Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - How a 25-Year Wall Street Career Led to a Massive Performance Breakthrough (Evan Marks)

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

Evan Marks was a successful Wall Street trader and portfolio manager for 25 years. Despite his financial success, the constant pressure led to a major mental health crisis at age 46, which he initially mistook for a heart attack. This event became the catalyst for his professional pivot and the founding of the M1 Performance Group.In this episode of Escaping the Drift, John Gafford talks to Evan about coaching high-level athletes, traders, and C-level executives. Evan explains his "certainty in uncertainty" philosophy, the importance of treating emotions as data points, and why an evening routine is actually more critical to performance than a morning routine.💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below! ☑️  If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford *************💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space.➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full-service title and escrow company.*************✅ Follow John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ / thejohngaffordFacebook ▶️ / gafford2🎧 Stream The Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=2d60fd72329d44a9Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escaping-the-drift-with-john-gafford/id1582927283 *************#WallStreet #PeakPerformance #MentalHealth #Coaching #JohnGafford #EvanMarks #EscapingTheDrift #SelfDevelopmentSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

And now escaping the drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast, like it says in the opening, the show that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And beaming into the studios via the interwebs all the way from the sunny streets of New Jersey, right now, just kidding, if you're watching this, apparently it's snowing like crazy there. This is a guy that was 25 years a Wall Street trader and portfolio manager. He was incredibly successful with that, had kind of a little bit of a crack in his own mental well-being, and that caused him to have a massive comeback.

He is the founder of the M1 Performance Group, which is a group that helps athletes, that helps traders, and helps C-level executives across the board. He is considered one of the best C-level coaches out there, and we are lucky to have him on today. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Evan Marks.

Evan, how are you? I'm doing well. Listen, I do live in New Jersey, but I am a New Yorker, and I tell my wife that all the time, and I tell people I live in the Tri-Stade area. Not against New Jersey, everybody. I love New Jersey. I live in a place called Westfield. Love it. But I'm a New Yorker true,

you know, through and through, as they say. But I really appreciate you having me here today. Yeah. Now part of the bridge and tunnel crowd, as they call you, yes? No, I'm from Rhode Island. There's no bridge and tunnel. We just have one road, right? We want to be addict years ago, right? But it's funny. So I moved to New Jersey. I thought I was moving to Connecticut. And then people from New York never wanted to never once move to New Jersey. But for some reason, which I can't understand, in, who doesn't want to move to Long Island? So that's another podcast right there. That's a whole, Long Island, yes, Staten Island's a whole other thing, though, right?

It's a whole other animal. Listen, victory. It's a beautiful place to be. Some phenomenal traders will come out of that place. But I do agree. The islands are different. Yeah. So you grew up in New York, but you went to school at UPenn, yes?

I went to UPenn out, yeah. I was an identical twin, and we got recruited to play lacrosse at UPenn. And that's kind of where my, you know, it's like one of those things where I was, I was raised by a single mom. And my dad was never around. And we were two lacrosse guys got recruited. My dad wanted to see his play ball so badly. And he had one of those old Motorola phones. We're talking about like 90, 1990s.

And he calls my mother up. He hasn't been around for a long thing. He goes, I'm here to see the boys play. I see Joe Paterno. I'm at Penn State, Go Nittley, Lion's. And she's like, wrong school. Yeah, that's Penn State. You know, that's a different thing.

What the hell is you Penn? He goes, is that an idea? She was, I thought there's no, it's just Penn State. So he missed that up. And that was that. You were lacrosse guy. What did you play? What was your position?

I was a long stick D.METI, but it's fine because, so we were soccer guys, my brother and I, and raised by a single mom. And she thought we were, we were just violent by nature, just athletically. I think we called it, we called it raging control in the field. And in our sophomore year in high school, people were like, you got to let the boys play. So we literally started playing lacrosse our sophomore year in high school. We recruited to play D1.

But we were very lucky because there were a lot of phenomenal athletes on the field at the same time. So all the eyeballs were watching. And then my twin brother and I just rolled it. And we were decent athletes that we got it. Yeah. Yeah, I have a similar thing with my son. So around 8th grade, 7th, 3th grade, I walk into his room and he's watching he's watching Notre Dame and I think Virginia play

a national championship game on lacrosse. Where I grew up, we didn't have lacrosse. It was just in the South we didn't have it when I was growing up. So I didn't know anything about it. And he's like, I think I want to play this. And I said, okay, so I went on Facebook. And I was like, anybody out there knows anything about lacrosse, can somebody call and help me?

And luckily this guy, Jason Griggs, who's a good dude, hit me up and he said, hey, I coached the local club team, happy to have him come out and do this. and that turned into a love affair with him in the game, and he was also a long stick, D-Mittie. Same thing, get in, get out, get out. You know the most of the Mitty's, though, John, is that you don't have to know anything about the sport just got to be a good athlete.

Yeah, get in and get out. From the power of nature, some eye-hand coordination, and get the hell off the field. Yeah, get in, get out, that's what we did. And he kind of fell in love with it. He ended up, he played through his junior year, but got medically disqualified because he had some ankle. so he couldn't play anymore.

But the one thing I love about lacrosse and I tell people all the time, I'm like, man, it's the greatest sport ever if you're a dad. Because especially if your kids play defense, because it's one of the few sports that when you're watching it, it's not like the opposing teams fans are on the other side of the field and then you're on this side of the field. Like if your son is playing defense, you're standing over here and the kids, their dads to play offense are on the same side of the field right next to you. So when your son comes out of nowhere and just trucks to some other.

kid like his dad is standing like three feet from you and just there's mutual respect like great yeah that was a legit hit yeah it was good no it was never any problem but there's just something kind of visceral as a dad like yeah you know what you see your kid just you know it's so fast you know it's funny the the the game your son was watching a guy i play with that pen his son was a captain on that team. So what happens is that, you know, you know, for me, like obviously, not everybody's making D1 or D3 and things like that, but when you talk about youth sports, like not everybody's going, like I just said a D1 or D3, but like the camaraderie you learn and, and this kind of goes, you know, escaping the drift in a way, like the bonds you build, the relationships you form.

