Host Of The Mark Struczewski Podcast: Mark Struczewski AKA Productivity Boss – S3E05 (#101)

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Boss Uncaged is a weekly podcast that releases the origin stories of business owners and entrepreneurs as they become uncaged trailblazers. In each episode, our hosts as a grant and guests construct narrative accounts of their collective business journeys and growth strategies, learn key success habits and how to stay motivated through failure, all while developing a boss Uncaged mindset. Break out of your cage and welcome our host, S.A Grant.

Welcome back to Boss Uncaged podcast. On Today, we have a special guest. Now, I had an opportunity to be on this Man’s podcast a couple of weeks ago, and obviously just looking at him as an inspiration. First of all, I want to give him a high five because he’s just reached one of like, the large milestone, episode 815. Right now, mind you guys, I’m on season two. We’re like creeping up on episode 50. This man is at 815, episode. So on my podcast, I usually give a name to who when I’m interviewing. So I’m going to deem you the productivity boss for obvious reasons. So without further ado, Mark, why don’t you give our people a little introduction to who you are.

Thank you, first of all, for having me on your show. Thank you for being on the Mark Struczewski podcast. I really super appreciate it. You gave my listeners tons of value and so I invite people to check that out. We talked about well, I’m not going to tell you. Go check it out if you want to know what we talked about. It’s a big secret. Here. I am Mark Struczewski, also known as Mr. Productivity. I am obsessed with helping the world be more productive. We live in a world where we are constantly distracted by these gizmos, by our to do lists, by everything. And we can’t focus. And we can’t focus. We get overwhelmed and we get frustrated. We get angry. And then we do even more unproductive stuff. So that’s what my calling is. That’s what my passion is. And I’m thrilled to be here with you today.

Got you. As you can see already right over if you can see why he’s been defined as a productivity boss, right? So let’s just talk about this for a minute, right? Like anybody that gets into podcasting, like, particular milestones, starting a podcast, great. You start a podcast. Season one. Great. You did season one, episode 50, episode 100. You are at episode 800 plus. So let’s talk about that for a minute. How many episodes are you doing per day and how many episodes are you releasing?

I had this crazy idea on New years day. I said, hey, I’m going to release a brand new episode every day in 2021. I don’t think it really hit me that day. That means 365 brand new episodes. But I’m doing all right. I’ve not missed the day yet. And I actually started on Christmas Day 2020. And I do 5 interviews a week and I do two solo episodes on the weekends, on Sundays and Mondays. And those are usually the LinkedIn lives. I go to LinkedIn Live a couple of times a week before I repurpose the content, and I’m just trying to provide as much value as I can for the people. But to your point, I started with episode one, which became 100, which became 200. Now I’m over 800. And I just love this format because a lot of people don’t really live on podcasting. There’s over 2 million podcasts in the Apple Podcast directory, but yet two really sobering statistics. Number one 44 percent of that 2 million have three or less episodes. And of the 2million 68%, roughly haven’t released an episode in 90 days. So releasing a daily podcast, I’m certainly red airing in the world of podcasting.

Well, I mean, it kind of goes back to who you are, what your principles are. If you could define yourself in three to five words, what would those three to five words be?

Authentic, genuine, happy. I am a man of integrity, and I like to have fun. I think we live in a society where it’s all about work, work, work, work. And I’m like that’s. Great. You do need to work, but you also need to have fun. And I mean, you need to play time. You need to watch silly, pointless TV programs because you just can’t work. Because I see people all the time and say, working and working and working. It’s like, for what? I mean, do you go to the ball game? Do you go to a concert? All you do is work. And I like my work. Yeah, but there’s more than life than just working. So I think there’s got to be a balance. You need to enjoy life. You need to have fun.

So this time, travel back, right? So you’re talking about work, life, balance. But how did you even get into podcasting? What did that stem from? Did you just wake up on a random Tuesday and said, I’m going to grab a microphone and start recording interviews? How did that come to be?

It’s all Gary Vanderschuck’s fault. Back in the spring of 2017, I saw him say in one of those videos, I don’t remember what platform is on. The future is voice and audio, and everyone needs to have a podcast. And I remember, like, I listen to podcasts. Could I start a podcast? I don’t know. So I went to this website, no one’s ever heard of, Google.com, and I typed in, how do you start a podcast? And read a couple of articles. And I started my podcast. I mean, I used to be a radio DJ back in the day, and so I have no problems speaking to a microphone in my home office. And on July 7, 2017, or at least my first podcast episode, and I was never I still sit there. I can’t forget the feeling I had that I had like 50 downloads that first episode. And I know I downloaded it. My wife downloaded, my cousin downloaded it. And like, who are these other 47 people? I mean, I just released a podcast, but there are people that love the platform as much as we do, because, like I said, I used to be a radio DJ, and I had to play the music that the company wanted to play, and I had to say what the company wanted to say.

But this is my own personal radio station. I could talk about whatever I want to talk about. And it’s really cool that you and I right now are in the ears of a listener. And one of the things I learned really early on in podcasting is never say it plural. Don’t say listeners. Because no one has podcast listening parties. Most people are listening with headphones in their ears. And so it’s always a one to one relationship. So when I say listener, I don’t mean SAS one listener. I mean, you all listen to one person at a time.

I want you guys to understand, like this man, the way he processes information, right? That little nugget that he just gave you, right? And it goes back to marketing strategy. Like, when you’re writing marketing copy, you’re not talking to a million people, you’re talking to the individual person a million times. So you’re writing it in a singular fashion because you’re talking to one person that may convert not all of them at the same time. And that’s what he just said. But you have to be mindful of these things. So, Mind you, he’s doing 800 episodes. He’s mindful of what he’s saying. He has the experience of a radio announcer behind him. So let’s travel back a little bit more. Right? How did you get into radio to begin with?

