Mark G. shares the personal core values he lives by that make life truly amazing for him.

Mark G.: The reason why I feel good every day I wake up is that I’ve done a real good job at like sculpting and designing my life exactly the way I want it.

Aaron Kennard: Hello and welcome to the truly amazing life podcast where it’s all about sculpting and designing the life you want, and also realizing that even one thing happened there are out of your control realizing that we have the ability to create beauty out of whatever show up in our life. Today I’m sharing interview with a great friend of mine Mark G. and he shares with us how he designed the truly amazing life for himself. He’s an inspiration you know because he is committed to himself, and being true to himself and part of why he is able to be so committed lies in the core values that he set up for his life. Listen in now and find out what his core values are, how he lives by them and how doing something similar would massively benefits you in your life. Let’s jump right into it.

Aaron Kennard: Alright, welcome to the truly amazing life podcast. I’m excited to have my good friend Mark G. on the line today and as a quick intro Mark has been a friend of mine for five or six years, he is a super successful real estate investor out in Virginia and he is a father of three young children, his youngest sibling is eight months old, he is just… The reason I want him on the show here because I see him as somebody who lives a truly amazing life and lives fully and I want to dig into his brain and find out, you know what makes him tick, why his life is so successful, so meaningful and so full and rich and. So without further due, welcome to the show Mark.

Mark G.: Well thanks, Thanks for having me.

Aaron Kennard: I’m glad, thanks for taking time for your busy schedule, all that you’re doing, your kids and your business, and so let’s just jump in. Well, before we do that, any other things you wanna tell us about yourself that I missed on that intro?

Mark G.: No I just, I guess I just want ground things a little bit. I mean you know obviously a truly amazing life is a subjective topic so you know.

Aaron Kennard: Yes

Mark G.: Some people might think my life is truly amazing and I certainly do, but I guess you know some might also think that it’s not so great. So you know I’m just a normal guy, you know.

Aaron Kennard: That is actually exactly the reason why we want to talk to you because, and that, that specific point like what people think is a truly amazing life. I think there so many different view points like some people think “Oh my life can’t be truly amazing unless I’m rich and famous and have all this and that other stuff.”

Mark G.: Right.

Aaron Kennard: But that, the thing that you said that I love there is that you think your life is truly amazing. And that’s your perspective and your belief and therefore it is. And that’s why I want to get into that a little bit more. So, on that note, what is it that makes your life truly amazing to you right now? And why are you so thrilled to wake up every single day?

Mark G.: Yeah. I mean, again, you said I’m glad you kind of agree with me, because I definitely, you kind of sense that you… some of the questions you might be asking out to me. You know, thinking through that, you know what you just said like other folks out there that feel the need to get somewhere, you know to become happy, you know I’m already happy. I guess one of the things that, you know with that, the reason why I feel good everyday I wake up is that I’ve done a really good job at like sculpting and designing my life exactly the way I wanted.

Aaron Kennard: So, what do you mean by that?

Mark G.: So like, I don’t know. It’s a while back. You might have been at one of that like the summer where all these happened but Willie Hook’s a good friend of both of ours and a mentor to both of us…

Aaron Kennard: Yup.

Mark G.: He’d done an exercise with us at one point. Let me start with this, I think it’s always there in my subconscious somewhere until I’m kind of, to have like, a value system, right?

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: And you know this is important to me, this is not important. But with that exercise, I think it was a core value assessment exercise, where it would help you, we spend some time on this like, you know, we’d focus minds, identifying what it is that is truly important to us. What are, like if you’ve heard the expression “Your big why.”

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: And so when we did, we did this exercise, and I came up with, you know really just when you boil down to it, three core values. And this was like 5 or 6 years ago. And before that again I think it was dug into my deep like my self-conscious, but to bring it out and put clarity around it, you know ever since then, I mean this is definitely not a turning point or anything but, like it’s just gotten better and better in my life…

Aaron Kennard: So what were those three values you came up?

Mark G.: Yeah. The three values, in order of importance to me are, you know first and foremost, my family, Ok? And then after my family, you know my health, ok? And really, my mind and my family’s health but again it’s in order of importance…

Aaron Kennard: Interesting. So you put your family's health before your own.

Mark G.: Yeah, yeah. I mean I put my family before everything.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: So that’s my first and foremost. And you know, I definitely… If you’re like well to the third point is my growth. Like always constantly growing and becoming better and doing more, right?

Aaron Kennard: And you mean that in sense of all areas of life?

