The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Empowerment and Transformation for LGBTQ+ with Markus Van Driel

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Empowerment and Transformation for LGBTQ+ with Marcus Van Driel Markusvandriel.com About the Guest(s): Markus Van Driel is an intuitive coach with over 15 years of experience specializing in empowering the LGBTQ+ community to master their inner voice and express themselves authentically. As a pioneer in blending neuroscience with spiritual practices, Markus is the creator of Neural Pathway Mapping, which facilitates profound and lasting transformation. He focuses on enabling individuals to build meaningful relationships, navigate breakups, and tackle life transitions with confidence, ensuring they remain true to their authentic selves. Marcus's approach combines intuitiveness, innovation, and established methodologies to help clients change thought patterns and lead lives filled with purpose, connection, and success. Episode Summary: In this enlightening episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss engages with intuitive coach and thought leader Markus Van Driel to explore his groundbreaking work in empowering the LGBTQ+ community. Markus shares his expertise in coaching individuals to develop a strong inner voice and express themselves authentically, highlighting the significance of changing belief systems to achieve success and live a life filled with purpose and abundance. Markus delves into the concepts of Neural Pathway Mapping and the intersection of science and spirituality, discussing how altering thought patterns can redirect life trajectories. He emphasizes the importance of identifying one's values and purpose before setting goals, thus ensuring a harmonious journey toward achieving them. Throughout the conversation, Markus underscores the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community and how allyship and self-discovery can play pivotal roles in overcoming these obstacles. Key Takeaways: Align Goals with Values: Before setting goals, understanding one’s values and purpose is crucial to avoid inner conflict and ensure a fulfilling journey. Change Thought Patterns: Using Neural Pathway Mapping, Marcus coaches clients to reshape their thought patterns, blending neuroscience and spirituality for lasting transformation. Empowerment through Voice: Helping the LGBTQ+ community find and amplify their voices in a world that often suppresses them is a core focus of Marcus's work. Integrating Science and Spirituality: Techniques like meditation and breath control support mind training, allowing for control and transformation of one's thoughts and life. Allyship and Support: Being an ally involves accepting differences and offering support, which is essential in creating a world where everyone can feel worthy and authentic. Notable Quotes: "Changing your thought patterns is the first step toward creating a life filled with purpose, connection, and success." "The longer you have a belief system, the deeper ingrained it is, and the harder it is to change, but it is possible." "Being an ally is just letting people know that you are supportive and that you’re there for them." "Every disease or discomfort experienced has a psychological background, influencing our body's health." "Empowerment is about supporting people so I am gaining things by allowing others to gain things."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com. Ladies and gentlemen, the island of things that makes a fish. Welcome to the show. With over 16 years and 2,200 episodes,

we bring you the Chris Voss Show two to three times a weekday with the most amazing guests, the most amazing minds that we share on the scale of the stage of life, let's put it that way, and how they can improve your life with their stories, their journeys, and what people go through as well. We have Marcus Vandriel on the show with us today. He helps the LGBTQ plus

community master their inner voice so they can express themselves authentically authentically authentically. What is going on with me? It's Friday. And improve relationships and live in abundance which is a good thing everyone should do.

He has over 15 years of experience as an intuitive coach. He's a pioneer in empowering individuals to build meaningful relationships, navigate breakups, tackle career and major life transitions with confidence. He combines intuition with innovative and established methods to help his clients transform their lives while staying true to their authentic selves. He's the creator of Neural Pathway Mapping, a cutting-edge approach to coaching that blends neuroscience and spiritual practices to unlock profound,

lasting transformation. His coaching philosophy is based on the belief that changing your thought patterns is the first step towards creating a life filled with purpose, connection, and success. And I would agree with him totally. Welcome to the show, Marcus. How are you? I'm good, Chris. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. Thanks for coming, it's great to have you. Give us your dot coms, where can people find you on the interwebs? People can find me on marcusvandriel.com. So Marcus, give us a 30,000 overview, what you do there? So what I really do is I work with people

primarily from the LGBTQ plus community and to empower them. And especially in the world that we live in now, it's really important to empower those people and to make sure that they have a voice. And we all know that it's very challenging for people who've been suppressed to actually have a voice. And that's why it's really important to work with them but of course i also work with others who want to support who are not member of the lgbtq community but who believe in supporting that community and so you've been doing this for 15 years helping people with their with their issues and things along those things what are some challenges that a lot of people are running into that you help them really resolve i think a big challenge that people have is they are not clear on the purpose and where it is that i want to go

so for example when people want to make change they start by setting a goal but if you start to set a goal and you don't know what you stand for then you're going to run into challenges and if you have a goal and you have values and beliefs that are conflicting that that is also going to prevent you from achieving that goal and even if you work towards the goal but there is this inner conflict you're going to feel unhappy and miserable along the way of achieving that goal. So I really encourage people to take a step back and start to say, OK, before I set a goal, what do I want to do? Who am I and what do I want to achieve in this world? How can I make this world a better place doing something that I love to do and then get paid money for it?

