And so they have all these things in place, and yet they can maybe still feel a high level of stress. Now you see where this is coming. What else would you recommend those people? Because I do have to say that although I managed in the end to come back to Zen and centered, which where I am most of the time, took a little more effort than usual.

Marco: 5:36

So there's one thing I would say, like to say before, is that it's about, as you say, it's about being aware. And when we are, when we are on this journey of awareness, well, literally, we are seeing more. So when we are stressed out of our mind, that is still not as worse as it was when we're not aware. We just didn't know. So we are totally underperforming. And when we look back at moments where we are not where we did, not being on this awareness streak or on this meditation streak of 1000 days. We literally see that at that time.****, what did I do? What did I say? Wow, how was I triggered by that? And so on. It's like we see all that. So we have to give ourselves credit already for what we already achieved, because it is powerful and it is so much better than it ever was. We just don't see it like that because we are in this awareness loop. We see it all the time. So it has, in a sense, it can be in, it can feel like worse, but it is better. But to what else can you do? To answer your question, what else can you do? I love to work with mantras, affirmations, and create affirmations for yourself. Simple ones. The ones out of the book is, I'm good enough. I can do that, but create your own. So when I talk about affirmations, I always recommend to not take the ones out of the book. Take the ones which are resonating with you, because it is your affirmation. It needs to resonate with you. You need to feel it. Sit yourself down, think about how you think normally, and then create another one. Create one who is empowering you. And for me, when I started off my journey as a. Yeah, as a coach and everything, and I let everything go of what I did before, it was stressing me out. You cannot imagine. I thought everything is, and I couldn't do it differently. And I had this one mantra which just brought me through it, and I don't use it so much anymore because I don't need it so much anymore. But it was, I walk the path my soul has chosen. And that mantra was just so resonating. I made tens and tens of kilometers of hikes just repeating this. And so when we are in front of a very, very stressing or very challenging environment, we need to find this kind of mantra. So for some, it is a very powering up mantra. For some, it is very soothing. So be careful about that. Some people need the Tony Robbins style of mantras, and that's fine. Some people need just to be in their calm, and that's good, too. It's not about being exalted all the time. It's about being precise. It means when I do mantras now, it always turns around. I am focused, I am clear. It's like these kind of things because I can go on tensions. You will see that still today. For me, it's like, okay, I focus my thoughts, I focus my words for example, yes.

Katie: 9:14

Yes. I was thinking that I did two rehearsals with my swedish teacher, and the first one I did with a few weeks ago when I doni just prepared my PowerPoint in Swedish, and I started sharing my screen, doing the PowerPoint. And all I could hear in my head was, I can't do this. Why did I think I could do it? I can't do this. And I felt totally stuck and totally. I still. There were the first few minutes where I was just sort of struggling. I still then, you know, spoke the whole 2030 minutes, but it was with a real, like, a lot of resistance. And then yesterday I shifted just before the swedish cast, and I thought, I can do this, speak the language. I've done many workshops before. Just focus. All I need is to be present. Just like with all the other workshops, just fully conscious, focused, present. I can do it. And then that was my mantra. And then during the swedish casting, went well, this morning it went well. So it's so interesting that what we say really impacts our behavior, which is what you're talking about now.

Marco: 10:23

Before this kind of podcast, I was always freaking out. So it's like, oh, ****, what will I say? And so on. And today, it's not that I still apprehend it. There's still excitement, and that's really good because it keeps you on track. But I literally don't care what you ask me because I will just answer. And I have no clue what I answer now because I know that what's coming out of that mouth has to become at that moment, out of that point. So it's like, that's not such a sophisticated mantra. As I walk the path my soul has chosen, but it is a mantra which works, which is really what resonates for you. And so that's what the power of mantras, life for me or for affirmations, lies, really. They have to resonate with our way of thinking, our way of our cultural approach, and so on. The words need to be ours.

