Men to Mastery Podcast

117 Mark Silverman | Mastering Midlife

• Michael Bulloch

Share episode

Mark Silverman is an executive coach who helps CEOs and Senior Leadership teams focus on making sure the right work gets done in their organizations. He also helps clients deal with overwhelm personally as well as professionally and helps them thrive throughout midlife and beyond.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

  • Introverts make great salesmen!?
  • How coaching offers what CEOs are missing
  • Stress and anxiety impacting job performance
  • Mastering overwhelm
  • Why men tend to go nuclear in midlife

MARK J. SILVERMAN

Mark Silverman is no stranger to overcoming adversity and mastering his own overwhelm. When he was 27, he was homeless, 135lbs, and living in his truck. 10 years later he, he was a millionaire. Mark is on a mission to take the lessons learned along the way, paired with his business acumen, to help others define and achieve their own successes.

He is the author of the Bestselling “Only 10s 2.0 – Confront Your To- Do List, Transform Your Life” which has sold over 70,000 copies to date. Mark is also the host of the “Mastering Overwhelm – How To Thrive in Business, Relationship and Life” podcast and working on his third book.

CONNECT WITH TODAY’S GUEST


All right guys. Welcome, welcome, welcome back to The Men to Mastery Podcast. This is episode one 17. With Mark Silverman. Mark Silverman is an executive coach to CEOs and senior leadership teams. He helps them focus on making sure their organizations get the right work done at the right time, and, uh, my opinion, perhaps even more importantly, he helps executives. He helps those professionals, uh, with personal and professional overwhelm and helps make sure they can thrive and find fulfillment. Through their midlife and mid-career. So before I get into a few highlights of the episode with Mark, I wanna offer two updates or two things. So one is around, uh, as you know, I've been away from the podcast for a bit, working on the, the podcast itself, working on developing new business, new client, a coaching offering, as well as, Some better ways we can connect as a community and uh, and collaborate. So I'd like to offer you some detail around all that, but I will push it here to the end of the episode in the interest and respect for your time. So if you're interested in that, and I hope you are, please stay tuned after we cut away from the episode with Mark, uh, or you can fast forward. This will probably be around minute mark 52 to 54, somewhere in there. We'll get into that update. All right. And the, the second thing, and this relates directly to this episode is it was just recently Memorial Day. Uh, we just recently had the June 6th D-day holiday, and of course, July 4th, independence Day is coming up. So Memorial Day, my, my family and I, we, we did Murph again. Right? If you're familiar with that workout. So it's, it's a bit of a moving memorial. It's our way of honoring, uh, of suffering a bit. And, and trying to connect to those who have given so much, who have given everything. In many cases, who have suffered much, much more for our freedoms. And moreover, beyond that, um, that exercise, that moving memorial, uh, we gave explicitly to in particular charities who are focused on the, the issue, uh, the epidemic, if you will, of veteran suicide, uh, military veterans. Law enforcement, other first responders. And, and here's the thing, this, this issue that we just don't talk about enough, and we are certainly not dealing with effectively enough as a country and a culture and a society, I. Goes, goes beyond that, right? And, and it also hits very, very hard in the midlife male category for for whatever reason. And I think some of those reasons relate exactly to what we're gonna talk about today with Mark. So here's the segue, and here's some of the highlights with Mark Silverman. Uh, we, so Mark, before he was an executive coach, was a very, very highly successful. Salesperson in the technology space. So we're gonna talk about that career arc. We're gonna talk about kind of the fuel behind your, your career and why, what worked in your twenties, thirties, maybe even forties, may not be sustainable into your fifties, sixties, sort of that midlife career stage and beyond. And we talk about why men have this tendency in mid-career midlife to just blow things up, right? Kind of go nuclear with change rather than make. Incremental ratcheting style changes, uh, again, that they may have in, in a fashion earlier in their life and in their career. So around all of that, we're gonna talk about stress and anxiety, how it affects your, your job performance, how it affects your life, and how to master some of that overwhelm. Um, Lastly, we'll talk about where coaching fits in as a role to all this. Uh, this really permeates the episode because it's what Mark is so good at and specializes in, but in particular how coaching is often something that CEOs in particular and other senior leaders in executive roles are missing. And, and here the two main areas that I find that it is missing and we talk about with Mark today. Is oftentimes, uh, you, you reach a level of success and seniority, uh, hierarchical leadership, positional leadership, where the impartiality of opinion and advice starts to be missing, right? You end up with the yes men. And in that you're missing somebody to really call you out on your bullshit and somebody to observe the things you can't see yourselves, right? The classic shadows or blind spots. And we have all of us, too many of both of those things, right? The areas where we're BSing ourselves. And where you literally look in the mirror and see things with your mind differently than perhaps reality is, or, or that others might observe. So we're gonna get into all that today with, with Mark Silverman. And, uh, we'll jump right in here now. But again, uh, Come back after we cut away from the episode with Mark. Uh, I'll let you know where to find the show notes for this episode, some freebies where you can dive deeper with Mark Silverman. And then of course, the, the updates I promised you on what's going on here with the Men to Mastery Community. All right. With that, let's get into it with Executive Coach Mark Silverman.

Michael:

mark Silverman welcome. I'm, I'm very excited for this conversation today. Mark Silverman is an executive coach, an author, also a podcast host. He is a speaker and he works with CEOs around the world helping turn their fast rising high achievers into effective leaders. A topic I, I really love and is near, near and dear to my heart. I think we, we all know if we're, if we're somewhere on this path, That success, effective leadership, effective business starts with leading ourselves and and starting with the inner work first. So we know that adversity is a gift. It is really the, the path to success and Mark is, is no no stranger to adversity. At 27 years old, he was living out of his car homeless down to 135 pounds. And by what, five or six years later, at the age of 33, he was a millionaire. So we've, we've got the, we've got the hero journey, we've always got the character arc.

