High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 717: Play a Bigger Game with Markus Kaulius, Keynote Speaker and Bestselling Author

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Today on the High Performance Mindset, I'm joined by someone who has dedicated his life to helping people break through limitations and step boldly into the impact they were meant to make. Markus Kaulius, an entrepreneur and bestselling author of Play a Bigger Game, is a force of nature when it comes to transformation. Markus built multiple businesses from the ground up, but what makes him remarkable isn't just his success, it's his mission. After experiencing deep personal loss and burnout, he rebuilt his identity from the inside out. Now he teaches leaders, athletes, and high performers how to rewrite their stories, live with courage, and take aligned action toward the life they truly want. His work is rooted in seven powerful principles that help people stop playing small and step into a life of purpose and possibility. Markus brings a rare blend of authenticity, intensity, and heart — and in this conversation, you're going to hear exactly why his message is resonating with audiences worldwide. HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE 🔹 Learn more about Markus Kaulius and Play a Bigger Game at: https://playabiggergame.com/🔹 Download the 2025 Confidence Crisis Study at https://confidencestudy.com/🔹 Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call with Dr. Cindra and/or her team at freementalbreakthroughcall.com 🔹 Learn more about the Mentally Strong Institute at https://mentallystronginstitute.com/  Love the show? Rate and review the podcast—and you might hear your name on the next episode!

Today on the high-performance mindset, I'm joined by someone who has dedicated his life to helping people break through limitations and step boldly into the impact they were meant to make. Marcus Collius, an entrepreneur and best-selling author of Play a Bigger Game, is a force of nature when it comes to transformation. Marcus built multiple businesses from the ground up, but while it makes him remarkable isn't just his success, it's his mission. After experiencing deep personal loss and burnout, he rebuilt his identity from the inside out. Now he teaches leaders, athletes, and high performers how to rewrite their stories, live with

courage, and take aligned action toward the life they truly want. His work is rooted in seven powerful principles that help people stop playing small and step into a life of purpose and possibility. Marcus brings a rare blend of authenticity, intensity, and heart. And in this conversation, you're going to hear exactly why his message is resonating with audiences worldwide. Before we jump into the interview, I have some exciting news. Our coaching team is growing at the Mentally Strong Institute, and I'd love you to meet one of them. I believe everyone should have a coach.

I've had my own coach for the last 10 years, and I wouldn't be a coach. be where I am today without coaching. At the Mentally Strong Institute, we help leaders and athletes achieve their goals quicker, up-level their confidence, and increase their influence. Do you want to get out of your own way and get to your goals quicker? Then I invite you to sign for a free coaching call at free mental breakthrough call.com. We will help you create a breakthrough, a moment of more clarity and understanding. That's www. www.

www. free mental breakthrough call. com to sign up for a free mental breakthrough call. All right. Let's jump into my interview with Marcus Collius. You're going to love this one. Marcus Callias, thank you so much for being on the show today. I'm so excited for you to be here.

So welcome. Sandra, I'm so excited to spend this time with you. loved getting to meet you last month and just excited to see how this conversation goes. I can't wait either. You know, I got to hear you at a book thinker's event last month, which was really fun and I got to see you on stage. And one of the story that you told us about was, you know, growing up feeling really insecure and skinny and kind of in this kind of broken financial situation. What, you know, what do you know now and identify as their turning point? that move you from there to where you are now, really playing a bigger game.

Oh, beautiful questions. You know, first, I'm so grateful for my background. And for anybody who's listening who grew up with anything similar in their life, so we grew up very poor, a very broken home. My father was out of the picture when I was seven years old. I mean, he was really out beforehand. I never got to develop a relationship with him. But at seven, they called it quit.