So it's really a reverse approach. So don't start by goal setting, but start to look at yourself first to identify the person you are, the person you want to be, and how you can contribute to the world, making it a better place. Yeah, changing your belief systems and how you operate, how you show up, makes all the difference in the world because you've got to have the right mindset to become successful. It doesn't flop in your lap as easy

as everyone thinks it does. Exactly, exactly. So you talk about this thing that you have, let me see if I can pull it back up here, this neural pathway mapping. Tell us a little bit about this and what that means. I really like the fact that more and more science and spirituality are overlapping. So for me, spirituality is the knowledge that you have the power to change your belief system and actually achieve what it is that you want to do. So the scientific way of looking at it

without being scientific is that we have pathways that are created and carved out in our mind and in our brains. So the longer we have a thought, the deeper that pathway gets. For example, if you've learned from a very young age

that you're not good enough, that you're not worthy, that pathway becomes very deeply ingrained so it becomes far more easy to have that belief and anything that you then do is becoming more influenced by that pathway so in order for us to start to change our belief systems and the results that we get in our life, we need to start to change that pathway. It's like a river where water flows through. And if you want to redirect that river, you need to build in dams and redirect it. And it's the same thing that we need to do with our

pathways. In order for us to change our belief systems, our values, the results that we get in in our lives, we need to start to change the direction that those pathways flow. The longer you have a belief system, the longer, the more deeper ingrained it is, the harder it is to actually start to change that. But it is possible. One thing I've noticed with belief systems and studying in most of my life is that it usually starts with some sort of core tenant belief like maybe i'm not

good enough i'm a fat person or maybe you know even you know i believe that there's blue martians running around you know and then the the brain tends to build okay well that's our belief now okay well i'm gonna get data or at least find evidence that supports our beliefs to reaffirm that you're not crazy, right? Because everyone knows all the Martians are blue and not green or whatever I said. Everyone knows the world isn't flat. It's square, people. Everyone knows that. Anyway, we'll start a cult off that, folks.

Knock it off. We have that problem on the Chris Voss show. Last time I said the Earth was shaped like a pyramid pyramid somebody started a cult over it i'm just kidding they better not have so anyway and and so it starts with that one belief system and then it just becomes the this onion of layers yeah wrap that that belief system with all these substantiated things and that's why sometimes when you talk to people who are batshit crazy, maybe conspiracy theorists or something where you're trying to talk to them about how maybe the world could be round, might just be a thing

but you can't talk to them because they throw like 500 of those onion layer belief systems at you as the tendency for believing what they believe. And really, you know, it all comes down to whatever that core decision was. So I like how you have a thing where you try to help people peel back the layers. But yeah, the more layers there are, the longer they've been in that delusion of whatever their belief system is, the more isolated or insulated they are. And the harder it is to cut away that cancer and get to the core problem, right?

Actually, what's really interesting, we often adopt belief systems from other people that are no longer serving us. So even if something goes against us because somebody else externally to us has told us, we still take that on board. For example, you used the example, you know, I'm not good enough. I am fat. So if you start to believe that I am fat and it's bad for me because somebody else has told you that, it's clearly a belief system or a value that is no longer supporting you because being fat doesn't equate with being bad or it being bad for you so it's interesting how we adopt those belief systems even though they don't serve us so you help people what are some of the techniques you use or do you want to share some of the techniques you use to help people get out of it?

You mentioned spiritual. Is there any meditation, or am I going into a sweat lodge, or what goes on there? Maybe give us a little tease out, if you would. Yeah. So I use very traditional practices, such as neurolinguistic programming, but I also use practices such as hypnosis and some energy healing techniques and i really love how you say do i need to go to a sweat lodge the way i see it is it is all about training your mind right and starting with training your mind is literally

meditation in meditation you start by teaching yourself how to breathe and to focus on your breathing so you can start to control your thoughts. So you can eliminate those thoughts that are not serving you. But once you understand how you can start to control that and you eliminate those thoughts, you're also starting to learn yourself on how to create different thoughts because you learn to control them so you can start to change them and of course once you start to change your thoughts you can start to create reality which then becomes creative visualization and then you start to be able to change your life based on those changed thoughts so yeah in a way you need to start in in a sweat lodge you know that level of practice but then you can start to build on that and then you start to have different results. So this is why I mean that spirituality overlaps with science because of a neuroscience.

