 I'm super excited to be here with Mark Walsh, friend, colleague, and someone I look up to, someone who also is one of the most entertaining creators that I follow. So you all should definitely check out Mark's Instagram, YouTube, podcast, Mark, where do you like people to- Empire. Empire. Empire is the hub of it all. But yeah, I'm pretty much very lucky to have people helping me on all the major. All the socials. Yeah, I'll put the links below, but embodiment, unlimited, embodiment, unlimited. And your podcast is embodiment, podcast. Basically- You want to talk about embodiment, I have embodiment tattooed on my soul at this point, George. It's getting real. Well, so it's actually a good place to start because, well, we met because of your embodiment conference that you hosted a couple of years ago. What is embodiment? How would you define it today? I know a lot of people watching this, hearing this, have heard the term, I'm hoping. Actually folks, comment below if you want to and look at the comments below and see what the comment- Maybe comment below and says, oh, I've known of embodiment for a long time, or just recently heard about it, or what is embodiment? But Mark, from your definition- Yeah, usually I get asked this. So there's no one definition. Because I joke nobody knows, it's become a buzzword and that's partly my fault. The subjective study of the body, so the body is relates to who we are as people rather than as object. It's the form of intelligence, which I break down and like in my book, for example, you can also think of it as an umbrella term. So many people would say, hey, I've been doing embodiment for years. I just didn't know it was called that. And that would include the likes of yoga, conscious dance, body therapy, body work. So anything that was looking at the body in that holistic way is part of who we are. Basically, it's the new personal development, personal growth. It's definitely a bit of a buzzword. Like I've been contacting publishers about doing a little book on it and the publishers in England will publish things once they're known. So for example, there's lots of little mindfulness books in the bookshop now, kind of books that you could look at while sucking a nice cup of tea in a middle class home somewhere in the home counties. Now they're kind of quite responsive to me saying, let's do an embodiment book. Whereas a few years ago, I don't think they would have been. It's become the popularized in those years. Yeah. Well, it's a long word. A lot of letters to it. But yeah, it's very, I mean, I'm hearing it all the time now. But OK, we want to talk about a couple of things today. One of them is how it relates to marketing. I know a lot of folks watching this are learning how to grow their business, how to do it from a place that's more authentic, also a buzzword. But so and then there's lots of other stuff we can talk about, such as the decline of Western civilization. That's something that you like to discuss. And definitely we will touch on that. But but let's begin with marketing, since that's what a lot of people here watch want to talk about. Now, when we were we were chatting about this before we started recording and you brought the term Nervous System Friendly Marketing. And that's nice because it relates to embodiment actually and marketing. So so why and and you have credibility to talk about this because you have built a huge audience, in my opinion. You have done so many launches. You have done so much marketing over the last couple years. I mean, just just for context. The conference, the embodiment conference that you hosted a couple years ago had what close to like half a million participants, half a million delegates, a thousand speakers. So it's it was a breaker for sure. For sure. Yeah. And so tons of marketing experience from there. Plus you have done how many launches of programs, courses, retreats. Probably like 50 at this point. Yeah, like quite different products and some like a coaching course we do every year, but then there's always new ones that need like fresh marketing that we're going, OK, let's do a course on sleep. And what's that going to be like? And it's quite a church embodiment. So we're often and I, you know, I my story was that I was an embodiment person who realized they had to start a business, didn't know anything about business, learned a lot the hard way and then started looking around. Didn't like most of what I came across about marketing because it didn't meet my values. And then I came across people like you and Tad and one called Julie Chanterey locally to me in Brighton where I was. And I was like, OK, there is another way of doing marketing, but it's it's not very well known. And I've been thinking about and feeling into what makes the distinction between ethical and non ethical marketing. Sometimes I call it Jedi versus Sith marketing. We have a Star Wars analogy that we use because they're both kind of wizards. But, you know, one is on the dark side of the force as it was. And it's actually quite difficult to pin down. I mean, beyond things like not lying, right? But then there's a lot of marketing, which isn't exactly lying, but is what John Viveki would call bullshit, which is a philosophical distinction from lying, where you're not saying something which isn't true, but you're making an association, which isn't honest. So, for example, Coca-Cola will be like, Coca-Cola. And it's like, look, you'll get lots of the messages. You'll get lots of friends and be healthy if you have code. But they don't exactly lie about it, but it's full of bullshit, the advert. So there's some sort of philosophical distinctions and some people say, is it using urgency or scarcity? Is that ethical or not? And I've had conversations with you and with Tad and other guests we've had on the podcast, you know, who people have recommended. And I came to the conclusion as an embodiment person that beyond sort of basic classical ethics, which includes like don't lie, but also includes things like be brave, like the Greek virtues, I would say, should be included in one's marketing, be noble, be brave. I have kind