So now he's out. My mom had to go back to school full-time. full-time. And I'm not saying that this is for sure accurate, but in my memory, I remember her crying every single day about money. And it taught me this lesson of, if you don't have money, that's a big problem in life. And then I saw my father from afar, seemingly a great life with tons of money. And I'm going, okay, I get it. Money is good. No money is bad. I got to work hard for money and I grew up in this this broken state like not only financially broken spiritually broken like we talked about no confidence no self-respect or self-esteem and that's such a sad existence

where I have so much mercy because I believe there's a lot of 40-year-olds 50-year-olds who never healed from that and who never can look back and go actually that was good that was actually a gift for me because it really is all that stuff is such a gift. gift in my life. Why? Because it developed the man who is here today. So here's a couple things for me. Like the reason I love my wife and kids so much because I knew what it was like to be a kid who didn't have any love. So I'm so grateful for that because, yeah, I'm all up in my kids' business, all up in my wife's business, because I'm so obsessed with being a good husband and a good father. And I want them to feel so much love so that when they eventually leave the house,

hopefully not my wife, but my kids leave to heaven. They go, they go, man, my father was always there. He showered me with love. And that is what really excites me about the life that I've been given now. Well, I think of this quote by Byron Katie, which I know you and I have both attended Tony Robbins events. And Tony uses it too where he says, like, what if everything happens for you, not to you, right? And I think that's a great way to like look at the past and think about the development. things we've gone through our crucibles to help us realize that they made you where you are today. I think for me, you know, my crucible for me was I was a really good track and field athlete in high school and then really struggled with a mental game when I was in college. And that's actually

why I do what I do now, Marcus, is because it's like I didn't know the tools and the strategies. I thought I was the only one just stuck in negativity. And I didn't realize it was just like part of the human experience. So, you know, that's what powers me to do this work. One of the things I really loved at the book thinker event that I heard you speak at is you had these really powerful questions that you asked us. And what I'd like us to do is I'd like you to pull out one or two of those questions and just give us a little like keynote. Why do you think those, why do you think those two are so questioned? They're really important and how could we use those in our life. Oh, that's so beautiful. Thank you. I have one in the holster, but I do want to ask,

was there one that stood out to you the most? Because if you are excited about it, I know your audience is going to be excited about it. And I'd love to just jump into it. Okay, I have my notes right here. Aha. So you can seal. All right, here we go. I thought one thing that was really cool that you had us do, and you can even work this through about the confidence piece. And like you asked us like what what would we do with this unlimited confidence? And you had us like stand up and get in a power pose. And it was so fascinating to see the audience like change change not only their state, but also their mindset and their belief in themselves just by standing in a really powerful position.

So I think the one in confidence was was wonderful. I love that. Thank you. And what a special moment in that room, hey? And by the way, everybody, if you're listening, If you ever get to be in a room with Cinder and I, if you ever get to come to a book thinker's event, if you're considering it, just do it. It is so amazing.

It is so powerful. It was a great connective experience. But let's jump into this. Deciding your level of confidence, you get to choose your level of confidence. And I'm going to just quickly give you guys my backstory when I was, like I said, my first 15 years, just horrible, zero self-confidence. By the way, I was six foot four, 120 pounds. So as you can imagine, didn't, like look at me today. I'm not exactly a heavy dude.

Imagine 100 pounds off of what you're seeing in front of you. Like, it was scary, skinny. And I was on a plane ride and I really felt that I heard the voice of God saying, where you're going. No one knows who you are. So what if you got to choose? who you wanted to be? What if you got to be the person you were designed to be? And for me, the number one thing I needed to change and I knew it was my confidence. And when I stepped off that plane, it was the most simple task. It was, well, what would a confident person look like?

Well, you get your chest up a little bit. And by the way, anybody listening right now, please, feel free to do this right now. I don't care if anyone's around. You're going to enjoy this exercise. This is kind of one of the things we did in the room. Tell me with your body, What would it look like if you had more confidence? So the chest goes up a little bit, shoulders back, better eye contact. If you pretend you're going to give me a handshake, oh, a nice, strong handshake. Wow. This person is confident.