Mark Silverman:

Excuse me, on his tape sets. He'd always say, I was living in a one room basement apartment, and, you know, and I went and I studied success and did all those things. And, you know, whenever I'm on stage, I'm always asked to tell that story of being homeless. And, you know, how did, how did that, that all happen? And I get really bored with it, but I forget that it's actually. It, it, it gives inspiration to people that no matter where you are on the journey, it can change, it can be something different. And I, I had two of those journeys, so yes, I was, I was a drunken, I was an alcoholic, a drug addict, a sex addict, and you know, I was, I was a, I was a mess at 27 years old. And it all finally kind of came to a head where I had no place to live. I had no food, I had no money left. And I was living in my little, my little red Toyota pickup truck. And I came to Washington, DC to borrow some money from my brother. I was living, I was on the west coast at that time, so I drove across, I drove across the country and he put me in AA and Narcotics Anonymous, and he said, you're gonna go to the gym. And by the way, when I was 130, I was actually 130 pounds. I, I thought I was. I always thought I was fat my whole entire life. And I see pictures now from the week that I drove into DC and I'm like, holy mackerel. Like dysmorphia is a thing. So what happened was, I, you know, I started, I enrolled, he, he had me enroll in college. These were, these were like the stipulations for me to. Crash on his couch. Right? And I did those things and it was really interesting to do things sober, right? To, to find out that I actually had an aptitude for learning. You know, going back to school in your thirties is a very different thing cuz you're kind of choosing to be there. So my, my journey there was different then you know, I waited on tables and everything. I fi and I finally got my first professional job as a sales guy because I had no skills. I was shy I was introverted. I don't like to bother people. And I got a sales job where I had a call 60 people a day, otherwise I didn't get paid, right? So, like for me that. Freaking hell. But at somehow, because I'm interested in other people and they say I've learned since, you know, becoming a successful sales guy, that introverts make really good sales people because we're interested in other people. How do we help you get where you wanna go? My am my being an empath actually was helpful. I didn't look like the other sales guys who were, you know, out partying, bringing people to strip joints and doing all that stuff. But clients, you know, customers trusted me. So I, I went from that job to another job and I doubled my income. Then I went to another job and doubled my income, and then someone said, you know, you should come work for this big company and really learn how to do sales. So I was like, okay. I had no plan. Right. You know, like I was, I had never made more than 20 something thousand dollars a year, you know? So now I'm in the high tech industry in the late nineties, early two thousands. You know, and I'm going. The startup to startup, and if you look at my resume, my resume is the who's who of the fastest growing companies in Silicon Valley history. You and again, who I was, you never would've thought that. Here's the interesting thing. I got married, I had kids, I got a convertible, I bought a million dollar house. I did all those things, right? But inside, I'm still this homeless guy, right? And I think you talk about shadow work you know, and, and doing that internal beliefs work on yourself. So even though on the outside, I'm living in Alesia, right? I'm living in in status symbol land, and I'm the committee chair for the Boy Scouts and I'm the third grade basketball coach, right? And I'm all things to all people. inside. It's just not jiving. And so stone cold sober in 2008. My marriage falls apart and like, again, this, this is, this is the hard for me thing for me to comprehend. Like, I wasn't, I didn't drink so I wouldn't screw things up. And stone cold sober, my marriage falls apart. My ex-wife and I were fighting and fighting and fighting, couldn't get along. My, I couldn't sell anything. My my. Whatever was wrong with me internally, I could not sell a thing. And I'm working for one of the best technology companies on the planet. And I, I, I was having panic attacks every day. Like meeting ex I would walk in the hall and meet an executive that I normally would, would work with, and I'd have to run in the bathroom cause I couldn't breathe. Hmm. Or I'd be in a do doing a presentation in a meeting and I start to. I'm like, what the, what is going on with me? My immune system just started going crazy and I started losing weight again, and I got really sick and they told me I was gonna, I was probably gonna die. I was misdiagnosed, thank God, but I, I thought I was gonna die. So I made this decision at 48 years old that if I was gonna die, I needed to leave a million. For my ex-wife and my kids, I just need to go make a million dollars this year and somehow do that. So I, I like, so here's, here's the singularity of goals, right? My book is only tens, right? Like, what, what, what is the most essential thing that you can commit yourself to? So I was committed. To leaving an extra million dollars for my ex-wife and my kids. I heard when I was in the parking lot of one of the doctors this guy on the radio, Stu Middleman, who was an ultra-marathoner, he says, everybody can run. It is our birthright as humans, as bipedal people that we can run. So I called him and I said, I need to run the Marine Corps marathon. I wanna show my kids what I did with adversity. When I die, I want them to see that they're dead. One of his last things was he ran the Marine Corps marathon. He says, yeah, it takes about two years cuz I couldn't run a mile. He says, it takes about. I said, no, I need to run it in eight months. I need to run it in October. He goes, yeah, I'm not so sure. But anyway, he said he took me on in You know, we did phone calls and, and he had me training and then I decided I wanted to give$60,000 to charity cuz I just felt so bad about myself for screwing up my life, my marriage, my kids, everything. So I, I had these three goals in that year. I got a new job, like out of the blue, someone called me and said, Hey, come work with this startup. So I went to work there and that. It took, it took about a year and a quarter to make the million dollars. I made the million dollars, I gave a$60,000 charity, and I ran the Marine Corps marathon an hour faster than my coach even thought I could do. So what happens? I'm healthier than I've ever been. my career's, taking off my kids and my ex-wife for good. And I'm, I'm sitting here with a, you know, with another run in with the Phoenix kind of thing, you know, in the Ashes and rising, and I realized, Then that. I cre I can create my life. It wasn't as articulate. Now, now I'm an executive coach, so I have the fancy language to talk about how we create our lives, how we make choices, and incremental, you know, improvements and all that. But while I was training for the marathon, I listened to every self-help book ever written. I listened to every spiritual book, you know, every, everything I could get my hands on while I was running because I wanted to build a new. I wanted to build a new person. I didn't wanna be the person I was before, and I never knew that you didn't have to be who you were. I don't have to be tomorrow, who I am today. I can change, you know, my personality is fluid. It's a made up thing. Anyway, so that was the start of my trajectory towards becoming an executive coach and wanting to help other people understand their free. So that's, that's my, my, you know short Jewish Tony Robbins story. Of how I came to, you know, just dedicating my life to other people, not having to crash and burn that way to find out that they can reinvent themselves.

