Welcome to the Making of a DM podcast show: Anxiety, frustrations, disappointment, distractions - overwhelmed? You're at the right place. Today's show, I'm going to be sharing a lot of these insights with you and more importantly, solutions. Let's get started.
Hey there. It's your host, Mark Evans, DM, coming to you live today from the Polo Field Park again, where I shot my first show to you guys, thinking about you. I want to share some big topics here today and I might go off on tangents here and there, but this is a very important show to me, and I hope it really makes an impact in you because I can tell you right now, if you're overwhelmed, scared, frustrated, massive anxiety levels and all that, just know that you're not alone. [0:01:15.9]
And it's not misery loves company, it's just that you have to acknowledge it and stop suppressing it. We have to bring it to the top. We have to bring it to the top. We have to really start understanding where the opportunity lies in this anxiety. I know it sounds crazy, right, to think there's opportunity in this crazy feeling. And I'm going through it right now. In some of my companies, there's a lot of moving pieces and a lot of stuff, and as I'm talking to you here today, I had to get away. I had to get to the park, you know. I've got family, like you guys have family. We have got life. We have got things, challenges going on. We're working on our health. We're working on our wealth. Working on our businesses. Working on people. All this shit we all have to do. And as I'm sitting here thinking, you know, I had to get back and just pull out the old pen and paper and start writing. [0:02:00.6]
And I just want to share some of my insights of what I do and how I manage my anxiety levels and my frustration levels and all that because we all get them. And I'm not saying an expert in this, by far actually, and I've studied this a lot. I've read a lot of books. I've hired a lot of people to help me have conservations about it. So I kind of took a hodgepodge of all these pieces over the years, the last 23 years, and but the truth is, probably the last 15 years, because I used to suppress it so massively and just drink alcohol to kind of kick it away and act like it's not there. But what happens, that actually created more anxiety, more stress, more overwhelm. So, I want to talk about that today and I hope this is something that could really make an impact in you guys thing. So, in my companies, and I'll start with my stuff, like the reason I have massive anxiety right now is my companies are becoming too complex. And complexity creeps in companies, that typically means financially you start sucking cash out the back door. [0:03:00.2]
I've seen it happen many times. It's happened to me many times, and some great people go out of business because of this if they don’t get a hold of it quickly. So I'm very attentive when I start seeing complex things start happening. As you know, some of my companies, I'm not in the day-to-days, so therefore, the complexity starts kicking in because we hire these smart fucking people that like to make everything complicated. And as, like, it's like, dude I just want a link, and it takes three weeks to get a link. That's a complex problem when it was me, small time with another individual, we could have this link done within 24 minutes and be on our way. But now what happens is as you grow a company, there's multiple people waiting on this link from the ad copywriters and blah, blah, blah, blah, 14 different people waiting and then this gets pushed off, which pushes off their tasks, which pushes off - like, it just really starts compounding problems and so for me, as a leader and an owner, once you identify where the complex problem is - it's typically a person, by the way, that kind of likes to create all this complexity to make them feel like a fucking genius because they have to step in and solve it - but the way I solve it is they actually have to get nixed, or we have to take it off their plate, and that’s what I do. [0:04:11.2]
I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but it works for me, so that's what I'm sticking with. Because these people tend to have this conversation in their head that everything has to be perfect. They get too damn smart for their own good or they know too much and they try to solve all the problems that don’t even exist. Guys, they're solving problems that don’t even exist yet, because they think it could exist; therefore, they keep analyzing, analyzing, analyzing - "Okay, wait. It's almost ready" analyzing, analyzing "Wait. It's almost ready again" and then you just have to freak out. You have to be the bad guy, call them and do your thing. So, this is a real thing as you're developing your company. It's not as big a deal in the beginning stages for this complex issue to step in because complexity does create that anxiety. Like last night, I was laying in bed. I thought I was going to have a heart attack, like literally. You ever do that, where you're laying in bed and you're like, oh my god, this is the time it takes me? Right? [0:05:05.0]