Katie: 11:19

I will add this to my toolbox. The breathing, visualizing it going well, preparing. Obviously, that's kind of a no brainer, but then to manage the state, yes, the mansion. And also, what I've seen with time is the more you do obviously uncomfortable things, the greater your confidence get. And most of the times, I'm fairly comfortable before a workshop, obviously, this was a first milestone in Swedish. So the next time I deliver in Swedish, I won't be half as anxious. It's always the same. It's just like, if it's the first time someone's being interviewed on a podcast, nervous after the tense time. It's like you said, maybe a bit of excitement, but not half the amount of nerves. It's the discomfort. Interesting. I think one of the things that comes to mind when you're talking about this is the path that your soul has chosen is it makes me think about Taoism. And recently, I've been reading a lot about Taoism and trying to go with the flow of life. It worked pretty well until yesterday when I got nervous about the workshop. But until then, I really felt this, like, letting go and surrendering and non resistance. So I was curious to hear your thoughts on maybe Taoism or go with the flow of life and Wu Wei and how we can do that and how we can let go of the obstacles and the things that block us on this path.

Marco: 12:48

And I saw a little anecdote when years ago, I. Well, I'm on my. My development path seems a long, long time, sometimes more, sometimes less conscious, and one moment in time. I got a book called, from Bert Hellinger. I don't know if you know about Hellinger. It's about family constellation. And he talks about the river, that we were all sitting in a canoe, and we are driving down the river and that, well, we are avoiding obstacles, but we are riding down the river. And I read that, and I was so angry on him. Put the book away. I said, who are you telling me? I am the master of my life. You give me my paddle, I paddle up as long as. And actually I did for 20 years. Almost killed me. So the question is, what do you want? Do you want to resist the water running? You just want to go with the flow. And that is very difficult concept for entrepreneurs that work a lot with entrepreneurs who are like, I am the master of my. I can handle everything. Yes and no. Depends on what universe we're talking about. So if it is your own internal universe, absolutely. If it is the external universe, no, not at all. So it is really important that we let go, that we accept reality as it is. We let go. And so often when we talk about that and when I talk to people, they say, yeah, but I am not letting go. I am not surrendering. And I hear them saying, Winston Churchill, we will never surrender. Yeah, well, that's another surrendering. And second world war is over. So it's not about surrendering to somebody else, but it's surrendering to your own suffering, just letting it go. It's how it is. It's how it is. And then things are opening up. If then you see something you didn't see of yourself, you didn't see of yourself before. So it is that logic. We need to hone. We need to hone that acceptance and that surrendering. Doing that is a challenge. And it goes a lot through introspection, looking at things, looking back and forth. It goes a lot through forgiving yourself, having compassion with yourself, because, yeah, how ****** up was I sorry for the f word when I was running all these companies? And I thought, I know it all. I can do it all, and anyhow, nobody can handle and nobody can be better or doing it if I am the one. Well, no, let's just go. Let's just go. And then things are opening up, and it happens. That's coming back. To maximize peak performance through inner peace. That's where this inner peace takes its incredible power for peak performance. Because as soon as you let go, then you get new input and you create new inspiration in yourself. As long as you're holding on to your mind, it's simple. You hold on, you resist. Your mind is thinking about what you resist. And I challenge everybody listening to that. Think about a moment where you hold on to something and tell me, how creative were you when you hold on to that? This. Why? Because your mind was there. Your mind was, I need to do these numbers. I need to convince this. I need to raise that money. That doesn't mean that you will not raise your money. But if you let go of that, if you detach yourself from that logic, and I want a little bit more, in Zen philosophy, if you detach yourself from that, that doesn't mean that you will not strive for it. It means that you are not attached to that outcome. And if you are able to do that, then you will have the space in your head for peak performance. So then you see new stuff, and you didn't see that before because your mind is driving you nuts. Everybody has that.