Michael:

Yeah. Tony always talks about either inspiration or desperation. So I suppose if you can help people with the inspiration approach to next level versus the crash and burn approach, some of us learn the hard way. It does seem like, I was just having this conversation recently and we had a guest on who studied, you know, sort of the type A personality, the, the people that are really wired a certain. It's all in, on everything. Right? Maybe it's all in on the addictions. You mentioned early on, or it's all in, could be all in on health, could be all in on

Mark Silverman:

religion. No, I'm, I'm going through, I'm going through your podcast. I'm looking at all the topics that you covered. Yeah. And I could see myself 15 years ago saying I'm with. Do that, and I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna be that guy and I'm gonna meditate, but I'm also gonna do a triathlon and I'm gonna do that. And you know, that same thing is right, like you can't sit with yourself. So you go do, you know, create this monster of a human and you think you're David Goggins but meanwhile you still can't sit in a room all by yourself and be

Michael:

right, right? Yeah. And, and in some ways I think that it like chasing the next shiny object. May be beneficial, it may have, it may have assets, it may have benefits, but at the same time, it's probably just distracting from what we really need to do. And that might be something that's pretty simple. Simple but not easy. Is a, is a phrase I come across a lot, right. Just sitting with yourself, quiet, starting to maybe become aware of, of thoughts and start to end that this is, you know, part of the process I've gone through. You're, you're talking about effectively. The stories that we tell ourselves sort of what we've programmed or been programmed with, and the awareness to start to question those and, and, and the freedom, the power to modify them and recreate ourselves, recreate our stories, making empowering stories. We've all got, you know, you, you said you love to tell the story and maybe it's, it's old to you, but it's new to somebody else. We've all got our traumas and dramas, right? It helps us connect and be relatable to each other. And we've, we've all gotta somehow deal with that stuff to get better at who we are now to become. And, and be conscious about what we wanna become next

Mark Silverman:

if we can only get people to believe you, that we all have our dramas and traumas, right? So you meet people and you compare your outsides to their insides. That old saying, right? But the truth is, you, any, everybody I get to know and have a deep conversation with. Has some kind of a story like mine. It's, you know, the characters are different, the circumstances are different, but they've had to endure or deal with something. There's very few people who've had that idyllic upbringing in childhood and, and that, that has its own problems when you come into the real world.

Michael:

yeah, a hundred percent. Right. We're we're talking about sort of adversity you know, forging the, the diamonds under pressure type of thing or whatever analogy you want to use. And, and yeah, the other extreme is like, if, if life's too easy if you went through our, our podcast list, Michael Easter wrote The Comfort Crisis, right? So there's, there's this crisis at the other end of the spectrum. I, I gotta think, you know, for someone like yourself who works pretty primarily with top achievers, top top sales guys, maybe CEOs, a a lot of those folks are wired the way that we are, the way that we're talking about. Yes. So have these same challenges have the same traumas and dramas? Yeah. So Maybe, I guess, let me ask this as a, as a starting place because I, I know part of your specialty is, is helping that C-suite or helping those achievers become also good leaders, not just individual performers, but but excellent leaders. What's sort of the, what's your path in, where do you start with these guys? And, and here's the reason I I, I, I'm fascinated by this, is I run into a lot of CEOs that sort of have this egoic, you know, Hey, I, I, I made it. I'm successful. I know what I'm doing. I don't need a coach. I don't need help. I've already got a formula that works, obviously. You know, look at me and look at my company. So maybe sort of tone deaf to the holistic health and holistic balance and achievement we're talking about for themselves, may not even believe they need help or work on themselves. And then, you know, casting that out to, to their team. So how do you, how do you sort of break through that? Or what's a typical first conversation look like as a coach for a ceo?

Mark Silverman:

It's funny, I was just talking to one of, one of my CEOs who's been with me for four years and we were, we were talking about doing an another, another year together. And one of the problems, and I said one of, you know, one of the problems with us working together is you're too rich, your girlfriend's too pretty, and you know, like, you just don't need to do anything, right? Like, like there's no urgency for any of this stuff, so we have to find something for you to be passionate about. But he said, I do remember. So we, we talked about, you know, what does he have now? Cuz I always do a review you know, after six months or a year with someone and find out. And he says, well, I have my integrity back. He says, the reason I hired you was in that first conversation you told me that I had no integrity and I was furious at you because I am so honest and I'm so careful with my word and my integrity and, and you said, but you're cheating on your wife. So you have no integrity. Like there's no integrity anywhere. If you're cheating on your wife, you're not, you have no integrity. And he said, that's why he hired me, because he want, he want, he wanted his integrity back more than anything. You know, his marriage was over, like it wa it, but, you know, so all of the justifications were there. But you know, like his, he wasn't his word and it took him a long time to become an honest person. So now he's in this wonderful new relationship where he's an honest man in that relationship, speaks his mind, speaks his truth. So usually my way in my, my career's changed a little, it used to be, CEOs who were kraken at the seams. So my, my, my podcast was mastering midlife. I was the midlife crisis guy, right? But then I turned 60 and I decided I'm a little too old for midlife, and I'll leave it to you guys. to now I'm the, now I'm the geriatric mastery guy, but my, my you know, so it's usually the cracks were showing for them. And someone would call me and say, he really needs to talk to Mark. So, because it only, you have to have the cracks, otherwise you won't. Right. Something has to stop working.

Michael:

So, j just a quick question on, on that mark. So when you say the, the guys busting the seams or the cracks, was that, was that more. Maybe they're successful in business, but the rest of their life was, was falling apart or was that more about, Hey, I've, I've reached this level of what I call success, but I'm unhappy, I'm miserable. I, I Fulfillment,

