318. Overcoming Overwhelm and Thriving in Life, Business, and Relationships with Mark J. Silverman

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The Daily Helping Episode 318: Mark J Silverman

Mark J Silverman: [00:00:00] So taming the human mind is impossible. So you have to wrestle your mind. You have to physically take your mind from, I'm not going to make payroll and I'm going to live under a bridge and go, I want to pay attention to building this part of my business. And then you do that. But it takes conscious effort because unconsciously, it's going to go to the worry.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:00:26] Hello and welcome to The Daily Helping with Dr. Richard Shuster, food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, tools to win at life. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Whoever you are, wherever you're from and whatever you do, this is the show that is going to help you become the best version of yourself. Each episode, you will hear from some of the most amazing, talented and successful people on the planet who followed their passions and strive to help others. Join our movement to get a million people each day to commit acts of kindness for others. Together, we're going to make the world a better place. Are you ready? Because it's time for your daily helping. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Daily Helping podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. And I cannot wait to share with you our guest today because he is so inspiring. His name is Mark J Silverman, a man who has turned adversity into an inspiring success story. I'm skipping it now because he's going to tell it in a moment, but it's very powerful. His success has continued in his career and technology, where he's generated over $90 million for fast growing tech startups by bringing together executives, technical leaders and stakeholders to close complex multi-million-dollar sales. He's also a best-selling author, coach and speaker. And he also hosts a very well-known podcast called Mastering Overwhelm, How to Thrive in Business, Relationships and Life. There's so much more about this man. I can't wait to introduce him to all of you. And here he is. Mark, Welcome to the Daily Helping podcast. It is awesome to have you with us today.

Mark J Silverman: [00:02:12] Thank you, Dr. Richard. I couldn't wait to meet you because I did research on you to learn who I was going to be speaking to and such a delightful human with a lot to offer. So I'm really happy to be here.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:02:22] Well, I appreciate that. Obviously, I didn't scare you away, so that's a very good thing. So let's talk, though, about you because you, like me, have had some adversity which you've overcome. We were talking a little bit before we hit the red button here, how adversity can really shape our lives based on the experiences we go through. So let's hop in the Mark Silverman time machine. Take us back and let's talk about what puts you on the path you're on today.

Mark J Silverman: [00:02:51] I have to credit drugs and alcohol and sex.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:02:54] To drugs, alcohol and sex.