Katie: 17:19

It makes me think of living untethered by Michael Singer. He talks a lot about surrendering and letting go, and we cling to it. I see you smile. Love Michael Singer.

Marco: 17:30

I love Michael Singer.

Katie: 17:33

What's not to them, right? I was reading his book in repeat. And so the combination of reading that book and the taoist book was really a surrender. Let go, let go. And it's true when you said, we're not surrendering to an external person or an external situation, even with the rendering to the resistance that we feel in certain situations. Because once you let go of that resistance, then you can make a wise decision. As to say yes, to say no, to implement something or not. But you can think a little more clearly when you let go of the resistance, like the one I'm feeling now towards the rain. I'm like, people listening will enjoy the sound of the rain, and nobody hears it. I was like, perfect timing. This is literally the only time I've done a podcast interview where we can hear the sound of rain. Just when I'm talking about the importance of surrendering and letting go. I think it's quite amusing. So, yes, yes. I think the. What you were saying earlier about entrepreneurs and this need for control, it makes me think of one of the latest books I read, the 15 commitments of conscious leadership, and they talk. First we're in a place of victimhood, then we're in a place of ownership, and that's only 5% of leaders. So that was kind of scary. And then from there, there's that third level that they talk about, which is going through you, and that's when you're going with the path. But I think it's quite hard for people, if they haven't sort of felt or experimented it, to know what that means or implies. What would you recommend for people if they think, okay, I like this idea of surrendering and letting go of resistance, but they don't really know what it means. I remember hearing Michael Singh on Tony Robbins podcast saying, you know, all you need to do is feel your packages and let go during the day. Yeah. Just feel it in your body. Just let it go. And I'm thinking, yes, sometimes I feel the blockages and the triggers, but how do you let it go? Right.

Marco: 19:32

It comes back to my. It comes back to two things. Into my favorite one, which is start with the right question at the beginning, who am I? And start with that. And it's not a question like, we have a mentally beautiful answer to it. But how's that question? Because behind, there are answers you didn't get before. Don't ask the question right away. Why am I here? What do I want to do? Because if I ask that question, or why do I want to do? Because then you go directly in the external looking at. Looking at somebody else doing something. Oh, yeah, that's cool. But then you are not doing something based on yourself. Maybe. Maybe yes, maybe no. Then the second thing is really about awareness. Again, it's about awareness of self, seeing it, adapting it all the time. Life is a journey. Life is not 1.1 ramp. You do this, you do that, and then, and then, and then you are rich. You are enlightened. You are beautiful. You are whatever. That doesn't. That's not how it works. Life is always going on. Life is always in an infinity loop. And so if you get into that logic of accepting, actually, that life is that I don't have to make it happen now in two months or in six months, but I'm on a journey, and on that journey, I know who I am. I deepen that knowledge and automatically I start to act in that logic all the time. So I always create based on that. Not create based on what? On the input. And see, I did that literally wrong till 2017 because I always wanted to please somebody. First it was my dad, then it was. Then actually, he told me how amazing what you did. You would have never have done that when you would stay at our Cornley company. I said, ****. Now he took my drive. Then it was cars, it was money. There was always something else. It was always something else external of me. The moment I started to ask this question, who am I? That's where it became very deep. Now, the answer on that question was different one than 2000 is different one today than it was 2017. Fundamentally, it's the same. It just deepens. I didn't talk about spirituality in 2017. I thought, everybody will laugh at my nose at that moment. Now, I don't care if they laugh, because I know that's the only way how we can stay relevant as human beings. But that's evolution. That's deepening that. That part of me. And then you can be on that evolution.

Katie: 22:13

Do you see a lot of resistance to spirituality? Do you see people that don't necessarily know what you mean by an appease or don't understand the concept of spirituality? Or don't see how it's linked to maximizing peep performance?