Oh, my goodness, that’s going way back. So I was working at a steel factory back in the late eighty s. And I was working a steel factory only to go to college. Well, as I was going through college, one of the colleges I was at, because I went to a couple of colleges, they had a radio station that was only on campus. They didn’t have any antenna. You can only get on campus. And they’re like, we need someone to do the morning, like 06:00, 07:00 in the morning, where the case may be. The campus was just waking up. I drove in from out of town, where the case may be. And I’m like, you know, I had a class at 08:00, and I wanted the reason to get there early, because sometimes you don’t want to go to school. And I’m like, how cool to be to be a radio DJ. So I just decided to show up, and I became a radio DJ there. And then when I went into the big markets, I’m talking big markets, I’m talking to Rochester, New York. I’m like, hey, I was a radio DJ at the college I’m like, I don’t want to be a radio DJ here. And like, yeah, that’s not how it works. You can work on a talk radio station. You’ll be working overnight, and all you have to do is make sure that the commercial is played. And I thought that was the coolest thing for about a month. And after a while, it’s like, I worked, like, 11:00 P.m. To 07:00 A.m.. I was never on the air. But you got to pay your dues. I know. It’s hard for the listener, understand? They just don’t say, hey, here’s a prime time spot on Top 40. Radio doesn’t work that way. You have to pay your dues. And I listen to a lot of talk radio during those early years.

Okay, so I’m painting this picture, right? So we’re working out way back, right? So, like, what did you go to school for?

You mean college? Yeah, my bachelor’s degree is in applied computing, and so I’ve got an associate degree. I don’t know what my social degree is. I got associate degree in something. It’s pointless. I don’t have use of these skills. And then I got my bachelor’s degree in applying computing and never went in the computer field, which is interesting because I graduated in 2001. Now, people are born with iPhones and iPads, but back then, it was fascinating. I took COBOL. And let’s see, C++ and Pascal and Lisp and all these languages. I couldn’t I don’t have a prayer of programming in now. But it was interesting. That’s really interesting how I got into that, because you’re taking me way back S.A. I donated all the money to my college, and I’m like, man, what I would have better off of course, the Internet was a baby back then. We take for granted the Internet we have today. But if you want to go back to 1999, 1997, you know, back 2001, I mean, it wasn’t the Internet we have today. And when I was, when I first moved to Houston, I was doing distance learning from Rochester Institute of Technology and how that works is not over the Internet. They would send me these VHS tapes that I would have to watch the lectures. And then when I want to take an exam, I had to go to the public library. They would FedEx the exam to the public library, and I’d have it supervised. So it’s not like you do it now where everything is online. So, yeah, that’s going way back there S.A.

And I’m still trying taking it back again we gotta take it back. Right. So as a kid, you’re talking about technology, you’re talking about radio, you’re talking about you’re a podcaster now. You’re also a coach. This is, like, your legacy, right? But as a kid, like, what was on your mind? I mean, obviously some kids want to go outside and play. Were you more of a technical kid? Were you taking things apart what were you like as a kid?

Well, I was not a technical person, and I grew up I was born in 1965, so there wasn’t a lot of technology. And believe me, if I would have tried to take the TV apart, my parents would have killed me. I wouldn’t be here today. But I think what I really wanted to be is a firefighter, because my dad was a firefighter. He was everything from a rookie. They used to call him Indian, but you can’t say that word anymore. He was a rookie, like a brand new wet behind the ears fire fighter. he worked as well, all the way up to first lieutenant, second lieutenant, battalion chief, captain, chief, battalion chief, the president of the company. And I said, oh, man, I’m really cool because I remember going on calls with him when he was on shifts. Car, you know, lights and sirens, but, you know, everything looks glamorous when you see it on TV, but when you really get into weeds, it’s a lot more work. There’s no perfect job in this world. So I really want to be like my dad until I started going to college.

So, I mean, just to kind of recap on the journey and the reason why I want to take our listeners down this path, right? Because without knowing your history, I knew for a fact your history was not going to be conducive to where you are. So our listener, I want you to understand that you could be a doctor right now. You could be potentially going to law school tomorrow. You could be trying to be a marine biologist. But part of what your journey is is that there’s going to be forks in this road. And to Mark, I’m actually the question, right, would you have thought 30 years ago you would be a podcaster today?

You know, it’s funny because that means 55-30 means 25. Oh, my goodness. What was I doing at 25? I think I was just starting to work at the steel factory. And of course, podcasting wasn’t around. The Internet wasn’t around. Think about that listener. I don’t know how old the listener is. Good English Mark. see my education failed me. Think about that. There was no social media, facebook and Twitter and all that didn’t exist. And there’s no cable, there’s no satellite. You have, like, four channels, five. You’re lucky. And that’s a totally different lifetime. And so there’s no way I could say, you know, someday I hope I get to talk to thousands of people from the comfort of my home over the Internet, because there wasn’t even an Internet back then. I mean, I think they had something called DARPA or something like that, but it’s kind of hard to think about that. But you look at Elon Musk and he visualized having electric cars years ago. I mean, that’s called a visionary. But to answer your question, there’s no way I could have visualized, I don’t know what I would’ve been, because back then, you had to go to college. Now you don’t have to go to college to be a successful entrepreneur.

Yeah, I think it’s definitely I mean, it’s a hell of a story to tell, especially the way we just broke it apart, and you kind of could visualize these things. So that’s the how, right? We kind of depicted your how, how you became a successful podcaster and coach. Right. But what’s your why? Like, why are you doing what you’re doing?

Well, one of my whys is I’m tired of people not having freedom, not having the time or the energy to do what they want in life. I don’t care if that’s just sitting home watching Netflix on a Friday night. There’s so much stress in the world. There’s so much overwhelm, so much frustration. And I looked at what was going on in the world, and I’m like, there’s got to be a better way. I mean, this is crazy that people are working so hard, but they’re like a hamster on a wheel. They’re working hard but not going any place. And so it took me getting fired from my corporate job in July 2005, and I’m so thankful I was fired from the job because had I not been, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, in all likelihood. And I just started looking around. I’m like, yeah, a lot of people are not happy. They’re working a lot, but then they’re focusing on the wrong things. They’re focusing on the weekend. They’re focusing on quitting time. They’re focusing on vacation. Seth Golden One said, create a life that you don’t want to take a vacation from okay? So I’m not chasing the money. I’m not chasing likes or followers. I’m chasing peace. I’m chasing freedom, because we get one shot at this life essay. One shot, that’s it. And I don’t know a single person who wound up on their wet deathbed and said, man, I wish I would have gone to another board meeting. I wish I would have closed another deal. I wish I would have bought another car. No. They’re regretting all the times. Man, I wish I could have done this or said this. I really admire Gary Vaynerchuck. I don’t like his body language. But one of the reasons why I do like Gary is because he is very approachable. There’s a lot of people who are super successful, and unless you’re paying the millions of dollars to be in their Mastermind, you’re never going to get aloan with them. But Gary Vaynerchuk, if you see him walking around New York City or an airport, you can walk up to them and say, hi. So I tell people, I want to be the clean version of Gary Vaynerchuk. We may not agree ideologically, but I want to meet as many people as I can because I’m not better than anyone and I tell my wife, hold me accountable. If I ever start being one of those narcissistic jerks who think that I’m better than anyone. Slide me outside the head, I don’t want to be that person. I want to be the type of person that’s always there to help somebody.