Mark G.: Everything. All areas of life. So if you are to follow me around, like a fly on the wall any day of the year, you would see like it’s apparent that those three things are in my life every single day. Like, so I wake up in the morning. I make all my kids breakfast. I go to the office, right after family, I go to the office. I meet with my team and get them started. You know my business, my real estate business is the growth, the growth value where I’m growing my business…

Aaron Kennard: It’s also your family’s support system, right?

Mark G.: It is right. It provides for my family, you know.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: But I come back right after I get my guys going. I came back. And you know it takes an hour to do this, right? So you understand this is a lot of my time.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: I come home and I make sure I walk my daughter to school everyday.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: Usually last year which is at preschool, I drove her to school but you know, there’s no way I’m gonna miss that you know. And there’s just nothing that’s going to stand in that way…

Aaron Kennard: So you wake up and you feed them breakfast, and then you go off, you kind of get your team going, your business going. And then you come back and take your kids to school?

Mark G.: Yeah. I take my kids to school…

Aaron Kennard: Well, it’s just your daughter right now, cause you have one in school, right.

Mark G.: Right, but because I try, I mean I’m trying to spread to all three of my children. I actually take my two year old with me. Now it takes twice as long to walk with a two year old who wants to walk independent. She wants to walk, you know. She falls down, that’s the way for you to get up. This whole process takes a long time but I do it everyday.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: And, you know having my like values defined, like ahead of time. Pre-determined values helps with that. You know like, when something bad happens at the office, and it’s pressing in my head and here I am taking an hour to take my daughter to school. You know like, that could get frustrating real quick and it would be real easy for me to just pass that responsibility on to my wife who’s at home watching, I mean hey, why can’t she take the kids. It will be a little hard for her and she would mind doing it. That thing, she would even mind doing it. I would never do that. And I’ll be sitting there, walking with my two daughters and the one is babbling about something that, you know that she cannot wait to get to kindergarten and do again today, and I’ll just stop. And I think to myself, “Wait, the reason I am doing this is because I’m already determined that family is the most important thing in my life". And this, right now, this activity I am doing supersedes anything else, even something at the office which still rolls up to my growth, but it’s not as important as…

Aaron Kennard: It’s lower on the priority for you.

Mark G.: Exactly. And so I’ll just stop and I’ll just listen to her. I mean, you know is it always like that? Do I ever, you know, miss that a little bit? I mean of course. Sometimes I’ll, you know, I’ll get frustrated, you know something in veer off a little bit, but it rarely happens, you know. And if you followed me around everyday, like you definitely would see that, a parent. And then in health. I’m by no means like a gym jockey or anything. Like you see me probably won… you probably wonder if I even go to the gym, right. I’m not like, you know, but I am fit. I definitely, I take a lot of pride in going to the gym. After lunch so I come back home and have lunch with my wife and my other two children. It used to be all three of them, but now that my oldest is in kindergarten. I come home and have lunch my other two children and my wife, and then right after lunch, like hey, everybody at the office knows I’m gonna be gone from noon till, you know 2:00, 2:15, except for a Wednesday. Which is why I take Wednesday to do this interview, because, you know, I don’t go to gym on Wednesdays. I go Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and then on Saturday and Sunday I usually do running.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah. That’s cool.

Mark G.: I definitely talk about little bit about my business, but I’m also, I’m an avid reader, like, you know that I’m always asking for book recommendations. And you know I definitely… and it’s not just for personal growth stuff too. I love history. I read all kinds of books about history. I just, I love learning new stuff. So…

Aaron Kennard: So, ok. So hold on just a second. I’m getting this… I’m getting to know you better first of all and I also want to display and help people see little more clearer. I mean it starts with your core values here. And it spreads sounds like its just kinda dictates your whole life, but what is it at the core that’s driving you to do that? Like that’s driving you to grow? And that’s driving you to really focus on your family? Like what is it that moves you so deeply to keep those commitments?

Mark G.: Well, you know commitments, like I guess that’s a powerful word in itself, right?...

Aaron Kennard: Because you’ve made that commitment to yourself, right? It’s those core values…

Mark G.: I had. And again like this was pulled out of my subconscious and pre-determined. And that exercise really helped me. I don’t know if that exercise like, it’s not the silver bull by any means, you have to want to do this. You have to want to realize and understand what your value system is. But once you go about determining it, and finding it, and putting a stake in the ground, then you know, then it’s about a commitment and keeping a commitment. I guess that might be a different topic all together.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: About keeping commitments with yourself and with others, but I’ve always been you know, I’ve always been of the mindset, like if I say “I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna do it.”

Aaron Kennard: And so essentially, back to the initial question that: What is it that makes your life truly amazing? It sounds like, it’s the fact that you have these values and that you live them. And so on a daily… Go ahead.