Mark Silverman:

purpose. Yeah. I'm bored or I'm, I'm, I'm starting to see my temper show up and, you know, because they're bored, their temper shows up or, It's a, it's, it's, it could be any myriad thing. The, the premise of mastering midlife was, you know, the, the drives and motivations that get you through your twenties and thirties start to turn on you in your forties and fifties, right? So how many of us have become successful? Like, I became successful because I never wanted anybody to see that homeless guy again. Right. So I covered it up with ego boss suits and a gold watch and a and a and a sports car, right? But that guy was still there. So what happens in your forties and fifties if you don't listen to that internal clock and you know, saying something needs to change, something needs to shift. You start to drift away in your relationships, you start to drift away from, from who you are. And the midlife crisis, the job crisis, the health crisis, the relationship crisis just blows up in your face. You know, women tend to go into like adrenal fatigue and go down. Men tend to blow shit up, right? Like, like I can't, I don't like this. I don't know how to incrementally change anything. Cause I can't have a deep con, I'm an honest conversation with my wife. So we blow shit up and then figure out what we, what to do with the pieces, right? So my career has really shifted now because these CEOs have been calling me and saying, I got so-and-so, and I, and I, I hate to use always be on the, on the masculine on this, but most of my clients are, man, you know, I got so-and-so rockstar, no manner. you're bull in a China closet. Can you teach him some manners? Right. Or I got another rockstar who won't. Like, he's now in the C-suite, he's part of my, my senior leadership team, right? But he won't get his hands off the reins of the day-to-day, right? Mm-hmm. he won't set vision, right? Right. So I, I get, I get, I get called when there's someone, someone who's been young. Talented and rising really fast gets, puts on the leadership team and needs to be matured and means needs to learn those skills. I just had dinner with two clients who I've had for. Four years. I guess they're four years now. When I first met them I wasn't as successful as I am now, so I needed, I needed every check I got, right? I was still taking care of an ex-wife, two kids, elderly parents, all this stuff, and I left my lucrative career to be a air quotes coach. So I, I'm really, you know, cognizant that I need the check. So I fly, I I do international. So I fly to their country. This was way before Covid and I'm meeting with them and this is a done deal. The c e o has already decided, this is just a chemistry meeting. They're gonna give me my fat check. So they come in to talk to me and I, I, I can't believe you know this, this comes outta my mouth cuz the cha again, don't, I'm a sales guy, don't ever talk yourself outta the sale. And I said, I said to each one of'em, I said, look, I said, I'm glad you, I'm glad you, you know, you said yes, you wanna work with me now I have a couple things to ask you. I said, you're gonna be successful with, or. And by the way, I wear a solid gold,$35,000 watch. I don't care about your success. What I care about are, are you gonna be the kind of fathers your sons need? Are you gonna be the kind of husbands your wives need? And are you gonna be the kind of men who can deal with this kind of wealth in the world? If you're up to working on those things, then I will take you on as a client. And inside I'm going, what are you saying Silverman? Like, like you need that. And they both, their eyes both got really big and they were like, we're totally in. We to, we, we want this. And I just had dinner with them and their wives, and I had never met their wives. And their wives started telling me at dinner and I may, I may cry here. And wife have, you know, we are so thankful that they met you. You know what you've done for the pressure that they're under, what you've done for them as men, what you've done for them as husbands, what you've done for our relationship and your coaching is amazing, and I'm bawling my eyes out in this restaurant. That's why I do what I do. Mm-hmm. right? So I get hired for the success of the leadership for the, for that, because again, you can't be happy in a leadership position if you don't actually know how to do leadership, right? There's very few born leaders. It's a, it's a learned skill. You know, that's the good news. You can learn it. Right. But you know, if you can't, if you can't find, and I, I noticed, you know, on your, on your, your Mastery program, you know, you have these pillars. Are you looking at every area of your life and making sure that you're holistically successful? So that's, that's what I'm, I'm working with. Okay.

Michael:

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm, I'm curious. So I, I think part of what, the way I digest what you just shared is, is we have these sort of outer metrics, or we can point to the, the business successes, but the, the really important stuff is what you got the feedback on at dinner, right? That's, that's the richness in life. When you've got. let's say a ceo, and then you've got some, some younger up and coming achievers, and you're working with each of these individuals and a team, and you're trying to grow these folks into, into better leaders or leaders, period. Some of what I, I I, if I took this the right way, those conversations you've had initially with, Hey, are we gonna work together for the first time? Or maybe the first time in a long time? You're providing some ugly, but very honest. Almost,

Mark Silverman:

almost

Michael:

always, right? Almost always. You're, you're holding that mirror up. And then if we extend that to a leadership team, having some similar level of, of of honesty with each other, of, of, of the feedback that we really need do you run into cultural barriers to that meaning? My, you know, kind of my journey through the corporate world and, and the, you know, at large world here, right? We've, we've sort of gotten soft. We've gotten soft in wanting to be nice to each other or what we think is nice to each other, but we're really doing each other a disservice by, by just sort of frosting over all that stuff. And I see some of that show up in, in the working world, right? Where, where accountability isn't really a thing. Ownership isn't really a thing. Constructive feedback isn't as much of a thing. Do you see that? Do you run into it? How do you overcome that with a leadership team and get them working more in, in that?

Mark Silverman:

It's kind of the reason why I have a job and a waiting list to work with me because most people don't want to have those like it. That's the hardest thing for people to do ev Most people wanna get along. You know, there are the bull in the China closet who will just say what they think and all that stuff and kind of ruin things. But most people wanna be liked. most people wanna be seen as a team player. And by that they mean don't criticize, don't, don't. Mm-hmm. push back. So, you know, and, and for me, what I find with leaders is the, the number one trouble they have is having that feedback, accountability loop going. So you brought me, so a piece of work, right? Because this, this is, this, this is the, the, the classic. I just did it myself. I worked till two o'clock in the morning cuz it was easier for me to do it than teach them to do it. Most people don't want. okay, you brought me this piece of work, or you did something this way. What I loved about this was great. You know, this was great. What would be better is or the gap to what the piece of work I need is this. Do you agree with me? You know, can we come to agreement that this is the level of work we need back? Send them away. Have them come back and then say, great, you're closer, right? Still, here's the gap. Like, and have that feedback accountability loop going all the time. It's so hard. It takes so much work. It takes so much psychic energy to do it. But what happens is you're starting to create other leaders in your organization, right? A month or two months down the line, that person's gonna be so much more autonomous. They're gonna think for themselves, they're gonna understand what the assignment is. So now you're gonna be able to turn your back. Once you assign that plate, you're gonna be able to turn your back and know that that's good, but it's, if that's the hardest thing, I think for almost everybody. What's,

Michael:

Yeah, that makes sense. Just I'm kind of playing that forward. So thinking about, you know, maybe one of these CEOs or business owners that you've worked with for a number of years, so, you know, if, if one leader is building additional leaders and they're building the next generation of leaders, have you gone through sort of a full cycle with, with one of your guys to where they've exit. Right and stepped

away.