We already know the answers. That's one of my favorite things. You don't need to go, well, let me read a few books. You already know. You already know the things you would do and would need to continue to do to come off as a confident person. And guess what? the more you do those things, the more confident you will become. And so when I stepped off that plane, I was a totally different human being.

And guess what? That's how people accepted me. That's how they saw me. And it just blew my mind. It was like I got to fast forward 10 or 20 years and I'm seeing this totally different person living my life going, oh my goodness, look at how they like him and they accept him and the cool kids wanted to hang out with him. and the girls were wanting to talk to him. What is happening?

And that's all it was. It was a decision. And for anybody who might be going, wow, that's nice for you. I don't actually know or believe if I'm the one who decides how confident I am. I can tell you right now, if you just did those exercises that I said,

just shoulders back, eye contact, all of a sudden you go, actually, to be honest, I am feeling a bit more confident. And in the same vein, when we're a little bit down, and we got our shoulders slumped and we're just like, oh, what was me?

All of a sudden you have less confident thoughts. I don't know if I'm not confident of a person. And you can change it that fast. And if you're going, okay, but I still don't know if I'm the one deciding, if you aren't deciding, who's deciding your level of confidence for you? That's awesome. So when you're thinking about social media,

do you think that's boosting your confidence every day or killing it? You think about parents and the people around you who might be coming from a very loving place, but they say things like, well, Sindra, are you sure you want to do that? It's, you know, it's pretty scary. I don't know how many people succeed at that. Are you sure it's safer to do it this way? Is that good for your confidence? Of course not.

Those things just take you out at the knee just a little bit every single day. And all of a sudden, you can't stand tall. But you get to make that decision right now. And first, I'm going to ask you, are you comfortable with those people, with social media, with society, with the advertising that you are bombarded with every single day? Are you comfortable with them making the decision for how confident you enter the world? And so my encouragement to you is take it back. Take back the power to say, okay, you know what? If I just give it away, I have no control.

And we all know how that feels. It feels horrible. How does it feel when you think about politics? or what's going on in the Middle East and all these things. You're in no control and it feels awful. You feel out of control. But when you go, no, you know what, I'm going to focus on what I can control. And what we talked about, Tony loves talking about this, where focus goes, energy flows.

So if I'm going to focus on being a more confident person, all of a sudden I'm putting good energy towards it. And yes, I'm in control of it. And if I can control it, I'll feel good about it. I don't feel in control about it. That boosts your confidence even further. my encouragement is take one step towards this today. Give what I'm saying a try. If I'm wrong, if I'm foolish, you lost nothing but a few minutes of your time. But if I'm right, and I know I'm right, your whole world can change right now. All right. That was a firework. I love that.

You know, and I love what really Marcusi were talking about, that we can decide the level of confidence that we have. And we just did a study at the Mentory Strong instance. about confidence that you'll love. And we've seen some of it. It's beautiful. Yeah. But please continue. We found it is actually one of the strongest predictors of your performance.

And not only your own performance, but company's performance that people who are more confident within your company, they decrease, there's decrease of procrastination. And there's more productivity and even higher revenue. So basically what you're talking about, you know, I do believe that that confidence is a choice. and we can let so many things impact our confidence, if it's like tough feedback or social media or a setback that we've had in our own life. So in our podcast, we often talk about who I must become

to get what I want. So continuing to think about, like, who do you need to become to get what you want? How do you think your own identity, you know, around confidence has evolved kind of through your journey and who's helped you get there? Beautiful question. I'm such a fan of that mindset.

And by the way, that's exactly the process I went through when I was 15 years old. Because yeah, I was able to change it in an instant. But then my mind went, how do I keep this up? Because to some degree, you're going to feel imposter syndrome and like, well, am I just puffing up my chest? And it's like, okay. So what do I have to do today to become the confident man I need to be tomorrow? And so one of the biggest answers for me, and truly it is the same answer for everybody. Get more exercise.

