Episode 1487: Interview with Mark Collins About His Book Life Mastery: Living life by design not by default

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1, 487 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:08] Mark Collins: I'm Mark Collins. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to find hope and move beyond imposter syndrome is key.

[00:00:25] And the one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:40] The fear of failure, the imposter syndrome, the negative voices would go away. Well it didn't, it just They just came along for the ride. What we think is outside world and the things that we provide for and the things that we really reach out for are going to change our life and they don't. If I've mastered living life by design, not by default, and that's because most of us have this [00:01:00] default understanding of, I just need to manage it.

[00:01:02] Welcome

[00:01:03] Scott Maderer: and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:35] In today's podcast interview, I interview Mark Collins. I asked Mark about his course and book, Life Mastery, Living Life by Design, Not by Default. I also asked Mark to share with you some of the ways you can begin to reprogram your internal scripts to live your identity. And Mark also shares why identity is everything when it comes to living a proactive life.

[00:01:58] I've got a new book coming out [00:02:00] called Inspired Living. Assembling the puzzle of your call by mastering your time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about it and sign up today.

[00:02:21] Mark is a husband, a father, a business, and a life coach, with a passion to see everyone equipped to be the hero they were created to be. He has authored his first book, Life Mastery, Living Life by Design, Not by Default, and he has developed and launched his Life Mastery online course. And has had the privilege of speaking at conferences throughout the western United States.

[00:02:44] And over 15 years of working with ambitious people as a coach and a mentor, Mark has seen hundreds of lives changed and callings unleashed. Welcome to the show, Mark.

[00:02:55] Mark Collins: Thanks Scott. It's so exciting to be here. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

[00:02:59] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. [00:03:00] I'm glad to have you. So we're going to talk a little bit today about your book life mastery and some of those things.

[00:03:06] But I always tell people I feel like intros and. bios and all of those things. It's like the Instagram photos of our life, right? We always just show the best framing of whatever's going on. But I also know that there's a lot more to our journey than just what we can put in a bio or an intro.

[00:03:23] But do you share a little bit more about your journey and what brought you to this book or what brought you to this point and why this book is what you're putting out into the world?

[00:03:32] Mark Collins: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the question, Scott. My life starts with a lot of traveling. My, my dad was in the military.

[00:03:37] So I tell people by the time I was 12 years old, which for me is the 6th grade. We had lived in 5 states in 1 foreign country, just in case anybody's wondering the foreign countries, Germany. And no, it wasn't exciting to be there because I was there from the age of 3 to 4. So I didn't remember much of it, but I do know where we were living.

[00:03:57] Yeah, my early years were a lot of. [00:04:00] Transition and traveling as we were in the military. And so when I got older,

[00:04:04] Scott Maderer: my wife was a military brat and they were stationed in Stuttgart. So I don't know where you were at, but yeah,

[00:04:09] Mark Collins: exactly. So I don't remember which location, but I do know that there was a lot of travel involved.

[00:04:15] And so there was a bit of a nomadic life going growing up until 6th grade, which, Led me to be able to do it myself. So when I was in college, first year of college, I was really at a place where I didn't want to be and didn't like the future ahead of me. So I told my parents I was going to move to California to become a rock star.

[00:04:31] Yeah, you can imagine their joy when that happened. Scott. So I I moved to California and, lived life, tried to, do the things that I did. And, because of the father I had, like with a lot of us and some of the experiences I've lived in my youth I was trying to prove myself as a man.

[00:04:44] And so business, acumen and trying to start businesses and martial arts, I got my second degree black belt and Got my college degree while I was in California, the one that I started back in Utah and just lived life, but really was feeling like [00:05:00] there was more to my life than what I was living more to the man on the inside than what I was seeing on the outside.

[00:05:04] And for me, it started with personal development and trying to do those mantras and affirmations and beyond those things, not really believing them to begin with a lot of times with personal development, at least the ones I did. It was really you trying to have this idealized version of who you could be.

[00:05:20] But really, it wasn't the person that I was seeing show up. So they didn't work for me, became a Christian when I was in my late 20s, had gone to church early on in life. But my dad gave us the opportunity at when I was 12 years old to make our own choice. The choice was, it was boring and it wasn't something that was exciting to be at.

[00:05:37] So stopped going to church, but really reconnected through marriage with my wife and having, Two children. She had two children when I met her. One at five, one who was five and one who was nine. And so I married into a family, not just with the wife. So wanted to raise them in a way that made sense.

[00:05:53] That brought me back to Christianity. What brought me to starting to unpack the scripture as instruction, not just, And in that [00:06:00] place started to find the things that I needed to really unpack that, get that man on the inside, right? The person you want to be, but you don't see. And that led me to really find some transformation in my own life, not just change, right?