I've had this many, many, many times and I jokingly, but seriously, say "If you're not dry heaving or can't go to sleep at night, you're not pushing yourself out of your boundary, your comfort zones." And guys and gals, I'm telling you - me, all my buddies, we all have this anxiety issue. We're anxious, nothing happens fast enough. We need it done now. We're thinking bigger, moving forward, and all this stuff. But you have to understand and acknowledge it so you understand where that's coming from and what's driving that behavior because this is a behavior. So me, as a leader, as I started developing and started stepping out of companies - some people are stepping out way too soon and that’s a whole other podcast show - but as they start stepping out, you got to realize that we create problems. Right? We're creating these problems inside of companies. Every problem, I don’t know about you guys, but any problem or every problem that exists in my companies, it's 100% my fault. Even if I'm not directly involved in it because I'm a responsible business owner and the only reason that person's in that job role is because my team that I hired hired them, so therefore, it would make it my problem. [0:06:13.0]
Accept responsibilities for everything. Typically, most people only want to accept responsibilities when things are amazing and good. Right? I did that. Give me my trophy. I did that. Recognize me. I don’t give two shits about that. I'll take the good with the bad because that's the only way it works overall. So for me and you, know anxiety is a real thing. So here's what I do. I was just thinking about something I do. Like if you're trying to raise money for real estate deals or you're trying to grow your business and you need to hire someone and you're not sure, just write down. Stop looking for problems. You got to start writing down the good things you're doing and then also start looking for solutions. See if you start writing, "I suck at this. I'm not good here. This isn't working. That's not working," you're programming your brain to find problems, not solutions, and the reason anxiety is up is because it just starts mounting. [0:07:10.5]
It's like that snowball. It really starts off as a 1-inch ball. By the time it gets down to the bottom of the hill, it's a 2-ton ball. It's massive. It's overwhelming. It's so big you don’t even know where to start. So what I want you to do is just start writing down on a piece of paper what is working and what solutions you have. Right? Like write it down, instantly. You know, yesterday my guy hit me up. He's like, "Yo, x, y, z has happened and we're going to be 100,000 short on this." Boom. I don’t go into crisis mode and panic mode, well I do, sort of, in my brain for a second, but I don’t go and say "Why didn't this work? Why didn't this work? Why didn't this work?" It's like, "Great. Stop for a minute and tell me what's working, where's the opportunity, and what's the solutions?" That's automatic now. Guys, this has not always been the case, by the way. This used to like mount up to be such a massive issue in my brain, it would literally control my days. It would control… I'm a behavioral eater, too, right - so I get stressed, I eat more. [0:08:06.2]
I get scared, I eat more. I celebrate, I eat more. So I started having to really like acknowledge where the issues lie, the real root cause of this anxiety. Anxiety would stimulate a lot of other things in my life that I didn't like. I was short-tempered with my wife. I'm anxious. As I'm talking to you, I'm anxious; you can probably tell by my breath, I'm just an anxious type of guy because I love life. But I also do know that's not good for the old ticker. Right? And we have to acknowledge it. Write it down. Solutions. And that's what I did yesterday when I was talking to him. I was like, "Yo, what's the solution? Where's the opportunities? Where are we at? What's going on? Let's go." Right? So typically when shit hits the fan, teams start to fight. People are saying "You did that. You did that. I didn't do that. You did that." as opposed to like when really shit hits the fan, you guys need to come together tighter. You need to sit down and get more real with each other. This is life. By the way, this is not something you can expedite. [0:09:02.6]
This is something you have to go through and learn from by doing it, not reading a book. You can't read a book to ride a bike. You have to learn this by implementing it and going through it. This is a leadership thing. You have to conversate about it and all this stuff, but you sit down and you just say, "Hey. Let's pull together. We're a team. We need team work, divide and conquer. I got this person. You got that person. You got it? Good. Great. Go." Boom - come back two hours later. "Where are we at?" Right? Like collaborate. Teamwork. And complexity, when complexity steps in, what typically happens, especially in heavy systems, heavy businesses, like everything you push a button and everything magically happens, is a lot of times people don’t even know what they're waiting on or not waiting on. They don’t know what's working or not working. And but before it gets too deep into the game, and then all of a sudden you wake up 30 days later and you're like, oh my god - we're in trouble. Right? So, we have got to be conscious of this. We have got to be thinking about this because anxiety is a big, big deal and I know some of you guys are medicating for anxiety through either pills or alcohol or maybe both. I hope not. [0:10:13.7]