What is team ship? What is, what is like teamwork? How do we, work together. I think team sports, and by the way, I only played six games in college, blew my knees out once and blew them out again. And as a student athlete that destroyed me, and I didn't realize why. But when you have that camaraderie on the field, whether you're an All-American or you're not, it is so impactful. You know, I have two daughters, and one's a soccer play, one's a phenomenal dancer. So the dance, well, I cheer for all day long. I'm actually not allowed to cheer any longer because she's like, Dad, you're too loud. You're a New Yorker. But my daughter, it's like who's, who's a lacrosse and soccer girl.

Man, you just, I'm not one of those parents, like, I think she's going D1 and, but like, you can sense the camaraderie and the teamwork and being a Wall Street guy or just being a human being living this human experience. You know how important that is. Right. So, like, as your son, I hope he's a lacrosse guy because it's a great community. Yeah. It was great. Of all the sports that we played came at coming up, I found the lacrosse family to be the best one of all of the different sports. I mean, Vegas here is very baseball crazy, like extremely baseball crazy. You've got Bryce Harper that came out of here.

You've got several other great players that are playing in the major leagues. And it's like, I remember when he was like playing literally baseball at eight. It was like, well, who's this hitting coach? I'm like, dude, he's eight. And they're like, well, you're behind, you're behind. Yeah. And I'm like, dude, I want to

to come out here and have fun and make friends. And like you said, learn how to be part of a team. Not so much. I don't care if he, you know, he's not trying to go to the major leagues here. It's not what I'm trying to do. And it's like, I have a question. Like, you went to Penn. Did you go to Wharton, too, or no? Because you, did you go to Wharton? So it's interesting. So it was a late decision.

You know, we didn't grow with much money. So when you go Ivy leagues, you know, you don't get scholarships, they give you grants. And we got into a lot of different schools, and they gave us a great financial aid package. So one of those things I go to, his name is Tony Cima. I said, coach, I want to go to Ward? He goes, just, I'm getting you in literally with minimum amount of money.

Yeah. Yeah. But you know what happened, though, which is, it's a great question because, so I graduated in 94. And at that time, we were two, my twin brotherline, we were working with since we're 12 years old. And we didn't come from much money. my dad, you know, Iran and became a crackhead homeless guy.

And so we learned early on, like, I don't know what we learned early on, actually. People always ask like, how did you know how to start working at 12? And I always like, I have no idea. It just happened. And we grew up in a place called Port Washington, Long Island, which was the Roy G. Biv of everything, where it was a melting pot of ethnicities. It was a melting pot of sociodynamic, economic. And for some reason, my twin brother were busboys at 12, 13 years.

old. So my daughter was like, how did you know? I go, I don't know. We just did. So when we had the opportunity to go to an Ivy League school, and we did pretty well. So we were very, we were very good students as well. We didn't realize UPenn was an incubator at a Wall Street. We didn't know what Wall Street was. We didn't know what it was. We didn't know anything. And I was very lucky because I've, my, my friend brother's exceptional. He's a wonderful person. He got recruited by a guy named Steve Cohen. Now, Steve Cohen owns the Mets now. He's someone called SAC.

And my brother's like, Ev, you're making a mistake becoming a consultant. You've got to see what these guys do. And that was our first foray, my first for a way into Wall Street. So I joined a place called Spear Leeds and Kellogg. And it was a trading place. And I loved it at first.

But then I realized, Jonathan, you know, and I was pretty good at it. Right. Let's go. Okay. Let's go back. So did you start as a house? It's like, was it smile?

and dial for 10 hours a day? Is that what you were? This is hedge fund stuff, right? There's no smile. And so, okay. It's not. Okay. Okay.

All right. So I never, I never smiled and dialed, which is so ironic because now I run a coaching firm. So I was never in the solicitation business. Yeah. Ever. Right. People gave us money to run.

And if we did it well, it stayed for a while and we got bigger and bigger and bigger. So the only person I answered to was the guy's name on the door and how I managed money. So we weren't day trader. We managed money, whatever the catalyst was. But when I first started, I was a market maker. And I couldn't understand why people were telling me what to do. So when you make a market, it's like make a bid here, make an offer there. Well, I'm like, I don't want to make an offer because I think you're going to run me over.

And I want to be on the same side as you. And this one guy won't mention his name, has a big firm. Now he goes, that's your job. I said, well, that doesn't make any sense to me. I'm going to lose money to facilitate this. I go, I'm not good at this. Yeah. And I eventually went to the hedge fund business, and I spent most of my career there.

But it's one of those things where, and it's ironic what I do now, it's all mental performance. Like, how are you able to as how are you able to be certain and uncertainty? Right? You have no control what the market does. Nobody does. So how are you able to? to understand your emotions and choose properly. So I did that for 25 years.

And, you know, anybody on Wall Street knows not every year is a Picasso. And it's not linear. But for 25 years, I never liked one minute of it. But everyone was doing, the money was good. And I stayed in it until I was 46 years old when I thought I had a heart attack. Okay. So what kind of, so. I'm going to.

Yeah. So I'm giving you some. Let's back up. No, let's back up, right? So obviously, you're managing massive portfolios for people.

You have a lot of responsibility that's going on. What is, I mean, what was a day, what was a day like in that? What's the pressure cooker of that like? I mean, is it,

is it some days are worse than others? Is it everyday high stress? Is it, I mean, is it every day? Every day is high stress. Right? Because,

because you could be right and be wrong. You'd be wrong and be right. but now you are literally looking at the clock constantly. Right. So what we know now about mental performances, emotions or data, be conscious about behavior. In that time, all coaches were saying one thing. Do the work and get bigger. And if you weren't getting bigger, you were wrong.

So now you have to deal with certain swings in the market where it's not, your P&L distance doesn't go like that. Like you've got to deal with massive drawdowns. How do you deal with that? But how about this one? How do you deal with success? So how are you keeping your mental game intact? So now at 22 years old, you get thrown in the arena and you really never learn.