Mark Silverman:

I, I'm getting, I'm that none, none have exited yet. But they're, but they're, they're dealing with. So what do I actually do with the organization now? Like, what's my job? Just had that conversation this morning. It's like, so I've got this person handling this, this is going well. This is going, what's my job? And so now that now we get to, just, now we get to actually build something new for them, right? He's got a foundation, he's got, you know, that he works with and all that. He sets visions and strategy and, you know, he wants to take the co company to a certain level. The people he is got in place, he built the. Right. This is what I noticed with most CEOs. One of the, one of the best things I do for the leadership team is I put them in their place and I'm like, you're not the c e o. Right? They'll, they'll complain, they think they can run the company better, all this stuff. You are not the c e o, you're not paid to be the CEO e o, right? So let's, let's, let's, you know right size our commitment right now. You don't know what the senior level challenge is that person has to deal with. The c e O is usually the person who will take the rocket ship from zero to. right? The leadership, the people on the leadership team, there's very few people on the leadership team who will be the person who takes it from zero to 60, let alone from 60 to a hundred. Right? So, so un understanding that is really, really important. Now, you can get people, and hopefully if you're a healthy c e o, you get people to take care of all those other things, but you are still the, the, you know, the, the, the spice and the sauce that is driving the company to where it's gonna. I talked to one c e I coached his leadership team. I didn't coach him, but he, you know, when, when I was doing some rounds with, with his people, he comes in the conference room and sits down with me and he goes, Silverman, when is it time to leave? When is it time to just give up? I said, dude, I am not your coach. You have the best coach on the planet. It happened to be a friend of mine. I said, no, I'm not your coach, so I can't tell you that but you know, he says, you know what, what, what my problem is when I turn my. Everything slows. and I said, yeah, part of that is your perception, you know, because you know you're such a driver. Part of that is your perception and part of it's true. And I said, you know, these two guys on your leadership team could be c e o. They're definitely mature enough. They're ready to be C E o. I said, the problem for you would be is they're not gonna run the company that you would. Hmm. You are the rocket fuel in this company. They'll run a successful company, they'll won, run a wonderful company, but it'll be different than what you are doing. Right. So that's the hard thing for those CEOs who wanna leave, like, can I give my baby to somebody else and watch them, turn it into something different. Right. You know, I put it, I, I put it in a Red Sox uniform and they wanna put it in a Yankees uniform. Not sure I'm good with that. You know, that kind of thing. How often do you get fired? I got violently attacked once. How often do I get fired? I have a hundred percent. Re retention rate. Renewal rate. So I got that's pretty good. I fire people all the time. Like, I'll, I'll tell people, you know what, you and I have been together for two years. I've done as much as I can for you. I need you to go join a mastermind with people who are 10 times more successful than you. I want you to steep yourself at. So I fire, I, I, I haven't been, I fire everybody. I have'em outta the nest. Yeah. I, I I've completed with people. Okay. Where it's just, you know, we've run the. And it's been good. But yeah, no, I haven't been fired yet except for that one person who, who attacked me. No,

Michael:

I was just interested. If somebody had had sort of run you out the door, wasn't ready, you know, said yes, wasn't ready, ran you out the door and then brought you back.

Mark Silverman:

A couple people, a couple people have ended. And then come back, yes. That, that's happened. But no. Yeah. And I haven't, I haven't gotten fired yet. Maybe I'm not, maybe I'm not confrontational enough.

Michael:

Yeah. Maybe you gotta push the, push the envelope a little bit more.

Mark Silverman:

Goals, man. We got goals.

Michael:

Goals. What else did I wanna ask about that? What's, I mean, what's your, what's your process like, or your tools, or how do you, how do you develop these leaders?

Mark Silverman:

I didn't know what it was until recently. You know, if you asked me that six months or a year ago, I would've said, you know, I don't know. It's just, it's just kind of ma it's kind of Mark's magic like, I don't know. And a friend of mine and I sat in my my office and we actually codified what it is I do. And that's how I created The Rising Leader Handbook and the Rising Leader workshop that I'm, I'm building now is I take, I take time. So it's, it's separated into leading. So, you know, leading your c e o or leading your senior leader, how do you do that? Then it's leading across, how do you, how are you a leader? You know, I'm sure you've done all these leadership trainings where you're a team of alpha men and you gotta pick a leader and then, but you gotta be a follower, but you're also gotta lead. And you know, like, Those kinds of things. Like how do you lead in a group of people who also want to lead, want to be seen, want their agenda, but also collaborate while you're competing for attention? All that stuff. So that leading in the peer group, and that's the culture thing that you were talking about. Yeah. Is how do you create that? So the, once you get those two things right now, how do you lead your team? And, and how do you do that? And then the, the most important thing is how do you lead yourself? Hmm. So usually the, usually I do it I do it in two ways. First, I'm usually brought in again for you know, teach the person some manners. So I, I kind of get them in line like, you're not the c e o, right? You like your job, right? Because if you don't like your job, Okay. You like your job? Now we're gonna, now we're gonna smile and we're gonna do what we signed up to do. Cuz you make a lot of freaking money. And then, and then we work on the internal, so the first six months is always internal leadership. Hmm. You're a choice. You are not a victim of circumstance. Right. You, you know, you get to speak your mind. How do you s how do you speak your mind? How do you ask for what you want? How do you take care of yourself? One of my, one of my guys was a, a former professional. and now he's an executive in a company. He's six foot four, you know, kind of eats, eats, you know, eats furniture for dinner. Big, big guy always laughs how I'm not intimidating cuz I'm five foot seven Except he says he listens to me. That's why, why he signed up again. But anyway, so, so he's, I was hired cuz he has anger issues. Hmm. Like he's scaring everybody on the team. He's six four, right. Athlete, he's in his forties. And I said, okay, here's the problem I. I'm not gonna coach you again until, you know, oh, I asked him, you know, when was the last time you were in the gym and his wife's a marathoner, and when he says, I haven't been in the gym probably two years, three years. Hmm. I said, great. You're overweight, you're breathing heavy. You know I am not gonna coach you again until you've been to the gym. Eight. And I want you to take a picture of yourself in the gym. Not because I need the accountability, but because I wanna make this fun and I want you to take, I wanna, you know, like, take a picture of yourself in the gym eight times and we will coach again. He goes, you know, so he comes after eight times, he comes back. He says, why did you do that? He said, because I can't play whack-a-mole with your emotions like you're a f. Five year old A D H D kid who needs to be on the playground before he can sit at the desk. Right? So, you know, why would I, why would I try and do that when you have all this pent up energy? So it's four months later, it's time for renewal. He looks amazing. He dropped all this weight, you know, like just looks great. I'm on with his c e o and his c e o who says you're gonna do another six months with him, right? And he goes, by the way, he looks awesome. What'd you do to. Right. So that, that's, that's the kind of thing that, you know, sometimes coaching is just that. It's like, you know, if you're an athlete and you don't and you don't play sports, you're in trouble. Yeah.