But maybe both. And there's a lot of people that deal with stress differently because this is stress, is what we're talking about. But anxiety - what do you do? Another thing that helps me a lot with anxiety is commitments to myself, keeping true to myself. I can control waking up at a certain time. I can control going to the gym at a certain time. I can control me eating properly. It might be hard, but I can do it. So every time I do that, my anxiety levels reduce a little bit and my confidence goes up. Confidence, anxiety … confidence goes up, anxiety goes down. We start working on both for solutions and before you know it, you're back and you're moving forward. You're moving full steam ahead. [0:11:00.8]
You've got a lot of momentum on your side. Things are working. And then it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So, there's no way that you can't get past this by doing the work. You've got to do the work. You can't read a book and be there. So I just want to stress that because a lot of people are saying "How do I reduce my anxiety?" Well, where's it coming from? Where is it stemming from? If it's lack of effort, it's a very easy fix, on your part. My side is more team driven. Honestly, at this point in my life, I have a lot of teams, a lot of pieces moving, a lot of people in all that. Right? So, my anxiety kicks up when I see the team not moving at peak performance. It upsets me. It hurts me. I try to figure out how to jump in and help them, give them the tools, the resources, the visual. I'm 300 feet in the air and I can see the trails where they're at and where they should be and all that. Like that's my job as a leader. So, when I take my eye off the ball, which happens sometimes, I typically tend to get more anxiety. [0:12:01.8]
So it's a tradeoff for me. So I have got to be conscious of that. I want to go play for a week in some place and not pay attention at all to anything? I'm going to get massive anxiety. Like I love, and I'm sure you do, I love what I do. Like to me, I get anxiety when I'm actually not in the game. I'm thinking about it. I am present a lot with my family, but I'm also, there's times I'm not present. Right? Because, guys, I want to do so much more. I want to be so much better at all parts of my life. That takes some thought. That takes some thinking. It takes some … you know, I don’t need to talk about some bullshit x, y, z is happening at this team and that team and this person. I don’t even know who's who and what's what. I don’t care because it doesn’t effect my life, but what does effect my life is where I'm moving my finances, how I'm thinking about retirement monies, how I'm thinking about legacy wealth building, how I'm thinking about … like, that's the shit I'm constantly thinking about, and my teams. How can I help them better position themselves? How can I help them grow? How can I give them the tools? How can I give them more resources? How can I put them in front of more opportunity? [0:13:05.8]
Another thing, too, to help with anxiety is what I was sharing earlier is like just get back to the basics. Get back to the basics. Sit down, piece of paper… guys, there's millionaires and hundred millionaires and billionaires before there was all these amazing technology systems. So we have all this shit. Why are so many people still not rich? Well, it's simple. They're too complex. They think the systems do the work. The systems can help you assist but it doesn't do the work at the end of the day. You have to do the work. And this is stuff that you're going to learn over time, but as I'm talking to you, I'm looking at my note pad, pen, cigar, lighter. That's the basics to me. For me, I like to sit back at a park or somewhere quiet, light a stoge, and take notes. So I hope that helps you for anxiety, because it is a big deal. Another thing, like I said, is just stop looking for problems and look for solutions. [0:14:04.3]
So another thing too is that you know what drives me bananas about all this stuff, is I see a lot of people doing a lot of things, but not accomplishing many things. It's worth saying again, right? I see a lot of people doing a lot of things, but not really accomplishing many things at all. See, it's not about what you can start. It's about what you can finish. And again, back to complexity and anxiety, I am, like I said, I'm anxious just in general. I'm excited for the future. I'm excited for the ideas, the opportunities in my mind and there's a lot of books out there talking about saying no more to opportunities, especially the more successful you become, we're hit with 10, 20, 30 opportunities a day. But to me, I look at those opportunities as distractions in disguise. See, everything is not an opportunity. It could be, for the right person, just maybe not for you. It's all a timing thing. And if you start opening up a bunch of these doors, what happens that really ups anxiety - because you want to do a good job, you want it to happen quickly, you want it to happen now. Right? [0:15:09.4]