Mark J Silverman: [00:02:56] For making me the man today, I really must give them their due because as they say in AA, if my counters all didn't go to zero, I'm not sure I would have started over and created a whole new human being. So the whole thing had to go to shit. So let's see. Back in 1989, and I know this because I just found the picture of when I landed in Washington DC. I came here to borrow some money from my brother, who was a big deal in the restaurant business here because I was homeless and living in my truck and it was £135. So really, at 27 years old, I wasn't making it as a human being. When I got here, my brother said, great, I'll lend you some money. You can live with me for a little while, but you are going to go to AA and NA and you're going to enroll in college and community college and you're going to go to the gym with me. So I did those things. And what was really cool is when you take alcohol and drugs out of the equation, you can accomplish a whole lot more. So I got a college degree, right? I wound up finding out that I'm really good at sales. So I was waiting. I waited tables well into my 30s, and then I got a sales job and turns out introverts are really good at sales, which I only found in hindsight because we ask questions because we're interested in people. So I wound up getting married, having two kids, being a millionaire. And the joke I always like to say is I'm a short Jewish Tony Robbins. And if you remember from the 90s, he always says, I was in a one room thing. I was overweight and all that. He doesn't tell that story anymore. But basically, I had my own Tony Robbins story. So what happened was I found myself in status symbol, land driving a nice car and a million-dollar house, and my kids in Little League, and the community chair for the Boy Scouts and third grade basketball coach and all those things. But my insides never caught up with the outside. There was still work to be done and still trauma to deal with. So several, fast forward about a decade and a half into that success and all of a sudden, I couldn't sell anymore. something was cracking and I couldn't sell anymore. And I started having panic attacks and I started getting deathly ill. My marriage broke up. So my career was in the toilet. My health was in the toilet. My marriage was gone. And I found myself in a one-bedroom apartment around the corner from my ex-wife and kids thinking I was going to die. I'm pretty sure I was going to die because I was getting all these weird diagnoses and stuff. So I made this decision back in 2009, I think it was, that if I'm going to die, I'm going to leave a legacy for my kids. And I decided I was going to run the Marine Corps Marathon because I heard a guy on the radio, Stu Mittleman, who was this ultra marathoner, say anybody can run, everybody can run. If you're bipedal, you can run. So I'm like, all right, I can't run a mile, but I'm going to call him up and ask him to coach me because I want to run the Marine Corps Marathon so I can show my kids what you do and there's adversity, and I'm going to make a million dollars so I can leave the money for my ex-wife and my kids to thrive on. And I'm going to give $60,000 to charity because I hated myself so badly that I had to do something to make up for what a crappy human being was. And Stu said it was going to take me about a year and a half, maybe two years, to be able to run the marathon. I said, I'm going to be dead. So I have eight months. So that year I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, an hour faster than my best time. I made the million dollars, took about a year and a half to do that, and I gave the $60,000 to charity. So what happened was my career was on fire. My health was better than ever. I was misdiagnosed and my family was doing better. While I was running, while I was training, while I was doing all those things, I was so depressed and suicidal. I hated myself. I started learning to meditate. I started journaling. I started reading every self-help, every spiritual book I could find. I would listen to this stuff while I was training and running all the time. I just steeped in myself. When I wasn't working or I wasn't with my kids, I was doing everything I can to hold on to life. And I made the pact with God that I'll live until Jake, my youngest son, graduated high school. Like, I'll hold on until then. And what happened each year, I got a little lighter. Each year, I hated myself a little less to where I was okay, I was tolerant, I was okay with life, to I started to enjoy life, to that one day while reading a book by Alan Cohen called Relax into Wealth, that I realized that I was as much a precious child of God as my children, that I was worthy of love, that I was worthy of being on the list. And everything changed for me. Like before that moment, I never had the thought that I was worthy of anything, that I should be on the list, let alone first on the list, anything like that. After that moment, I was like an ex-smoker and all I could do was run around and tell people, oh my God, you're loved, you're worthwhile, you're great. Like we're just worrying about the wrong things. And boy, did people find me annoying. In fact, I started a newsletter in the tech company that I was working at, and the CEO called me. And he goes, Mark, it's really nice that you're sending out these positive emails every Monday morning, please stop. So that was where the fire ignited for me that I had. I was just watching the people to the left and right of me have this unspoken agreement with being in the one percent, that it's worth destroying your relationship or your health or your mental health in order to get that success. And I've just dedicated my life to making sure that people that are in my world can be successful and thrive at the same time.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:08:49] It's interesting and there's so much to unpack there, but one of the things that I kept going back to as you're talking is that the inside of you hadn't caught up with the outside because for a while, you're making a lot of money, you graduated from college. You were doing all these great things, but you still have this, I'll just call it imposter syndrome, right, because you didn't believe you were deserving of the success. I am curious. I mean, I know you said you were misdiagnosed. What did they diagnose you with initially?

Mark J Silverman: [00:09:22] It was a form of not cancer. It was like a cancer like thing in the blood and stuff. And it just turned out to be wrong. I was just falling apart from anxiety and depression. So it was manifesting physically.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:09:42] And I know you said that something clicked while you read Relaxing to Wealth, which I've never read, but now I wrote it down because I want to read it. But that wasn't the only thing. You had been climbing out of that depression and anxious state little by little, it sounds like. So what were the things that you were doing along the way? Before it all clicked for you, what were the little things you were doing to improve your mental state little by little?

