High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 248: 8 Steps to Reignite Your Passion

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

Mark J Lindquist has been on the hottest shows on television (LOST, Hawaii Five-O), he performs for the largest crowds in America (NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA) and he speaks for the largest crowds in America (Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Microsoft, IBM, Starbucks). Mark is a nationally recognized motivational speaker, highly sought-after success coach, world-touring entertainer, US Air Force and Afghanistan war veteran, and author of the books, "Passion! 8 Steps to Reignite Yours,” “Passion! 8 Steps to Find Yours” and "Service! My Way of Life."   Mark has performed live for over 3.5 million people in 22 countries and 46 states throughout his career.  He has performed for Grammy winning artists, Academy Award nominated actors, foreign dignitaries around the world as well as staffers at the White House.  ​ In this podcast, Mark and Cindra talk about: Performance techniques to crush it in front of millions of people Why people forget to make their passion a priority The rocking chair principle How to keep believing in your Superbowl And 8 steps to reignite your passion You can find a full description of the Podcast at cindrakamphoff.com/mark. You can find Mark Linquist @MarkJLinquist on Twitter and www.markjlindquist.com/.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, Certified Mental Performance Consultant, Speaker, and Author. And I am excited today that you are here to listen to episode 248 with Mark Lindquist. Now, the goal of each of these interviews is to learn from the world's best. The world's best leaders, athletes, coaches, speakers, and consultants. All about the topic

of mindset in order to help us reach our potential or be high performers in whatever we do. Now typically with two episodes weekly we explore everything related to mindset. And today you're going to hear a motivational interview with Mark Lindquist about eight steps to reignite your passion. Now Mark Lindquist has been on the hottest shows on television such as Lost and Hawaii Five-0. He performs for the largest crowds in America including the NFL, the NBA, MLB, and he speaks for the largest crowds in America. He's spoken to Walmart, McDonald's, Microsoft, IBM, and Starbucks, for example. So Mark is a nationally recognized motivational speaker.

He's a sought-after success coach and a world-touring entertainer. He's also a U.S. Air Force and Afghanistan war veteran. Now, I've known Mark for several years. We've spoken at some of the same events, and I really wanted to bring him on this podcast to help really pick his brain about passion. And he has three books. One is called Passion, Eight Steps to Reignite Yours. The second is Passion, Eight Steps to Find Yours. And then his third book is called Service, Eight Steps to Reignite Yours. The second is Passion, Eight Steps to Find Yours. And then his third book is called Service, My Way of Life. So Mark has performed live for over 3.5 million people. And in 22 countries, 46 states, he has performed for Grammy

winning artists, Academy Award nominated actors, foreign dignitaries around the world, as well as staffers at the White House. Now, in this podcast, Mark and I talk about his performance techniques that he uses to crush it in front of millions of people. We also talk about why people forget to make passion a priority. He talks about the rocking chair principle, which I really enjoyed, how to keep believing in your Super Bowl and what that means exactly. And then we end this podcast with eight steps to reignite your passion.

Now, I'd love to hear what you think about this interview and what you got out from the interview with Mark and I. You can head over to Twitter and you can find me at Mentally underscore Strong. That's Mentally underscore Strong. And Mark, you can find him at Mark J. Lindquist on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you. Without further ado, let's bring on Mark. Mark J. Lindquist, I am excited to have you on the podcast here on the High Performance Mindset. So welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Sandra. So excited to be here. I'm pumped to talk to you.

I've heard you speak multiple times and, you know, I've just seen you in lots of different ways. So I'm looking forward to sharing a little bit more about you with the audience and our topic really today is passion. So to start off, I'm going to ask you a question about your passion. So give us a little insight in your passion and what you do right now. Oh my goodness. I'm so fortunate these days to engage almost daily in my passions, which is to be on stage, you know, to be in front of people performing,

advancing ideas, changing mindsets. So as a motivational speaker, as you and I have worked together many times, but also as an entertainer and a singer, I love being on stage with a microphone in my hand. That's what I'm passionate about. Where did that come from? Like, is that something that you've always just loved to do? Or is it something you've cultivated over the years?