If you get exercise, not only are you getting your blood flowing, you're working this body, this gift that was given to you, but also for sure as a man, like, it's nice to have some muscle on me. Obviously, if you got a little bit of muscle on you, you're going to have more confidence. When you see these movies, and by the way, you're just watching another movie, shoot, Alan, Alan Richter, Richardson, uh, Reacher, you know who I'm talking about? Oh, yes. Super jacked, absolute stud. You look at him, you go, of course he's confident. Like, look at the guy.

He's a handsome man. He's got great muscles. Yeah, so why don't move a little bit towards that? I'm not going to compare myself to him because he is really jacked. But having a bit more muscle will make me a more constant. a version of Marcus. And now I can walk into the room with even more like, yes, yes, I'm here. And so I got to get my exercise every day. I have to eat right every day. And I know there's a whole bunch of habits that I can be in control of, that I can implement into my schedule that will

increase my competence every single day. And again, you already know the answers to this too, everybody. You know the things that take away your confidence. Like, well, if I'm being honest, I have a phone call with my sister every one or two days and it's always negative and she always kind of cuts me down. And I go, listen, I'm not saying you have to cut her out of your life. But man, you better start minimizing the amount that she's allowed to cut you down. So that might be the time you spend with her. Or maybe you need to call her out and go, listen, I love you. but you are really, I feel like you're cutting me down. And if this is going to continue, we're just going to start speaking less.

When you start taking control of those decisions, all of a sudden it doesn't take long. You're going, actually, I am a more confident person than I was yesterday. Now what happens if I continue on this path? I agree that we can take back the power of our confidence. And we do let other people take it right by their comments or sometimes these people we don't even know or really shouldn't even take space up in our brain. Yeah. But we're allowing them to impact what we believe about ourselves.

So good. Oh, Cinder's so good. Do you know, I love this. Who is it? I think it was good to great, Jim Collins. I think it's in his book. Or it's in the magic of thinking big by David Schwartz. And I just love this talk.

Only small people tell you you can't. only the small people. And so when you think about, I think this is the exact example you gave, if you said, I'm going to build myself a house. Do you know who's going to say, you can't do that?

It's the small people who have never built a house. You almost never come across someone who has built a house who would also go, you can't do that. Do you know why? Because they did it. And they're going, if I can do it, you can do it too.

I built a house. And there were lots of people there were actually lots of people even I was doing well in life when I was doing it and they're like I don't think you should be doing this you know and they start rifling off these are people who cared about me they're like you know this is the number one reason for divorce how are you helping me right now like what what is this nonsense you have to decide who you're going to take advice from and who you want to surround yourself with and it's not just about being a room of yes men or anything like that, but if you spend time with people who lift you up, yes, you feel like you can conquer the world.

And yes, you do start conquering the world. You know, Marcus, I have spent several years working in the NFL. And what I found with NFL players is when someone tells them they can't do something, they have kind of this watch me mentality, at least the ones that last in the league for a long time, right? And so I do see it's important, like how you respond to those people who don't see, don't don't like don't believe that you can do it. What advice would you give for people who say, okay, Marcus, that's great. You know, surround yourself with people that can really build you up.

How do you, how do you think people actually do that really intentionally? Like, what advice would you give to people who are listening? Oh, man, that's such a great question. Thank you for being so awesome at what you do and sharing your gift with us today. So it is available to everybody. And I get that question all the time. Like, that sounds nice for you. And I'm sure you get to go spend your time in big rooms with big people and it's like, yes, I do. But one, you already said it. It's being intentional about it. And two, it truly is available to everyone. Do you know how many masterminds are going on in your neighborhood right now? And that no, I don't mean on your block, but I mean in your city, there are tons of masterminds. And if you are willing to do Zoom, there are masterminds

all over the world. Will you have to pay for some? Yep. I wouldn't encourage you to open up your wallet to a huge degree on your first shot at this. Any good mastermind will allow you to experience it without first paying for it. So maybe that's sitting in and auditing or maybe it's being in a smaller mastermind just to be around people who are, you know, higher achievers than the people that you're currently hanging out with. And then you get a taste and you go, wow, I'm actually, I really love this room. And these are my people. This is my tribe. I know I'm going to get ahead by spending time with these people.