So, and if it doesn't, it really just starts wearing you down. It's like being in a hamster wheel. You're running fast, but you're going nowhere fast. And as you do that more and more - picture you're doing it once, twice, ten times, and I know some people listening definitely are there, because I've been there multiple times myself over the years and maybe they're again 5 years from now or 5 minutes from now - but for you, like for me, I should say, is what I tend, you know, have started doing is you have to start qualifying opportunity, so to speak. I am not interested in looking at opportunities that can't make at least $1,000,000 a year to my side, my take and/or has a bigger vision picture to make real money. Like why would we start a company knowing that you can make 10,000,000 or more a year, or 5,000,000 or whatever the number is for you, and yet, you're chasing deals to make 5000 a year in residual income? [0:16:01.7]
It literally makes zero sense to me, and again, the older I get, the more experienced I get, the more I realize that 5000 a year costs me $5,000,000 a year because it's like, oh, I'll just buy one little property and get some cash flow going. Dude, maybe that property is not, it's all tiny. Do I really want to work hard for $300 a month for a house? "Well, Mark, I have property management." I get it. I do too. But there's still shit that happens. For example, this weekend, I saw the report come across, someone broke in a house and stole a bunch of stuff. There's rats in another house. Tenants are paying. There's termites in another one. The back porch is falling down. There's mold in the sink. One of the septic systems is backing up. Like, it's tens of thousands of dollars. So therefore, my anxiety kicks up. I get pissed off. I'm like, "What are we doing?" Yes, it's cool to say you own all these houses and stuff sometimes, but I'm not looking to be cool; I'm looking to be wealthy. I'm looking to be smart. I'm looking to grow businesses. [0:17:01.5]
So, I start analyzing where I'm at with where I used to be and I start looking to cut it. That's a true story, by the way. That's going on. I'm going to sell those properties because I don’t want to dick around with it. I don’t care how much it makes me or doesn’t make me. I don’t care how much they're worth or not worth. I'm more worried about protecting my time and focusing on things that are growing way bigger. See, the beautiful thing about what I've realized about companies is I have a certain skill set that I've developed over 23 years. I could buy a single family house for 50 grand and it's worth 75, let's say, which is cool. But it's only always worth 75 grand and/or a little bit of equity, you know, things go up in value, whatever. So let's call it 100 grand even, two times its value. I could get involved in companies and generate millions of dollars in the same amount of time and energy it took me to generate that much money over the next 20 years on that single family house. So I'm looking at my time and saying my unique ability, my time, is better spent doing this. [0:18:04.0]
It's not that real estate is a bad tool, but it is a tool, by the way, to get you to where you want to go. I'll always be involved in real estate, just not the way I used to be involved in it. So, development. Don't tie your identity to what you used to do. I'm looking to evolve. I'm looking to be an owner. I'm looking to be the magician, if you will, where I magically have all these amazing companies running under my umbrella that's producing many millions of dollars. Like I said, for me, as a qualifier, minimum $1,000,000 a year per company. That's the minimum goal. It doesn’t always happen, but that's the objective. That's the plan. More importantly, I'm more looking at is it aligned with where I'm at, is it aligned with where I'm going, and is it, can it be sold for a lot more money in the future, and is it helping a lot of people? You know, it's funny, like as you get more money, people start saying, "Oh, man, you do shit for money." Well, it's actually the opposite. [0:19:01.1]
The truth is I do stuff for money because that's what all smart business people would do. If you would do it for any other reason, you're not in business, clearly. And secondly, I'm doing it for impact. Dude, I realize I can make an impact, create something, make an impact, generate revenue and wealth from that, more importantly help them generate revenue and wealth from that and go on to… like, there's enough for all of us. And when you come from the mindset of thinking that someone has money, just creating stuff to make more, that's typically from my experience never the case. The truth is some of my companies cost a lot of money to start and take on a lot of risks, risks I don’t need to take but I want to take because the vision is so much bigger than the process. See, I'm always trying to push out of the limits. I don’t always do it, but I'm trying to always do it. I'm very conscious of it. And there's times when I get complacent. There's times when I get lazy. I'm not naturally gifted to be a hustler. That's not natural for anybody, I don’t think. [0:20:02.8]
It's something that you have to continuously work on. When you get to a certain level financially in your life and you have more money coming in than you spend every month, that can mess with you. Because now it's like, dude, I was hustling to pay my bills and make a big life, and now I have that, and it's already happening… shit, I've got to find a different hustle. We're going to talk about that as Making of a DM evolves because you are a dream maker. You are a deal maker with yourself, first and foremost, and with the people you're going to make an impact with. And just like the show, my objective is not to make money here. My objective is to serve you, to steward my time to spend it, you know, spend time here with you today, to steward it, to multiply the efforts of my voice, you know, with the air waves that they are on, depending on where you're listening or watching this at. So, there's so much more impactful information and things that we could do collectively and I want to be here for you guys. I want to give you the real shit because this is going on in my life. [0:21:01.6]