Very nice. So, I mean, in that journey right there’s, hurdles that had to be overcame and pushed through. So if you could recap or think about what’s the worst experience you’ve had in your career path so far that you had to overcome?

When I got fired, I mean, I really thought that I would be at this job. It was not a bad job. And I got a standard paycheck and I got vacation, I got holidays off. And when I look back on it, I was on autopilot, not just going through the motion. I knew my job so well and I could just do it with my eyes closed, but there was no excitement. I didn’t look forward to going into the job. It provided my family, but I did look forward to it. And I want to impress upon every listener to wake up every day absolutely head over heels in love with what you do. Don’t worry about the money. I’d rather have you make $40,000 a year and be happy than make $40 million a year and be miserable.

Wow. Very powerful, insightful information. So we’re talking about podcasting, we’re talking about money. And anybody that gets into podcasting, it’s always like a caveat to kind of figure out the best way to monetize your podcast. So obviously, you’re at the point to where you have 800 episodes. What does your monetizing structure looked like being that you’re releasing so much content so frequently?

My podcast is all a lead magnet, that’s what it is. So I have no ads. Well, I do have ads on my show. One is to get people to go to my website, and the other is the guests to get people to go to their website. I don’t have any other ads on my show. People have told me, you’re doing it all wrong. But I get coaching clients directly from my podcast, listen to podcasts, because nowadays, as you know, S.A. You got to prove yourself. OK, they can listen to my show and go, man, this guy really knows his stuff. Let me go to Mrproductivity.com. Find out more about oh he has got some other free resources. You got to prove yourself. People are not just going to hand over money, they’re hard earned money just because you have a podcast or just because you hung your shingle off. And so we live in a culture now where you have to prove yourself. And so I make it a point to always give massive value every day. And I don’t always hit it out of the park, but I try everyday and that gets people going, OK, I’ve got all this free stuff. Let me test the waters on his paid stuff. And that’s how it works because I’m sure this happened to you before. I say you get pushed into something, you fork over your money and you’re like, man, this sucks, it’s a waste of my time. The guy didn’t know what he’s doing or the gal doesn’t know what he’s doing and you become very frustrated and very jaded. So I don’t want people to ask for their money back, I don’t want people to cancel on me. And so I always, always make it a point of over delivering.

Very nice. That’s a great philosophy. I mean, I think you’re playing off of like Gary’s point of view as well too. give and deliver and give and give and give and so you shall receive back in return. So I mean, in that model, right, talking about business structures, like, obviously you’ve been in business for a period of time, you have probably multiple different facets and tentacles to your podcast empire, right? So how is your business structure? Is it an Llc,s-corp or c-corp or a combination of all three?

Right now? I’m none of the above now still, I’m just a guy trying to make going from one day to the next. So I haven’t gone into any kind of business structure at this point, probably should, but now my business is starting to take off and I don’t now I have a time issue, okay? Before I had no income and lots of time. Now the time is kind of like going away and so I don’t have the business structured as it is right now, but I’m also not Jeff Bezos, I don’t make billions of dollars, so not yet anyways.

Well, you definitely headed in the right direction, right? So let’s talk about like your systems. Right? So being that you’re the productivity boss, I would think behind the scenes, and I could be a testament to that, right. When someone signs up on your show, there’s a lot of automation stuff that goes on behind the scenes and you keep things intact and even after the show, there’s like follow up automation. So what systems do you have in place to maintain what you’re doing?

I love automation. I think that you are a fool if you’re doing stuff that can be automated. I really do. Because I use Calendly. So coaching clients, podcast guests, day and meeting planners, they use Calendly. So don’t go back and forth, okay? People don’t stop and think that if you’re going back and forth. Well, first of all, if you send an email to someone, they may not read it until tomorrow. I’d like to make it as simple as possible. So I use Calendly. Other automation I do. Like I said, when you become a client of mine, all the emails you need to get on my calendar, they’re all automated. I’m trying to find other ways to get more automation, but some things become a control freak and so I want to test and test and test and test because I know by trusting automation and it fails me. People don’t know the automation failed, they think I failed. And so I’m really confident with calendar. The other automation, I’m kind of like, I don’t know. So I do some other automation, but it’s kind of like monitored, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Nice nice. So talking about, OK, you got your systems in place, you have your podcasts in place, so when did you start like converting? Right? And I’m just telling from a journey, everyone’s journey of podcasting is different. Some people start off episode two. They start to monetize. They have stuff coming in and they’re converting. Some people may take a year, some people may take three or four years. They may have to get to episode 400 before they can start converting that audience. So in your journey, when did your conversion start to happen?

Wow, that’s a good question you know because I’m not really focused this is going to sound kind of crazy. I’m not focused on the conversion. I’m focused on giving value. I can’t really pinpoint when it was and it happened so gradually it just started converting but didn’t even dawn on me. Things are happening. I’m like, okay. And I just kept going about my day. And I think that’s the best conversion when you don’t know it starts conversion. I can’t say it was September 12, you know, 2019. It wasn’t a day. It just gradually it started really simple. People started reaching out to me saying, hey, I really enjoy your podcast. And then they started becoming a march to Chest the Insider. And then they may look at some other free resources or whatever, follow me on social media. So it came very gradual. So the actual conversions, there’s monetary conversions and then there’s like social conversions. So for me it happened very gradual and everyone’s different. So it didn’t like everyone just it’s not a certain path where everyone knew 1234, some people went 1432, some people went 1243. It’s all different. So that’s a very difficult question to answer.