[00:06:12] Change of habits and things like that didn't work came to be transformation and really seeing that the person that was created to be actually was showing up. I was a person of value and worth that I didn't have to measure up to my father, but I could be the person that was created to be and.

[00:06:25] Scott, when you start to lift some of those things out, when you find something that you find is amazing in your life, you want to share it with family and friends and everybody, and so I started doing that and formalized it in a course called Life Mastery. And then the book that I wrote called Life Mastery, Living Life by Design, not by default.

[00:06:39] So that's a very long story to a short question.

[00:06:43] Scott Maderer: No, that's great. You touched there on, on becoming a Christian and how that kind of changed. Let's unpack that a little bit more. How do you think your faith journey intersected with what you put out in Life Mastery and how you got to the point where you felt like, wait a minute, this is actually working.

[00:06:59] [00:07:00] This isn't just the mantras and the gurus and the whatnot.

[00:07:04] Mark Collins: Yeah, that's a great question. The short answer is. I have 14 chapters in the book and, the same amount of lessons in the course, and every one of them has a foundational scripture. And what we do is we unpack it as instruction, right?

[00:07:18] Being able to live it out. Growing up and even in my early Christian adult life, I thought that, we were just trying to, be as good as we could as often as we could, right? And we memorize scripture as like a magic formula that, you know. When fear comes, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear when anxiety comes, right?

[00:07:34] Do not be anxious for anything. And we have these scriptures that we memorized and I memorized them myself, but they're really more philosophy and magic formula not instruction. And so when I started to unpack them as instruction we have a. Three step transformational strategy, mastering your thoughts, words, and actions.

[00:07:48] That first one, mastering your thoughts, the scripture that we start to unpack and understand is in Proverbs 23, 6, where it says, As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. And in that place, you understand it as philosophy, [00:08:00] but what we don't typically unpack is the instruction of it, which is, Okay, so if I am where I'm at right now because of the thoughts that I think, who I think I am, I'll become, is what I tell the people I work with.

[00:08:09] If that's the case, then how I change my life is first and foremost by changing my thoughts. Scott, I tell the people I work with that if your thoughts aren't aligning with who God says you are, then they're lying to you. And the fastest way to have them align with what God says and see it actually play out in your life is to change your thoughts, to change what you say about you.

[00:08:30] And so that's a bit of a short version of how we use scripture and the Word of God to have it lived out. How it happens in my life is really starting with the understanding of who you're created to be. As I see throughout all of scripture in my own life, and which is the foundational thing that we have throughout all of life mastery.

[00:08:48] I tell people this, my wife hasn't allowed me to get a tattoo, but if she did, the tattoo I would get would be this. Identity is everything. Because what I see in the Word of God, and I believed in my own life, is identity is [00:09:00] everything. Who you believe you are, you'll become. And again, if your life has lied to you, or you've had a past that's been painful, or you've had things that you could walk through that have given you this understanding that you're less than who God created you to be, or you don't get to be that person who has business success, or I guess I'm not meant to be happy, right?

[00:09:16] The marital and relational satisfaction and blessings that you have there, right? We all have these things we hear, and many of them will recite to ourselves. But when you understand who you are, we can unpack all the scripture, but really what it comes down to is we didn't understand who you are and you apply instruction to really aligning with that.

[00:09:35] You start to see that person lived out for me. All of that comes from the word of God in a relationship with God.

[00:09:41] Scott Maderer: So a couple of things there. I want to unpack a little bit more. One of the things that came to mind as you were talking is I had the opportunity once to speak to a group of about 500.

[00:09:53] successful entrepreneurs, all of these men and women were business owners. They were all people that [00:10:00] from any outside indication, looking at them, the world would say these people are successful. They've multiple businesses, nice house, nice car, nice relationships, everything. I checked all the boxes.

[00:10:14] And so I asked them, I said, okay, how many of you have a voice in your head that speaks to you in some way, either in words or in. pictures or whatever way it does, but you've got that internal voice. And of course, every single person's hand went up and I said, great. Now, keep your hand up. If the voice is nice to you, and every single person's hands went down,

[00:10:35] Mark Collins: and yet

[00:10:36] Scott Maderer: every one of them from any quote outside indication, had it made.

[00:10:41] How do you think about that kind of internal, with what you just said about how we think is where we go, where, and yet, I think a lot of us are programmed with those negative voices. So how do we actually begin to grab a hold of that and. [00:11:00] Rejigger, reprogram, readjust, that internal voice.

[00:11:04] Mark Collins: That's a great question, Scott. And that's really the, as my dad would say before he passed, that's the crux of the matter. So what it comes down to is. Absolutely anybody. And like you said, it's people of vast amounts of success. I work with people who have amazing wealth, like you talked about exactly the audience, you have the opportunity to teach and to instruct as well.