Michael:

Great. Yeah, there's a, there's a lot to that. What about, and, and this may be an aspect of what you just just mentioned as well, right? I was curious about sort of the, the, the dark side or the shadow side or the downside of, of quote unquote success. Do the air quotes thing again, meaning, you know, maybe that c e o who is in that place of, well, I could step away or what's next? Going back to adversity. Right. And we sort of thrive as, as human animals in, in challenge. How does that look? How do you start to create the next challenge or, or adversity or what the next thing is that someone is gonna work on rather than self-destructing?

Mark Silverman:

Again, the scariest thing on the planet is not public speaking. It's the blank page. It's the blank canvas. It's that pause, you know, getting someone to sit down and just slow down. Enough company's working great. Everything's doing good. Can you take time? And go for walks. Can you journal? What are you interested in? You know, so you know, what are you pissed off at about the world? You know, what pisses you off in the world, right? I can't stand the fact that dolphins are being slaughtered. Great. Do you care enough to do something about that? No. Great. Let's look at something else. Like, you know, do you wanna start another, some people don't wanna do that, they just wanna start another business. Some people wanna travel, some people wanna do all kinds of stuff. And then that incremental thing is, is the hard thing, right? Because we're men, right? We're either all in or I quit. right, right. I love her and I'm devoted, or I have to get divorced. You know? So for me, like can you have a conversation before you walk out the door? Can you have a conversation with her about some of the things that you don't like in your relationship? And maybe you can work those things out that's so much harder than being a doormat or walking out the door, right? Same thing with the company. Okay? The companies can you work two days a week and actually, Find some hobbies or you know, anything. And that's the hardest thing is, is like, no, I'm needed. We've just established you're not needed at all. So can you spend two days? Can you spend two days a week? And that's, it's really hard cuz there's so much, there's so much identity with, with it and ego and and fear. You know, if we can teach leadership skills again all day long, but if we don't work on these underlying things, I was just speaking in front of a group of CEOs yesterday and I, and I was talking about childhood traumas and when I walked in to speak, someone else was talking about us. So it was a great segue about childhood traumas. I said, so you guys all think that you are in relationship with each. So when someone's yelling at you or something's happened and you think that that's what's going on, they're yelling at something from childhood. You're not even in the room. Right? Right. Those things, those shadows are with us in every relationship. Everything that we do, everything that we go, we're not in a relationship with the world. We're in a relationship with what we think about the world, the people we are in and all that stuff. So, If, if you're, if you're teaching leadership, we, if you don't get people to drop down and learn who they are, what their fears are, what the, you know, what drives them, it's, it's again, just playing whack-a-mole with behaviors.

Michael:

Yeah, it really is. Fear's, fear's a great one. I know it, it certainly is. It's a hardwired survival mechanism, right? It's, it's the reason that we're here and it, and it can be, and it certainly is a fuel for, for most of us you know, those things from our childhood. I'm never gonna live in the, in the car again, or my house got repossessed or whatever it was, right? It, it drives us to, to this success or what we define as success and sometimes to the point of. Overachieving. Right. But then how many, yeah,

Mark Silverman:

how many overachievers do you know, like real successful overachievers that you don't see the underlying pain that that drove them to that level of success?

Michael:

A hundred percent. It's there probably easier for somebody to see it from the outside than for them to see it themselves a lot of times. Right. Totally Right. And then maybe that, that pivot from what's driven us using that fear, what's driven us in some good and in some unhealthy ways, and pivoting to more courage based decisions. That's, that's scary

Mark Silverman:

in itself. Sure. Here's the little, here's the little secret though. All those things that you learned are not bad. Right. The thing that almost destroyed me was I'm, I'm an empath. You know, I ha I have a d h d I ha, you know, all these things that I, we, you know, we didn't know. That kind of drove me into the ground. Once I got healthy, those things become my superpowers. Right? Right. So, a Dr. A healthy driver. Becomes an inspirational leader, an unhealthy driver is something different. Right? So, so those, those, those talents and gifts that you got don't go away. They're no, now they're cleaner, they're healthier, and they're more effective.

Michael:

A hundred percent. Let me ask about the other end of the spectrum. From, from sort of, I don't have enough to do and now I've gotta figure out what the next challenge is or, or what the next chapter is. What about overwhelm? I know that's something you talk about a lot. How does that show up in leaders and how do you start to to, to address it or treat it?

Mark Silverman:

So basically, you know, I asked the question, where do you think overwhelm lives? Like, where do you see, where does overwhelm live for you?

Michael:

I, I see it in myself and, and, and others. You mentioned addictions earlier. Work itself can be an addiction, right? And. Busyness, as as business so overwhelmed, meaning just too much dedication to sort of one domain, one vertical, and a, a complete lack of focus in other areas. That's, that's how everyone shows

Mark Silverman:

up. So it sounds to me like you get overwhelmed when you feel like you're neglecting parts of your life. Yeah,

Michael:

that's a good question. I, I, I don't I I tend to recognize that I think in terms of being out of balance in, whether that's from a time perspective or whether it's just being present when I do have the time I, I'm not one who is very good at, at thinking yes, I shouldn't use the word thinking, feeling you asked me about feelings, right? The feeling part of it. That's a challenge for me person.