Mark J Silverman: [00:10:13] So the ancients say that your spiritual journey is like tapping on a rock, tap, tap, tap, tap. And you never know which tap is going to crack it open. So you're right. So for years, I was tapping on the rock of Mark and that sentence in Relaxing to Wealth is what cracked it open. And he said, what if you treated yourself like you treat everybody else in your life?

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:10:35] I love that.

Mark J Silverman: [00:10:36] And I was like, that wasn't even English to me. Like it just didn't even dawn on me. I had $7, right. Like my ex-wife lived in the million-dollar house. I bought her a Toyota Highlander and a baby grand piano as my guilt gifts. Right. And there are old silverware and old plates, right, in my apartment. So that thought is what broke things open. But again, reading every book on positive psychology, on spirituality, on contemplation, and for me, that's the big one. For me, the big, big, big one is a contemplation practice, some kind of meditation. And it doesn't have to be sitting in a cross-legged and doing an ohm, right? It's some sort of contemplation practice. And for me, journaling is, if I was left on a desert island, I would want some form of music and pen and paper. If I could have pen and paper, I can survive anything. So that's what I suggest.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:11:40] What I appreciate as we're talking is just how vulnerable you're being. And I appreciate you for doing that. Thank you for doing that. Because it would just be so easy to say, you know, to stop at the homelessness and the £135 and then to immediately pivot to I'm a millionaire. But it's this raw piece to say that you had a lot of things to fix internally. It's refreshing to hear. So thank you for being --

Mark J Silverman: [00:12:13] Pema Chodron says when tragedy happens, you have two choices, you can harden and close or soften and open. And I remember reading that and being in the middle of this and making the decision to use my pain and my tragedy to connect with other people and to help other people. So the thing that got me through was being of service to other people, probably in a codependent way, but I was grasping at anything to make my life worthwhile.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:12:45] Well, it certainly sounds as though your life is worthwhile now. You're helping people in so many different ways. I want to talk to you a little bit because I'm curious, your best-selling book Only 10s 2.0, Confront Your To-Do List, Transform Your Life. I want to dig into that book, but I'm curious, what was the reason you decided to write that book?

Mark J Silverman: [00:13:06] So after I had my little epiphany and became the exsmoker who had to tell everybody that they were okay and became wound up kind of letting go of my half million dollar a year job and deciding I'm a coach, I was having trouble. I have severe ADD and I had no idea. When we were testing my son is when dad got diagnosed and the doctor was like, how do you even function? You test off the charts. I'm like, wow, I had no idea. I remember asking the psychiatrist if I actually had ADD. And he said, well, you take the pill and if you can think, you have ADD. He said, by the way, I've been doing this for 30 years. If you don't have ADD, I will eat my chair, because I'm just looking at you. I was like, that just explains the alcoholism, the drug addiction. Like it just explains the all of it and why it was so hard for me to keep my word to myself. So I'm a entrepreneur now and I don't have an asshole sales manager. I'm really good when I have an asshole sales manager because I'm a people pleaser. I want to please people. When my name is -- I'm also care about how I look. So when my name is on the leaderboard, that's important to me. I'm sitting in my office with my dogs and I'm in charge of my own destiny and I have the worst sales manager in the world because YouTube is so much more interesting than anything I'm supposed to be doing, right.  And even productive procrastination is I'll make worksheets all day long. I'll create podcast episodes and all kinds of stuff instead of selling, anything but selling, right, ABS. So I was agonizing over how do I get things done? Why do I not keep my word to myself? And I decided I was going to get a PhD in getting things done with ADD and that's how the book came about. What I realized was I lied to myself, and I lied to everybody else about what I'm willing to do and what I'm not willing to do, what I'm going to do, what I'm not going to do, what I'm capable of doing, what I'm not capable of doing. And I only do what I want to do and only always. And then I realized after I wrote the book, I realized that everybody only does what they want to do, only always. And anybody can challenge me on that. Nobody is a victim of anything. We are all a choice all the time. And what I realized is that my ADD was that I just didn't want to do a lot of these things because, again, it's hard to focus when you have ADD. And for me, the fog of the ADD sitting down with my hands on the keyboard, the fog of the ADD is worse to me than training for a marathon. It's worse for me than getting my fingernails taken. I hate that fog. So I write the book and I think my mother's going to buy a copy and I'll buy a copy and 1500 copies go out the first day. People start giving my book to people in the C-suite. People are going how did you, why are you writing about me? How did you know me? And my book starts selling thousands and thousands of copies. And it turns out that it was kind of insightful. Like a lot of people deal with the things that I dealt with who don't have ADD, but things like setting boundaries, saying no, prioritizing, right, spending your time on shoulds. All those things are universal. So my book has been pretty successful for me.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:16:35] So you kind of did a quick bullet list of a few things. Pick one or two of your favorite strategies and let's take a, not a deep dive, but a more than cursory dive. We'll call it that.