[00:11:24] And what you find is that the thing I thought was when I became successful in business, all of those, the fear of failure, the imposter syndrome, the negative voices would go away. It didn't, they just came along for the ride. And so what we think is, outside world and the things that we provide for and the things that we really reach out for are going to change our life and they don't.

[00:11:45] It's life by design by, not by default, is part of the Talmud book, life mastery, living life by design, not by default. And that's because most of us have this default understanding of, I just need to manage it. I remember a conversation with a multimillionaire guy, eight, nine figures worth [00:12:00] of income.

[00:12:01] And he said this about his life. He said that, even to today. I deal with fear of failure. I deal with these thought processes in my mind. He said this thing that absolutely just blew my mind. He said, I guess it's just part of the cost of the journey and what I'm saying to myself and inside my head, but outside is you're so wrong.

[00:12:19] We invite ourselves to manage things. We're supposed to master. And in that place, we water down the journey and the joy in it and the satisfaction in it, which, by the way, as you understand, Scott, is why people can have great levels of success and the joy and the excitement for it. Last about a minute.

[00:12:39] You have this 1 day. You have this 30 minute joy of man. We did it. I got that thing accomplished and then you need the next 1 because what you've changed is your outside, but you haven't changed the inside. So how we deal with it is being able to master your thoughts, right? There's 50 to 70, 000 thoughts a day.

[00:12:57] People have I just was. listening to [00:13:00] and learning from somebody who is a bit of a neuroscientist. And he was talking about conscious and the subconscious brain, how the conscious brain has that, 50 to 70, a thousand thoughts and the multitudes of decisions, hundred decisions every second or whatever, where the subconscious mind has a hundred thousand.

[00:13:16] And so by trying to create mantras that don't align with who you are, you're really trying to overcome something that you don't even believe. And so for the people I work with, the clients that I have, it starts with identity, who you created to be. And like the thing that we talked about, if you, if your thoughts aren't aligning with who you are, then they're lying to you.

[00:13:35] And so bringing it back to life mastery, living life by design, not by default. So instead of trying to fight them after they come, what if you were to program yourself before they happened, right? If who we think you are, we become, then what thoughts are you telling yourself? What are you starting your day with?

[00:13:51] What things are you affirming in your life? We have specific tools and strategies we do, but really it comes down to are you proactively reminding yourself who you [00:14:00] are? Or you're fighting against who you hope you're not as the challenge comes up, the struggle comes up, and then these voices in your head, it really comes down to are you being proactive or reactive in your own life?

[00:14:10] People at great levels of business or success in industries and in entertainment, they apply those things to their careers. They don't apply those things to themselves. And for us, it starts with identity who you created to be. We have our folks create an I am statement and it's who you are apart from your stuff.

[00:14:27] And it's who you Apart from your accomplishments, apart from your role, apart from your income, apart from your, your title, apart from your possessions, who is that person, and how do we continue to remind ourselves who that person is, so that we have, the weapons of our warfare, as it says in the word of God, right?

[00:14:45] You can't learn how to fight after you're in the battle. By then it's too late. You need to be able to fight yourself against that war of negative thoughts and thought patterns before you get there. And that starts with identity and it starts with giving yourself, the affirmations, or it's [00:15:00] not really a mantra, but it's a confirmation of who you are and being able to remind yourself of it before you get there.

[00:15:05] Scott Maderer: So we talk a lot. You hear the labels of imposter syndrome. People will talk about that and use that word. What does that label mean to you? And what, how does that fit into what you're talking about?

[00:15:17] Mark Collins: Absolutely. Like with everything, people get tired, the people I have a relationship with get tired of me saying this, and identity is everything, but really, imposter syndrome comes down to identity.

[00:15:28] What imposter syndrome is, in a nutshell, for anybody who's heard the word but doesn't understand the meaning or hasn't really thought it out, imposter syndrome is believing you're not qualified for where you're at. I'm not qualified for the thing, whether it's a role, it's a position, it's an assignment, right?

[00:15:42] I'm not qualified for this, to speak in this, this meeting of this boardroom. I'm not qualified as a business owner. And we still go after the task like with myself. I dealt with imposter syndrome while still running a business. So like you'd said already, it's not the outward that everybody sees.

[00:15:57] It's the inward wrestling match that nobody knows [00:16:00] about. It's this voice that keeps saying, you're going to blow it. You're not good enough, right? Every mistake in business every issue you have with your, your accounting sheet or your, in every challenge you have in trying to figure out how to overcome something that's happening in your position in your business is a confirmation that you're not good enough.

[00:16:18] And how do we deal with it again? How we deal with everything is to strip everything away and start with you. I tell people this, the clients that I work with, I really try and set an expectation and I tell them I'm not trying to make your business better. I'm trying to make you better in your business.

[00:16:34] Because I can give you strategies and how to, whatever, how to. Get more dollars at your bottom line, how to create sales, right? How to market, how to have employee relations, how to hire well, and all of these other things, and they won't change who you are, so you still may have a successful business, and you still will be a miserable person.