Then yeah, spend some money. What is it worth to you to live at a higher level? For me, I keep spending every single year over and over. There's no point where I'm going to be like, actually, I've made it now. I've done really well in life. And I am enjoying the spoils of that. But I know I'm nowhere near where I'm supposed to be. I know I've got a long head of me.

And I love that. I absolutely love the journey of growth, of expansion, of being around people who challenge me, who challenge me to think bigger, try new things, try harder, try to think bigger. Oh man, that excites me, as you can imagine. I can tell. Yeah. Hi, this is Cinder Campoff, and thanks for listening to the high performance mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing?

If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. Well, Marcus, one of the things I wanted to ask you about is your book, Play a Bigger Game. And it covers seven universal principles to experience true fulfillment. win it life. Which of these principles do you think has been most impactful for you or maybe is the one

that's most neglected by high performers? Oh my goodness. That is such a challenging question. I love it. Okay. It's kind of, there's two that are tossed up here. To answer your question best, it's the principle of integrity. Okay.

Integrity is this thing that we just hope that we're going to come across as a person. integrity. I just hope things align for me and I hope I act that way and it's really like this. And I'm sorry, this is not how integrity works. Integrity, you have to have a full core focus on integrity. It has to be a daily exercise. Everything you do has to be looks through the filter of integrity. There is no 99% integrity. It is 100% or it is zero. And I'm sorry if that, uh, hits people kind of hard, but this is the hard truth you have to accept. And it makes decision making actually quite easy. I'm not saying it's going to be simple the whole time, but the decision is easy because integrity says this is the way and it is really the only way. This way, I'm compromising

on a couple things. Let me stop you right there. That's no longer integrity. And so integrity is something we ignore too much. We don't focus on enough and we're certainly not intentional enough. When I made the decision that I am going to be a man of integrity, it just made decisions easy. I had to say no to things that meant way more money, way faster. Yep. I had to say no to things and situations. Here's a great example. When I was starting out in my business, I was nobody.

I was nobody in this industry and I was knocking on big doors. And so many times they said, okay, you want to know where real business is getting done? at the strip club. That's where you got to go. That's where the buyers are. If you want to meet me, I'm going to be at the strip club. I'm going to be at the strip club. I'm going to be at the strip club.

I'm sorry. I'm a Christian man who loves his wife, who's obsessed with his wife, who plans on being married for the next 80 more years. I'm not going into a strip club. And I don't mean that as judgment. If you guys think you're an integrity by being in the strip club, that's cool.

That's on you. I knew for me there's no integrity there. And so I just held my own and said, Listen, what if I met you before you went in? What if I met you after you went in? And I got a bunch of nose. Yeah, no. If you're not going to be in the strip club with me, like, we're not boys.

Okay. Then we're not boys. And then people started to come around because I had to put in the work. I had to do more legwork to get ahead in other areas. And then those people start to take notice and go, all right, I'm inviting you back. Come to the strip club. And I go, oh, sorry. Like, no, I just don't do strip clubs.

Would you like to meet ahead of time? fine, you can buy me dinner before I go into this trip. Okay, great. And that happened way more times than you would think. And I love that. I love that that gets to be part of my story, not, oh, Sandra, can we avoid that question? I feel really gross about what I had to do to get ahead.

Nope, I have integrity. I get to sleep at night. I get to look my wife in the eyes, my beautiful daughters in the eyes and go, that wasn't part of my story. That is, I could see why that's one of the principles why, you know, that's overlooked and and not really like it's neglected because people really don't think about integrity. What does integrity mean to you?