You know, I think I grew into it. You know, it was just like anything when you're in, you know, the middle school or the high school days and you're trying different things. And eventually you arrive at saying, you know what, these are some of the gifts that I have, you know, these are some of the strengths that are being discovered when you're in your teenage years. And so it was, you know, maybe I was a late bloomer when it came to performance and singing. But you know, my first solo when I was a freshman in high school as a singer, you know, at the Ortonville High School Homecoming

Coronation. Remember those? Nice. Awesome. So, you know, I sang R. Kelly's I Believe I Can Fly back when I was like a freshman or sophomore in high school. And I realized, wow, I really like this stuff. You know, I like performing. And of course, I was no good back then. But just like anything, you get a few reps, you get a few under your belt, and you realize that you just want to do it more. I love it. So tell us a little bit about your journey from Ortonville, correct? To now Ortonville, to now speaking, you know, all over the world and traveling all over

the world to perform and entertain. It's quite the journey. You know, I graduated high school 20 years ago, and in those years, had always kept some sort of performance in my life. You know, whether it was singing the national anthem at a local sporting event, or whether it was giving a speech at a buddy's wedding, and I wasn't even the best man, right? Okay. It was always just something that was a hobby of mine mine because I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed performing, singing, being in front of people. But it wasn't anything that I really considered as a profession. I was about 30 years old and did like a USO kind of tour with the Air

Force and entertained troops all over the planet. And so that was my first opportunity to do some performance full-time as a MC, comedian, and lead singer in a variety show for the planet. So that was my first opportunity to do some performance full-time as a emcee, comedian, and lead singer in a variety show for the troops. Excellent. I did not know that you were a comedian. Oh, yeah. Well, we did. I didn't know that was part of your background. We did a few bits as William Hung. I don't know if you remember William Hung from American Idol. Oh, yes. That's awesome.

He used to come out and make American Idol. Oh, yes. That's awesome. He would come out and I'd make him laugh. It was great. Oh, that's wonderful. So tell us to your journey to speaking. Like, tell us a little bit more about that. What was that like? And when was it like, okay, yep, this is going to be what I'm going to do kind of, you know, more full time. I'd gotten out of the military in December of 2012. Like a lot of veterans, you're trying to figure out what's next. You know, what is the right move as you transition into civilian life? 31 years old, been around the world, served in the military, you know, wasn't the newest or the dumbest guy in the block anymore. And I figured this is my opportunity to hit the reset button and really

get it right this time. You know, 31 years old, never married, no kids, really no debt to speak of. How did I want to make my impact in the world? I said. So that first year out of the military, I was just trying to figure out which direction to move in and found myself speaking for 10 minutes for a youth group in Fargo, North Dakota. And a big famous author in the back of the room came up to me afterward and said, hey, I think you should be a motivational speaker. Oh, wow. I think you've got what it takes. And so I started to look into that.

And for the remainder of 2013, that first year out of the military, I gave a few speeches around town in Fargo, North Dakota. And really fell in love with the process of writing the speeches, advancing the ideas, eventually delivering them in front of people. And so I set my intention to be a professional motivational speaker in 2014 and haven't looked back since. I love it. That's great. So when you think about, you know, mindset in terms of performing, so the ways that you perform as an entertainer, as a singer, as a speaker, what do you think is, you know, one of the most important, I guess, the way maybe I would think about it is like take-home points or a strategy. What's something that you've really seen in terms of your mindset and getting you to the right space to deliver that? You know, I think for me, it comes with the reps. It comes with the

repetition of being there before, either as a speaker or a singer. Okay. I think, you know, for me, I'm the type of performer or entertainer who I've never felt like I was the most talented person in the room. But what I lack in talent, I've always made up in hard work. And so whether it was a massive rehearsal before a singing gig or whether it was learning my material inside and out, up and down as a speaker. When you're in front of the crowd, you know, I'll sing for crowds for the NFL of 60 and 70,000 people. You know, that's not the time to figure it out. No. You know, when you're in front of those big stages, like some of the, you know, wonderful clients that you have that you coach, that's not the time to be new.