[00:16:51] In the meantime, we're not going for success. We're going for fulfillment because in that place, what happens is the person that you're created to be is unleashed because it's not a [00:17:00] skill set issue. It's a belief issue, and it's not a belief in your business or your acumen. It's a belief in who you are.

[00:17:06] And so in that place, it starts with identity, imposter syndrome and fear of failure and anxiousness and insecurity. And this need to control every little aspect of your business relationship in your life is all coming down to a place of I'm not qualified. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. And I'm going to manage my life, control my life until I can get there when you understand who you're created to be.

[00:17:29] When I'm living from the person God says I am, when my thoughts and words and actions align with that person. I tell people this, it's the easiest life you could ever have. Life Mastery is the easiest life you can have, which is living from who I'm created to be in every area of my life. What's challenging is life management, when I don't believe who I am, when I'm trying to have my outward world make up for an inward belief.

[00:17:51] And in that place, it's more of a challenge. But it all comes down to identity. Who are you created to be? Who are you? And are you reminding yourself of that? Are you seeing that in yourself? If I could unpack [00:18:00] another couple of quick tools. There's a trio of tools we use for identity. The first is the I am statement.

[00:18:05] If you're a person of faith, I always invite people start with this question from God. God, who did you make me to be? Your character your values, the person that you are on the inside, not your accomplishments and the things that you've done. The second is a celebration list. I asked him to do 20.

[00:18:20] I've done 100. The celebration list is what do you love about you? Not what do I have on my mantle, right? What do I have in my bookcase? What's the thing that I'm displaying on my wall? But what do you love about you? What I find with the people I work with, like you talked about with your thought life and everybody has the negative one.

[00:18:37] If I have you look in a mirror and say, what do you see? Typically what most people will say is something that's missing, something they don't like, something that needs to be better versus something that they love. But in that place, the more I see and love the things that I'm created in, the more I see who I am, the more it brings a great alignment with who God is.

[00:18:58] The more I love me, the [00:19:00] more I'm in awe of God, because I know that before it was something in me, it was a thought in Him. And then there's the accomplishment list. And again, I've gotten up to 130 at this point on my list. I just tell people to do 20. Scott, that when you get past 10 or 15, you've lost all the marquee stuff by the time I got to 70, 80, 90, it was, I pay my bills on time.

[00:19:21] I graduated from not high school, but junior high and all of these smaller things that we do, right? I get up on time. I get to work on time. I'm a person who is responsible or, there's those kind of items on your list. But the challenge that most people have is we wait till we win the Super Bowl.

[00:19:35] We wait till we win the World Cup or the Olympic gold medal. We win until we celebrate ourselves. And the challenge is if you don't celebrate yourself with the small victories, you'll never get to the big ones. And when you do get to the big victories, if you ever do get there by just diligence and hard work.

[00:19:51] You won't appreciate it when you do, because it won't have the value. But when you start to understand that you're winning and you're having success on a daily basis, now, all of [00:20:00] a sudden, when that person shows up in your boardroom, and you're having to have that challenging conversation, when you have that business downturn, and you have to make hard decisions, now, all of a sudden, you have a confidence that says, I'm a person who succeeds on a daily basis.

[00:20:14] And in that case, when challenge happens, when issues happen, when, failure happens, it doesn't become an identity statement telling you who you are. It's simply an activity to walk through.

[00:20:25] Scott Maderer: So a couple of things, I keep making notes as you're talking because there's things I want to circle back to.

[00:20:32] One of the things that I've seen happen to with the gratitude. where you're asking people to, what they're grateful for, what they're accomplished, what they like about themselves, those sorts of questions that to me have to do a lot to do with gratitude and thankfulness and recognizing worth.

[00:20:46] One of the things I've seen happen is when people tie their gratitude to the big things, it's almost always a moving target. Yeah, what I mean by that is, it's, oh, I'll be happy when I make a million dollars immediately becomes [00:21:00] I'll be happy when I make 2 million because you don't feel the joy at a million.

[00:21:05] And that must mean it's a bigger target. You almost always the goalpost keeps moving. For sure. I think sometimes when we focus on the smaller things too, not yeah. instead, but also when the, the getting up on time is also on the list, it helps us solidify those goalposts a little bit more.

[00:21:23] Have you seen that in the work that you do?

[00:21:25] Mark Collins: Yeah, absolutely. And I tell people that Scott, which is exactly in alignment with what you're saying. I say accomplishment is either a confirmation of your identity or it's a substitute for it.

[00:21:35] Scott Maderer: And here's the

[00:21:36] Mark Collins: challenge with it. If it like exactly how you described it.