of samurai ethics in my embodied practice from the martial arts. I've also done a lot of work with trauma, most recently in Ukraine, and I'm, you know, on the phone to Ukraine most days. And that's really informed my perspective on embodiment, but also marketing. And I've come to think maybe the key distinction is where we're coming from ourselves and how we make other people feel. So, for example, saying to people, hey, the course starts tomorrow. So if you want a book, then please jump in. You know, there's an intentionality there that I think is kind of pure or ethical, but there's also I'm not trying to make people scared. I don't want to put people in fight or flight or freeze. I don't want to people to make decisions from their amygdala where they're rushed, stressed, I like these things. And you're way better than this to me. So I'm naturally a pushy person in some ways. It's in my embodiment, whereas, you know, you like phrases that take the pressure of, hey, sleep on it. Hey, talk to your husband, talk to your wife, take your time. Come back to me tomorrow. What creates space and also like fun and hope? We have we just did a 69 percent off sale in our shop. And some people asked me where I got the number 69 from. And nobody knows me would ask me that question, because it was just me and Steve who I work with. Isn't it obvious? We're like, Steve was better than 50, but less than 80. And we were like, 69, dude. And that was just it was coming from fun and joy and play. And our audience look at it and as soon as they see 69 percent off, they go, it's Mark and it's authentic for me because I'm kind of a perv. And then they're eye rolling and they're laughing and everyone's having a good time. Yeah. And that's very different than trying to make people greedy, which I'd say is the other state that marketing tries to elicit. It's right. Yes. From a Buddhist point of view, these are the the poisons. You know, it's fear, ignorance and greed, the three poisons in Buddhism. And that's exactly what most marketing is trying to elicit. So we can call this Buddhist trendy marketing as well, right? Whereas I want to elicit hope, fun, play, not excessive fear. I want people to have some healthy desire, which actually, you know, in Buddhism, for example, has a different word than what's often translated as desire, which is tanha, which is more like grasping. I definitely don't want to initiate grasping in clients. And that's just smart long term, as you know, because if you don't get a good fear, if people buy something stressed, what happens next? Yeah. Well, exactly. Yeah. And they want to refund. It's a hassle. Yeah. You know, it's it's so interesting. I mean, essentially, you're playing the long game. You're playing the long game for an audience that trusts you. And you're also playing the long game for your own trust of yourself, which allows you to keep going. I mean, I just recently wrote about this on my social media. Like I have been in business now for 15 years. I can't believe it. And most of the colleagues that I started with or that I met early on in those years, like only like Tad is left, it's only like Tad left. Like everyone else is gone. Everyone else is gone. I mean, and actually it's horrendous. Like somebody actually won't I won't name the person, but it's it's clearly on their Facebook page. You go to their Facebook page and people are commenting on their last post from like six years ago, saying, how do I log into my product that I bought from you? And then like several people I'm like, wow, like they they just don't even care. Even not not even about because they sold their company. Right. And then they don't even care about the public presence is in their name too, by the way. And I'm like, this is this is the level of, well, like you said, I love that you brought the term the term noble, right? Like noble business, noble market. I've actually long thought about using that term because I'm like, yeah, like we should we really should stand for no, but like stand for right, you know, doing things right in the world. You know, doing things that that, you know, well, our kids, if we had kids would be proud of or, you know, the future generations will look up to us rather than go, yeah, that was a that was that was against history. You know, we had a tech problem in the company recently where the platform we use was really slowing down. And like the tech people said, well, you know, we can't really fix it for now. It's going to cost a lot of money and we were doing a shop sale. And I said, look, it needs to be better, but I don't want to sell products that people can't access because it's too slow. I said, this is a personal integrity issue. This isn't just a sales issue, you know, and it's a sales issue, right, as well, you know, like, and, you know, we actually we had a new course starting and I ended up spending several thousand pounds to make a new platform just for the new course because I didn't want that experience when they just bought a new product with us. And, you know, and then I'll never know the difference. It looks the same as the old one, but it, you know, the interface looks the same. But it's like a whole different server and all this other backroom stuff. And yeah, we still haven't totally sorted that out on some of our systems. But like that's a matter of integrity for me. And I make sure people in the company are clear. I think there is a tantrum business because let's move to a Christian model now. We've done a Buddhist one. There's always temptation and anyone who says there isn't is a liar because Steve will be writing an email and he'll say, you know what, we could say that is sort of true and it will probably get more sales. And I'll be like, you know, some days it's me. He's the angel I'm a devil. Sometimes it's the other way around, you know, and I'm like, no, Steve, let's not or we know we can pump the open rate on an email. You know, how do you get the best open rate rate on email? You just lie from your mother, right? How do you or is that there's another one? There's a YouTube channel I follow on crypto and all the headlines are always like price crashing emergency must see now. Every time I click on it, it's like, oh, yeah, the price went down a little bit. The price went up a little bit, not really a big deal. And I've now lost so much trust in that channel. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. And even though the videos are good and the guy gives good advice and the guy's not giving shitty advice, he's giving really solid long term. But whoever's doing his thumbnails. Exactly. He's ruining it for you. You'll get the clicks. But long game, he just lost me as a viewer. Oh, my God, I had the same experience with some videos I watched, some AI expert that I watch. Like, like every title is like the most insane AI week ever. And then another one is, you know, like every single one is like the craziest thing happened this week. And then you watch it. Well, I'm like, well, I heard that from like 12 other people. And it's not that big of a deal. You know, like when you write bullshit, right? You don't stop believing it. Yeah. But the thing is, you're right, it gets a lot of people clicking and surely it has something that has some effect on the algorithm. But the people in the know, you know, or like, oh, yeah, I can't. I can't really trust your videos anymore. And I unsubscribed actually just the other day. I'm like, this is ridiculous. I'm not I want to keep seeing this thing. And it's it's it's not good for my nervous system talking about that. Like, like, like, so, so, so there's this weird balance, though. I want to talk to you about this, right? Like, on the one hand, there are actual urgencies. Yes. The course is starting. You know, the program does have spots and we would like to fill those spots. And then on the other hand, we want to give hope and calmness and joy and all that stuff. Where is the balance there? So, like, for example, I'll share with you where where I come come at this is I think of it like I'm inviting some friends to play at a party or something like that. Like there is an urgency. Hey, I want to have a party now. If none of you are interested, of course, I can't have the party by myself. So I kind of want to have the party and I kind of want to excite you about it. And yeah, you're going to have to bring something to the party as a potluck. So, you know, go buy something or bring something and, you know, or you got to dress up or whatever. But I don't want to, like, obviously strong arm you because I want to sustain friends. So it's that kind of delicate balance of like, hey, I really like this. I genuinely do like this and I really want you to come. And I want you to bring something in this way, you know, pay something. I want you to pay something. But but it's going to be fun. And I think it's going to be good for both of us. So, like, that's kind of how I'm approaching it. Are you genuinely looking for a win-win? I think that's another ethical litmus. I mean, nervous system is definitely one. Whereas it coming from my nervous system, what am I creating? And you can also feel if it's coming from fear and people say, I'm so excited about this launch and it's coming from their fear, not their own excitement. They're just using that word, you know? So nervous system is one. But I think another one is, like, are they holding your interests at heart as well, because kindness also includes yourself, right? Kindness is like, hey, I want to get paid, like kindness includes self care. And I think self care is a great frame for marketing. And I, most of the people I know who like that can be a trauma issue where people have self neglect and even self abuse. And in business terms, that means they're sort of under earners, you know, they don't look after themselves. If one of our friends wasn't washing, we would be concerned. I remember when I was going through my big split last year, I had some difficulty. I went to the hospital for some eye tests. And the doctors, like, wrote disheveled on the form. And I looked in the mirror and I suddenly realized a sort of young, attractive doctor. And I suddenly realized I hadn't really done my hair. I had some food on my jumper. It's kind of messy. I mean, you know, not kind of homeless level, but not definitely not looking after myself. And I went, oh yeah, I'm not really looking after myself here now. That's not good. And I think a lot of people do that financially and it's not so obvious as when they're not looking after themselves physically. Like we worry when a friend stops dressing how they normally dress or whatever, right? They stop cleaning, washing themselves. We'd really worry. But when someone doesn't look after themselves financially, somehow that's kind of noble and spiritual and cool. And it's actually deeply irresponsible. And I think often comes from self-loathing. So there's a lot of self-loathing in counterculture because anyone in counterculture is also in culture. So anyone in the conscious scene, the embodiment scene, whatever, they're also American or British. And they're also those that is integrated with them, whether they, you know, it doesn't matter if they change their name to Shakti yoga pants. It doesn't matter if they move to Bali. It's always there. So what that risks is that there's a degree of self-loathing. And you'll hear that if you say, what do you love about being American? And what do you love about being British to the average kind of guy at a fire rhythm stance? He'll usually have some sarcastic response about colonialism or something. And that's there too. And I'm not saying we should ignore that part of our culture, you know, the crimes of America and Britain or wherever you're listening from. But there's also lots of good in America and there's lots of good in Britain. And there's lots of noble intentions even if they're not fully lived up to. And I think actually integrating that is part of the journey back to sort of self-love. And, you know, marketing is also part of that journey. I'm kind of going into quite wide circles here. No, I love it actually. This is really deep. And it's something that most of us don't think about. And so I want to stay with this a bit longer. How, well, because