Mark G.: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's definitely a good way to put it. I have the commitment, I mean, the values that I’m committed to ‘em.

Aaron Kennard: And you live them day by day and so like, when you are spending time with your child, or your spending time with your health, or your spending time in growth, is that what’s bringing you fulfillment and joy?

Mark G.: Yeah, yeah. I mean you know, it’s so funny because I hear this all the time with other folks that have children have already grown up, maybe their empty nesters. And they always tell me like, “oh yeah. That’s great. Your family is beautiful. Mark, you know enjoy it now because it’s not gonna last forever.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: And I'm like, I'm very respectful to that advice. And I say, yeah. that's good advicee but inside, I'm chuckling. Because I'm like, I am enjoying it. Everyday that goes by, I'm with them. And I do stuff, like I take time to coach our soccer team, I read books to them at night, I play with them after dinner. Even when I go running on the weekend, I have a jogging stroller, I'm taking at least one of them with me. My oldest one wants to run with me so I usually run, come back, and then her and I go together. I mean she's 5 but she runs with me because she wants to hang out with daddy. And I love it. And I let her. There's rarely any time where at least one of them isn't with me.

Aaron Kennard: That's so cool. You know, I've always looked up to you and just wanted to emulate so many of the attributes that you do and how committed you are. Like as we're talking, it's just it's reminding me of why that is. I see in my own life how it's so easy to get cuaght up in the business goals that we want to do with the supposed benefit of our family as the root. But then, we don't spend the time with our family as our core value because we're going away from that. I just love how balanced you keep it and I'm also amazed at how successful and well run your business is. Amidst you really being so cimmited to your family and your health clearly. How do you do that? I just want to veer on that topic.

Mark G.: It's funny because I look up to you as well and you taught me a lot. Even the time that I was out there in Colorado with you and the time you spent with your family. My oldest at that time was I think, maybe one. I learned a lot from you at a family stand point. But yeah, I mean.

Aaron Kennard: So the business there how do you?

Mark G.: Yeah the balancing. So here's the thing. I lived my life, and I guess people say I'm successful. I'm happy. I'm striving always to do certain things and grow my business in certain ways. I'm at a point now where the income from my property can support my family. I don't have to buy and do more work other than just maintain my properties.

Aaron Kennard: Which is amazing. It's incredible what you've built. So for other people listening, he's built up a super successful real estate business that he just has to maintain and manage properly. Which is work but he has built that from nothing. It's incredible. So, go ahead.

Mark G.: With that though, if you grasp the amount of properties that I bought over the years from the beginnning, about a decade ago, when I started this to now. You're gonna see like this exponential curve upwards of how many properties, let's just call it units, I added to my portfolio. Until about two years ago, when my oldest was getting to the point where she was in school, and all of a sudden I had a second child. You know my second is two years old. I kind of just now, thinking about it this, that curve drastically plateaued. It stopped. I think back, there's real east investors around my area, good friends of mine like I'm well ahead of them. We all kind of started at the same time. It's not that they weren't as successful, they just didn't grow as quickly as I was able to grow. But now, they're kind of catching up to me and it takes a lot to govern myself. To do what you just said. It is hard. It's really hard. Like last year, to slow down the growth in order to fit family in. That was one of the things I did last year because our third child was born in January of last year. And during the off seasons, in the previous years, even when it got really really busy with our second, during the off season I was able still build my portfolio out there. I would always buy like some sort of development project and keep me busy during the off season. Well last season I stopped everything. I stopped all marketing and everything because I didn't want to jeopardize my time for the family.

Aaron Kennard: That's just so cool. I love it. It comes back to, you've determined your core values and you're just committed to them. You keep them top of mind and you go back to them. So when you have this temptation to like, "I can build so much more. I can buy so much more.". You're like, no, my wife needs me. I need to be here at the time the kids are young and this is where I want to spend my time.

Mark G.: Yeah. I'm even switching to another business model all together so that I can still have some sort of growth in my business. Like with very little time, and I'm not talking about outsourcing, like in level 3, bringing more employees on because that's time as well. I'm actually located doing a private lending business during the off season because paper assets, as you an I both know, are less time intensive than physical assets. But it all boils to it because, my time, I'm not giving up the gym and I'm certainly not going to give up my family. So, it's whatever's left for the growth is just going to have to be for now.

Aaron Kennard: That's just so Cool. I love it. I love that. Well let's take a transition. I think that's given us a great view why your life is so full and meaningful. It's because you have your values and you stick to them. I mean it just so simple but it's not as simple done. I mean the challenge is doing that which is why I think I'm so impressed by how you live. But I want to go to another question which is, it hasn't always been this and so you've grown to this level. Have you always seen your life as truly amazing or has there been times that were harder or that you were trying to figure things out in the past?