[00:21:39] And if. You don't understand who you are. Your world has to make up the difference. And the problem is it's a satisfaction that doesn't last. If you even feel it at all, I have some, stories and testimonies of clients I have, I deal with people at all sorts of levels, but I have this business owner and, there's been several, but he had the accomplishment in business, but the [00:22:00] challenge was that it was, his success wasn't a relief.

[00:22:03] Not a joy because again with that mindset, I've got an imposter syndrome, fear of failure, whatever the thing is that you're telling yourself on the inside in your business, it was a relief that those things didn't come true, not a satisfaction of him living from who he is. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

[00:22:18] It's accomplishment is a poor substitute for identity, but it's an amazing blessing when you understand who you are and you're living it out. And these are the results of it. And yeah, it comes down to that thing. We're either living from what our past has told us, or we're living from who God created us to be.

[00:22:34] We can't really do both. We try and do some of both, but in a place of those accomplishments and needing them and wanting that dollar value, wanting that Car in your garage, or whatever the thing is, it's typically because I have a past that tells me I'm not good enough, and I'm using these outside accomplishments to make up the difference.

[00:22:52] Scott Maderer: Another kind of thought that came to mind is, as you were talking is thoughts and [00:23:00] beliefs. leading to action, which then reinforces those thoughts and beliefs, that, that idea of, cause I think a lot of times we treat those things like they're a line, either actions lead to thoughts or thoughts lead to actions.

[00:23:13] And I've always thought of it more as a circular thing. There there's a feedback loop going on and which is why alignment and proactivity and identity and those things to become so important. How do you. Picture that idea of, how our thoughts and actions reinforce each other.

[00:23:30] Mark Collins: That's a great question. So we have this phrase in our book and in my course, Life Master Living Life by Design. And it says, I'll say it twice and people can rewind it if they need to. I, who you, what you think you'll say, what you say you'll do, what you'll do, you'll become. I'll say it one more time.

[00:23:47] What you think you'll say, what you say you'll do, what you'll do, you'll become. There's a scripture that says, Let the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be pleasing to your sight, O Lord, my God. Meditations of my heart [00:24:00] are your thoughts. Obviously, we know what the words of your mouth are.

[00:24:03] Everything you do, everything you say really starts with your thoughts. Who do you, who you believe you are? What are you saying to yourself on the inside and on the outside? It starts on the inside. Everything starts with the thought. And in that place, we start to live it out. Those thoughts lead to words and the words do two things.

[00:24:20] I packed under practice in our section on the transformation of strategy of mastering your thoughts, words, and actions. Words do two things. They affirm who you believe you are, and they give you instruction to live out. And this is a scriptural thing that we just talked about, but there's also scientific evidence, right?

[00:24:36] There's this, scientific study of neuroplasticity, which is the structures of the brain. What I call neuroplastic structures are the shortcuts to decision making. God's so amazing and who he created us to be. And with those 50, 70, 000 thoughts a day, and all of the multitudes of thousands upon thousands of decisions you have to make on a daily basis, brushing your teeth, getting up, turning on your lights, whatever the things are.

[00:24:57] He creates these automated structures in your brain. [00:25:00] They can also be negative. Like I said, you can, you live from who you're created to be, but or where your life has told you are the past, your pains, the things that have been said about you, the challenge with them. And the reason why many people struggle, everybody struggles.

[00:25:12] Let me be honest is because you have these structures in your brain. I want to be different. I have these automated responses that don't allow me to be. And so in that place, like I always say, God knows what science shows, but God knew it first. How do you change your neuroplastic structures? How do you change your automated responses?

[00:25:34] You do it by the things you repetitively think, the things you repetitively say, the things you repetitively do. If you consistently do those over time, they've shown in CT scans that those structures within your brain, those automated responses actually change. From negative ones that are disempowering, or ones that bring inferiority, or imposter syndrome, or ones that will align with who you believe you are, [00:26:00] which in our case is followers of Jesus Christ is aligned with who God says you are.

[00:26:04] So when I say that your words are an affirmation, we already know that. Let's tell people this. If I talk to you long enough, I'll, I know, I'll know who you believe you are because it'll come out in the conversation, we try to put on the good front, but you know how that goes when you your reality, the truth of who you believe you are and what you think typically slips out at some point.

[00:26:25] The 1 that people don't understand is it's an instruction to live again. How God created us to be is those things that we receive auditorily. We believe, which is why when you're a young person, and somebody says that you're a failure, or you're so dumb or, somebody you respect does you something negatively about yourself.

[00:26:42] You more quickly believe it because it's an instruction to live out. You receive those things and you believe that. This must be true about me in school. I have a personal testimony. I remember, part of the life that you walk through that you have to overcome when I was going from 1st to 2nd grade.

[00:26:59] I remember a [00:27:00] conversation between a teacher and my parents saying that. that they should hold me back, that I wasn't ready to move on to the next grade. Auditorially, you hear things, right? And so this young man heard this thing and what he really heard was the understanding that he wasn't as smart as everybody else.