you talk a lot about money, surprisingly, maybe to some people, you talk about money and the mindset of it in your marketing courses, right? And so I want to, so why do you, so yeah, let's continue on as like, obviously money and marketing are very related and how someone is willing to, how much emotional charge they have around receiving money and sort of like the internal blocks to receiving money on that has a lot to do with how they do their marketing as well or whether they do any marketing at all. So, yeah, so you know, because you work with mostly the holistic crowd. Yeah, more or less, yeah. Yeah, most people watch us. Some military guys are more conservative, but 80% I work with left-leaning body workers, yoga teachers and a lot of life coaches who are sort of generally a little bit counterculture, at least they might not be like full-on hippies, but they're a little bit counterculture. Yeah, yeah, okay. But the irony of this is counterculture means that you are a minority, but it's like in our audience, the culture, we are actually counterculture when we talk about it. Being right-wing would be counterculture and the counterculture. The mainstream in our audience are the anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, like marketing is evil probably. People, I mean, most of you watching this are like, of course. Because of fear of power. So, here we go. For example, there's a phrase, you know, when the power of love is greater than the love of power, blah, blah, blah. And that sounds nice, you know, and your average boomer-60s hippie is gonna love that. However, I'm from a martial arts background and what we realize is power is love and love is power. You know, it's just Paul Lindham, one of my main teachers' work. If you hit with a hateful body, it's less powerful than when a relaxed loving body, that's just true. It's where martial artists are always smiling and relaxed. Like any real martial artist is not tense. So there's different forms of power. People fear, you could go up the chakras, right? So physical power is like being scared to be physical. You know, I love lifting weights and doing martial arts. I'm not scared of that. But another level of power is sexual power. Well, the kind of culture tends to be kind of okay with that. Though even that one's sort of in shadow, it's often denied or people are pretending they're not interested in it when they are. You know, I just wanna connect. You know, I love your aura. And then money is just to form the power, right? Like people say money is energy, but what does that mean? I mean, money is a way of getting what you want. Money is a way of doing work in the world. Money is a way of having influence. It's not the only way. You know, you can be beautiful. You can be inspiring. There's lots of other ways to, you know, have power. But money is a major one in the society we have. And I think it's actually disempowering to fear it, to have an allergy to it. So there's often an inner piece of work there for a lot of my students, as well as just the outer work is also maybe even more important, just learning the basics, like from you and to Adam, people like that. Yeah, you know, okay. So every time I launch a money type, of course, most of my audience avoid it. It's so interesting. Because I've been wanting to talk about money for years and I try to every now and then, I'm like, this is so important. And then my audience just like are completely silent and like looking away like, no, we don't want to look at it. And they are actually obsessed with it. And they constantly think, I just spoke to a bodywork friend of mine. I won't say where, because, you know, it's real who she is. But she's very a counterculture. She's a great bodyworker. Like, her hands are magic. She's born to do it. And, you know, she's with planning, potentially it's gone wholly together. And she's worried much more about money than I am and where the flights come from. Now she's going to get the airport. And, you know, whether she can ask me for help with that or not, if I'm going to pay for the hotel, I'm not thinking about that. I'm just going, do I like Seville or do I like Gdansk? Right? Do I want to go Northern Europe or Southern Europe? And my city boy cousin friend, Timothy is a cousin of mine, he works in the city. He just, money's just something he takes care of. Like I take care of the washing up. It's just not a big deal to him. He's not obsessed with it. You know, he's got money and he could give you, if I asked him advice on how to buy a house or how to invest in stocks, he could give you advice. But it's not what he thinks about all day long. Whereas I've got lots of broke hippie friends. That's all they think about. And they end up being more greedy and more obsessed with it rather than just going, hey, that's like sex or hygiene. You know, just take care of it. Right? I have a shower this morning. You can take care of it. Yeah. So, okay. On this topic, still on this topic of, well, money marketing, why is it hard for them to ask for money? I mean, because I never hear my audience go, oh yeah, I launched too much. I'm always selling. It's always, almost always the opposite. Those of you who are watching this know what I'm talking about. It's like, I always ask you, when was the last time you asked your audience to buy your stuff to hire you? And they're like, yeah, it's been a long while. Why is that? Oh, I don't want to sell. Let's look at it in terms of ethics, right? So we live in a culture which doesn't have a defined set of ethics. So if you're Islamic, for example, or even Confucian, just to take two examples, you'd have a very clearly defined set of ethics. And this is what makes you a good Muslim. And this is, you know, if you go to spend time with your parents, you're a good Confucian. And it's very clearly laid out. And there's rules. And there's, you know, you have to pray five times there. You have to do this, you know, this ritual, whatever. In Western culture, we've lost that. So Nietzsche said, God is dead. And what he meant was once Christianity had been undermined by science, the revolution, the