Got you. So let’s just look at this from my scale, right? Someone listening to this podcast. I started out right at the bed. I’m saying this man has over 800 episodes of podcasting. Anyone who understands podcasting are sitting there scratching their head like, how did he even get to that magnitude, right? The only people that they know that’s in that range is probably Joe Rogan, right? So thinking about that and maybe perceived to be that you’re an overnight success even though you have 800 episodes. How long have you been on the journey to get to where you are currently?

Episode One on July 7, 2017. And when I first got in, I was told, first of all, don’t chase the money and be in it for the long haul. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what the long haul meant. Okay, so I did one episode. I was doing, I think, maybe one episode a week then, and then eventually went to two episodes. In the first 17 episodes, it was just me, because one of the thought leaders in the podcasting space says when you start your podcast, have as few moving parts as possible. So don’t do interviews right away. Get the whole thing down and then add interviews. So I started with episode 18 doing interviews, and then I would do some interviews and some solo back and forth. Now I do five interviews a week and two solo episodes a week. But my thing is I’m not afraid to speak. I’m not afraid to go live. I go live a couple of times a week now. And so for me, I think it was the repetition, because Tony Robbins says repetition is a mother’s skill. And I’m like, wow, I have 100 episodes. Well, I got 400 episodes. To me, I look at that and it’s like over 800 episodes. I’m like, it’s crazy. And as long as I don’t miss a day in 2021, December 31 will be 1060 episodes, which is mind blowing. But it started with episode number one. Like, as you know, I’m a daily runner. I started running every day on August 29, 2017. I’ve run over 1344 days. But I started with day one. You start with your first podcast. You start with your first blog post. You start with your first client. You start with your first course, your first module, your first course. People are looking too far down the road. Oh, I can’t wait to get episode 500 or 800. No, start with episode one. People are trying to rush the system. You can’t rush out 800 episodes. I’ve been doing this three and a half years to get to where I am now. I mean, I would not have been able to do an episode a day back in 2017. I’m like, what is this word about podcasting? now It’s very easy. If a guest cancels, for some reason, I can go in there immediately, fill it with a solo episode. You got to be able to do that. And you can’t do that until you’ve been doing it for a while. If you’ve been doing it for two or three episodes, you’re going to freak out. And so I encourage everybody not to exceed their own bandwidth. You know what your bandwidth is, and don’t go beyond that.

You definitely bring up a solid point, and I think it’s part of an underlying strategy, and that’s what people understand it from a podcasting point of view, right? There’s different types of podcasts. There is the interview style podcast, there is the Cohost style podcast. There is the individual style podcast, and there’s many others. So you’ve joined two together, right? And so what was your thinking behind that? Is it more so an opportunity for people to get more of you and also bringing new content with interviews? What was your thought process behind that?

I’ll answer that by saying yes. I don’t know why I decided to do an interview. And when I first started doing interviews, I was reaching out to people I knew who were safe because I didn’t want to go after anybody else, because am I going to be a good interviewer? And it took me probably until, I want to say, the fall of 2018, like over a year before I started honing in on my interview skills. As you know, I said I don’t script my shows, I don’t do any questions, I don’t plan anything for the show because I learned after doing I don’t know how many interviews I’ve done, probably close to 500 now that I’ve learned to be an active listener. And I will take the conversation then down streets that maybe the guest normally doesn’t go down. Because as you know, if you’re a guest on a lot of podcasts, you can ask the same questions. I get asked the same productivity questions all the time. But when a host like you ask questions that are like outside those lines, it makes me excited because now I get to think because you asked me what are the top five distractions? I say the same thing on every interview. But when you ask me different questions now, if people are listening to all my interviews and I’m very thankful they are, they hear different stuff. That’s one of the reasons why if somebody asked me the same question, I will never promote that episode on my feed because it’s the same questions everyone asked me. It’s just a different show. But if you do a good job and it’s a totally different question, then I promote that. Because now it’s different because that’s why Gary Vanderschuck’s is asked the same questions all the time. He’s not going to promote every guest show he’s on because if they’re asking the same question, why is he going to push out to his audience the same questions day after day? People will get kind of bored with that.

Yes. And to your point, this is why I structure my podcast the way it is, because I could easily come into this, right, and say, hey, give me your top ten tips for productivity. But you’re telling your top ten tips for productivity by telling your story and it’s it’s more, more of a depiction and someone can kind of visually see themselves in your shoes versus looking at a checklist item two different ways of schools of thought. So let’s just keep diving down this road. So going into time travel again, right, if you could time travel back, looking at your entire career, if there’s one thing that you can change and do differently, if you do it all over again, what would that one thing be and why?

I would tell myself if I went back to, say, 30 years ago, because you mentioned 30 years earlier, I would say slow down. Because I was always in a rush. I was always in a rush to get out of high school, to get the cows, to get the car, to get the girl. I mean, I was always in a hurry. I would tell myself, Slow down. You got a long life ahead of you and the trajectory you’re on right now. Believe it or not, there’s technology coming that you can’t even fathom right now. But I was always in a hurry. And now I’m 55 years young. I wish I would have slowed down more, enjoyed life. Life is not all about working or getting new skills. And I was always in a hurry. I don’t know why I was in a hurry. And a lot of people I talk to, they’re always in a hurry when they’re younger. Why? Why? I mean, you’re going to rush and then all of a sudden you’ll be dead and you’ll be sitting on your deathbed going, wow, wish I enjoyed life more. So that’s what I told myself.

Wow, this is a dive into your family a little bit, right? So you have the entrepreneurial spirit of a boss god, right? You’re like in this mindset and you have a state of mind that it oozes out of you. Did that come from like a father, an uncle, an aunt? Like, where are you getting this machismo from?