I'm just sharing stories with you that are real. So it's not something I read a book on and thought that I should share with you. This is like, anxiety, you know, collaboration, frustration, you know, opportunity, obstacles. All this shit is real and you're all, we're all dealing with it in one way or another and/or all of the above. So, how do we deal with it? We have got to really start dealing with it. Don't try to sweep it under the rug and forget it exists, because it's only going to get bigger as you get bigger. These things don’t go away. They don’t ever go away. But my biggest fear is that you keep sweeping it under the rug to the point where you become dependent on alcohol only and/or drugs or both. Like I don’t want that to ever happen, for many reasons. But for you, like you need to like get a handle on it. Get back to the basics. Let's stay focused on where we're going. I said it earlier - we got to create our vision where it's bigger than our process. Our process is going to suck. Our habits are going to drive us through the process that you're creating today. [0:22:05.3]
The bigger you get, the more conscious we have to become, the more aware. This is a life, guys, that you've chosen and/or it got chosen for you. You are here for a reason, and I commend you for it because it's not always easy. And I know sometimes, entrepreneurs they do it, "I want to work for myself." Well, I don’t know if I work for myself. I work for all you guys. I work for my team. I work for people that I care about. Like I'm not necessarily thinking I'm working for myself. It's always funny, like, you know, they're leaving an 8-hour a day job to go work for themselves, to work 16 hours a day or 20 hours a day, to make less, to have uncertainty and all this stuff. So if you're doing that, I commend you, because it's not for everybody, definitely not for everybody, and I'm not saying you have to be in business to listen to this podcast show. The truth is everything I'm sharing here is life lessons. If you have anxiety with your spouse or your friends or just going out, it's a real thing. Like I don’t necessarily like going to big crowds and hanging out with people just to hang out; it's not fun to me. It's not enjoyable. I'm not… kind of socially awkward, if you will. That's why I say silly stuff and dress goody maybe, I don't know, so people come to me and I don’t have to go to them. [0:23:11.6]
But whatever the case is, guys, just know that I'm here for you if you ever need anything - feel free to reach out. As anxiety kicks up, it's going to, just be conscious of it and take note and look for solutions. Stop looking for problems. We all have problems but the real opportunity is in the solutions. So as we're growing and developing, this is something we're going to have to really, really hammer down and grow. And guys, if this podcast is helping you in any way, shape, or form, please share it with a friend or friends. If you feel like posting it on Facebook or Instagram or anywhere you post, that would be awesome, and tag me on it. I'd love to do that. And as I develop the show out, we're going to be doing some cool gifts and things like that. I'm not there yet just because I'm trying to keep the basics going and keep delivering great content to you guys because that's what matters most to me. But as we do this, the show is going to grow. I promise you that. This show is going to develop. The show is going to bring on a new life. It's going to help me get more clear with you, with myself as well. Right? [0:24:07.1]
If I get clear with myself, I can paint the picture clearer to you. And it's a journey, and I appreciate you guys being here on the journey with me. Make sure to check me out and follow me on Instagram at Mark Evans DM, as well on Facebook at Mark Evans DM - everywhere - YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, all that good stuff. Make sure to check it out and follow me and share your insights with me as well. And if you need help on anything, please let me know. If I can do a show on it, I will. If I can ping you one-on-one, I will definitely try my best to do that. Please be patient; I get a lot of messages every day, but and I will be here for you. So the more messages, I'll have to work on the anxiety level on my messaging systems, but I really… the truth is I actually don’t get anxiety from that. I actually enjoy it. I love seeing what you guys are up to at this point in my life, and it's neat to me because there's a lot of cool stuff going on and we're all connecting at a whole other level, which is cool.
So guys, please follow me. Please let me know what's up. And if you need anything, keep me posted. In the meantime, thank you for listening to the Making of a DM. Have a great day. Make today count.
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