Big Bang, all this kind of scientific materialism, there was a period of a few hundred years where we kind of had momentum from Christianity. And that Christian ethics still emerges. For example, a lot of social justice culture is essentially puritanical Christian culture rebranded. But most people don't know where their ethics come from. And what that means is that they're holding, let's say, ethical influences that are just in the culture. And there's contradictory ethical influences. So there's one that like poverty is good. You know, we say like Christian influences there, socialist influences there, maybe kind of New Age spiritual influences there, is there's three influences that money is bad kind of thing. But then there's another one, which is money is God that we worship money in a capitalist culture. So they're essentially, they're running two ethical programs simultaneously that are contradictory. And even if they don't think they're a Christian or a socialist or a New Ager, those things seep in because they don't have a clear ethical framework that would clarify or refute them. Like my friend who's a, for example, a Orthodox Christian who runs one of my courses actually, she has a very clear framework about money. She tives 10% of her income. She gives to the poor, but she also has a work ethic. You know, sort of Calvinism is part of it as well, though, you know, she's Orthodox. And there's a very clear, there's a much clearer orientation she has to work and money and the ethics of her work and the ethics of money. And most people in the West, we're lost. We don't have that. Man, this is so deep. This is so good. I, there's a lot to unpack here because, okay. Everything's philosophy, man. I agree with you. I mean, at the bottom of it, it's like the way we can either deeply psychologically relax or if we feel ungrounded, like, yeah, ultimately it does come down to what is your philosophy? Or do you realize you are actually taking on other philosophies that don't feel right to you or whatever? But it's like, oh man, this is so good. So, okay. If someone is saying, oh man, I love providing the service. And the part of it is like, yeah. It's like, I love providing the service and I feel bad charging for it. Or on the other hand, the other opposite is true. It's like, like I should be, I should be, you know, they should be paying me $300 an hour for this. And they're like, you know. Yeah, it was it. Yeah. So talk about that a little bit here. I mean, it's like, it's like, there's such difficulty, just very plainly saying, yeah, there's just, here's the rate. It's a very reasonable market rate. And if you don't want to pay it, it's like, I always hear this like, oh, what about sliding scale, George? Oh, what about scholarships or pay what you can? Like so many of my people love or like they just are obsessed with, there's got to be a way to pay what you can and sliding scales. Like, why can't you just tell them, hey, if you can't pay for this, it's okay, you don't have to pay for it. I have some free videos, I have free other things. Oh, I gotta, I gotta work that out. Basic human rights. Right, right. It's a basic human right to use my service. And for me to spend time is the basic. That's the proper boundaries, right? So one of the most common things I'm coaching people on, particularly more counter college people and particularly more women, but people generally is boundaries. So our most successful Instagram reel was Dutch woman working with boundaries. And it's got 2.4 million views I think now, right? She got recognized in the street from it the other day. She's like, Mark, I did not, this would make me famous. It's kind of funny. So it's like, one of the most popular topics is in my audience is boundaries. But then for example, if we have a conversation about say immigration, they'll have an open borders policy. And now, you know, I'm from an immigrant family. I can see both sides of things. But I don't have to tell you about this either. So as I can see both sides about I want to emigrate myself to Slovenia, but there's certainly a case for at least limiting or there's some case that you could make this ethical to say, hey, we can't really take in the whole world. It's just impossible. We're not a big enough country or even if you're in the States, it's just not possible. So we have to have some kind of boundaries, some kind of limitation. So it's like, okay, the same people that are telling me they don't believe in boundaries internationally at all, which is a nice dream, right? I'd love to not have a passport and not, I'd love to just go where I want and there's a free man, you know, it'd be great. It's naive and this is a feminine trait. I don't necessarily mean female, but it's a feminine trait. It's one of my, which of your children do you want to starve to death, right? And the answer is none. And then they both die, right? Whereas as a business person, which of your businesses do you want to starve to death and you will choose and one of them you will neglect and it will die and the other one will prosper. And as business people, we only have so much time and so much resource and so much energy. So we have to really prioritize. So that kind of sharp cutting embodiment of kind of discernment is not there because the ethic that they're running is one of openness, which is be as open as possible, be as yeen as possible and yeen is only half the picture. So, you know, openness without discernment is ridiculous. And even a parachute has structure. So, you know, a parachute without the strings doesn't do very well, right? Like all openness isn't so good. So again, they're running an ethic based on usually their personality, like high trait openness people get into embodiment. Their politics, liberal people have issues with openness. My conservative cousin has issues with being not open enough. You know, if he has mental health issues, like he struggles to ask for help or, you know, get advice or, you know, things that are just, you know, he's a great kid, but it's like he would struggle with the overboundary side. You know, I work with trauma and you see