You have to have been there before. So my mindset is, if I can put myself in the game type situation, then it's possible. So that when the high pressure moments come, I've been there before. I know what it feels like. I know what to look out for. And so I can concentrate on the task at hand. Ah, good. That's valuable for me. For example, I've got a Monday night football game coming up this November 11th. Oh, nice. And I'll sing the national anthem there, but rest assured, no, not rest assured, but be, be, be certain that the, the few weeks before I will try to book a gig at a local minor league baseball game, you know, a thousand people, a little less pressure, but just to put myself in the environment where it's a live field, a live mic, crowds cheering, outdoors, because Levi's

Stadium is outdoors. And I'm going to put myself in that scenario so that when I'm doing it for Monday Night Football and the pressure's high and we're on national television, I've been there before. Awesome. Love that. And you know, I think one thing that can get in people's way when they're performing or they're speaking is they think more like they think about what will people think about this or they're thinking about what people are thinking about them instead of being really in the present and in the moment. So does that ever happen to you when you're speaking or when you're performing and what advice would you give to those who may be experiencing some of that? I think sometimes when you're in the midst of it, yes, there's a lot of things going on,

a lot of distractions. Let's just say you're a speaker and you're up on the podium or on the stage. All eyes are on you and you feel all of those eyes, right? Yes. It creates this fight or flight mentality when you're up in front of a crowd. It happened to me. It still happens to me. I performed for three and a half million people in my fortunate career, and it still happens. Here's the quick story. I'm singing at Duke University men's basketball, February 20th, Duke versus UNCM at Cameron and North Stadium. The place is packed, 25 ticket. And three minutes before I go on, I'm informed that there's a president of the United States in the room. President Barack Obama was there because he's a UNC fan.

Wow. In the middle of the national anthem. After Rockets Red Glare, you want to know the thought that entered my mind? Did Barack like this? Don't mess it up. The president's here. Right? I mean, I'm singing the

anthem, a cappella. And that was the thought that entered my mind. Point being, doesn't matter how prepared you are, sometimes there's some distractions, right? Sometimes there's these things that you have to, oh, I don't know, be strong in mind. Yes. No, immediately I said, Mark, you're singing the anthem, like concentrate, right? And sometimes you've got to snap back in that moment. And I'm sure that's the same with pro athletes.

I'm sure it's the same with high-level performers wherever you are. It doesn't matter how prepared you are. Sometimes life happens, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I appreciate that example. It's like a real example of how it happened for you or to you.

Obama, how cool is that? Oh, my goodness. How fun. Now you can say you performed in front of him. And any president, you know, was adopted from a foreign country, born in Seoul, South Korea, came to America, and served in the United States military and now to be able to sing the national anthem. Yeah. The Star Spangled Banner for one of the presidents. What an honor. What an honor. So tell us a little bit about, you know, as we're listening, we can think, wow, you know,

you perform in front of the largest stages. You performed, you know, national television. You've been in great shows like Lost and Hawaii Five-0. You know, spoke to McDonald's and Walmart. The list goes on. So we might be thinking, wow, you know, Mark's got it together. Tell us about a time, Mark, that you failed and what you learned from it. And I want to ask you that question early on, because I think it's important to be real here and that it's, you know, that even you get to the highest level of your field, that there's some failures along the way. So I'd love to tell, you know, for you to tell us a story and what you learned from your failure. Absolutely. And maybe we'll continue on with the theme of performing the national anthem. Okay, perfect. A few years back, of course, I think it was 2011, we remember Christina Aguilera in the Super Bowl. Yes. Right? And I felt for her. You know, the social media was pretty

rough on her for forgetting those words and mixing up those words. But it happens to everybody, or can happen to everybody. Back when I was a junior in high school, of course, I was singing the national anthem at the Friday night football games in Ortonville. Acapella, there's no band behind me. I don't have the words in front of me. I sang, oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. And then I think I sang some of that again. And then I hummed for a few bars because I'd lost my place. And then I came back in at Rockets Red Glare, right? That's awesome.

And you know, of course, you know, I look back at that and it's silly and I laugh. But at the time, you're 16 years old. It's a small town. Everybody knows everybody. And you're the kid out there at the 50-yard line leading the town in the national anthem before the football game and clearly mess it up, right? And so that was, you know, a little embarrassing for a 16-year-old kid. I mean, it's an honest human mistake. The Star Trek event is written in some old English that we don't use very often anymore, so it's easy to mess up those words. But the lesson learned is now since then, I've probably performed the national anthem for about 3 million people live. Wow. And since that day, since I was 16 years old, I have carried the lyrics to the national