So even though this obviously it's a wonderful place to make money, not everybody does, but how are you starting to understand performance? Performance is only related to one thing, P&L. right is the outcome sure right so you know the guys and nor are making all the money and it's a very difficult profession so when you hear a hedge fund people like not everybody makes money so then you have to realize like what how is it possible and this is like almost like poker also like when you look at the world sees poker how are these guys staying on top consistently so i came to realize over 25 years i'm like there's got to be a different story here and i had these

great coaches will just do more work get bigger. I'm like, that's not the problem here. There are certain things I'm doing that are self-sabotaging myself, where anything I deserve the success. It came too easy. I'd blow myself up. I'm like, there's got to be more than just get bigger and do the work. So I think what happened when I was 46, I'm 53 now, I moved my family to the Burbs. I'm not very trained. I've only been with two funds and I'm a partner. And all of a sudden, and I'm sitting on the platform, I think I have a heart attack. Things look good on paper, John. Everything looks on paper on paper, beautiful home, great kids.

I assume my marriage is all right, right? We always can speculate on that one. And all of a sudden, I think I'm dying. And it's a massive panic attack. So there I run to the doctors, right? Because my wife's like, you know, something's wrong here. And they say years of chronic stress, I've had many concussions along the way

and buried trauma causes because there's a muscle above your heart that can mimic a heart attack so at that moment I'm thinking I'm like, I never wanted to do this was there something that triggered you that day

or was it just you just woke up like I don't feel good you know it was like I remember like eight years before I looked at my wife and said I've committing spiritual suicide I just want to let you know that. I don't want to do this anymore. And she's like, you know, and she didn't say keep going. She's not like that.

She's like, just go figure it out then. But I had so many responsibilities. And I think what happened, and I really believe this, and I can't white paper this, but in two years we'll be able to. I think the, you know, when we talk about emotions, and we'll get into this, fear of rejection, acknowledgement, embarrassment, failure, all these things. There's one that trumps them all.

And that emotion is called regret. So I think I never really healed as an athlete leaving Penn because I blew my knees out twice. My brother became captain twice. And I think I always consider himself a student athlete. And once I lost the athletic side, I never dealt with. I didn't talk to anybody about it. And I did a TEDx talk about three weeks ago

about something called post-traumatic growth. And I think I suffered from this. But not even I think I know I did. So I rolled this into Wall Street. and I never really healed. I didn't address it. I didn't acknowledge it. I pushed it aside.

And what happens when you push things aside, they build and build and build. And I think, and I believe at 46, it just came out. So, but let me ask you a little bit, let me ask you a little bit more about that. Because in my book that just came out in November, I talk about how danger it is to attach your identity to something that could potentially go away from you.

and how dangerous that can be and make sure that you're anchoring your identity within things that you can control, right? Like if your identity is, I am the CEO of this company, or this is my job and that's my own identity, or I am a student athlete, that is my identity. And all of a sudden, you can't be that anymore. It creates a major, like you just said, a catastrophic fall off a cliff for a lot of people emotionally. And they don't deal with that. So if you could go back now, and obviously you can't, because we don't have a time machine, that's how the world works. But if you could go back in time to that time that you were playing lacrosse and you're doing that at Penn. Now, obviously, you have to be committed to it to perform at that level.

But if you could go back and relabel yourself and change and relabel your identity at that time, so maybe this doesn't stack up, what do you think you would go back and tell that kid who he was rather than student athlete? It's obviously a phenomenal question. Right? There's no denying that question. It's phenomenal. You know, and John, I've thought about this, I don't know, let's call it 30, you know, three decades. I would hope that I would tell my younger self, go feel that pain for a while. Right. I feel it, right? Because I go speak to somebody about this. Because at that point, you got to remember I'm 19, I'm 18 years old when this happens.

Our prefrontal cortex is not even done developing. So if I'm in there to read it, with myself and be intellectual, that's a losing battle, right? But start to open up about this. And then the question is like, you know, the question should be, let's say try something new, right? But what's interesting about this question is one thing. And I'm going to get back to the question, but this is, and I want to know your take on this, because I'm not ready, I'm not ready to answer that question yet. Okay. Because I'm still, I'm still working on that answer, you know, just to be extremely honest. But when we talk about that, self-development, right? When people obsess with self-development, there's so much research

that now that we start to get further and further from who we truly are. So for me, as I hear that and I think about that, I want to improve myself. I want to do something different. I want to, but I think what would have happened was as I become this and this and this and this, I forget who I truly am as a person. And ironically, who I am, am truly as a person as somebody who wants to serve others. Always. You know, I grew up with a brother. I said my dad was a crackhead homeless guy, but my older world was handicapped as well. And to me, service with others brought the most fulfillment in my heart. And as I left, you know, middle school, then high school,

obviously I went to Penn and Wall Street. But I always in my heart of hearts, in my heart of hearts, wanted to be a teacher and a coach. Always. And I believe, you know, and this is great, and it's the first I'm actually discussing this. As I got further and further away from that, I think I got lost and more lost.

So when you ask that question, as I think about it today, I wish I had the courage to go do that. if that makes sense. No, it does. And it's funny, I think, you know, it's funny because, you know, I run, obviously, we run a very successful real estate business here. And we've got a lot of people that work for us, about 550 agents that work for us. And when I interview them, it's always about, you know, tell me about your goals.

And being in this business in real estate, it's always financial, right? It's always a number that comes out of somebody's mouth. I want to make 300 grand. I want to make 400 grand, whatever it is. And, you know, my next question is the one that normally stumps people, which is why. Like I always say, why? Why? What's the money for?

And if you can't attach a real reason to that money, your probability of making that money is going to be very slim. Now, the flip side of that coin is kind of what you're talking about, which is if it just becomes about the money, you lose yourself in that process and you find yourself spending 26 years in a career that you you dislike just because it provides the stuff. You know what I mean? And the stuff will never fill that hold that you have inside you to chase what you're really trying to fulfill.