Marco: 22:30

Yes, absolutely. So much misconception, because this term is hijacked by every religion on this planet as being their sole property. And then if there is an opening, I always ask a few questions. First, I say, there was this book from Greg Braden, the Goggles God code, where he says, first there was spirituality, then there was religion, and. Sounds simple. Some stupid. It's very, very profound, because first we asked the question, who am I? Where do I come from? Where do I go? Why am I here? And then we looked up and said, well, nobody can really answer or look around. Nobody can really answer to that. So we looked up. That's how it worked. Then we had something and we started to think about something bigger than ourselves. And then that was different ways to say let me say it in a nice way, then that was instrumentalized to create ways how to live together. And then for some part hijacked to exert power on masses. But at the beginning it was actually very positive then just to bring things, bring people together and make this even more strong for them so that they can answer these questions for themselves. And if people get that, to get back to your question, if people get that understanding, then we have incredibly open conversations. And I have conversations with people from every religion up to us, like from sufi masters to people in the Kabbalah, from Jewish Kabbalah to regular Muslims to Catholics to avenge. And you know what? They all want the same happiness and love. Difficult. So, yeah, about religion, they respect religion. And everybody who has a faith and who uses that to deepen his own happiness and faith, imagine how powerful it is if you use your business, your entrepreneurial logic, to be happy, not to roll over the next competitor, just to be happy, because you will not be happy when you roll over. But if you will be happy, if you create a win win, if you create something for your customer, that's fine. And it's not more than that, can go deeper. But that's where it starts, and that's where spiritual intelligence comes in, because it is beyond ourselves, it's even beyond our guru. It's just about faith. In these times, what do we know? What happens in six months? What do we know? What happens? It's like today, we need faith. It's the only way. We cannot think cognitively, think through what is ahead of us. Now nobody can look at all these think tanks out there. I still read a lot of news. Maybe one day I will stop with that, but I still do that and then use it. This think tank about war prediction tells this, this thing, tanks, tells this. Nobody knows anything. So what can I as an entrepreneur do right now? I can excel at being myself and having faith that I get on and that I create, that I can thrive. That's what I can do. There's nothing more. And spiritual. And through that, you spiritualize your whole enterprise. And spiritualizing doesn't mean you have to sit together in the morning and pray. Can be. It doesn't have to. Absolutely not. Everybody is. Again, that's religion, that's a ritual. Everybody has its rituals. I have my rituals. I don't teach my customers, my coaches. My ritual doesn't matter. It's mine. Although many reasons, that's why I tend to, I only tend to that because it is giving me this deepening of myself. So in a company, if you give that space for everybody to find that space for himself, that's where you create peak performance, because everybody will deliver deeper, way better, because they are coming back to that. They are living in belonging, because they know that here they can express. And again, it's not about the ritual, it's about this understanding that we are here on this planet to ever deepen our happiness and our love. Not difficult if you talk about that. Sometimes people tell you, oh, cannot talk about that. Yeah, it's about business. Okay, I can. Sorry, I stopped here. I was a little bit on the monologue there. Sorry for that.

Katie: 27:51

That's fine. Interesting, I think. Yes. This idea that we can use our business to fulfill our own happiness and love. And sometimes people get caught up in either the competition or security and wanting more financial gains so they can feel more certain or significance, having great achievements so they can be more significant. And they forget that their own business and their own lives can just support them in having this sense of happiness and joy and fulfillment. And for me, a lot of it came down to, and this is why I say my mission is to empower people to lead with alignment, purpose and joy. But the alignment part is when you learn to say no to things that aren't aligned with your authentic self, your path, your happiness. And you start to say yes when it's only a hell yes, when it's only that calling from within that, you know, amazing. And it makes you sort of want to feel like jumping up and down, right? That's the sort of yes we would say yes to. When you start doing that, then your business can help you and support you to feel happiness and peace and joy. But for a lot of people, because of fear, fear and doubts, and maybe society and all these different things happening, they struggle to hear their authentic self. So what tools do you. I keep asking you, what tools? That's not really what I mean. What I mean is, what's your perspective on supporting people to lead more from a place of authenticity and hearing themselves more clearly?