I would have to say my parents. They were very structured, OK? When I woke up in the morning, go to school, I had certain responsibilities. I had to have breakfast, brush my teeth, be out at the bus stop by a certain time I came home, I was allowed to go out and play with my friends. Dinner was always the same time every night. I couldn’t watch TV until I get my homework done and my shower done. I mean, that’s the way it was. And I think that structure that I was raised in, I was an only child that just came right into my adulthood. And I don’t like clutter. Clutter drives me crazy. So I go to someone’s house and they got stuck everywhere. I feel very uncomfortable because I don’t like clutter. I don’t like clutter in my house. There are two kinds of clutter, by the way. There’s emotional or mental and there’s physical clutter. So I don’t like clutter, okay? Everybody works better when it’s not cluttered, mentally or physically. And so that’s just the stuff I grew up with. My parents didn’t tolerate clutter. They didn’t tolerate magazines and books and bottles everywhere. Everything was clean. The house was clean. Like, remember back in the day when companies used to drop by unexpectedly? They don’t do it anymore. Even before COVID, no one did that. But back then, people dropped by because my father was in the party apartment. Our house is always clean. Not like white gub clean, but it was presentable. My parents didn’t need a living room. My mom didn’t want stains in the carpet. It was very well maintained. I think that’s why my life is so well maintained, because that’s where I was brought up.

Nice. So, I mean, taking that from your ancestors before you and the way they raise you. And also, I think about ten minutes ago you were talking about like, work life balance indirectly. How do you currently juggle your work life with your family life?

I determined about a year and a half ago how many clients I want to take on at any one time. I have some colleagues of mine, and they’re doing coaching clients from morning all day long, like every 30 or 45 minutes, and I have to read the Blue Ocean strategy. I’m like, I don’t want to do that because I know I would not be as good on the last client as the first client. So I sat down one day and go, okay, how many coaching clients do I want to have? Ideally per day and then per week? And I don’t see that level. And so that’s what wait lists are for. If you really want to work with me, if I have no openings, then you have to sit in waitlist because I have to spend time with my clients. I also have to spend time in personal development. I do personal development every day so I can better serve my clients. If all you’re doing is talking to people, talk, talk, talk, talk listen, listen, listen help, help, help. When are you going to refill your knowledge base? How are you going to improve your skills if you’re always giving? See, if you spend money, you better have money coming in the other side of your bank account. Otherwise you’re going to go bankrupt, right? And you can’t do that unless you’re federal government. So you got to keep replenishing yourself. Okay? You have got to get to a point where, OK, minimum 15 minutes, 50 minutes a day I spend in personal development, usually reading a book because I want to continue getting better. I don’t want to say, okay, you know, 2011 I hung my shingle out. I’m a productivity expert. I’m not gonna learn anything else on productivity. I got it all figured out because, as you know, during Kobet, we have the same scientific method versus scientific consensus. I kept hearing those two things, didn’t know what they were, and I finally Googled them. What is the difference? Scientific consensus means they came up with the topic, they came up with the research and said, okay, this is it. It’s the mold. We’ll harden it and we’re done. The scientific method is constantly learning and I want to be a scientific method when it comes to productivity. I’m a student of productivity first. I’m a student first. I’m always learning from people, sometimes from Tony Robbins type people, and sometimes people beneath me. But I think no matter what you’re doing in life, you should always be a student first. If you’re a secretary, be a student of how you can be the best secretary or an executive assistant. If you are a salesperson, always be learning how you can be a better salesperson. If you’re a speaker, always be learning. How do you become a better speaker? Don’t ever settle and go, Well, I’ve arrived. I don’t want to arrive. I want to continuously learn.

Nice. I’ll say this on occasion. This is like, when it’s time, I’m listening. And I wish I was more so a listener than an actual host taking notes based upon what you’re saying. Right? And the thing that you brought up is one of the reasons why I created a book club, a Boston Cage Book club, because again, I have an opportunity to interview people like yourself, and you’re spitting out all this information about content. So my next question is a three part question for you. What book have you read? And I never know. By default, I read millions of books, right? But book or audio book that you have read or listened to to get you to where you are currently? Second part of that question is, what books are you reading right now? Part of your continuing education, part of your self help and self development? And as an author, have you written any books as of yet?

Okay. Books I have read that have fundamentally changed my life. In early 2020, someone told me to read the 05:00 a.m. Club by Robin Sharma. For years, I have fought the early bird gets the worm, get up before the sun, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, I’m not getting up that early. But someone says, Read this book. So I read the book, and on February 4, 2020, I joined the 05:00 a.m. Club. It’s not really a club. You don’t pay dues on that. And I can tell you after the first five or six weeks, where it’s really difficult, my body’s used to get up at 05:00 in the morning. Now now, the first two or three weeks, especially that first night, I went to bed at 09:00 and my body’s going, Hold up. 09:00. We have two and a half hours ago. What are you doing? And I’m like, I’m still waking up to five. And it was horrible. I didn’t think that first night, I fell asleep around midnight and my alarm went off at 05:00. I got up. And the point is, you get up in the morning, and if you get up and you start working, I don’t even work like, go to the office, start sending emails. I mean, you start your day at 05:00 in the morning. You get more done by 08:00 than most people get all day then all day because so quiet in the morning. So definitely the 05:00 a.m. Club. Kell Newport’s got two wonderful books I love deep work, digital, minimalism, incredible author. And if I had to throw a fourth one in there, napoleon Hill, Think and Grow ritz if you haven’t read it, read it. If you have read it, read it again. If you just finished reading it, read it again. I’ve read that book four times, listened to it twice. And it’s really important because the story in there that always resonates with me is stopping 3ft from gold. I’m terrified. I say I am terrified if I quit today, if my vein of gold will be found in two days. So those are four books I recommend what I’m reading right now to go off my memory. Oh, I’m reading one book, actually have it here. I wouldn’t remember. It’s called “pause breathe choose” by Naz Beheshti. She’s going to be a guest of my show. Coming up. It’s about self awareness. I’m also reading “‘Principles” by Ray Dalio. So many people recommended a book. I’m reading that book. Of course. I read the Bible every day. And one book that’s on pause that I have to finish reading is The Blue Ocean Strategy. I got halfway through it, and I have a problem. I love buying books, but I’m not reading the books I have, so I’m trying not to buy more books. Everybody says, oh, buy this book, buy this book, buy this book. And then my guests always send me copies of their book. So I’ve got so many books to read, and, like, I don’t have enough time. I only read like 50 minutes a day. And I don’t read really fast because when I read, I like to read slowly on purpose so I can go out in the backyard with my dog. And I read print books, and I just immersed myself in the book. So that’s what that is. Have I written books? I’ve written two books, self published. One of them is called a “A Succès Fou Life”. What it is and how you can live it. Because I want a trip to France back in 2009, and my wife and I went to France courtesy of Forbes Company. And “A Succès Fou Life” is a madly successful life. Only sold like, a handful of copies, mostly sold the copies of the book when I went to speaking gigs, which were for free back in the day. Then I wrote another book on how to overcome roadblocks in your path to success. Note to self, if you’re not successful, don’t write a book on how to become successful. Didn’t do too well. So both of those were self published. Several people said, you got to write a book, you got to write a book, you got to write a book. So apparently I say, sometime in the near future, I’m going to write my own book. But now I found a magical world of ghost writers, and I’m going to let them interview me and let them write a book for me so I don’t have to do all that work.