Mark J Silverman: [00:16:49] All right. My favorite strategy. Well, the number one thing is that we're not a victim. We're a choice for anything. But Mark, I have to go to work. No, you don't. Yeah, I do, I have to go to work, or I'll get fired. Exactly. You want to keep your job. You want your paycheck. You don't have to go to work, right, but you want these things. So now, let's choose it. Let's decide. Okay, I want my paycheck. I want my benefits. I live in America. If I don't have benefits, I'm going to die. So I'm going to go to work. Now, let's choose it and let's not be a victim of it. Now, let's take that to everything on your to-do list. I have to do this. I have to do that. No. What's the consequence you're trying to avoid and what's the reward you're trying to get on for everything on your todo list? So I hate doing invoicing. Invoicing, again my ADD, I don't like opening QuickBooks and finding addresses and doing the invoicing, but I want to get paid, right? So the 10 isn't doing the invoicing, the 10 is getting paid. So how do I get that done? Do I hire it out? Do I do a -- one of my strategies is having Zoom meetings with people who also have trouble getting things done. And we get on a Zoom call and we have a conversation about what three or four things that you want to accomplish while we have this hour or two together. Let's check in a little while and let's do those things and I keep Zoom open. I can't tell you how productive I am when I have company. And like I'll get my taxes done when I have Zoom open and I have someone else also doing their taxes. So when I use the tools, when I use the strategy and the support to get something done, then I know it's a 10, then I know that it's important. Just because I can't do it on my own, doesn't mean there's not a 10. It's that I haven't figured out how to get the help I need to get it done.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:18:37] And again, for you, a 10 means out of 0 to 10, 10 being something you're really excited about achieving, the end goal, right?

Mark J Silverman: [00:18:45] So a 10 has a couple of definitions for me in my world. And when I do my Mastering Overwhelm Workshop, it's like this is my world. We're going to play by my rules. When you walk out, you can have your own definitions. So a 10 has to be done, has to be done by me, and has to be done by me today. So you look at your list today, what has to be done, has to be done by me, and has to be done by me today. If it doesn't fit that criteria like so if it's something I could and should be delegated, it's not a 10. It may need to get done, but it shouldn't be on your list. The 10 is delegate this to get it done. So it has to be done, has to be done by me, has to be done by me today. All of a sudden, the list gets really whittled down and now you have space to think. The other definition of a 10 is you really have juice for it. Because what I found out when I whittled my to-do list, when I did, when all the shoulds, and all the people pleasing and all the not able to set boundaries and say no to people, when I cleared all that off, I had space in my head to be creative, to think, to have an epiphany. You know what, I should call this person. And then when that intuition comes in and I call that person because that's a 10, because I felt like I wanted to do it, and they become a client or they introduce me to a client, those kind of serendipitous things started happening. So the creativity started coming. And also I started enjoying life, right? I wanted to start a podcast. Seemed like a stupid thing to do, right? But it was a 10, I really wanted to start this podcast. Right. Whole career comes out of -- I have 500 plus episodes of three different podcasts. Right. Who knew? I sound like a male Fran Drescher. I didn't know that. I had no idea that a microphone would make me sound like Barry White. Who knew? You know, that's great. That helps. So if you really have juice for something, I wanted to honor that because, again, as an ADD guy, I'm a dopamine addict, so I have to do fun things that excite me during the day. But there are certain things that just need to get done and need to get done by me today. Paying the water bill, got to get done if I want water.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:20:50] This is awesome stuff. You mentioned your podcast. I want to take some time and talk about it. So tell us about your show. What kind of things you talk about on it. Let's spend a few moments there.