both. You see the person who's shut down and closed up and hard and numb. And you see the person that's absolutely got no boundaries and they're oversharing all over the place. So I'd say it's a yin-yang issue. We could say an excessive yin to use a Chinese model. Or we could say it's a boundaries issue to use a trauma model. On ethically, we could say it's an ethic of care that doesn't include self-care and isn't balanced by an ethic of something like justice or something like discernment. So that, again, they're running ethical programs which say, hey, everything should be available to everyone all the time, which would be great. But that ethical principle without balance, including self-care is gonna go out of whack. So yeah, that's what I think's going on. It's just not particularly thought through. Yeah, man, this is so good. I really hope, I think a lot of people watching this, hearing this need to rewind and hear that again and again, maybe make this part of your morning meditation. Pretty tense, sir. Yeah, or maybe go to sleep so that this can really seep in. No. Well, we can explore that through the body, right? So we do opening through the body and boundaries through the body. We have a pose for no, we're just talking about it. It's just us to shoot the shit, it's fun, but it's, you're not gonna learn that unless you get it in your body and get a practice. That's really good. Actually, yeah, that's really good. So another part of this, and I want it, I do want to start talking about the body part of it, it's like another part of this is, I don't know, is it maybe like a savior complex or something? It's like, well, they need help, they can't pay. And it's sort of like a lack of trust, I don't know, I would say the lack of trust in the Tao or something, what's that? Victim triangle would be another model. Oh, okay, say more, what's the victim triangle? This is a model used in therapy a lot of times called Cartman Triangle, no relation to Eric Cartman. So we'll have a victim, a persecutor and a rescuer. So tends to be people from counterculture are very stuck in their rescuer position. They tend to see their clients as victims, which is patronizing or as you said, doesn't really see the client as a full adult. And it also means they create a persecutor somewhere, which means they're always shouting at someone in a sort of angry way. So they're not owning their own kind of fierceness because that's what gets denied in denying the persecutor. So, and often people say like body workers, right? I mean, naturally like nurses are the same physiotherapists maybe physiotherapists actually have to get into their inner persecutor because they have to give like tough exercises. So they have to find that persecutor, but like, you know, a cancer care nurse I've worked with for example, and they really struggle on most body workers, most therapists because they're in that rescuer position and it's really dangerous. You know, I got into that position doing work in Ukraine and it's very dangerous. So yeah, I think some of that's at work because the rescuer doesn't, if you think about it, the healthy persecutor is actually the boundaries again, right? So the healthy rescuer is just helping people being a service, you know, that's a good thing. But when it comes to sort of infantilizing them and then rescuing them and also neglecting one's own needs. So again, we see the neglection of, I've got to look after myself financially here. I'm part of the kindness. Right, yeah, yeah. And it's sustainable for me to look after myself so I can care for way more people. I mean, that example is, well, I'm still in business 15 years later and I'm going as strong as ever because I was able to take care of myself so that I could have the energy and the heart and the time to take care of the people that, you know. Anyway, so let's talk about embodiment more because you just said kind of this comment about, okay, you can't just really learn this stuff by just listening to it and like getting the ideas. And this is where I think where a lot of people, it's like a revelation for a lot of people. Like, oh wait, learning isn't just words into brain. That's the key thing. Key word is learning. So in the West, we have a verb. In English, the verb is to learn, right? But what does that actually mean? Actually, it means several different things that are all quite distinct and involve different methodologies. So John Feveki, the philosopher I mentioned earlier is very good on this. Like the top two people in the world are probably him philosophically and me practically. So learning can be learning about something because that propositional learning. So I can, you know, like you can tell me about Mexico, right? You're in Mexico, you can tell me about it. What's the food like? What's the music like? What's the weather like? That's very different than the experiential learning of being in Mexico, eating the food, feeling the temperature, dancing with the people. And that knowing through experience is key and knowing skills learning. Let's say learning Spanish. If you're there, you've got to learn Spanish. You can't just learn about Spanish. You need to learn the skill of Spanish. And that's the reason this is not just a philosophical distinction, it's the methodology of learning is radically different. So you can learn about something from a podcast or a book, but to learn Spanish or to learn leadership or to learn boundaries or to learn anything significant, really, you need to embody it. You need to learn through practice and practice and immersion is two ways to learn. So the learning methodologies are different and confusing these things is very much at the heart of we can say our sort of cognoscentric culture. While I'm very warm on Western culture, it's in Western sports originally were developed for this. The British invented all the sports, obviously, and then the Americans were in them. But all those British sports were invented in public schools as a way to develop character. But this is actually, but by far, the people who are really, really good at this are the Japanese, the Koreans and the Chinese. But they're the ones who have really worked this out. Like the Japanese would call it budo, which means, like someone asked me, like, why doesn't Aikido work very well practically? And I said, because it doesn't need to in Japan, because that's not the point of Aikido. The point of Aikido isn't to be a badass in Japan. The point of Aikido in Japan is to refine your character because they understand learning happens at the level of practice and immersion and community and all their kids in school do Kendo and Judo. And it's not because they're gonna hit anyone with a stick for the rest of their life, it's because they understand it's a vehicle for change. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, because, you know, martial arts, we have kids learn martial arts, not because, well, they're gonna beat up other kids. No, it's for the discipline, right? It's for the character, like you said, the character building and the learning how to interact with others in a healthy, competitive way. But so, okay. So then- Let me jump in with that just to just break it. Any of my employees who meditate outperform those who don't. And any of those who do martial arts and meditate outperform just the meditators. And I've seen this a number of times to the point where it's a question on job interviews now for me, because I just know, you say discipline, right? Well, are they gonna have the, discipline is a number of qualities. Are they gonna have the grit to stay up all night for 12 hours because the system just went down and we have a launch tomorrow? Are they gonna have the self-restraint to not shoot their mouth off in a meeting and upset the sensitive customer care person? You know, are they gonna have and we could keep going? So it's, you know, for me, like, we meditate in our business meetings because I insist everybody at least gets some remedial basics skills. So I interrupted you there, but I thought- No, no, no, this is good, man. Oh man, if only that were true in, you know, even another 10% of businesses out there, what kind of a different world might we have? No, I wanna go back to learning boundaries, like the embodiment of that. What does that look like? You have a, I think you have a, I think you might have a course coming up on that. We do have a boundary course. Thanks for the plunge, George. People, people unpleasing, is it what's called? Yeah, we have a people unpleasing. We're normally what we do is we have a free event. We like to be generous. People come to a free event and they like it. They can, you know, buy a course for eight weeks afterwards. So basic model of leading with generosity. People get to know us, see if they like us and trust us because I am not everyone's cup of tea. Some people like, you speak too quick, the jokes are too rude, I don't like it. And I'm like, fine, you know, fucking George is nicer than me, go to the train with him. You know, so there's different people, it's fine, you know? No, it's great. This is what we need more and more in the age of AI, by the way. We need real- I'm fucking AI proof because AI is programmed to be woke and it can't be funny. So like, if you're not, if you're woke and not funny, you can be replaced by AI. I can't be replaced by AI. That's incredible. AI, you would go against AI's guardrails all day long. Oh, for sure! I'll electrocute myself, I don't know. Okay, so boundaries, learning boundaries, so what does that look like? Like learning boundaries, what does, yeah, what does that look like? It's a number of skills. So we break it down into a number of skills. So the first skill would actually just be knowing what you want. So people who are very service-orientated, their mindfulness is actually focused on others and not on themselves. So the first skill is something very simple as a practice, like an alarm goes off five times a day and you say, what do I actually want right now? And you might be surprised, I'm hungry, I'm cold, I'm just about to order something from a restaurant I don't wanna eat, I'm going along with my friend even though I don't really wanna be here. So first of all, it's awareness and then next is choice, right? So then we teach some self-regulation because it's quite stressful for people-pleasers to establish boundaries. So the thing that makes it bearable is increased self-regulation skills. And then we teach actually the embodiment of boundaries. So if you've got a YouTube, you can put in no pose, for example, and get a free demo from a hot Ukrainian who I may have- No, okay, no pose. Pose meaning like a, almost like a martial arts or yoga pose. Yeah, like no pose, yeah, no pose, no, yeah. So we give people a simple pose to practice and you could incorporate it into yoga or weightlifting or anything else in this various ways to do it. So there's a physicality to it and you get that intuitively, like actually a predator gets that. If I was a criminal, like if you could see who in a room is most easily victimized by their body language and they've actually done studies of, they've shown video to psychopaths in jail and said, who would you mug? And they know who to mug and they all agree. So it's someone who doesn't have that posture. It doesn't have that pose. And then the next part is asking for what you want. Some of it's as simple as getting people to practice. Like getting people to practice telling their price for a course. Like you can do all the inner psychology in the world, do parts work and trauma work. And that's all helpful. That part was great, trauma was great. But what's really helpful is just giving them a real quick center in practice, put them into breakout rooms and say, right, for the next 10 minutes, you're gonna be naming your price repeatedly with five different people. And five, 10 minutes later, that like 200% better. You know, there may be still a bit nervy, but it's not like, oh my price. You know, it's like, it's just coming out. It's 50 bucks, that's what I charge. Yeah, I love that. Oh my God, this is so good. I mean, you just gave us the whole framework. But so, yeah, it reminds me of something I've written about, which is, you know, limiting beliefs. If