[00:27:17] For me, that played out throughout all of, educationally and vocationally and some of the things and the thoughts and things that I told myself until walking through the life mastery strategies, being able to understand that he was in a momentary situation. It wasn't a permanent identity. He was struggling with certain subjects, me as a young person and seeing the truth in it and destroyed the lie.

[00:27:38] But there's these instructions, these words that people live out and the actions you take, right? I could, talk to you right now and say, what does it look like when a person is depressed? Give me their physical stature. Give me their vocational ability. Where are their eyes at? Their eyes are down.

[00:27:51] They're not up. Their shoulders are slumped. They're not confident in walking in with assurance. They're holding back and maybe not saying anything. What does a person who is [00:28:00] absolutely the best at their game look like walking in? Shoulders back, eyes up, chin up as well, walking with confidence, having assured words.

[00:28:08] We already know what the physical responses are to an emotional belief. Those are the same things with us, who you are, you'll become and who that person is looks like something lived out. And that's the action part of it. Yeah, mastering your thoughts, words and actions are pivotal and they can be circular in that there's a, again, another type of personal development course that says change your body structure, change the way you present yourself and you'll change who you are.

[00:28:33] And that's absolutely true, but the challenge is and the reason why life mastery is different as we start with your thoughts, because if I use my actions to change my emotional state, which will change how I feel in the moment. That's amazing, but that's a habit that I have to maintain versus a transformation that I get a walk in.

[00:28:52] We're not looking for a change in habits. We're looking for transformation that lasts over a lifetime. The difference is the habit that gets me there is the habit I need to keep to [00:29:00] stay there. And so any kind of manipulation of your emotions or your physical state to get you there is something you'll have to do for the rest of your life to be able to have that person show up.

[00:29:10] But when you do what God says, which is transformation, Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. By the way, your thoughts by transformation, you actually become the person you are. So I don't have to continue in habits from now until eternity. I just have to remind myself of until I see that person show up and then.

[00:29:31] Life is as easy as it can be. I call it effortless excellence.

[00:29:37] Scott Maderer: So one of the other phrases that I've used when I'm talking to people about those kind of internal thoughts is, beware of what I call the three P's. Okay. The three P's are personal, pervasive, and permanent. So going back to your example of the young man, hearing, overhearing, Hey, he needs to be held back.

[00:29:57] Personal. I'm stupid. [00:30:00] Yeah. Or I'm not intelligent. Or I'm a failure. I statements, permanent, not only, Did I fail? Not only am I a failure, I always fail, it's got to be a permanent condition. And then pervasive is, not only did I fail at this one thing, I fail at everything, and you tend to make these very small, like what you were talking about, momentary truth into this permanent personal and pervasive thought that, that lives in our head.

[00:30:32] Yeah. Have you how would you talk about how those kinds of things show up and what routines or habits or frames can people use to begin to recognize those and address those in their life?

[00:30:48] Mark Collins: Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, again, I tend to hit people over the head with this, but permanent, personal and pervasive.

[00:30:55] Are three aspects of your identity. So it again, [00:31:00] it all comes down to identity. It really is an identity statement. Like with that young man myself. I'm not trying to generalize. That was me growing up and an identity statement that affected me academically, vocationally and relationally feeling like you're not as good as other people affects every area of your life at the same time had business success, had a college degree, had a second degree black belt.

[00:31:21] So in several realms of what we consider success, I was. Absolutely a poster child, just like many of the people who are listening to this. So it's not like you're outward is any indication sometimes of your inward journey, but in that place. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's these things that you have to develop these tools and strategies to be able to overcome it.

[00:31:42] And for us, it starts with identity and being able to give yourself a affirmations that align with your created value and who you are. And the second is mastering your thoughts, words, and actions. That's just not a philosophy of, oh, wow, that's really cool. I'm glad I know that now. Versus, again, living a [00:32:00] life by design, not by default.

[00:32:01] Design is an active process. And for us, the active process is giving you those moments and times in your day that you're reminding yourself of who you are. So it's taking the belief system of who you believe you are, Celebration, accomplishment, I am statement and saying, okay, how do I make a pattern of reminding myself of that?

[00:32:22] Because life happens Scott, life happens every day and so that is invested in mastering your thoughts. Okay, so who am I reminding myself to be? With the meditations of my heart, what am I saying to myself on a daily basis? What words am I speaking out? Are they aligning with who I am or are they lying to me?

[00:32:39] You can't do both. And then what actions am I taking? Which means this, right? I call it the hero in hiding. Who is your hero in hiding? And what does that man or woman look lived out? Walking into this boardroom where I have to give a presentation. Okay, I know who I'm created to be with the I am statement.