Mark J Silverman: [00:21:02] So the podcast is called The Rising Leader podcast. I've had three podcasts, Mastering Midlife, Mastering Overwhelm, and now it's called The Rising Leader podcast, where we help high achievers, fast rising high achievers turn into effective leaders. We rebranded everything that I do from Only 10s. My new book is The Rising Leader. My new program is The Rising Leader. Because what I do all day, every day is work with people who are on executive teams, people who have risen through the ranks pretty fast, who may not have the skills and the leadership skills to now have success through others and to work well. So on The Rising Leader, we talk about leading up, becoming a trusted advisor to your CEO or to your boss because there's a certain art and science to leading up, leading across, leading on a powerful group of peers. So when you're on an executive leadership team, everybody has ideas they want to have heard. Everybody has an agenda. Everybody wants to be seen. And you also have to come together as a cohesive team. How do you do that? Then leading your team and then leading yourself, which is self-mastery and self-discipline, which is, again, with a guy with ADD, that would be my specialty because it's something I've had to overcome.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:22:15] We've talked a little bit kind of in and out of this. We've teased a bit about overwhelm. Well, I mentioned it earlier, but I know that's something you're known for. So especially with an ADD brain or ADHD is actually the term we're using now in the clinical world, but give us a few tips, because people right now and I mean in the world right now, I don't think there's ever been a time where people are more overwhelmed, right?

Mark J Silverman: [00:22:48] Terribly.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:22:49] Yeah. So give us a few of the things that you've used to help manage that.

Mark J Silverman: [00:22:54] Okay. Yeah. So it's funny because as soon as I started the Mastering Overwhelm Workshop, I turned down more speaking gigs and more workshops than I accept because everybody's overwhelmed. Right. So let me ask you, where do you think overwhelm lives? Where does overwhelm live in your life?

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:23:09] In my life, my dogs and my kids, probably. No. In all seriousness, I think my overwhelm is knowing when to focus on and what to focus on at any given time. Right. I have my own little system that I use. It's kind of similar to your Only 10s, but a little bit different. But I also, as I've talked about many times, have worked on that aspect of myself probably more than anything else in the last several years because I had a stroke, because I didn't have alignment in my life. So I work extremely hard at it. I don't know if that answered your question or was just a political dodge, right?

Mark J Silverman: [00:23:53] So you did. And so when I ask where does overwhelm live in your life? Partially, the overwhelm lives with the stroke. Like again, overwhelm lives with the ADD and the stroke and that kind of thing. But what you said with my kids, with my dogs, with my life, people say the people that work for me, my customers, overwhelm is out there. And the first thing I try and get people to see is that overwhelm actually lives between your ears. Overwhelm is a fear of outsized consequences in the future. Oh, my God, if I don't get that done, I'm going to be homeless and living under a bridge. Because it always goes to, I'm going to be homeless and living under a bridge no matter what it is. So it's not -- the ancients say we're not in relationship with the world. We're in relationship with what we think of the world. Okay. So it goes through that magic filter. It's the same thing with overwhelm. When something has to -- you wake up at 3:00 in the morning, it looks so much more sinister and so much more urgent than it does in the light of day. So overwhelm comes from this fear of not getting something done, of missing something of should, should, should, should. If I was more efficient, I would get this done. If I was this type of person, I wouldn't be worried about this. Right. Overwhelm comes between your ears. So the first thing is to stop scaring yourself, right? How do you stop scaring yourself? If I don't get this done, what's really going to happen? If this customer leaves, what's really going to happen? One of the examples I use is, in my workshops, is, so what keeps you up at 3:00 in the morning? And invariably, someone will say payroll. And I'll say, really? Every other week, payroll just, I can't sleep the night before payroll, it's terrifying. So what's your fear? That I'll miss payroll. And what will happen if you miss payroll? Well, then I'll start losing people. What happens if you start losing people? My company will close, and I'll lose my house, and we'll live under a bridge. Great. That's how you're scaring yourself at 3:00 in the morning. I'm curious, when was the last time you missed payroll? I've never missed payroll. Oh, how long have you been in business? 14 years. 14 years, you've never missed payroll, right, but at 3:00 in the morning, every other week, you're terrified of missing payroll. Great. Where would you like to -- is it productive to keep your attention there? Not really. Where would you like to place your attention? Well, I'd like to place my attention on our accounts and growing this aspect of our business. Great. Let's take the monkey mind. So remember, the human brain, you're a brain student. The human brain is a drunk monkey stung by a scorpion. That's the scientific version of what you teach.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:26:45] I've seen research that suggests that.