They say literally this is the case, you know, you can control your thoughts through processes and through meditation. And so that's really the process that you need to take and follow to go from simple meditation and breath control to creating the outcomes that you want. You know, there's a lot that happens in the body. There's a lot of stress and sometimes trauma and other things are stored in the body. And breathwork, I think, has been found to help release a lot of that, help target what's going on with the body and how to release how things are contained or stored in the body. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I do believe that every disease or discomfort that you experience has a psychological background.

So it's a bit controversial and people will argue against that. But I think some research has already shown that, for example, if you have anger, you have more chance of getting a heart attack. And that's why I always say to people, when you do your Western medicine treatment, which I find very valuable, you also need to start to look at some of the psychological beliefs that you're holding that may influence that. I mean, on the most basic level, when you're stressed, you get a stress headache, right? So you can see from the most basic level that the way you feel is actually impacting your body. When you're in love, you get butterflies. These are very basic levels that show that psychology has an impact on physiology.

And I think, you know, tell us about your journey and how you grew up and maybe some of the challenges that you help people face now, maybe you faced when you were growing up and identifying and things of that nature. Give us a little bit of your history. Yeah. So there's two things which were really significant for me in my childhood. First of all, I'm a member of the LGBTQ community, and it's been really challenging accepting that as an identity. No matter how much people were open to me, including my mum, that I would be accepting,

it's really challenging for me to accept that. And then at home, I also had a brother who was autistic, which wasn't really identified until 30 years after that, which caused a lot of conflict in my family. But both of those things made me want to avoid being seen. They made me want to please other people. And once you have to adapt and be somebody that you're not, you're starting to get into the area of conflict which is what i talked about before and it's you know your personality of who you are is not aligned with how you're living your life that causes that causes conflict that causes stress and like what

we mentioned before that then starts to have an impact on every area of your life yeah and i and i imagine my understanding is for my friends in the lgbt community and my understanding of the challenge they have especially if they grow up in religious environments here in utah the suicide rate for lgbt community is pretty high because usually the church encourages people to alienate their family members who come out. And that can be, that can be very, at some of the most stressful times of figuring out what's going on in their life, that can be a very, you know, you feel abandoned. And so I imagine a lot of LGBTQ plus people deal with maybe some issues that maybe some of the rest of us don't.

I don't know if you want to speak to that and maybe how you help resolve some of those challenges for those people. Yeah, I saw a statistic recently that 40% of LGBTQ plus youth and teenagers feel uncomfortable in their home environment, and they are fearful what would happen to them if they would express their sexuality. And to me, it's a really sad, sad situation. And the reality is, I often hear people say, friends and allies, they say, you know, but you know, you have equal marriage. So everything is going is fine right but there are so many individual stories that are happening on this space that

are devastating for people and just hearing them is heartbreaking so what i really do is in my programs i target the lgbtq plus community and give them a voice, to take them on a journey so they can find their purpose in life and then help them strengthen themselves and give them a voice. And I think having a voice, especially in a time where we live in, where the world is often based on division and hatred.

I think it's really important. And then the other side of what I do is I am really targeting organizations and people who believe in allyship and starting to get the message out on how to be an ally, why allyship is important, but also why allyship is really challenging for people because it's hard for people to know how to support a community who is often scared to express themselves and be seen. What does allyship mean?

What is the context of what that means? For me, allyship is about choosing to be a good person. It is about understanding who you are, that you are different, and that the world is full of differences. And it's about accepting your values and your belief systems, but also then saying, look, these values and belief systems or the way i am is not the same as you but i will accept who you are anyway so ultimately it just becomes a choice between how do you want to influence the world do you want to influence the world in a positive way

or do you want to influence the world in a negative way? I've been thinking a lot about how to answer this question. And let's talk about money, right? And it's just a metaphor. So, and it's very simplified. I can become rich by taking away things from you, by taking your money away. And that will make me richer, but it's at your disadvantage. But I can also say, look, I'm going to teach you how to make more money. I'm going to give you something that will allow you to become richer.

And in return, I am increasing my wealth. So for me, that is really allyship. It is about supporting people. So I am gaining things by allowing others to gain things and to be better the rising tide lifts all boats as we like to say yeah now with this ally ship how does this work how does how does this format is this being ally and supportive between people who are in the lgbt community people that are not how does that work i think the first thing to understand is that it is uncomfortable often for people in our community to express themselves like what we said before

and you know sometimes people ask what is your coming out story well you have a coming out story every day nearly when you meet somebody new you need to make the decision whether you're going to be honest about your sexuality or your preferences and sometimes as well it's none of your business and i don't know you well enough you need to kind of start to build trust so just that barrier that we put up often makes it really hard for people to reach out so being an ally is just letting people know that you are supportive and that you're there for them because the reality is it can impact everybody if the statistics are true that 15 of the population is a member of the LGBTQ plus community, that means that in your family of 50 people, seven people of those are going to be impacted by your

opinion. They are going to need your support to make sure that they are going to feel good about themselves. And that's really all there is for you to be an ally, to make sure that you are willing to accept those people and that you dare to support them. One of the things you help people in the dynamics of dating, relationships, identity, personal transformation through your neuroscience. What are some struggles a lot of people have you find in relationships that you've been

successful in helping people resolve? I find that, let me say this, the biggest impact I've had on relationships is about empowering people. But often what is happening is that people are carrying with them an influence from the past. For example, I once worked with a person, and she was very successful in a lot of ways, but she came to me and she said, I often argue with my partner. I really struggle with my partner when I come home. She wants to be cuddly, and I just push her away.