[00:32:55] I remind myself of who I am. Okay. What does that person look lived out? How would he or she walk [00:33:00] in? What would he or she talk about? What would he or she do with, the emotions and the relationships and the vocation and the verbalization that they're going to provide? And so it's understanding ahead of time.

[00:33:12] This is who I am. And those are the things that we live out. And by the way, that young man myself, who was dealing with some issues, we could also unpack an early issue with, my parents and some issues around my mom's mental health and how I had to deal with that and unpack some of those.

[00:33:28] But what it comes down to is understanding that your experiences are something you walk through, not an identity statement that you have to keep. And like with myself as a young person, unpacking some of those things in our course, through what we call the four pillars of life mastery, which is identity, experience, meaning, and emotion.

[00:33:45] You're either living from your identities, who God says you are, or you're living from your experiences, what you've gone through. And by the way, everybody does it. So whoever is listening to this, you're not alone. If you're one of those people who's yeah, and that because of this, or [00:34:00] what that person said, or the thing I walked through, you're not alone.

[00:34:03] It's absolutely everybody. It's said in scientific studies that by the time you're 7 years old, you have basically completely complete understanding of who you are, what your world is and what relationship looks like. So any challenges that you walk through up to that point and then afterwards, but they're developed in those early years in a way that you don't have a say.

[00:34:22] When you don't have an ability you talked about of saying, this is permanent, pervasive and personal. I need to just change the way I look at it. No, there is identity stamp that's placed on your heart and you're living it out. How do you overcome that? Anybody who's on here who's thinking about, yeah, in school, this happened or in relationship, this happened, or I tried this thing and it was a failure.

[00:34:42] There's 3 things we do. We go back to the challenge, right? So for me, feeling like you're not as good as other people. Okay, when was the first time you felt it? That young man, when he was five years old, going to be six. Okay, what's the lie you believed? I'm not as smart as everybody else. What's the [00:35:00] truth that you know?

[00:35:01] Great thing is now I get to look at it from a place of identity and who I am, and I get to look back with my understanding of who I am, not with other people telling me who I am. So what do I understand? That was a young man who was relationally and, academically challenged in the moment.

[00:35:15] But he's got a track record of being able to succeed in his life, but he was able to develop and grow and become a full fledged adult. He wasn't somebody dumb. He was somebody who had educational challenges that he needed to overcome. Of which, by the way, I told you about Germany. The reason why that's significant in my educational journey that I didn't even connect with the educational issues was because when we lived in Germany, it was the year I was supposed to be in kindergarten when you start to learn that kind of basic school strategies and things that you learn to be able to develop your educational process.

[00:35:48] Germany doesn't have that. Kindergarten, and so instead of having the same development as the other students that I walked with that I went into 1st grade and going into 2nd grade with, I basically skipped a [00:36:00] year of school because of the way we traveled. Nobody's harmed. Nobody's foul. But isn't it interesting?

[00:36:06] It was only in being able to understand. No, I'm not a person who's less than who lacks who's not educationally savvy. I'm just somebody who had a momentary issue that he walked through, and then you start to unpack all of the background information that you didn't really take into consideration at the time.

[00:36:19] Scott Maderer: You

[00:36:21] Mark Collins: find out where the challenge is, where am I first feeling that issue of whatever, you understand what the lie is that I believed in that, you speak it out, and then the next thing is, what's the truth that you know? And in those three strategies that we use in attacking, experiences that are brought to disempowering identities, we see people have absolute transformations in my own life.

[00:36:43] I did and the people I work with, because now, all of a sudden, there's not that identity statement. That's holding you back that you have to wrestle with. Now, all of a sudden, you have permission to be who you're created to be. And it literally is a miraculous moment that changes the trajectory of people's lives when they start to see the truth of who they [00:37:00] are, and the truth of what they've walked through.

[00:37:04] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I go there, is there anything else about your book or the work that you do that you'd like to share?

[00:37:15] Mark Collins: I talked about the 4 pillars of life mastery. I didn't experience meaning and emotions. The only thing that I would add to that is the meaning is where the pivotal moment happens.

[00:37:23] The thing that I just described is the meaning part. What I tell the people I work with is. Experiences happen, good, bad and indifferent. People walk through amazing, awesome events. They also walk through great tragedy. The difference is that it's not the experience that you walk through, although we don't try and minimize your past, say, get over it, right?

[00:37:43] Just move on. It doesn't matter because it always matters. The only person that thinks it doesn't matter is the one walking through it. Everybody else around them sees the effects of their life. They just are the one who doesn't. But what we talk about is the meaning and it's not the meaning of the experience.

[00:37:57] So you're not trying to say, Oh, that was an empowering [00:38:00] experience and it was okay that I had this thing. There's never anything okay with any tragedy or hurt, but what it is that the meaning you take away is that identity statement, like we talked about and unpacked quite a bit for anybody who's listening to this.