anthem in my wallet. And if you'll ever you know see it on tv or watch a video i actually have the lyrics to the national anthem on my finger oh wow i've just made it out of some you know overhead projector paper and printed it at the ups store and in tiny little font on my microphone hand i have the lyrics right down in front of me. Nobody can see it because if you're on the 50-yard line and I'm standing, you're in the crowd, you can't see that that's there. But it's my fail safe. Even professionals build in things that are part of their process that make sure that they can never fail. It's my insurance policy. And so, as a high performer, I'm not afraid to build in some of those processes that may either give me confidence, you know, feel like a warm blanket when I'm out

there performing, knowing that I have a backup plan. But also, I think it's smart. We could all mess up the words streaming and gleaming. You know, sometimes the pressure is high and you just have, you know, a brain fart. And so as a performer who needs to be at their best when they're performing, I'll do that. I'll build in those little fail safes and I do it as a speaker as well. And I don't think anybody looks down upon me for it. I think when they find out that they have lyrics on my finger when I'm performing on national television, they actually think that's smart. Yeah. And I think it's like, you know, sometimes I think these things happen for us, not to us. You know, maybe there's a reason that that happened to you in year 16 because now you know that to do that so that you don't fail on national TV. Right. And you have something to give you confidence. And so you're not really overthinking that failure either.

And I think it's that attention to detail that, you know, that when I was 16 years old, a very public failure, right? Led me to then start to examine every aspect of the process, right? So I have a pitch pipe in my pocket because we've all maybe heard the national anthem started too high or too low because it has a very large range. So, I make sure I start on the right pitch. There's detail number one. You know, the lyrics, that's detail number two. These days when I have to time the national anthem to a fighter jet flyover, I have a stopwatch on my wrist. And that's, you know, detail number three.

And so I started to, maybe because of that early failure, start to examine all aspects of the process of performing. And so I think the victory is in those details. Awesome. So how would you give people advice or what would you say in terms of how they can use that lesson? You know, give us a little bit of thoughts on how you might have people break down it in terms of their performance in detail. Right. You know, and so I can speak to the disciplines that I feel like I have experience and expertise in, which is, let's say, professional speaking or public speaking, right? So everybody at work is going to give some sort of speech at one time or another, right? They're going to give a presentation to their team or their boss or

their shareholders. And it always blows my mind that if you were to look at that discipline of public speaking, but then to compare it to the discipline of the written word. Here's my example. When it comes to the written word, if your company is going to produce a one-page document that's going to be public facing, that document would be poured over for weeks and weeks. Every word would be examined. The smartest minds on your team would get together in the conference room. The lawyers would review this one-page document, and it would take six months for this thing to be produced and ready for the public consumption. That's the written word. But the spoken word, if you're given a speech, I don't care if you're the CEO or if you're a frontline leader, if you're given a speech and maybe it's five or 10 minutes and you are asked to present in front of an audience,

many of us prepare our remarks the night before, scratch it down on a cocktail napkin, and we wing it. Why the difference between the written word and the spoken word? Do we not believe in the power of the spoken word? Do we not believe that our words have power, that the well-timed word has an ability to influence people? But in this discipline that we all at work, we're all going to have to speak in front of people at one time or another. We tend to wing it and we tend to feel as though we don't need to put any work into our remarks or our speech. And we'll say things like, ah, it's just 10 minutes, you know, I'll just get up there and, you know. And wing it. Mr. Mind, right? And so it doesn't make sense to me in the things that we do at work to ignore the details

and ignore that process that I just explained about every aspect of the thing that you're doing. Are you paying attention to details? Are you preparing yourself for peak performance? Because nobody at the highest levels just goes in there and wings it. Good. I like that example. That's really helpful. And I think you're right that a lot of people speak for part of their work. And I just saw it happen last week where someone like an executive was, before they introduced me, they got up and they just, they had something in the cocktail napkin. Yeah, yeah napkin, you know, and I thought, wow, you know, what kind of message is that, you know, is that, are you delivering without maybe even realizing it? So Mark, tell us a little bit about passion.

Okay. So that's kind of the topic that you speak on. Tell us what you, how would you define what passion is? Tell us, describe that to us first to start. My goodness. Passion. I love this word. I think sometimes it gets a bad rap. I think when you hear the word passion or we're going to talk about passion, we think about it as, oh, this is just for the young kids. You know that I'm a, I'm a, I'm a serious adult.