you wanna work with limiting beliefs, fine, that's great. That can be really helpful. But I say, let's go beyond limiting beliefs and look at limiting structures. Like the structures you have in your life and like what you're actually doing on a day-to-day basis. So it reminds me a lot of that. Like you actually do the practice in the course, which is amazing. So let's just get clear on this. You're doing a free event and then you're doing the program on the people on pleasing. What, the free event, I guess I'll put whatever links are available below or people can go to the embodiment on the website. Yeah, if people go to embodimentunlimited.com, they'll see the free event. So listening to this in the future on a jet scooter or something, then there'll probably be another free event on there. But it will always be embodimentunlimited.com or they can, on my Instagram, it's normally always on there as well. On embodimentunlimited.com, there's also embodiment starter kit so they could listen to some of the bigger names in the field. My book is actually on there as a PDF, which people seem to really like. That's sold thousands of copies, but we actually give the PDF away. And for the coaches, they can see me like coaching no-pose and there's a video on there of me coaching this kind of stuff as well. So yeah, that's all there, embodimentunlimited.com or any of the socials that you follow. What other course or program of yours is really popular or one of your? Okay, a certificate of embodiment coaching, that's our biggest course. Certificate of embodiment coaching, and does it, I mean, it only enrolls like once a year, how many? Once a year. It's a six month course. It takes a lot of prep as well. It's very intense. And yeah, we don't enroll, we enroll in February every year. We kind of light up in spring to start, which is nice. And that's our flagship course. So for people that want to coach this stuff and there's live versions of that, like people could come to Intensives in Croatia and that kind of thing, if they, we found there's a group of people who just don't want to do Zoom. And that's fair enough. So we offer, live versions make no money, but they're lovely. So I don't mind being on holiday for a week in Croatia and do a bit of teaching while I'm there. So yeah, we do live versions for those who aren't Zoom monies. That's cool. You also have a mentorship program, right? Like people, it's for people who have done your stuff and then wanna do more. Okay, cool, cool. But yeah, I think a good place to start for everyone watching this is go to the website, check out one of the free events from Mark and the team. And it's just, yeah, and also follow Mark's socials. Anything else you wanna be sure we talk about before we wrap up here? Well, I think we come across some of the philosophical stuff, some of the embodied practical stuff. I always enjoy talking with you, George. Your yin brings out the best in my yanks. Well, as a team, and I like having you as a guest on all our courses as well. So yeah, what else? Something just like... How does this relate to the decline of Western civilization? We talked about it already. Yeah, no, we did. But make the connection a bit more. The kinds of courses that you're offering and the kinds of practices that you're doing, how does it help to prevent the fall of Western civilization? Well, currently we're in a period of decadence, which means most people are fragile, they're comically weak. Most of our grandparents would laugh at how weak we are or cry. It means we're narcissistic and I think reorientating to service is a key piece there. And it means we're nihilistic and I think reorientating to meaning through the body, the body is a great gateway to meaning and connection. We're in disconnected times, disconnected from ourselves, technology has a lot to blame, the tech companies are harming us for profit and there is no doubt about that. We're in a disconnected society that doesn't have the co-regulation that we're really wired for. And I think that needs looking at very seriously. And we're in a historical period of decline which often needs to sort of self-hatred on certain levels and cynicism. And embodiment isn't the only answer, but it certainly has some of the medicine that's needed for those various horsemen of the decadent apocalypse. Oh man, that's really good. That's another couple of courses right there that you should be teaching. I did it eight weeks last year actually, but it wasn't very popular if I had a good time. Of course I'm sorry that I'm interested in just because I love exploring the ideas. Yeah, totally. And you do touch on these things and on your socials as well so that people can go and check that out. Mark, awesome. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. Anything else you wanna mention before we go? No, just- Life's too short to hang out with people you don't like. And one thing I've been trying to do is just be a nicer boss. And my solution was breakfast. Actually, I started having breakfast. That really helped. Getting a good night's sleep. It's not always complicated things. Try to be a nicer boss and working with colleagues and friends where I really like. I like getting together with Steve and with you and with Ted. I saw Ted last night. Like, I think that's part of it as well is that work's such a big part of our connection, co-regulation, relationship, social life. Particularly if you're quite work-oriented, like I am that that's not a small part of it in terms of your wellbeing. So it's not just the friends we made along the way. It's like, let's actually design our businesses. So they're integral to connections with cool people. Yeah, and that's what we bring together in our audience. I think you have amazing people at part of your programs and I do as well. And I think that's what makes it fun. So- Life's too short to hate your audience, man. If you're not authentic, you'll end up hating your audience because they won't know who you are. Yeah. Life's not short for that shit. That's good. Great way for us to wrap up. Thank you so much, man. Thanks for being here. Always pleasure.