Nice. So this is kind of a recap of some of the things you just said. The irony is a thing to grow rich, right? We just finished that book again in the book club, like literally a week ago. And one of the comments that I made is this is the book that people not only read routinely, but they read it religiously to the point to where every single time you read it, much like the Bible, you get something uniquely different because you are at a different stage of your life. You may be unwelcome and then become wealthy. You may be unproductive and become productive. And when you read that book again, it completely changes your state of mind. So to your point, if you haven’t read that book, definitely read it. Deep Work is a phenomenal book. I think that was like book number three or four of the book club. And as I’m reading that book and I’m sitting there thinking, it goes to show that you’re a productivity guy. And that book is a reflection of that. It’s literally about getting in the zone. And so I definitely love that book. And then going back to your 05:00 a.m. I kind of leads me to the next question, right? So now that you’re waking up at 05:00 in the morning, you got into that habit, into that routine, and being that you’re very structured by nature, what is your morning habits and your morning routines look like?

What I do is I go to 05:00 in the morning and the first thing I do is this is going to sound really bizarre to a listener. My wife and I haven’t slept together in years, and here’s why. It’s an inside joke in their house. So my wife will get comfortable using air quotes here for your podcast listeners on the couch, and then she promptly falls asleep. Well, I know as a productivity guy, if I wake her up, it’s a disruptive sleep, so she sleeps on the couch. We don’t have marital problems. It’s just an inside joke. So the reason why I tell you that is when I wake up, the first thing I do is my feet hit the floor, I make my bed, and I turn all the lights on the bedroom to let my body know, hey, it’s time to get up. Second thing I do is I use the restroom. Third thing I do is I take three supplements. I had a guest on my show twice from Tim James, who owns a company called Chemical Free Body. So I take his Green 85 formula, I take some Turmeric and some gut detox pills then I go out for a 20 minutes brisk walk outside, weather permitting, which is in Houston mostly as possible, because what Robin talks about in his book, the 05:00 A.m. Club, is to in the first thing in the morning, like the first ten or 15 minutes, go break a sweat, go elevate the heart rate. But what it does is it purges the cortisol. What I used to do is I used to do my Bible reading and all that stuff. And then I go for a walk and he says, no, move first, purge that. Cortisol once I did that, when I come back, the words just pop off the page. It’s incredible. Then I read the Bible. Then I do my plan. Then I have to do an episode every day in my podcast and make sure that’s post on the social media. And I do my daily duolingo lesson. I’m definitely trying to become conversationally fluent in French. And then after that, then it’s just like now it’s getting warm. And here in Houston now what I’ll do is then I’ll go for my daily run. As soon as the sun comes out, I’ll go for my daily run because I want to run with 90 degrees outside. I’d rather go running with 70 degrees. So that’s how the morning looks.

Nice to your point, you lived up to the envision that I had. I mean, it had to be structured. If you had told me something opposite to structured, I probably would have sat and been like, am I talking to the same person? I was just talking to you. Right? so where do you see yourself? You’re saying you’re 55, right? So 55 to 75, a 20 year span. Where do you see yourself 20 years from now?

Well, I am going to be very wealthy and not just Monetarily. I mean, I’m going to be physically healthy because now I’m taking care of myself. What’s really weird, my mom suffers from late onset Alzheimer’s. So she’s a three year old trapped in a 76 year old body and her mother died at Alzheimer’s. That was a wake up call for me that I’m like, you better start taking care of yourself. That’s why I run every day, 3 miles every day. That’s why I drink mainly water. We won’t tell my wife I had McDonald’s for Uber eats today. Keep it quiet. But I try to eat better because I want to be around for a long time. That’s why I’m exercising my brain by trying to learn duolingo and reading books that are not like, you know, simple books, because you have to take care of yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually every day. Because I want at 75, I really want to still be running every day. I may not be as fast because my father’s got very bad leg problems. And you never like exercise, because back then, my dad’s 80, my mom’s 76. As I mentioned back then, you didn’t do that. The only athletes exercise now, they know it’s important to move every day. That’s why we’re an Apple Watch and make sure I get up for 1 minute every hour. And you got to move and you got to exercise. They know that that’s critical to our health now. And I want to be in 75, 80 years old. I want to still be running. I still want to be in really good shape. I want to have normal blood pressure. I mean, I haven’t gotten sick but once in the last six years. And I think that that’s not luck. It’s because for the first time in my life, I started about six years ago, I said, you know what? I’m gonna take really good care of myself, because it’s on me to take care of myself. Not my wife, not my parents, not my friends. It’s my job. It’s your job to take care of yourself. And so I want to answer your question. I hope that I’m still hyperactively happy like I am now, that I’m still running. I’m still an avid reader, a reader. But I also hope that I’m conversationally fluent in French and maybe one other language.

Nice. I think you’re going to surpass that goal, by the way. I think you’d probably be like 93 years old, still pushing out, like, the energy level that you push down and coming from. Both of us are New Yorkers, so understanding, if you’re not from New York, you don’t really understand the energy level. That just comes with being a New Yorker. You have to be loud and be heard just to be physically in the room. Right. So you talked about your systems a little bit. Just talk about your software a little bit. What softwares do you use that you would not be able to do what you’re doing without? And I think you mentioned earlier calendar. What other software on top of that?

For my podcast, I use a company called Zencastr. It’s Zencastr without the E. I use Hindenburg to actually record the salt, to actually edit my salt. My podcast episode Canva Pro Headliner App, which allows you to make those cool 62nd videos you put on social media. What else am I looking? Zoom pro dropbox. I should just look at my dialogue. Here my doc here .Telegram, kajabi. Yeah, those are the systems I use on a regular basis.