You know, I, I can't be worried about passion. No, I mean, passion to me is, it's for everybody. You're squeezing the most out of life. You're loving what you do. You're loving the time that you spend here on planet earth. And I think everybody could use a dose of passion. You know, we all need a kick in the pants from time to time. And so, as I see passion in people's lives, I think many times we have forgotten to make that a priority as we make life's decision. That is passion. We forget in the busyness of life, I call it the velocity of life, where all of a sudden when we're a high school junior, we're already being pressured into which college are we going to choose? What are we going to major in?

And that, you know, quickly the velocity picks up as we enter college. And now we need to finish the degree in four years or five years or as soon as we can. And then we get married, we have kids, and we have a mortgage, and we have bills, and we have all kinds of pressure. And before you know it, we wake up and we realize all I have is a job that I may not be passionate about, right? Because I never made that a priority early on in life and said, I'm going to make sure that I find the things I love in life and make that a priority in your decision making. And so I travel around the country and I talk to people about passion and I find that many people were just so busy. Yeah. A job that pays the bills, so busy getting degrees because they said that they were supposed to. And they wake up in their mid thirties, mid forties, mid fifties, and they realize, maybe I never did consider the things that I really love. And, you know, I think that's why, you know, people need to, wherever they are in whatever

season of life, need to do a little bit of an assessment and say, hey, is this my time? You'd asked me earlier about, you know, maybe a story that might drive that home. And I always tell a story about, my father would teach me about the rocking chair principle. I think you've heard me share this story. That at the end of your life, you're looking back at the years that you've lived and you're sitting in a rocking chair and you got all the neighborhood kids gathered around you. And they're saying, hey, Uncle Mark, Grandpa Mark, tell us about life. And my dad says, you sit in that rocking chair looking back at all the years that you've lived, you never want to have to look those kids in the eye saying things like, I wish I would have.

Yeah, for sure. It was be able to say, here's the story, the tale of venture about the time I'm glad I did. The time I put the work in to find the things I love, give my passion to the world, instead of just simply existing. How did you come to speak on this topic of passion? Like, why did you choose this over anything else you could have chosen? Well, I mean, it was really, I was 31 years old. I didn't have any expertise in life to speak of. I just had a lot of crazy experiences that added up to not a whole bunch when it came to, could I really be a professional speaker and, you know, hold an

audience's attention? So, I was doing some self-reflection and assessment when I started to become a professional speaker and said, really, the only thing I have to offer right now, in my mind, was the fact that I squeezed the most out of life. My friends are always telling me, Marco, I just love the way you live, you know, that you're always off doing something, you know, the next adventure. And they loved that I lived life with passion and realized that, yeah, that was my, I was living it so I could speak about it, right? It was congruent. And so, I realized and carved out a niche in the corporate speaking market, you know, where, where everybody, every employee could use the dose of passion.

And so really it was bringing who I was to the table as a speaker, you know, cause I didn't have any, I didn't have a vast background in a certain industry. I just had some life experiences and that's what I talk about. Yeah. And I see you as a great role model for living your passion, you know, like in terms of speaking, I see that as your passion. I'm singing the national anthem. That's what I see as your passion. So how do you see that you're a role model for what you talk about? Because, you know, I think sometimes we can easily not walk the walk, that we could maybe have these ideas but not actually live them, but I see you living them.

So tell us a little bit about maybe the ways that you live passion or live passionately just to inspire other people and inspire the listeners. You know, as a part of the speech that I give on passion, I ask the audience to participate in a bucket list exercise with me. And I find that, you know, about a third of every audience has never written a bucket list or taken the time to really sit down and identify the things they want to do, the direction they want their life to take. And so we'll do that exercise. And I guess, you know, I'll share some of the stories of the things that are on my bucket list, the things that I want to accomplish in my life before I get to the end sitting in that rocking chair. And so it's my opinion that if you are a public speaker in front of an audience sharing your wisdom or your story, if you are living an incongruent life.

Yes. if you are living an incongruent life, for example, just a silly example, if you're up there talking about positive attitude and then somebody hears you in the lobby complaining, that's just, you can't do that if you're going to be a public figure or a public speaker. And I think audiences are smart enough to sniff that out if you are fake or phony. And so I said, as my brand in public speaking, if I'm going to talk about passion, obviously I have to live it. And so what I found as a public speaker, I've actually become a better person because I feel as though I cannot be lying to my audiences, right? I cannot be saying one thing out of one side of my mouth, but doing another thing, right? And so, I've been very

careful to say, all right, if I'm going to preach it, I'm going to live it. And so, when it comes to crossing things off a bucket list or being an example of passion, I do share my national anthem story, which I think not many people know a traveling national anthem singer, right? That's not a real job. And so, I share that story of my unique passion, which is to sing the national anthem, my unique goal, which is to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Awesome. I encourage the audience to have Super Bowl type dreams for themselves. And it's been really interesting. I don't know if I can share a quick story, Cindy, do we have time? Yes, that'd be wonderful. It's been really interesting. I don't know if I can share a quick story, Cindy. Do we have time? Yes, that'd be wonderful.