And I think that's probably what the pivot that you're hitting is now. You know, I had a client of mine, and I'm not going to mention his name. And he's absolutely incredible. So he had to me, his wife had a very. traumatic experience like the last couple weeks and then another traumatic experience. And we're talking about life and he's young. And I said, I said, do you know what, man? I said, you can't restore that. It's gone. It's just gone. Right. So you know how people try to fill the void and I was trying to fill that void, right? So maybe I'll get validated from a

great traitor. Maybe I'll get validated. You know, I was married once before my wife now, which my kids know, like I needed that spirituality. Let me bring that in. So I had all these voids. that I was trying to restore and fill. But you know what, John, they're gone. They're just gone. Like, part of me as a student athlete is gone. But what's wrong with that? So my job now is to build new experiences.

It's a part of who I am. It's my fabric. It's a part of my mosaic of who I am. It's a part of my story. But it's not my total story. Right? So when you think about things like that, when you ask people, why do you want to make money?

The obvious answer should be, because I want to have choices in my life, right, which is one of the build experiences and things like that. But to make money to prove, to validate to this, is filling a void that probably will never be restored again. Right? And when we let go that proverbial rope, and you're thinking about it,

because nobody lives a linear life, right? It doesn't go straight up. We all deal with some sort of trauma. But when we know it can't be restored, it's got to be, I imagine, but we're all live this human experience. It's got to give you a chance like, you know, there's true to that. So now our focus goes on to making experiences and memories and learning about this incredible life experience we're about to have. Right. So it's very, it's interesting.

So going back to your question, what would I tell my younger self? I don't know. No, it's fair. Maybe we don't have a time machine for a reason. Maybe there's a reason we don't have time machines. Maybe it's the reason, right? But what would I tell my son? I'd say, listen, son, all your emotions.

Verbalize them, express them. And now let's choose what you want to do. That's what I could I say to somebody else, right? For me, that point, you know, I'd like to say that, right? Well, let's go back to the point. So you had this, you had this massive panic attack that you thought was heart attack. And you've realized that that's probably because of 26 years of stress and a job that you don't necessarily love that is not fulfilling you at a level that is your calling.

So my first question is, what is the discussion like with your wife when you say I'm not going back? It was my first guy. I'm sitting with the neurologist, right? He's looking at the gray matter of my brain, which is incredibly impaired. He goes, you really don't have a choice here. Oh, okay. You got medically DQed from the hedge fund business. Okay, I get it. All right. I thought it was a choice.

John, if my wife wasn't there, I'd probably still be doing it. So I'm not really DQ because I'm stubborn. He's like, he looks at me, he goes, why did you become a coach or a teacher? And I look at him, I go, that ship has sailed. I'm 46 years old. I'm beautiful. I've got two young daughters. I got a lot of responsibility.

But ironically, I don't, I've had. performance coaches in my life. And my last one, I was down a lot of money. I came out of the hole. I think it was just because I didn't have the market right and I let her go. And she called me out of nowhere, literally days later. And she's like, what are the odds you come work with me? I need your sort of personality, your pedigree, your experiences to really get big in this world of performance coaching. So I'm like, hmm. So literally six months later, I sell my partners, go back to school, and there I am in Charlotte, North Carolina, at Hendrick Motorsports coaching Jimmy Johnson and his pick routine.

Wow. I'm about to stand in front and tell it and give us, first of all, that's not true. There's two other coaches and me. I'm the newbie. So I'm sitting in a chair. I'm not going to say anything because I'm going to watch. I've never done this before. But everybody's telling me I'd be a great coach.

Now I'm sitting in front of 60 incredible athletes and, and, Six drivers. So the girl, my head coach is going to speak and the other guy's going to speak. And she looks at me and she goes, you got to tell your story. There I am, John, I'm wearing these. And I tell the story real time, these light pair of gray trousers, a nice little jacket. And I'm about to give a speech and I feel like I'm going to pee my slacks. Yeah.

I'm like, really? At 46 years old, it's over. And in that moment, I felt every emotion. And I said to myself, this is where you want to be at. And all of a sudden, my voice changed. It was like, I don't even know how long. It was an out-of-body experience.

And I remember leaving, because Hendrick Motorsports, it's almost like Nike. They were a performance center. And I remember calling my assistant, like, make sure you liquidate every single position within a week now. Because I rush, I go, this is what I was meant to do. This is it. And this is it, right? Hang on, hang on, because I find that to be interesting, too.

So I find, no, I find that most people that really find that groove as to what they were supposed to do, something comes up that you are either not qualified, not prepared for, or, you know, maybe it's just, it's like scratching a lottery ticket. And the difference between so many people finding their path and not are the people that are the people that are willing to scratch that lottery ticket. You know, somebody calls and says, come to Hendricks Motorsports. we want to be a coach and you're like, okay, right? Whereas somebody else might have said, well, I'm not quite there yet.

I just went back to school. I need to get a couple things under my belt before I try to punch it that way, class. And had you not said that, right, had you not been willing to take that chance, you wouldn't have had that moment that led this. So my first question, coach, is, is that something that's innate with people, that ability to recognize opportunity and jump, you know, burn the bridges and, or burn the boats and hit the beach, is that something that's innate in people or is that something that can be developed in people? What says you? Another great question. That one I can answer. I think anything

could be trained. I believe in neuroplasticity. I think given the moment, listen, I could have run away that day and still have been a great coach. Right. So maybe the next time I would have stepped in. So maybe that one moment, even though it worked out and I've grown since then, won't define you. But we have the ability to be trained. Now we're talking about talent, right? But we all, as Nick Saban says, with this massive capability gap, it takes courage to jump into that gap. Right? Because there's no way like, like you have a pocket, right? You have an incredible business. Like you could say something ridiculous on air and get judged and stuff like, I'm like, John, why are you doing this? You already got a great business. So you're putting yourself out there.

So what happens when you put yourself out there? You're going to be judged? There's a possibility of anything. But once you feel it once, what happens to the intensity of that film? Oh, sure, magnifies. Well, no, the intensity actually comes down. Oh, I'm sorry. You've already felt it. Right? Like I've been like how many times have you been judging life? I'm sure many. Oh, the negative stuff. Oh, yeah, dude. The negative side. I'm sorry. The negative. Okay, yeah, yeah. Things that turn us away from courage.