Mark Silverman:

Sure. So like this whole midlife, this whole yeah. You know, mastery, right. For you did that come from the fact that you realized that you weren. Mastering all these different parts of your life. So you decided to build this Absolutely. Teach what you need to learn. Absolutely. My, my book only tends confront your to-do list, transform your life. Came from the fact that I have a d h D and I can't pay attention to anything and I'm my, and I'm running my own company, right? So how do I actually get things done? So I, you know I taught, I I was teaching what I needed to learn. Right, right, right, right. So for me, overwhelm is what happens between my. So again, your to-do list is not what overwhelms you, it's what you think about your to-do list that overwhelms you. It's the lies that you tell people. All day, every day. And the lies that you tell yourself when you look at your to-do list, what's on your to-do list that doesn't belong there? What's on your to-do list? That you didn't set a boundary? What's on your to-do list that you didn't delegate? What's on your to-do list that you didn't just, you just don't want to do, but you think you should do it? So it's on your to-do list from yesterday, the day before. The day before. You're never gonna get to it and you're just lying. So I can, I can, I can get someone. Eight hours in their weeks, in 15 minutes by looking at their to-do list. Mm-hmm. just by confronting the bullshit on their to-do list. Right. And then the self-esteem that goes with those things you know, on, on the to-do list. So for me it's the difficult conversations that you need to have. Which are, you know, setting boundaries, asking for help, getting clarification, saying no, a complete sentence. You know creating really strong agreements with people and then having a feedback loop. You know, all those conversations are the things that are gonna get you out of overwhelm and it's something that you need to practice every day. Cause I'm, my guess is, Who's listening here? I can't keep anybody out of overwhelm. You know I'm Zen Master Flash and I get overwhelmed. I can get people out of overwhelm cuz you know, they're gonna, they're gonna wake up and their kids are gonna spill the cereal. They're gonna be late for work and their email's gonna be full. You're gonna be overwhelmed. Now, how do you breathe? How do you ground yourself? How do you stop scaring yourself about the fact that you're gonna be late for work? And what does that mean and all that stuff. And, you know, deal with all the bullshit in your mind that you're making up that's scaring you. And then how do you get centered into reality? And by the way, for this overwhelming thing what I'll do is I'm, I'm setting up a page for your people. Thank you. And they can download a free copy of my book, only 10. On the, on the page. Ah, it's very

Michael:

kind. Appreciate that,

Mark Silverman:

mark. Thank you. Mark silverman.com/um, the name of your podcast, Yeah.

Michael:

Or we'll just do slash mastery maybe something like that, unless that's already taken. Yeah, thank you. Work on that offline and

Mark Silverman:

No, I know you're the Men of Mastery podcast. I keep thinking cuz my, my podcast was mastering midlife Right. I keep like going, I keep trying to send people to my old podcast. When I think of the name of your podcast, that's gonna be Men of Mastery. Okay.

Michael:

All right. I appreciate that. We'll get links up to it with the show notes for this one. Yeah, no, you're, you're completely right. Like I just, what was going on in my head as you were describing that I can, I can certainly relate to, I, I'm in, I'm in the middle and have been in the middle of redoing this, this home office, home studio for quite a while. Right. And so something will happen as we go into the weekend here. My, my son, we were talking about offline. We'll, Lots of busy stuff we gotta run around to and get to run around to. And my wife will come up with social stuff. I'm, I'm certainly the, the introvert and in my mind what's going on will be like, oh, you know, I, we gotta finish taping the edges so we can, so we can paint. And then we got the furniture coming and then this, and then that. Right? And, and that's all getting delayed by all this other. But the reality is nobody else is having that conversation. Nobody else is feeling that way. It's only going on between my ears. And, you know, what's one more day or one more hour when I've been sitting on this for two months,

Mark Silverman:

right? And, and we put it on the back burner. The last thing I do in my mastering overwhelm workshop is I, I send everybody out for a break, change the energy, I bring them back and I say, okay, great. What's not on the list? That should be on the list. What, what have you been wanting to do? Putting off, doing? You know, and it's almost always, I haven't spent enough time in my marriage or I haven't been with my kids, or I really wanna work out or something like that. And then they say, okay, so I get make them commit to what they're gonna do and they'll say, I'm gonna work out more. And I'm like, you can't work out more. What do you mean you can't work out more? You can only plan to go to the gym. When are you gonna go to the gym next? Or are you gonna call a trainer? Those are the things you can do. You can't work out more. I'm gonna spend more time with your wife. My wife. No, you can't spend more time with your wife. When are you going to set date night? Hmm. Right. And we do, and we do that beforehand because we, you know, we forget again, there's a, the time between 50 and 60. You know, is so much fast, so much faster than I would've ever thought possible. I, I keep this thing 4,000 weeks on my wall where you check off a week in your life every, every day, every week. And I'm watching that because, you know, I got, I got what good, a good 10 years to create what I want to create. And that's all of us. It's now, life is now. So go have your date with your, with your significant other create, you know, you get your, if you want your office, get your office.

Michael:

Yeah. And it's, those are sort of the peak earning years, right? We're, we're starting to realize the fruition of the things we've built and yeah, it just becomes more and more of, of, of all the same challenges in a, in a, sort of, in a pressure cooker. Well, so thank you for mentioning the, the link and we'll, we'll get that out. You mentioned the workshop, so just before we run out of time, take, take me through more of how you engage with people. The, the workshop, your new book coming out for anybody that's really resonates with, you know, how they might consider working with.

Mark Silverman:

Great. So, so the workshop at the mastering overwhelm workshop is something I do for leadership teams. Okay. And, and CEO round tables and things like that is where I just take people in a morning or an afternoon through their world, their inner and outer world, and help them get out of overwhelm and, and deal with the things in their lives. The Rising Leader Workshop is being built now. So we're on, we're on module two of 12. It's gonna be a a 12 module. Training, you know, again, leading up, leading across leading your team and then leading yourself. And we're going to be practical and, and really, you know specific tasks in order by the end of that 12 weeks for you to be a, a, a rockstar corporate citizen who is, you know, kind of making their own way in the organization. So that's, that. That'll be coming probably in about a month and a half. Okay. So we'll do

Michael:

that. That's, that's a 12 week or 12.