It's been really interesting. I'll share that story about my Super Bowl dream and then say, hey, I started out singing at the Friday night football games 22 years ago. I started out singing five years ago at the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks minor league baseball game. And in that five years, now we're at Thursday night football

and Monday night football, right? Goal is Super Bowl. Awesome. We're making progress, right? And I think an audience member can get behind that. I think an audience member enjoys the moments when the quote unquote example, a role model or professional speaker is also on the journey. Is also right alongside them in the trenches trying to achieve his or her goals. And so I'll share those, that journey on the way to the Super Bowl, on the way to this big goal or dream. But recently,

I've been asking my audiences after I share with them, you know, we've done all these games, we sing for the NFL, largest crowds in America. I say, hey, can I just ask you a question? How many believe it's possible, possible that I could one day sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl? Okay. 100% of the audience raises their hands, right? Wow. And they're very generous. And of course, that makes me feel good that people would believe in my dreams. However, now here's the moment where I ask the audience, all right, an hour ago, I was a complete stranger to you. You didn't know me. I came up here and I gave an hour-long speech.

And now, 60 minutes later, you told me you believe in the power of my dreams. Super Bowl. Are you doing that for yourself? Are you doing that for the people that you love? And I think oftentimes it is. It's easier for us to believe in somebody else's dream, but we forget about our own. We forget the people that are nearest and dearest to us that they need that belief for them as well. I was a complete stranger and you said you believed in me.

What about you? What about the person you look in the mirror at at the end of the day? Are you believing in your Super Bowl type dreams? And it's been this moment where I really feel like five years of speaking about passion around the country, it's really coming together. Ah, that's super good, Mark. I really like that because I think we are sometimes our own worst critic and we think of all the ways that we can't make something happen or a big dream isn't possible or even you know sometimes the way that we might

react to our kids we don't want them to you know like dream too big that they might fail when really you know we're we believe in you so why not have the same level of belief in ourselves and our family. Exactly. Love it love it. So I know your book is about eight steps to ignite your passion. Before you talk about that, you know, one thing I think maybe might be helpful is for the people who are thinking about the bucket list that you wrote down, right, or you have your audiences write down, tell us a little bit about that so we could do that as well. Tell us about that bucket list and then we can talk about the eight steps to ignite your passion. Yeah, and so how we do the bucket list is this.

You know, I'll just create a moment in the speech, and they can do it for themselves in their off time. You know, just play some light music in the background. Get the creative juices flowing, right? Put yourself in a frame of mind where you're free of judgment. You know, nobody's going to look at this list. This is just for you. It's an individual exercise. It's not going to be shared with others. So you can be free. You can be free to write the things that really are on your heart. But I ask them to play along and say, hey, you got to play by my rules as you write this bucket list. You know, there's no limits.

I gave you a magic wand. I gave you three wishes. It sounds a little foolish and silly and juvenile, but let's just play along, right? I mean, we're talking about the things that are nearest and dearest to your heart, right? The things that burn inside of you, bucket list type things. Be willing to be a little free and a little silly. You got three wishes. What are the first three things you do? You won the big lottery. What are you going to do now, right? And so, I'll ask them to just write freely. And the first thing that comes to your mind, doesn't matter if you know how it's going to happen, you just need to know that you want it to happen. And if it comes to your mind, write it down. and, you know, explore all areas of life, personal life,

family life, but then transition to your job, your work, your life's work, transition to your hobbies and your family and your friends. What are the things you want to accomplish? And I can't tell you how many people have come up to me after those speeches and exercises and said, huh, you know, I really did decide that I'm going to take that trip. You know, I really did decide that I'm going to start this nonprofit that has been on my heart for years, or I really did decide that I'm going to take that trip you know I really did decide that I'm going to start this non-profit that has been on my heart for years or I really am going to to you know become that that little league coach because I've never found the time before and it's a silly little exercise that I think sometimes we need to remind ourselves what we really want out of life because if we not careful, as Ferris Bueller says, life moves pretty

fast. If you don't look around every once in a while, you could miss it. Awesome. So tell us about the eight steps to ignite your passion. You know, the kind of tongue in cheek, you know, I'll win over the audience with my self-deprecating humor or style. And the first step is try a bunch of stuff, right? You know, that's the big wisdom from the big out-of-town speaker. Try a bunch of stuff. But the key word is try. I think we often find ourselves in places in life where we forget to try the new thing. Expand our horizons.