[00:38:12] It's not the meaning of the experience, good, bad or different. That is what it is. If it was a tragedy, it was a tragedy. But what is this? What does the experience say about you? That's the identity statement that you take out that makes that something that is part of who you believe you are and how you live the rest of your life.

[00:38:28] If you change the meaning of it, as we just unpacked, now, all of a sudden, you change the outcome of the experience and how it affects you. And it'll change your future forever. That's, yeah, I just would want to add that on there. So they start to see the totality of what's going on there.

[00:38:45] Scott Maderer: So my brand is Inspired Stewardship, and I run things through that lens of stewardship.

[00:38:50] And yet that's one of those words I've discovered over the years means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

[00:38:55] Mark Collins: Yeah.

[00:38:55] Scott Maderer: So when you hear the word stewardship, what does that word mean to you?

[00:38:59] Mark Collins: Yeah. [00:39:00] I've been thinking about this and I'm not this person, so don't think I am, but it's it's like being a gardener.

[00:39:07] I think about the scripture, everything comes back to the word of God. It's the story of the talents. The 10, the 5, and the 1, and here's the interesting thing is there's a stewardship aspect of life where you're a gardener, where you're tilling the soil, where you're watering the seed, where you're, obviously the sunshine is given and this thing grows and develops it to me, stewardship of whatever the thing is in your life, stewarding a relationship, stewarding a business, stewarding a calling really is me investing in nurturing it so that it becomes the, that, the maximum thing that it could be, whatever the relationship is, your vocation, your, whatever the thing is that you're walking through.

[00:39:45] So with me, it's a gardener. It's somebody who is investing in those things, knowing that God will bring the increase, but I bring the investment. And there's a a duality in that actually is like a father inviting his child to an adventure. And [00:40:00] so stewardship to me is that. It's investing in the things that you have so that they are flourishing in the maximum level that they can.

[00:40:11] Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I love to ask everybody. Imagine for a moment that I've been at this magic machine, and with this machine, I was able to take you from where you are today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years. And then through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life, see all of the connections, see all of the ripples, see all of the impacts you've left behind.

[00:40:35] What impact do you hope you've left in the world? That's a great

[00:40:39] Mark Collins: question. Obviously everything I'm doing is in my passion to see people set free. Thank you. And so the overarching theme of life mastery, living life by design, not by default, is helping people understand who they're created to be so they can have the life they're created for.

[00:40:54] And what I see, Scott, is that I haven't met a person yet, apart from some sort of [00:41:00] transformational course, like Life Mastery that is actually living out the life, whether it's a pastor or a business owner, a artist, a musician, everybody needs those tools. And I see that. So my passion and the impact I want to have is that, everybody everywhere has the ability to have transformational tools to understand who they're created to be and live that life out that they're created for the amazing life that they would want to have.

[00:41:27] Scott Maderer: So what's next? What's on the roadmap as you continue through the journey this year, ?

[00:41:32] Mark Collins: Yeah, that's a great question.

[00:41:34] So for my book Life life Mastery, living Life By Design, I've actually just now created a workbook for it. And we're going to start doing filming on a video series so that it can be a small group study. I'm working on an ebook version of my book. And yeah, just trying to provide the additional resources so that anybody anywhere can live out their life mastery life.

[00:41:54] Yeah, just more of that and, in whatever ways makes sense. So you [00:42:00] can find out more

[00:42:00] Scott Maderer: about Mark Collins over at his site, Freedom 4, that's F O R, not the number 4, dash life dot net. That's freedom 4. life. net. Of course, I'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. Mark, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners?

[00:42:20] Mark Collins: The one thing I always try and tell people is before Become a Christian before reading life mastery. I had 7, 8, 9, 10 different personal development courses that I went through dozens of books in personal development and growth and all of those things because I believe there was more for my life than what I was living and obviously, none of them really brought transformation.

[00:42:40] And so I created a course that would and 1 difference. That's going to really create those things in your life. And it's being able to bet on yourself. 1 more time. Whether you've heard this conversation, and it's the very 1st time you thought, hey, maybe something could be different in my life, or you've tried things out.

[00:42:57] You've listened to people. You've counseled from [00:43:00] coaches and mentors and people, and it's not working. The 1 thing I would give you is this if you just are willing to bet on yourself 1 more time, if you're willing to believe that there is more for you, and you're not going to give up until you get it.

[00:43:12] Then you'll find that person will show up and the transformational strategies that will happen. I created a course for transformation because I couldn't find 1. so you don't have to create 1. but my course could be the most amazing perfect course out there. And it won't have an impact unless you're willing to bet on yourself 1 more time.

[00:43:28] But if you are. Your whole life can change. It really comes down to that. Believe that who you are will show up and refuse to give up until you find the strategies to get you there.

[00:43:47] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard [00:44:00] and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.

[00:44:10] com slash iTunes rate, all one word, iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures, develop your influence, and impact the world.