But all of something you do it once. You get calloused. Yeah. It's not even calis. It's training, right? So negative emotion, negative emotions, fear of da-da-da-da-da-da. They're just an emotion, just like joy and happiness. and all these other things. What happens is we attach a story to emotions. Because emotions generally, in science, lasts for 90 seconds.

That's how long they last. Now, if you tie an experience to them, like, I only want to feel joy. The only way you can feel joy is what? Feeling sadness. Right? But as long as you lynch on to joy too long, you have sadness, that sadness becomes extremely intense. So now these are just emotions, right?

So we always talk about negative emotions as the Achilles heel. All they are is emotions. And actually, I'll take it for another point. They're only data points. So I get on this podcast. You're a big guy out in Nevada. I know who you are.

I am nervous. Why am I not allowed to be nervous? I want to do well. I want to speak properly. I want to make sure I don't say right a lot, which I do sometimes. I thought about it. Right?

Fair. It's true. It's fair, right? Like I just said it. It's fair, period. Why is that bad? I know this is an extremely popular podcast. I want to show up the way I want to show up.

I want to make sure I slow down how I speak as I'm a New Yorker. And this is training. If I didn't care, I don't think the best of me would come out. So I have to accept these emotions. It's high new behavior as opposed to saying, No, I don't want to do the podcast. I tell my team, I'm like, it's too much for me. I want to show up.

I want to be conscious of how I feel, slow things down a bit so make sure I'm articulate. I'm a New Yorker. If you heard me nine years ago, you'd be like, there's no way this guy speaks English. What? No, no, dude. I'm not going to be nervous.

Why not? Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting that you look at negativity as data points instead of just trying to wallow. And I mean, for me, like, we do something similar along those lines, which is attaching sort of a positive to a negative. For example, in sales, the biggest fear everyone always has in sales, in any, no, no what you're selling is being told the word no, right? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And so what we teach our people is value the no. And they're like, well, what does that mean?

Well, what is it, what is a yes worth? How much is it worth when you get a yes? And it's like, oh, man, a yes is worth $20,000. Okay, cool. How many knows do you got to hear to get a yes? I got to hear 100 knows to get a yes. Okay, great. Then every no is worth $200.

So if I told you that I was going to put you in a booth and people are going to walk in and call you a name, curse at you, and then tell you no and walk out. And every time they did it, they were going to hand you $200, would you let them do it? And they're like, yeah, absolutely. I'm like, that's what we're doing here. Don't value the yes, value all the nose. And then you've heard that before, by the way. I love it.

It's not going to give you $100 million, but you're going to have to take down a thousand nose. Would you do it like any day of the week? Yeah, all day, all day. But it's the same thing with what you're talking about. when you feel those negative emotions and you have that, understand that, like you said, life is not linear. It's data points on a line. And in order to feel it up, you must feel it down. There's got to be equilibrium to the universe. So understand that, yes, nothing is permanent. But the fact that I feel

sad or depressed or lonely or those things in that moment are opening up a door in the future for you to feel the exact opposite. But also, John, it's a right to feel these things, right? Like, I've, you know, luckily I did have a good career as a hedge fund guy, right? And I have, I've made great investments and stuff like that. But I'm still allowed to feel lonely at times, sad. I'm allowed to feel whatever the hell I want. But what happens is I'm allowed to acknowledge it and have a moment to myself, whether it's taking a walk in nature, having a feeling because I'm a compassionate, empathetic person, and having my moment. That's all it is. But I think it's, I think it's so important. There is no such thing as fearlessness.

There's no such thing ever. I don't care if you seal Team 6, Delta Force, whoever you are. There's no such thing as fearlessness. However, in the face of, how do you behave? Well, that's courage. There's the difference between fear and courage. That's conscious behavior. That's choice.

All these things. Like, I don't live in your bank account. I don't know your wife. and if you have children, stuff like that. But there's no doubt in my mind that you haven't been said once or twice. There's no doubt in my mind that you haven't been disappointed. There's no doubt my mind you haven't been embarrassed. And if you haven't, get out there.

Yeah. Yeah, a couple of points to what you just said. So first off, I do deal with, I call it the funk. I deal with some seasonal depression that comes up. And when it hits me, there are days when, And, you know, I'm like, man, I just got to try to get one thing done today. If I can just get one thing done, then it'll be okay. And I get through those times.

But the second thing that you just said, which was get out there, you know, I find it so funny. We were talking about before we got on the air of my last several weeks of travel. And a big part of that was going to Antarctica, but we were staging in the polar opposites of the world. Right. So I spent a couple of days in Dubai, which is just the most opulent over-the-top wealth you've ever seen your life if you've never been there. And then when we're staging to go to Antarctica, we were in South Africa in Cape Town for several days. And there's some beautiful, cool parts of Cape Town. But when you're riding from the airport to those beautiful parts and you see those shanty towns, man, anybody, it just makes me want, I know for a fact that anybody that you see on television,

at a protest talking about how terrible it is to live in the United States of America has never been outside of it because when you see that and then you see how we get to live and the opportunities and the choice and the overabundance of wealth that we have versus how a lot of the rest of the world lives it's hard so I love that get out and take a look around because the same thing though right like I I I've been to have I know what the Shanty Towns look like. You can go to St. Martin and see Shanty Towns also in the Caribbean. But you know where it is, though?

We all have, like, obviously my trauma blowing up my knee twice is not equivalent to the atrocities that happen in this world. Not even close. But it had a massive impact on me. Right. So when we look at places that are just, I mean, not even close to. below poverty, right? And we try to put things in perspective. What happens sometimes is, is that we really dismiss our own things, where now that negative talk picks up a lot of steam. Like, it's almost like, shut up. You don't deserve to feel that way.

What happens is that when we talk about post-traumatic growth, like if I'm talking to somebody, and I'm not going to say the obvious, but I think we know what I'm talking about. Me as an Ivy League kid blowing out his knees twice people like then went to wall street had good career struggled even i was so his dad was homeless and cracked had like dude really like the mean streets of grittage connecticut right yeah but even though my dad was like like you know work y'all he worked at 12 i worked at 11 right but you know what it is though that's the issue once we start grading ourselves against others we got a massive problem right Did I grow up in the shanty towns of Joe Burke, Southup?