Mark J Silverman: [00:26:47] It's a drunk monkey stung by a scorpion. So taming the human mind is impossible. So you have to wrestle your mind. You have to physically take your mind from I'm not going to make payroll and I'm going to live under a bridge and go, I want to pay attention to building this part of my business. And then you do that. But it takes conscious effort because unconsciously, it's going to go to the worry.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:27:08] One of the things that this resonates with me about I used to, many years ago, run a group therapy and I would always draw like two circles, one on the inside, one on the outside and referring to an external locus of control things you can't control, the weather, war, things you can't control, which is basically everything else, right? And what you're describing is that exactly like we have a tendency to catastrophize things and emotionally, we get amped up about them. Although there's oftentimes evidence and usually a lot of evidence to suggest that that thing we're fearing is never actually going to happen. So I love your colorful metaphors and just really refreshing. Mark, I wish we had more time, but this has flown by. Maybe we'll do a second episode together in the future. I would really welcome that. But as you know, I always ask everybody who comes on my show this one question, and that is what is your biggest helping, that single most important piece of information you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our conversation today?

Mark J Silverman: [00:28:23] Well, the most important thing that I want anybody to know is that they're loved, they're lovable, they're good just the way they are. And that the constant hamster wheel of trying to be enough, it's not real. It's not worth. I'm 60 years old, right? So I talked to a lot of 30 and 40 year olds. And in hindsight, the cliche of what's really important, your relationships, your health, your well-being and enjoying life. Like I have two adult sons. You're alive. Please enjoy. Please. So that's my helping there.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:29:05] Beautifully said. Mark, tell us where people can find out more about you online, learn about how to connect with you, get their hands on your books, et cetera.

Mark J Silverman: [00:29:13] So they can get a free copy of Only 10s at my website. Just go there in the resource center. You just put in your email and free copy of Only 10s. My podcast is there. All kinds of resources. Most of my clients won't read, so they asked me to make little five-minute videos of every single thing in my book, so you can actually not read my book and just watch all the little five-minute videos in the resource center at Markjsilverman.com. Mark, the letter J, Silverman.com and The Rising Leader podcast is there also.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:29:41] Perfect. And we'll have all the Mark Silverman good stuff linked in the show notes at thedailyhelping.com. So Mark, this has been a delight. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing with everybody today.

Mark J Silverman: [00:29:53] Thank you, Dr. Richard. It was so good to spend time with you.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:29:56] Absolutely. I Loved it. And I also want to thank each and every one of you who took time out of your busy days to listen to our conversation. If you liked it, if you learned something, go give us a follow on Apple podcast and leave us a five-star review, because that is what helps other people find the show. But most importantly, go out there today and do something nice for somebody else, even if you don't know who they are and post it in your social media feeds using the hashtag #MyDailyHelping, because the happiest people are those that help others.