Oh, I really believe integrity is you staying true to your alignment with who you are supposed to be. And now, while that might come off as a bit of a vague definition, I actually firmly believe this. Like the bad people who do bad things, they can still be in integrity. Integrity doesn't mean you have to do it my way, you have to do it the good way. No, it's about being in alignment with who you are designed to be.

And I just think when we focus on that as the definition, it does really answer our questions quite easily and go, man, I know I have to go this way. It's not necessarily going to be the easiest route. It's not going to be the most profitable route, but I know I'm supposed to go this way. What are the other six universal principles in your book? Tell us about them so people decide to go buy it. Okay.

Wonderful. Man, I haven't been asked that in a while, so I hope I remember them all. But my number two that I was going to talk about was choice. And I really dive in deep into everything is a choice. Who you are, how you come across, what kind of life you're going to have, the amount of joy, the amount of happiness, the amount of success, it is all your choice. And I hope if you are listening right now and you're going, oof, that's a tough one to swallow. I don't know how much I'd buy that.

Here's a thing. If your way of thinking, your mindset right now is serving you, then don't change anything. However, if you believe, you know what, I feel like I could be playing a bigger game in life. I know there's more to this life for me. There's more success. There's more joy. There's more happiness. then why don't you at least consider that I might have something to give you there?

And just come and check out the book. And by the way, if you like my voice, I did the audible. I'll be speaking into your ear every single day. And so choice is such a great one. Gratitude is one of my principles. If you start living a life with more gratitude, for every percentage more gratitude you give, that is the same percentage of success you're going to experience in life.

happiness, joy you're going to experience in life, fulfillment you will experience in life. And the more we dive into gratitude, the more we see all around us, all the things that we should be grateful for. By the way, gratitude is one of those things that people say, but very few people live by gratitude. And the more I become a man of gratitude, the more people want to see me succeed. because how many people are truly grateful for the opportunities put in front of them and not just like, hey, Cindera, thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Right. Are you kidding me? Do you know how awesome it is that I get to hang out with Cindra? You are such a powerful woman who is doing such amazing things. It was such an honor to hang out with you. And then you're like, hey, come on my podcast. I'm like, are you serious? Absolutely.

I'm going to come on your podcast. Like, that's a level of gratitude. And when you get to experience this, it feels so much better. All of life feels so much better. And then what happens, people are like, I got to introduce you to so-and-so. You know who's going to love you?

So-and-so. And you start connecting with people that open up other doors and you get to be grateful for those doors too. Yeah, what do you think holds people back from not really expressing gratitude the way that they like, you know, like the way that you're describing?

Do you think it's like entitlement? Do you think it's their own negativity, their own like lack of confidence, you know? Yeah. What do you think really holds people back from really being grateful for everything? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Honestly. And the list just keeps going. Here's a big one. It's actually the same answer for why we don't spend more time in gratitude as why we don't spend more time in personal growth in working on our mindset, in investing, in investing our time into things, in giving more. because we're not guaranteed

that there's going to be some pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. Yet. Even though everyone who ever really goes down that path binds multiple pots of gold, everyone. But we just, I don't know, I don't believe it for me. So I don't know why I should do it. And that I don't know if I want to commit.

And then again, you've got those people in your ear going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. That's too much. You're going to get taken advantage of, Sandra. You know, even those people, see, they're not appreciating you. So stop doing it. Stop. Stop. And it's like, please, listen to my voice even a little bit. Keep going. Do a bit more. Go further into gratitude and see where it gets you. It is such a beautiful place to go. I love it. Thank you so much, Marcus. So we got integrity, choice, gratitude, do you want to share any of your other seven universal principles with us before we move on to my next question? Sure. I'll give you, I'll give you one more. And it's the one