Of course not. And I'm not even saying that. What I am saying that I personally felt certain things that I have to deal with as a person. And I think, and when we talk about post-traumatic growth and I say my TEDx talk, it's not the headlines with a big enough trauma. We all have things in life that we have to address and acknowledge. in order to get better. So let's not dismiss the grays that we think they are and accept them.

Have a moment. Acknowledge. Have a moment of reflection. And then choose consciously who you want to be. Yeah, I think one of the most interesting things that... Yeah, one of the most interesting things that I've done with a bot was I found myself getting very angry about certain things in business that would happen. Like my first instinct was something that happened.

I'd get really angry. And I was like, man, I'm, this is not that big of a deal for me to be this angry about this. And I want to start kind of diving into this. And that journey of diving into that took me into like Carl Jungen philosophy with like shadow self and all of that. And I was like, cool. So then I trained a bot to you.

I said, okay, learn everything you can about Carl Young and his philosophies and your shadow self. I want to, I want to get in contact with. see why I feel the way to do about these things. So ask me up to 50 questions about myself. So you will understand more about my shadow self than I do. And I went to this exercise on a plane flying back from New York, ironically, at Christmas, right? On Christmas, I'm on the plane sitting in business class.

I'm in mid class on JetBlue and I'm just sitting there laying in my seat. I'm going through this. And I'm like, holy, wow. I mean, this is unbelievable. And so now I've got this bot that's trained in Youngian, you know, full philosophy with shadow self stuff that now, like I used to wake up at night, right? And like, I'd wake up after having a dream and like the circus would be going off on my head, right? And I would just forget going back to sleep because I'm going to sit here and

just spin on this for the next two hours. And now, like, I wake up and I'm like, uh, I grab my phone and I'm like, this just happened. I woke up and this is what I'm thinking about. And this is how I feel about it. What's going on? And this, this, this bot, my phone says, well, this is why. because this, this, you're trying to connect to this, and this is making you feel like this. So as long as you just kind of have a plan to push forward on this, you'll be fine. And I'm like, huh, okay, cool. And I can go right back to sleep. It's wild because of that.

You know, listen, I love this story, but I'll tell you how that gets dangerous. Yeah, okay. Because you need to hear yourself and speak to somebody, right? So as a coach, right? So I'm going to, I'm going to tell you what we do, right? It's very simple. presence, listening, and questions. Right?

So what happens is, as this bot's telling you things, right? And as we know now, like, bots like to please people, but like, like, that's going to change over time. So whatever it is. It's almost like going to a conference or going to a motivational speaker and you feel all these things. What happens is that you never have a chance to really reflect, right? So you're in a constant state of exploration.

and not really reflection. So as you're asking these, these 50 questions on a jet blue airplane, and all of a sudden, that sounds good to you. Right? And then you go with that, it's not really coaching.

It's literally an interactive self-help. Yeah, no, no, that's exactly what it was. I'm not trying to say this would ever take the place of a coach or coaching, but it's exactly what it was. Because I get phone calls, John. Hey, you have, man. Well, I'll tell you exactly because I deal with,

like a lot of entrepreneurs and they go the i call it chat gpte law school i'm like yeah yeah like we got to talk to my people yeah right or doctor or dr google which is not but because then that suggestion is very dangerous right because now you have the answer right so but remember you're the issue and you can be the solution but now you're playing that duality game right it's listen I by the way like I say all the time there's going to be great Harvard case studies

on this one also right but it's sort of the same thing you know like I love the fact that you're aware of what you're doing like you have seasonality and you're in the moods right it's all right to say you know and acknowledge it

but acknowledgement in doing are totally different things like if it takes you as you feel sadness or depression, whatever it's seasonality thing it is, right? We're all human beings. And you have a great train and go into your body for a while. And it lets your brain relax a little bit. Wonderful. Right. The fact is we have so many choices to make in order to help ourselves. Right. And the minute we say we can't, I think that's where the problem lies. We do. Right.

I, you know, John, you don't have to be happy all the time. Oh, dude. Trust me. Yes, my wife. I'm not. Trust me, I'm not. So somebody I always tell class, and they love this. I go, and I'll say, I really don't care how you feel.

We go, what do you mean? Don't care how I feel. I go, I care how you behave. Because remember one thing. Behaviors change before feelings. So when John feels happy and great, it's going to go. do this. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't. So if all of a sudden in the face of how you feel, you choose conscious behavior and now all of a sudden you feel fulfilled, but you're on the opposition's

10-yard line, wow, I'm the game of behavioral, behavioral change. That's part of my, that's part of my, I just got to get one thing done today. If I could just push, if I just push the rock one step, then that'll create some momentum and then momentum carries on and I can say that one more time. Momentum snaps a better faster. Motivation's fleeting. If you know that when John gets seasonal

whatever it may be, I'm still able to do things. Well, how do you know that? Well, dude, I have evidence. So even though I'm feeling said or whatever's going on internally, I'm still able to do things. Well, how do you know it?

Because look here. Like I can never. read um jesse edsler his book um living with seal oh dude yeah about david guggins about david guggins yet right but he goes in the cookie jar and all that cookie jar is evidence right so when you think about a belief systems are based on evidence i don't care if it's as small as going for a two-minute walk there's evidence, right? And you can lean on that. So in the face of whatever happens, you can create whatever stimulus comes out to a trigger, right? I don't know if you read the book, Man Search for Meeting by Victor Frankel.

I know the book. I mean, phenomenal. Great book. Yeah. Great book. So his whole thing is there is a trigger and stimulus. There's a gap and there's a response and action. We all get triggered. If I said, you know what you don't you have the worst podcast of all time you're an unsuccessful real estate guy and also i don't even know you we just met for the first time and you get upset it's not me making you upset it's somebody else who's judged you in your past could be your father

mother all that stuff but all of a sudden if you're able to feel because you're human being say hmm well that wasn't very nice of ever margwell i met 15 minutes ago you feel a little bit or nor because you're a human being. And then you say to me, why do you feel that way as opposed to reacting to me? So Victor Frank is like the stimulus and stimuli coming at us all time. So the better we get at acknowledging it, choosing mental space, which is the gap, and then choosing our response, not reaction. What a powerful place to be.