Got you. I see You’re rocking a lipson shirt. Have you used lipson as well?

Oh, I’ve been using lipson from day one.

Nice. Let’s talk about that for a little bit. Obviously, as a podcaster, I hear a lot about lipson, but as a visionary, I’m really big on trying out new platforms and new software, and I’m big into lifetime deals. So the platform I’m using is BCAS because they were marketers that created that platform. Why are you using lipson?

When I wanted to start my first podcast back in June of 2017, I started asking people around, who do you use? They go, Just get lipson. They’re the biggest, they’re the best. And now I’m so ingrained on there, I’m not going to worry about changing my RSS feed and all stuff. Look, it’s real simple. I know how to use it, upload it, add a stuff, schedule it. I’m done. I, too like to try new things, but this is so ingrained, and I’m not always stuck in my ways. I’m trying to delay my life. So I got rid of Google Drive and I’m about ready to leave Gmail. I found an alternative that I’m still trying to make sure it works for me, which allow me to send mail through my email that’s associated with my website. But I pay them $60 a year instead of getting it for free from Google and having to sniff all my stuff. So I’m trying to deep Google, find myself. And so I just recently now on guest schedule on calendar. It doesn’t get to add to Google Drive. Now it gets icloud, my icloud calendar. Because I trust the apple and I trust Google. I mean, no one’s completely trustworthy, so that’s what I’m trying to do. But in terms of lipson, I’m so used to them. My business is really starting to take off now. I don’t want to stop and learn a new system. It would make me be unproductive for a while. Plus, you got to move all the episodes over in the RSS feed, and I’m not prepared to do that at this point.

Nice. So let’s just talk about words of wisdom, right? You’re saying that your podcast is within the five year span, right? So that would put you roughly at age 50. Let’s say I’m 50 years old and I’m listening to this podcast, and I’m like, this dude has everything that I envision, that I want. And I didn’t even know I could even do it after 25. I didn’t think I could do it after 35. I sure tell them that I could do it after 45. But you’re doing it from 50 plus, right? So what words of insight would you give to someone that’s probably middle management in corporate America thinking about probably jumping out, doing things on their own, maybe becoming a podcaster? What insights would you give to them?

Got to give credit to Nike for this. Just do it. Get out of your own way. Get out of your own way. If you want to start a podcast, do what I did. Go to Google, type in how do I start a podcast? It’s not that expensive. It will not have I paid to host my podcast every month that lives in $20. This microphone I’m using with the boom Arm costs $80, delivered back in 2017. OK, stop making excuses. OK. If you want to do something with the the podcast YouTube channel, you want to start a Facebook group, just do it. It’s not going to be right, good, satisfactory, Awesome when you first start, you know, I got to be as good as I am now. I started with episode number one. Now I got to run over 344 days in a row. Started with day one. So get out of your own way and just start. There is no perfect time to start, so just start. Oh, Mark. I’m a Senior VP at a company. Okay. Do you work there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, three sixty five days a year. No. Do what I do. Carry around a bullet journal. I recommend you do this in the bullet journal. Do not carry around your phone and do any phone. Carry your bullet journal around and say, okay, I want to start this. Business. And then whenever you have a thought, write it down, start the process. Do something today to get the ball rolling. Because no magical side hustle fairy is going to come to your house and go, here it all is free of charge. Here’s all the answers. You’re going to have to work at it. So stop making excuses, get out of your own way and just start.

well, again, I think it’s a philosophy to come for someone that has such a high value for productivity that you do, that you’re delivering such a strong message. And even in that message, you’re also giving out a little nuggets, like the journal aspect of it. Thinking about that, like, I’m an author myself, and I decided to kind of switch my direction to authorship a little bit and start creating more so guided journals. And I’m about to release my first guided journal within the next couple of weeks. Just for the reason why you said it gives the opportunity for someone to have a journal that can have all their ideas on a particular topic with them in their pocket, not necessarily on their phone. And you, as well as I do, we both know that writing something down ingrains it a little bit deeper than just listening it or watching it or listening to it again. If you write it down, it becomes a little bit more stickier. So I definitely appreciate you that you added that at the end of your messaging.

What’s interesting is my bullet journal here, and I don’t have a I tried so many different planners. I went out and bought a Moleskine notebook. Okay? The reason why is because every planner, no offense to you, every plan I tried, you’re using SA’s Planner or SA’s journal. And so it’s got all the scripted stuff in there. This I can take the best of every planner and journal ever seen and make it mine. And I use archival ink, fade proof waterproof archival drink. So if we had a flood in Houston and this got saturated, I’d still be able to read every page. So if you’re going to do a journal, go on and spend a couple of extra dollars. Go get a waterproof fade proof archival pen. That way, if you spill something on it you haven’t lost and we’ve all been there. Remember the old felt tip pens? You drop something on, it would all blend away. You don’t want that to happen. Everything is with this. I protect this when I take it everywhere I go to church, everywhere I take all my notes near. When I did Tony Robbins training a couple of months ago that goes in here. All my coaching notes. I’m a client of a coach. Their notes go in here. So I have one place for everything. A lot of people have one notebook for church and one notebook book for their clients and one note for their training. And then you’re like, OK, where’s my notebook? I got to start the training. Just keep everything in one spot. That’s what I do. That’s my system.

Nice. Nice. So how can people find you online? Like, what’s your website, podcast, social media handles? I know you’re a big Linkedin guy. Like give people information on how to get in contact with you.

The easiest thing to do is go to Mark Stachowski.com. But because people are going to go, what? What did you say? One of my goals, by the way, my long term goal is to not need Mr.Productivity.com anymore, which will magically take you to Mark Stachowski.com is I hope someday people can just go to Markstuchesky.com. That would be so awesome. But right now, most of my traffic comes to Mr.Productivity.com, mister Mrproductivity.com. And something I’m really excited about right now that I started doing is I noticed that people were not signing up for my email list. People are inundated with emails and when I send an email out, I may get 15% to 20% open rates because they’re getting fatigued with emails. So I started seeing people doing broadcast messages on Telegram Messenger. And I’m like, again, it goes back to we said trying new things. I’m like, huh, I wonder if I could create well, I could, if I create a channel on Telegram and you can look it up. Go look at the if you’re on Telegram to search for Mr.Productivity. If you haven’t downloaded Telegram, it’s a free app. And what it is, I send out bite size messages once or twice a day. And they’re smaller than email and it goes right to your phone. So that’s something I’m brand new. Just starting out now. I want to try to find a way to give value to people. But like I said, I know people are tired of getting emails. They sign up to get emails with the best of intentions. But the problem is, and I’m the same way you sign up for emails. Like when I get this email and you don’t unsubscribe, you get to your email and you get really irritated. So I’m trying to find a way to serve people by doing this.