Try a bunch of stuff. Step two, of the stuff you try, you're going to like some of that stuff. So step two is find out what you like. Try a bunch of stuff. Find out what you like. Step three is find your strength zone. Try a bunch of stuff. Other stuff you try, you're going to like some of that stuff. Other stuff you like, you're going to be good at some of that stuff. And now, those are the breadcrumbs. That's the trail that you might be able to follow to find and identify your passion. So, step one, try a bunch of stuff. Step two, find out what you like. Step three, find your strength zone. Step four is about self-reflection. That's ask yourself if you're

passionate about it. Every once in a while, we have to stop and pause and say, what are the things that I'm passionate about? Am I more passionate about my life in 2019 than I was in 2018? So those first four steps. Step five, don't stop until you find it. That's, Cinder, that's your word, grit. Determination, perseverance, right? A little stick-to-itiveness. Don't stop. No matter how old you are, how far you've been along the journey. Step six, lean into it. If you find the passion that exists in your life, hit the gas. Give it to the world as often as you can. Step seven, take the money and run. If you can get paid for the thing that you love, do it. Get paid. Don't be shy. Step eight is mindset. It's believing everything

is possible. So those are the eight steps that we share and hopefully help people, you know, point their ship in the right direction toward their passion. Love it. I love the simplicity, but also like the, how powerful those steps are. And I think the first one is the most impactful in my opinion, because what I see people do is they don't try it. They don't, they, they hold themselves back and they say, well, what if I don't do so well? What if I fail? What if I don't like it? And so they, you know, I heard someone say one time that it's the stop that starts people, you know, just like trying something new. Yeah, I think that's powerful.

That's what we have to do. I mean, when I really look at the successes that people achieve in life, many of them was because they were willing to be the one to try, right? And the people that are sitting on the sidelines can look at the successful people. And so I want to do that too. Well, it's because this, the person who's up on the podium or up on the stage or on the field gave it a shot and was willing to be foolish and willing to swing the bat and try. And so I just, you know, I'll encourage people to do the same, which is give it a shot because you don't

know until you try. Love it. So I know people can buy the book on Amazon, right? I was just looking at it the other day. Amazon, anywhere else that you can buy the book? Passionate Steps to Reignite Yours? Yeah, send them to Amazon. Passionate Steps to Reignite Yours. You know, hopefully people can be encouraged to give it a shot. Swing the bat. Try. So, Mark, what final advice would you have for those people who are listening? Well, I mean, I think it's just what we talked about.

That very important first step is to try something new, right? Write that bucket list down and actually do it. I mean, grab a piece of paper or take notes on your phone and send it to yourself in an email so you have it all the time and figure out which direction you want your life to go in. And in the busyness of life, sometimes we have to be reminded to think about that big picture. You know, I know that we have our activities and we know we have our week's agenda. But as you do that, I'd like us to plan to cross those things off that bucket list and get serious about it. Because I think, you know, we all have examples in our life about life being just too darn short. And I ask people, you

know, what are they waiting for? So I ask your listeners, what are you waiting for? Let's get serious about this thing. It's passion. I'm talking about squeezing the most out of life and loving what you do. That's for everybody. It's for you. Love it, Mark. So tell us how we can find more about you, your website, any ways that you're on social media. Absolutely. So of course, we were talking about earlier, you can Google Mark J. Lindquist. Don't forget the J, the middle initial. There's many Mark Lindquists out there. There's only one, one Asian Sinatra. That's me. But markjylindquist.com is also our website, so you can find us there, markjylindquist.com. Awesome. And I can attest, too, if you hire Mark for a speaking engagement, he'll impress everyone. One of the best speakers that I've ever heard. So, Mark, thank you so much for your time and your energy today. Thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks, Sindra. Have an awesome day.

Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you like today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out DrSindra.com.