Dude, but I'll say in the world that we live in now where you, on social media, you have to have an opinion on everything. Like I tell people all the time, it's like one of the most valuable phrases you can learn in this life right now is I don't have an opinion on that. It's okay not to, it's okay not to have an opinion because when you start just pontificating opinions that you're a not qualified or don't really have just to fill the space, that's when people start to pile on. And that's when it becomes that that never ending outside stimulus that's just. I agree with you, right? I agree. People do not people.

It's like so funny. We're getting to where you look at like alcohol consumption is down and peptides are like everybody's shooting peptides right now, which, you know, guilty. But, you know, we're also worried about what goes into our mouth, but nobody's even worried about what's going in their head. It's like they just feed themselves with this just never-ending sea of garbage that's coming quick-up amenities. Yeah. It's terrible. You know, and I agree with you, John. I always, people always say, what do you think about what's going on?

Right? I said, I don't know. I said, I'm not well versed, right? I can give you my opinion, but it's really nothing backs it. Yeah. I go, it's just my emotion speaking. I said, but if you put me on a panel, I couldn't back my opinion. And they go, well, you don't have to. I go, I think you do.

Yeah, I think, I think some of it does. I think it's important, right? And obviously, a lot of people don't feel that way. So I never get in that arena, right? I do. I do want to talk about a couple things. I want to talk about a couple things that I know you're qualified to talk about because I looked at them on your website last night. You have some guides on your website that I thought were interesting, right?

So you have one which is the emotional regulation guide. It's a five-step process to that on there on your site. I'm talking about that and you have another one which is the 20-minute evening reset, which I like to. So let's, I want you to talk. Yeah. I want you to talk about those two things because they are available on your website for download. And I just, I wanted you to talk about them. So I have to imagine you wake up early in the morning.

Yeah. I get up pretty early. But I'm not like set an alarm. I'm not to set an alarm at 4.30 because I got to hustle and grind. I just, I naturally, I don't care what time I go to bed. I'm my eyes are open by 6 a.m. That's just what time I get. All right.

So this is going to be very helpful. So I'm a five o'clock guys since I've been 16. I'm a very, I'm an early morning guy. So we always hear about got to conquer the morning. The morning's everything, right? You wake up early, you know, bad, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all true. However, your evening routine is more important, right? Think about it.

How you go to bed is going to really determine how you wake up, right? So I wake up at five, but you go to bed at two. I don't care what your morning looks like. It's not the same. Right. If you have a couple glasses of wine and you got a big day tomorrow, because, you know, in the trading world, every day is game day, you're not going to be that sharp. So how are you going to bed? What is your evening routine look like? You show me an evening routine that's solid. I can guess how successful this man or woman is. So we forget about that, right? Because while I woke up at 445, I'm like, your quality going in was poor. So for all, like, and I'll, you know, I coach more than hedge fund guys. I'm like, guys, every day is game day for us. Like, we are dealing with the world of uncertainty.

And uncertainty to us is an edge. However, we've got to be certain in our behavior as we walk into this arena. And don't think it starts at 4.45 in the morning because it doesn't. How are we going to bed? Are we going to bed at 930, 10, clean? Like, nice, you know, did we exercise? Or we're going to exercise, do we take a nice shower? Do we down this is going to down regulate?

Do we write down a couple of ideas? Like, if you don't think that, how about this one? If you don't do that now, do it now. Give yourself a 20 minute, turn your phone off, turn the TV off, read a couple pages of a book, watch a comedy show. That's what I do. I like watch. I used to watch evenings at the improv. I'm old, right?

I have to laugh because it would lighten up my soul. We're at the same age. Don't say you're old. We're the same age. Yeah, we're 53. As soon as you said you would graduate 94, I'm like, we're the same age. By the way, I had a conversation yesterday with a guy, 1972 powerful, by the way. On March 29.

April 6. So we're literally like eight days apart, eight days apart. But listen, I have a son on my house. I got puns. I got all this stuff. I got Jim. I use everything. I have it all.

I need it, right? And now all my clients, and by the way, people are like, you can get us, you can get a son. It's just like a Pelotan. Same model.

Right? You can do a pay per month sort of thing. But if you want to be really serious, you've got to protect your evenings. You know, Jesse Hetzler, who I mentioned with you, he says something that's so brilliant. And it's part of my,

and he's a Long Island boy, so I even respect to me even more. Remember tomorrow. Remember tomorrow. And what does exactly that mean? What you do today is going to affect tomorrow. Now, by the right, this is all bullshit if you want to stay in the right-hand lane. If you want to stay in the right-hand lane and the middle lane, you want to do any of this stuff, stay there.

But for people who want to operate optimally, this is what it fucking takes. It just does. Right? Like I only coach people who want to live in the left lane. That's it. And by the way, John, and you know this, and this is not punishment. This is massively rewarding. Well, I love that one of the things that you say is, and I've, every great coach I've ever known said the same thing, which is pressure is a privilege.

You know, be great for the problems that you have, because if you're not grateful for the problems that you have, the universe is going to serve up a whole other set of problems that you probably won't be grateful for. So the problems that we create for ourselves by trying to, you know, the problems that we create for ourselves by trying to, to push forward are much better than the ones from us waiting for the universe to suck us under. You know, that's the whole thing when I think about, you know, so when people start work with me, like, what's the goal this whole thing? I go, you have choices. They go, for me to have choices.

Yeah, because I want you to have choices, not choices made for you. What does that mean? Yeah, it's exactly. Pressures of privilege, this is responsibility. We are, we are, I always, I think you like this one. I treat my clients like secretariates. right like the horse like we go hard not to burn it because also we know what rest and recovery looks like all this stuff matters to me that's all i think about all day long if we're pushing people

not to burn up to really keep their optimal state what does rest and recovery look like what does all this look like what is their evening routine like what is their morning routine like what is their narrative in their head how they dealing with emotions tie with behavior which we know in the brain creates new experiences and circuitry in the brain, like new circuitry, neuroplasticity. So when we talk about mental performance, it's a very easy formula. And this comes, this is, this is known forever. It's performance equals potential minus interferences.