I follow up with last, even though it could easily be the first principle, consistency. And another one of those words, and Cindra, I know you're already going, oh my goodness, spot on, because this is a word that's just missing. And it's not just a word that's missing. It's the action that's missing in this world. Nobody's consistent with things. We live in this world and I hate to say that I blame one thing more than everything else, but I really do. Social media has got us living in this world that's like instant gratification and, oh, you haven't made your million and you've been working at your business for a full month? Oh, you should be so embarrassed. Try something else. And it's like, what? Who's making millions in a month? Yes, you can once in a while find that as a real story. It's the same amount of

people that win the lottery. And how does that work out for people? It is not good. Do you know the average person who wins the lottery has less money and is in a worse position in under four years? And when they before they win the lottery? Say it again, sorry? Yes, before they win the lottery. Yeah. Oh, wow. Isn't that horrifying? What a horrifying statistic. And do you think they're better or worse off mentally? Oh my goodness. There's so much worse off. And so it's the same thing with the people who you see is, the quote unquote overnight success if it even is a thing. But I'll tell you, I ran my business for 19 years as an overnight success. And I wasn't considered successful until like year, I don't know, 10 or 11 in that business. Yes. Yes. And so consistency, it's, it needs to be all throughout

your life. When you think about exercise, this is one of the saddest things for me. I was in the fitness industry for so many years. So I see all these people. They get on their diet. They get on their exercise and they put in a good effort for one to three weeks. And my question is always, what were you expecting in those one to three weeks? And quick question for you, it took you how many years to build this body that you didn't want? And you thought in one to three weeks it was going to change and go back to when you were a teenager. Consistency will help you go, no, I'm in this for the journey. And you have to enjoy the journey. If you can't, find a way to love the journey, you will quit every time. Because that goal will actually always

keep moving. You will never attain that goal because you don't enjoy the journey. Because all you can focus on is the goal. It has to look like this when I get to here. And I am never experienced that it looks like that when I get there. But what I have experience, I'm enjoying today right now. I'm on this journey and I freaking love it. I'm winning today. I don't know exactly what tomorrow's going to look like because I'm not so tied to the expectation that it has to look exactly how I wanted to look. And on that, Sandra, can I give you one of my favorite new perspectives

that I've just been given recently? Yes, I love it. I love it for you to do that. Wonderful. Thank you. So this idea of like, here's my goal, Sandra, and it's got to look exactly like this. And I mean, when you're talking about any goal, this is how my body needs to look,

this is how my life needs to look, my wife needs to look, my money lead bank account, my business needs to look. How much knowledge of all the wisdom on the planet, of all the wisdom in existence, Sandra, what percentage do you think you know? Oh, all the knowledge in existence, well, I don't know very much about AI or solar systems or Russia over India.

I think I know probably 1% of all the world's knowledge. And I believe you, by the way, because you are a much smarter person than me. I'm going to say I have 0.000,000, 0.001% of all wisdom that is possible. So therefore, I am looking through a pinhole like this. And through this pinhole is where I'm going, that's what it has to look like when I'm finished. It sounds foolish when we say it that way. And for me, I get to rely on my faith. I get to walk every day with my creator who has,

infinite knowledge. His wisdom is 100%. And I get to trust that whatever happens to me was in his wisdom. And so I can let go of this little pinhole and go, you know what? I'm going to enjoy the journey today. I'm going to end up. I'm going to make every move possible to go towards that goal. But I'm not going to hold on so tightly that it has to look exactly the way I want it to look. And guess what? I win a lot. And to me, that's the type of lifestyle we should all be aiming for, is to be winning every single day and not so tied that it has to look like that. Marcus, I think this idea of, like, sometimes our outcome goals are so specific

and we identify like we're a failure if we don't reach those goals. But I think to myself, like, what did you become in the process of reaching that goal? And like, that's way more important than actually reaching the goal, whatever that goal is for you. Amen. Oh, I love that. I love that so much. Who am I becoming on this journey and who do I have to become to achieve the things I want to achieve? Exactly. And you mentioned something about your previous business. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about that because I think about people who listen to the podcast.