Mark Silverman:

It's a 12 module course and we're now just trying to decide do we do it 12 weeks in a row? Cause I've talked to my clients about it and they're like, mark, it's taken me three years to assimilate everything that you've taught me. right? How can I do it in 12 weeks? So we're trying to decide, but, but most people won't learn. So I think what we're gonna do is do a 12 week course and then put them into a pool of people so that there's a, a community and, and go that way. So I'm still formulating that. Should have a, should have a product ready to go when I'm on a great podcast like this. But, you know, we're building it. So go to mark j silverman.com and you'll, you can watch that and, and see, and see when that shows up.

Michael:

Okay. Yeah, I appreciate that. It's, it's crazy how we have so many. Tools that we tend to apply in the business world. You know, like this overwhelm concept of, you know, if it were, if it were a business overwhelm, we'd probably just sit down and we'd, we'd come up with some kind of a waiting and we'd prioritize and urgency and importance and all that kind of stuff. And then we, and we'd figure it out, right? And we'd, we'd rank it and we'd attack it. But we don't do that ourselves in our personal life so much.

Mark Silverman:

No, no, especially as men, we're not, we're not, we're not taught that. Also on, you know, on the page, it's, it's interesting, most, my, most of my clients have a d d too, even if it's undiagnosed and they won't read my book. They're like, mark, can you make a little five minute video of that concept? So on that page where my, where you can download my book for your, for your listeners, there's all those videos that I make for my clients are on their and with worksheets for them. So they can, they can actually do the Mastering Overwhelmed workshop all by themselves in front of their.

Michael:

Nice. Okay, fantastic. That's, that sounds really beneficial. I was just, just one, one last question that sort of popped up for me. You mentioned asking for help earlier, and, and that's something I can relate to as, as one of the hardest things for myself, for, for men. I think a lot of men do you, do you see that or what, what's what's kind of the hardest thing that you see men on this journey being able to do or.

Mark Silverman:

Asking for help is almost impossible. Almo, almost impossible. I, I, I was talking to one executive who has d dyslexia put himself through law school. Was a, you know, as an executive in a multinational corporation and was in tears a lot of nights in the middle of the night. And he, he, he confided in me. He goes, he, he says, you know, mark, you've known me all this time cuz he is an executive that I knew. He says, but this is, it takes me three times as much work to do what everybody else does not. I was shocked cuz like, I'm like, this guy's a freaking stud, right? I said, wow, have you shared that with your wife? And I know his wife, his wife's amazing. He says, no, I don't wanna burden her. Like, really? She doesn't know that you're having panic attacks in the middle of the night because of how hard this is for you. He says, I would never burden her with that. I said, okay with, as with every conversation, you can say yes, no, or renegotiate, but I would love for you to go have a conversation with your wife and let her know about this stress because I want you to have a teammate. I happen to know your wife and I know that she can handle this and it's not a burden to her. And he went and talked to her and she was. I got you babe. You know, like, like I love you, right? That's the hardest thing for men to do, right? And it's hard cuz sometimes, sometimes, you know, their wives aren't safe, right? If they show vulnerability, their wives get scared. It's not that they're bad, you know, wives, they'll, they'll get scared. So it's, it's, it, it, it's hard. But, you know, really kind of bringing your partner on board to what you're trying to create creates intimacy. Creates closeness and creates you not giving away half your money when you're 15 or 60 years old, because then you're with the person that you always loved. Yeah,

Michael:

I like that story. It's, it's, it's really powerful. Share a quick one with you in, in case the, something like this is, is useful or you wanna steer one of your clients this direction. So some of the way that, that I've explor. Learning and, and I think I said earlier, off air, a lot of times we learn the hard way. So one of those hard ways to learn, one of those ways to really show up in this, this metaphor for adversity is, is physically right. So I've gone and done a few physical. Team-based crucibles where, you know, you're, you're put through stuff that is extremely stressful, physically, mentally, emotionally, and you gotta figure it out as an individual and you gotta figure it out as a team. And there are times when you may step up or be called on to lead or to follow. And there are certainly times that you're gonna have your strengths show up as an asset to the team. And there are times that you. You're gonna be weak. You're gonna need help, and you're gonna have to ask for help, and you're gonna have to get over being a burden on the team, right? Because that's just how it, how it goes and how it works. And so that's a, it's a really interesting sort of metaphor for life to go, to go do something like that. Mm-hmm. And then take those lessons back to, to the personal life and, and the business life. So I don't know if, if you've steered people that kind of direction, but if it ever shows up for one of your clients or you think it's, it's an idea they would like, I'd love to put you in touch with some.

Mark Silverman:

100, 100% it, again, it, it takes, it takes exp, you know, experiential stuff like that. You don't, you're not gonna, unless you're in the cor crucible, you're not gonna know what on your nervous system, what that feels like. Unless you're carried across the finish line, you're not gonna know what it's like, right. To allow your team to take, take care of things. So you're a hundred percent right.

Michael:

Great. Fantastic. Well, mark, I, I really appreciate you taking time today. I I didn't go through your whole resume and, and we'll get it up with the show notes for this episode, but I know you have worked with some incredible companies. You've worked with some incredible leaders and, and. Corporations to the point where, you know, the dollar figure in terms of measuring the success that you've helped in part is, is amazing. So, you know, I, I appreciate you coming to, to tell your story and so modestly tell you know, your story as a, as a coach, but I appreciate the work you're doing out there in the world. It's something that so many leaders and so many men need and, and I'm honored to, to share a bit of it here with the audience.

Mark Silverman:

Thank you, thank you for the work you're doing. It's, I, I, again your, your library is incredible. So I look forward, I look forward to actually listening to a bunch of mo the other episodes.

Michael:

Oh, thank you, mark. I, I appreciate that. That means a lot coming from you. So Mark j silverman.com. I'll work with you to get some links up and we'll get get some tools and folks hands and then get people in touch with you if, if they'd like to on your upcoming leader. Leading up. Leading across, leading within. I love that. And we'll go from there. Again, I appreciate your time. Thank you, mark.

Mark Silverman:

Great to meet you. Take care.