What are your interferences? You start to, you start to really lessen those or, or diminish those, excuse me. watch what happens. So what does that mean? So self-sabotaging behavior, right, which is unconscious, right? Drinking, smoking, not working out. Like all the obvious shit that you read in self-help books and 901 says the same fucking thing.

Once you start to change one thing, right, and you know money compounds, but so does behavior. So when you're not having the greatest days because of how you feel and you do one thing that compounds so all of a sudden even if you did one thing those days weeks and months start the stack and now time becomes a fucking ally and not a foe right so that one thing even though you didn't think do anything you look up now when times you're feeling a little bit better and there's more mojo in your step, you're not in your end zone. You're crossing the 40. And you're like, I didn't even do anything, but you did. That's compounding. Behavior compounds the same way as money.

So we talk, this is a full circle conversation. We talk about courage and all these things. It doesn't have to be Herculean. It doesn't. But just like money, All of a sudden, it goes like this. So where one-on-one is two means nothing, two and two and four is nothing, four-in-four, it's eight, it's nothing. Eight and eight, sixteen, you start to compound. You look back. You're like, how did I get here? You know, one of the reasons I love this conversation so much today is because in the era of hustle culture, as I call it,

you've got all these young guys coming up and they see the alpha dudes beating their chest with the Lambo on this and grind and grind and grind and grind. and grind and yeah that's fine right that's fine but there is a there's an emotional expiration date on that behavior and i love that in arenas like this you can kind of bring the mental health side to that like we're not saying don't go be successful we're not saying do everything that is not maximizing your own potential but we're saying doing it in a way where you're respecting your own mental health and do it for you know this is going to allow you to perform at a high level level longer than just sprinting until you burn yourself up. Well, you know, you know, we always say and I know you know this, we learn.

Everything's learned and struggle, right? We hear that. You could learn so much than success too. Yeah. Yep. Right. So like, so that means that when people are doing well, like, like my clients laugh, right? So obviously I care more about the inputs. Then then let's say the P&L, the top line, right, the buy product.

But if the byproduct's not good, I don't have a job, right? But I care about the inputs. But what's so interesting is that as it starts to move in the direction, right? You're laughing, but it's true, right? I'm laughing because I was just, I don't know why this jumped in my head, but as you said that, all I could think of was, what is the saying that stormy seas make great sailors? I'd rather be an average sailor, but a good meteorologist. so I can stay out of this Jeremy sees, right?

Yeah, it's true. But you know what happens, John, is that as we start to build, right, and now things are moving the right direction. And my clients left, and I have a client who's doing really well, so we have a call after this. He knows what I'm about to say. Say, Al, how about doing, man? We're good, right?

He goes, yeah, we're good at. He's been doing two years, three years. He goes, I know what you're about to say. I said, I don't say anything. You tell me time to recommit. We commit like zero, zero. Recommit. Like, as you always hear, like, and I think it was the LA.

I forgot with sports. We got to go back to the basics. We never lose sight of the basics, ever. Those are the tenets that got us here, right? We leverage off the foundation. So I know when we're running hard, we cannot forget to recommit. I'd rather, as John, reset at the top, than at the fucking bottom. And what happens is you start to set up these stages, right?

So we reset, we consolidate, we check, right? Everything's in order, right? Foundation's smooth, this stuff. Let's expand. I call it stretching. And now we, now we up the baseline. Always recommit. Recommit zero, zero, down regulate.

How are we feeling? I feel low. Well, let's get to zero zero. Where do we have to be? Let's make a walk. If I'm the best you've ever seen, oh, that's not a good place to make decisions. Down regulate. Yeah.

Right. But give yourself credit along the way because if you're Zeus in the greatest, then you're living in hell the next day, right? So I really want to be able to detach from these things, but give you credit because neurologically it sticks in the brain, right, on a circuitry basis, but to operate at that place, like where do you make best decisions?

Yeah, that's really interesting. Not high, not low, but right at your midline. Zero, zero. Yeah, I haven't heard. Hey man, I don't hear a lot of stuff out here anymore that I haven't heard before. That's a new one. That's good. I like that.

When you think about decision making, right, that's what I do for living, right? We're in the game of best decisions, not right decisions. Right. You know, best, only, you know, when they're right, only time will tell you. So I want to make sure that John makes best decisions. If we do that consistently and consciously, we're going to be all right. I don't know if every best decision is going to be the right decision. But the more we're sitting that seat, we're going to be damn all right.

So how do I make my people that are on my team? I call my team my clients sitting in a seat where they can make best decisions. That's all I do for a living. I love it. Well, Evan, man, dude, if they want to find you more, if they want to get part, have you coach them. How do they find you, dude? Where do they find you? So I have an incredible team behind me.

So it's M1 Performance Group.com. That's our website. It's Evan Marks on LinkedIn. It's E-Mark 72 on Instagram. We actually, if there are traders listening in young traders or retail or young professionals or just professionals. Coming May 1st, we have something called the M1 trading, excuse me, the N1 Mental Trading Academy coming out. You'll see it all over YouTube and all those other things, which is pretty exciting. And I did a TEDx actually in Houston on.

January 10th, that's going to be out in about a week. So we're excited. That's great. I can't wait to see it. Well, brother, thank you so much for joining us, man. It was awesome to have you. That was a great chat. And, dude, I appreciate all the value you brought today.

John, I really appreciate you inviting me on this thing. And it was really a pleasure meeting. Yeah, you too, buddy. I'm sure I'll see you in Vegas at some point. Everybody comes to Vegas at some point. They always do. I've got a lot of time in the 90s. Yeah, but I'll be back.

They always do. Well, man, if you listen to that today, listen, if you should take anything away from that, I think, today, the biggest takeaway for me and as I walk out of this room, if you subscribe to my blog, you'll be getting this later today, which is talking about making good decisions and making sure that decisions you make, taking emotions out of them as much as you can by driving into your baseline is something that that's a concept I have not heard before, but one that I'll be living my life by from now on. We'll see you next week.

What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escaping thedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor. If you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review.

Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.