Sometimes they're business leaders or entrepreneurs who have their own business and you built a startup, right? That grew to 170 million business. Is that correct? That's incredible. So when you think about like building that startup to what it was, what do you think are the mindset decisions you made that helped you accelerate that success? Oh, great question. And by the way, this is why I wrote the book. This is why I felt compelled to write this book. It was every mindset technique, tip, anything I picked up along the way that I employed to help me get my business from Z.

to over 170 million in global sales. And that's, it's available to you guys. And, you know, one of the things that I love that's going around right now that a lot of successful people are talking about, there are no successful people who are hiding secrets. Every successful person is shouting from the rooftops, here's how I did it. And it's unfortunate that it's so many people with closed mind, poor mindset, who are going, And why won't you share with me how to win? So there's the answers.

They're all in there. And it's really a simple read, by the way. I'm not a super sophisticated guy. And I wanted to, I really wrote that book for the 24-year-old Marcus to go, hey, bud, let me accelerate that 19 years it took you to do some amazing things into five years. Awesome. So Marcus, tell people where they can get your book, play a bigger game, seven universal principles to experience true fulfillment and win at life. Thank you. I mean everywhere. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Audible. I mean, I love being on that journey

with people. So if you do Audible, I'll be psyched for you. And it just so happens. Everybody who listens to the Audible are the ones who contact me the most and the ones who show up at my next event because if my voice resonated with you when I was talking with you through the book, then when you get to see me live, it's going to be a very different and unique experience. That's awesome. And where can people learn more about your speaking or the events you put on and where can they follow you? Well, thank you for asking. LinkedIn, I usually share the most about where I'm going to be. I'm going to be updating Marcuscaulius.com, which I know is so easy to spell, but I'm sure it's going to be in the show notes or whatever.

But Marcuscolleas.com, that's where I update my speaking stuff. And if you want to book me for anything to come out and speak to your people, it would be a blessing. I love it. All right. We're going to end with a few lightning round questions, Marcus. So what's one mindset shift that you think instantly helps people play a bigger game today? Start with gratitude in the morning. Start in the morning and do it before you even look at your first. phone. If you look at your phone, you are now reacting all day long. We all know as soon as we look at our phone, oh, crap, that email, ah, this, oh, that. Don't do that. Start with gratitude. Wake up. Be grateful that you have another chance at another day. Be grateful for your health.

Be grateful that you have the energy inside of you and now do something with that gratitude and focus all day on gratitude. What's the best advice you've ever received? on confidence or mental strength or mental performance. Oh, I got to give it to Tony Robbins on this one. He just said, confident people do confident things. It's so profound. And if you want to be more confident, do more confident things. Excellent. I love it.

And if you were going to give an athlete or a coach or a leader a 10-second pep talk, what would you say? If I've only got 10 seconds, I'd say, close your eyes, Please quick, grab one of your favorite memories in the world and relive it right now. Be right back in it. Let all those wonderful feelings of that memory pour over your body and do this for at least two minutes and tell me how you feel. And you will be in a better state where you will perform at a far better level. Marcus, I knew you were going to bring the energy and hype on this podcast.

So I loved what we talked about today. I loved at the beginning. We were talking about how you have a choice on the level of confidence that you have and to take back the power of confidence. At the end here, you said confident people, do confident things. We also talked about your journey or your book, play a bigger game. And I'm going to encourage everyone to learn more about integrity and choice and gratitude and consistency and the other universal principles in Marcus' book.

So Marcus, thank you so much for being here. Loved it and keep crushing it, my friend. Cinder, you are amazing at what you do. Thank you. Thank you for sharing this time with me. You are awesome and I can't wait for the next time we get to hang out again. Way to go for finishing another episode of the high performance mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump.

Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Cinder for show notes and enjoy. exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Sindra. That's d R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.