Nice. Definitely nice. So going into like the bonus route, some fun bonus questions. If you could be a superhero, who would it be and why superhero?

You know, one superhero I always like is Iron Man. And I think this is going to sound really silly, is when you watch him and the helmet comes up and it shuts over his face and his eyes come on. I think that is the coolest thing. He has all these weapons and you can fly and stuff like that. But that helmet and then by the time Iron Man three, he didn’t even need the suitcase. It’s just like it was in his shoe. I think it’s so cool if you’re someplace and someone goes, hey, I need you next town over, you just like, push the button in your shoe and also your Iron Man flying to the next town. I think it would be pretty cool.

Nice.

So cool. Good answer.

Iron man is like he’s a golden guy. I mean, yeah, he carried the entire franchise in like, the past ten years as well. So definitely. So what is your most significant achievement to date outside of like, family and friends?

Well, that’s most well, hitting 800 episodes of the podcast is pretty significant. I never forget the day when I hit 1000 days in a row of running. Now I’m at over 1344. But there’s something magical about hitting J number 1000 for running. I can’t believe that if everything goes well, sometime in the beginning of November, I’ll hit episode 1000 for the podcast. There’s just something very magical about that 1000 numbers. So I will tell you this. I will not have a guest episode for episode 1000. I will do a solo episode and I will just like, probably just have a party on the episode. Because you’re only going to hit 1000 once.

Yeah, I mean, going back to the general podcast, I mean, landmark episodes in general, like 5100, 250, maybe 500, and you’re aiming towards 1000. And think about it. Like, podcasting has been around forever, essentially as a form of radio. But when we started tracking podcasting, it’s fairly new. So it’s a hit. 1000 is a major, major landmark. So I’m looking forward to hearing, like, what you’re going to say on that particular episode later on this year for sure. So going into the last bonus question, if you could spend 24 hours with anyone, dead or alive, uninterrupted for those 24 hours, who would it be and why?

There are so many people. But one thing that comes to mind is probably Napoleon Hill. Because when he wrote the book Think and Growth now he released the book in 1937. He didn’t start writing the book in 1937. He spent 20 years going around talking to all these very successful people, okay. And he couldn’t send them texts. He couldn’t send an emails or Facebook messenger. And there were planes back then, but he actually took trains back then. And I would love to just sit with him and say, what was it like to talk to Andrew Carnegie and Ford. We look back at these people now and how successful they are. He’s got to sit with these people. He’s got to sit at the feet of Carnegie. It would be incredible. I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff he learned not in any of these books, because 20 years, a lot of material he just put the the best of best in these books. But I would have to say Napoleon Hill.

Definitely. Well, I mean, so going into closing of the podcast, and I think we kind of flipping the microphones and move things around, but on today’s particular episode, I want to give you an opportunity to ask any questions that may have come up while I was interviewing you?

Well, not because of what you interviewed me. I’m going to turn that question back to you. Who would you want to sit down and have 24 hours with?

So originally when I was asked that question, I had said Einstein for multiple different reasons. But thinking about in today’s world, I would want to sit down with Elon Musk because thinking about, like you said earlier in this particular podcast was like his insight and ingenuity to be such a forward thinker so many times over. He didn’t do it once, he didn’t do it twice. He’s on a roll to keep on continuing to do this, to understand his thought process, because right now, whatever we see him delivering, it’s pretty much in the shadows of his mind. And what that really means is that he’s probably 30 years ahead of us right now. He’s probably developing something that he’s going to bring to market 5, 10, 15 years from now that he’s thinking about today, that nobody has an idea that he’s creating right now. So I was like, how do you create such a forward thinking state of mind considering that the world is living in the now?

That was my second choice be Elon Musk. I mean, this guy came from South Africa, and now he’s one of the richest people in the world. And for him, it’s not about the money. It’s not about the money. He is so forward thinking. I have a problem with him wanting to colonize Mars along with Jeff Bezos. I’m like, let’s get this planet right first, because if you go to Mars with humans, you’re going to have the same problems. So if we can’t get along on Earth, what makes you think you’re going to get along on the planet? I’m just saying.

Yeah. Another point to that is, again, they’re so forward thinking. They may have insight that we can’t even understand or begin to comprehend because it hasn’t been illustrated to us yet. So it’s kind of like, why are they still held in on moving to Mars? And again, it’s crazy to be able to sit down with him for 24 hours and just to comprehend his train of thought would be amazing.

Yes, I agree, though. I wish that Tesla they sent to Mars, they just would have given it to me. I mean, no one’s going to drive it there. You could have given me the Tesla, Elon. You could have sent it to my house. I would have driven it.

But think about the marketing, right? Look at the marketing outlash that he got from delivering a damn Tesla to another planet. You can’t beat them. How many manufacturers have delivered a product to another planet?

Very true.

Well, I mean, I definitely appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to come on the show. I think you delivered lots and lots and lots. I’d say hell of value to our listener and listeners. Right.

Well, I want to thank you for having me on the show. Thank you again for being on the Mark Stachowski podcast. I really appreciate you man.

Appreciate it, man. S.A Grant over and out. Thanks for tuning into another episode of Boss Uncaged. I hope you got some helpful insight and clarity to the diverse approach on your journey to becoming an Uncaged trailblazer. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review and share the podcast. If this podcast has helped you or you have any additional questions, reach out and let me know. Email me at ask@sagrant.com or drop me your thoughts via call or text at 762233boss. That’s 762-233-2677. I would love to hear from you. Remember to become a Boss Uncaged, you have to release your inner beast. S.A Grant Signing off.

Listeners of Boss Uncaged are invited to download a free copy of our host SA Grants Insightful Ebook “Become an Uncaged Trailblazer”. Learn how to release your primal success in 15 minutes a day. Download now at www.bossuncaged.com or /freebook.