Marco: 29:21

So again, different ways to go there. The first one would be the standing that in a time of artificial intelligence, we need to go deeper for ourselves. So cognitive intelligence is the same than artificial intelligence. And we are ahead of, or maybe already in the biggest identity crisis humanity ever saw. Because for the last millennium, we were taught that our cognitive intelligence is the only thing which matters, let's say since the age of enlightenment, since the 16th, 5th, 17th century. And so getting understanding that we can tap into our emotional intelligence and our spiritual intelligence and create our aligned intelligence is what gives us this possibility to understand why. That's what. And I think AI is what it is. Some say we will die on it, some say we are doomed. Some say it's the best thing ever happening. What I can assure you is that this is the biggest identity crisis humanity ever will have and ever had because we are putting in questions this capacity. We always say we are so much better because we can resonate well. Yeah, well, machine does it better with metadata, faster. So going down to that, we have no other way as humanity to go deep or we are doomed. Simple. That's my point. My very deep belief. Now, how can we address that? I think it's the combination between honing our insights and deepening our dynamics. So what I mean by that is asking ourselves these questions, who am I? Where do I come from? I said them before and always. And in that, and deepening that, deepening our access to spirituality. What is it? Read. See what resonates for oneself. Being in that. I call this a spiritual insight. Being in the structural insights understand how our mind works, our body works, brain, heart, gut, coherency, the standing, hearing, listening to that body a lot. Starting to be in emotional intelligence. Being aware of emotions, being aware of how we think, what are the triggers? And then we can actually easily get into this, what I call the inner dynamics. So being in a mindset, the mindset and creating a mindset. Mindset. I'm worth of this mindset. So states of minds can be joy, forgiveness, gratitude. I have more than coming up now and holding them. Forgiveness. If we are able to forgive ourselves, because we always talk about forgiveness, I cannot forgive somebody else. Start already forgiving yourself for all the things you are bashing yourself up for. You are able to do that. Amazing. Now we have this possibility of essence, what I call the essence, which is introspection, willpower, discipline and action. And if we can work every time, every day on that, it's like, okay, introspection, going deep, understanding, and then setting up the willpower and making it happen. But then we need the discipline so that we can enhance this willpower all the time. So we need to have this, this, this double, double double back and forth. It's all about action, what has to be done. And then there are things we can do, which are breathing. We talked about them for affirmation mantra and what and whatnot. And if we get into these logics, that's how we deepen ourselves and how we deep our own understanding of ourselves, but not only like cognitively because we still are not at the cognitive, because that's the Ux UA layer. I talked at the cognitive layer. Introspection, impact and inspiration. We are not there, but there, we already influence everything. It's not like I was there. I thought it's all about getting rid of the mind. Let me go into my heart. When I was on my shamanic way, it was all in the heart. I tell you. It's like, and it's beautiful. It's actually amazing. I had the most incredible experiences on that path. The challenge is you're going out of them, then it's all gone. So you have to. They always talk about, in shamanism, they talk about integrating. Integrating means bringing it back to your head so that this one gets it. There is no disconnection, or there cannot be disconnection. That's why it's an aligned intelligence.