So we argue a lot about that. Through the process, really randomly out of nowhere, we came up with the fact that there were some challenges around her past with her father. So once we've cleared that and that connection, we reframed it, making it mean something else, but also we got her to understand how it empowered her and then we changed the energy around it so we're already talking about three different

approaches she said suddenly her whole relationship with her partner changed but also the relationship with her father she was never able to be in the same room as her father but now she says we can have good normal conversations i don't think she said we are very closely connected but the least is that we are able to communicate together and have civilized conversations which was a massive improvement for her that's a great step in the right direction you know it's it's interesting and a lot of people i wish they would teach more of this in school because we seem to teach we seem to talk about ad nauseum on the show. But a lot of people's issues that they have are rooted in childhood, in childhood blueprints, in childhood relationships with parents, etc., etc.

The relationships maybe the parents blueprinted them with. Everything kind of stems from that, really, when it comes down to it. Childhood trauma, etc cetera, et cetera. And so it's great you were able to resolve that. What are some other things that you do for clients or maybe some examples or things you want to talk about that we haven't discussed we should tease out? Yeah, so for me, really, I think it's really important for people to learn to trust themselves and to evaluate where the belief systems come from. You know, we all have this knowledge and understanding that we are really in control of our lives. I think, you know, but people don't trust that.

The way, you know, people don't trust in the whole spirituality thing, they say it's a sweatshop kind of thing, sweat lodge. But I always say when you go on public transport and you stand really close to somebody, you can feel how uncomfortable it is and you want to take a step away. So we all know this is happening. How often do people have intuitive insights i go oh i shouldn't be doing that and they do it anyway and it doesn't work out

so we all have this instinct this insight that something is good for us or bad for us but often we just choose to override that and the way forward for anybody is is to learn how to be more in tune and be more in touch with that which is really essential in you being able to to move forward and moving out of the situation towards something bigger and better hmm now on your website you have several programs you have individual coaching Reiki and yeah my producer. Am I pronouncing it right? It's Friday. Online coaching in your ultimate life. Walk us through some of these programs and how people can utilize them. So I love working with people one-on-one and I do that face-to-face or on Zoom. This is

really where I allow my spirituality and insights come in. For example, I worked with a female client recently, a straight female client, actually. And we were working with her, she came to me because she wanted to work on a career. And then I had this insight. And I sort of said to her, this thought comes up in my mind. And it says, it's the fear of holding on. And I said, it makes no sense to me because the saying is the fear of letting go. And so I'm just going to have to share this with you. And then she told me that day before she met me a few weeks before that, she actually found out that she was pregnant and she wasn't really sure

whether she wanted to hold on to the baby or not. So moments like that, even I'm blown away on how powerful this is. But insights like that, using kinesiology, using the whole energy sphere and the intuitive side of coaching really then allows me to work with people really quickly and rapidly so people can start to see change and significance really fast and Reiki and kinesiology are things that I do face to face but I incorporate it in my in my coaching practices because they are so powerful in in guiding people and supporting people my online coaching programs are primarily for the LGBTQ

community, but my online program, Your Ultimate Life, even though it's targeted at the LGBTQ community, it really takes people through the process that I just said. It gets people to think about their purpose, their values, beliefs, how they can start to action this, and then how they can start to achieve their goals based on that. And it's really what I see as a foundation for everything in life, that program. So as we go out, give us a final pitch to people to get to know you better, how they can reach out, how they can get involved with your program, how they can find out if they're a good fit by handshaking with you or maybe consulting with you initially, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So if you want to do coaching with me, then the best thing for you to do is go to marketsandreal.com. And you can book a one-on-one

session with me there to find out if you are a good fit. But i said before i'm also really open to working with corporations and organizations to talk about allyship and and to help people become more successful in creating a world where everybody has a sense of worthiness and and feels good enough and you can also go to marcusvandrill.com speaking and then you can reach out to me there and see how I can be either a guest speaking either remotely, or maybe appear on people's podcasts to spread the message of support, kindness and equality, which is really what it is all about. Kindness and equality. We definitely want that. So thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it, Marcus. Very insightful.

Thank you very much, Chris. I really enjoyed being here too. Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Voss, Chris Voss, one of the TikTokity, all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.