Katie: 34:59

Yes. In Taoism, they sort of said the mind needs to be the observation tower, and we need to think from the heart. I thought, well, this is an interesting concept, but making them going back and forth, understanding it intellectually, but not only relying on the prefrontal cortex to make decisions and to guide our life, but actually listening to what is aligned and in tune. So I think it's a combination of both. We need to reassure sometimes a prefrontal cortex. So we haven't just gone mad, like you said, using the mantra, reminding us why we're doing what we're doing or which decisions we've taken, but I think it's more that way around. You listen with the heart, and you make the decisions daily, regularly, and then you confirm it in the prefrontal cortex. Whereas what I feel often happens in today's society when we're confused or stressed, is that we make the decision from the mind and thinking rationally, and then we try and convince the heart. Yeah, I'll be good. Yes, but you will like it. It'll be fine. You should still enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, you'll probably like it more than you think. And we try and confirm and reassure the heart that doesn't work. So we need to, you know, listen from the heart and then. And then reassure the prefrontal cortex that it'll be okay and that there's a reason we're feeling this. But I feel this is something that takes a bit of practice, but once you start doing it, you feel so much better in life, which is what you've found ever since you changed your path.

Marco: 36:19

I imagine in that sense, the heart is an OBS organ. The heart is the head. The mind is totally B's organ. It's all about B's. It's all about look around the world. Look around how much B's. We are seeing every single day. How much inefficiency. Sounds like it's all about B's. Part is not B's spiritual. There is no B's. If you go there, that's where it becomes serious because that's where you are confronted with. Yeah. Do I really want that? Yeah. Well, actually I want to go there. Well, then I have to do things I would never have seeming then be possible for myself and in the company, it's the same. It's like you can stay in the B's and in a great financial, great economy, no problem. You just do Ubs. I saw so many companies over the last 30 years were thriving like crazy because just it was all B's. But yeah, well, the whole thing was B's and it was just. And it's all great. Look at the 2000 day crisis. Exactly. It's exactly that. And. But when that time is over and we are in these totally unpredictable times, we are now, yes. Becomes the biggest risk ever because the versus gone tomorrow, maybe so it might be there. If you're thinking about it. That's to the board administrators listening to this, if you think about keeping on to the B's because it is just how we always did things. Yeah. Okay. I think you are jeopardizing the future of your organization. That happens every day. I talk to people in boards, and especially in boards talking about spirituality. Like you almost get shot out of the room when you even open your mouth. And it's a shame because they are driving strategy of companies, the largest companies of this world. I say, I cannot say the name of the company because it is too confidential. But there's one of the biggest companies in Europe where the head of HR, after 2 hours of conversation, that was just about spirituality. Just about spirituality. And then there's nothing in that HR, they have 800 people. Imagine how powerful they could be. What is holding them back? The board. So open that. Open that bracket. More women in the board. There is a little bit more heart connectedness, which is so much lacking.

Katie: 39:23

Absolutely, Marco. This has just flown by. We're on to our last few minutes for today's episode. What would you like to leave the audience with? What would be your last note? Aside from letting more women on the board, more openness and spirituality of business in general would be pretty good. That aside, what would you like to leave the listeners with?

Marco: 39:44

Think about it. Think of spiritual intelligence. Ask yourself these four questions. Where do I come from? Where do I go? Why am I here? Ask themselves, take a glass of wine tonight and just think about it and let it sink. Let it sink in. And then think, okay, how can I use this? How can I put that into motion for myself then how can I put it into motion for my company? How can that drive my company? If I give a clear, higher purpose for my company, what will that mean? What will that mean for how many people will not be silently quitting my environment? How many people can I hire who never have thought I can hire before? And we are back to peak performance then we are back to making your company more performant than it ever was. And it's an internal exercise and nobody can force you to do it. And you can say, marco, you're full of B's. Or you can say, I just look at it. And if I look at it, I might just have an epiphany that that's the way I need to go.

Katie: 41:03

Amazing. So interesting and so valuable to pause and reflect and go a little deeper within ourselves and not just stay on that surface level of everyday life and activities. And I totally share the reasoning and the belief that you have that when we go to that deeper level, we do perform at a higher level also. So peak performance and in a piece directly go together. So 100% aligned with that. Thank you so much for being on the show, Marco, today. Thank you so much.

Marco: 41:34

Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy.

Katie: 41:41

Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focusbee show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was was most valuable for you. And feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical, and focused day ahead.