Mark G.: Yeah. I mean that's a tough one because I honestly don't really recall that much. I know this, I know that I was never like deeply depressed. There was never a time in my life where I was just tethering. But and even today, it's not everyday I don't wake up happy, galored, running around like Mr. Rogers right? I guess I call my peaks and valleys right? Sometimes, you're up on top of the world and things are all going perfect for you. And other times, it just feels like all four walls are just crushing in on you. I guess what I've really gotten good at over the years is trying to stay out of the peaks or at least minimize my time in the peaks and maximize my time.. I'm sorry, minimize the valleys and maximize the peaks. But I don't really have a point in my life where it wasn't like that. Again, I always felt like, I've always strived to be happy and if something was not happy I chip away at it so it wasn't in my life anymore. And I also again, I'm looking for things that I do enjoy and putting those types of things in my path so that they can be in my life.

Aaron Kennard: So was there anything, anyone of those big hard things that you could recall where you were saying life was super stressful or this was super tough to deal with? And then you were able to somehow overcome that?

Mark G.: I mean there are definitely some instances that were probably more severe. I'm just kind of brush on it but I don't really want to get too deep in to it. But I mean I did have a health scare about ten years ago right before I started my own business. I definitely in by no means making a connection between the two. Let's just say I've had my fair share of obstacle in my life as everybody does. You just dealt the hand that you're dealt and you just have to overcome it. I've had instances where I had terminal, possibly terminal illness. During that time, some other pretty severe things were happening but again, I don't use that as an excuse to say that ever since then I was somehow a trajectory upwards. Because I feel like I was positive before that and I was positive after that.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah, so you've just constantly been growing and learning your whole life. But what did you do then in that sense? In that moment, when things got dire, how did you react and deal with that? What was your mindset like that got you through that, that kept you moving forward?

Mark G.: Yeah, and this goes whith anytime that you're slipping into a valley because most of the time when you start slipping.. And when I say slipping in the valley, have you ever felt like, "God! This is wrong and this is wrong!" and things like that..

Aaron Kennard: You just feel like nothing's lining up and it's all..

Mark G.: Nothing's lining up. Everything is just working against you and you're so upset about something. This and that.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: Most of the time when something like that happens, it's something completely different and external. A lot of times, when that happens to me, and I am so good at now recognizing when I get into a rut. And start slipping to a valley. I just say, "Wait a second", it's because last night I didn't get a good night sleep. I'm just tired right now or I'm just really hungry. 9 times out of ten, for me at least, it's isolating. Alright, so let me see, I'm upset because one of my guys.. Like when I lay it down, so okay, I'm upset because of that. Really? This is what's driving my emotions to be this way? No. It's because I'm exhausted tonight because I didn't get a good night sleep last night. What I needed to is isolate that problem out of my head and go to sleep. Get a really good night sleep tonight and wake up in the morning with a fresh set of eyes and then attack the real problem. If it even is a problem when I wake up.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah. Because sometimes it just seems that it's this huge problem just because you're actually tired and overwhelmed from a bad night sleep the night before. When really it's not a problem at all.

Mark G.: Yeah it's not a problem at all. And sometimes, it is a real problem. But again, the remedy is the same. Like, if five of my properties all go vacant at once, the solution isn't to dwell on it and be unhappy. The solution is to be happy, be positive, and attack the problem with solutions. And continue to attack until you find the right solution for it.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah.

Mark G.: Unfortunately I don't have like a silver bullet for you other than, if you have problems, you deal with them. You deal with them and you take action on them to get through them.

Aaron Kennard: That sounds like for you, when you're just not feeling great, you're doing what you can to figure out why you're not feeling great. And fixing that first, and sometimes that's just a good night sleep you need, and then wake up fresh and attack it.

Mark G.: Yes.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah, I do the same thing.

Mark G.: And the sooner the better. The sooner the better. The sooner you can get out of the valley, the better of you are.

Aaron Kennard: So when you're talking about a valley, you're just talking about basically not feeling good right?

Mark G.: Yeah. Not feeling good, feeling like a rut. I mean a depression would be like a low, low point of a deep valley. But it could be anything. I don't know, I assume everybody is the same in this matter. But I'm no different, I definitely have good days and bad days. So I maximize the good days and minimize the bad days.

Aaron Kennard: Oh man, you got to read my book. You have got to stop having those bad days.

Mark G.: What's that?

Aaron Kennard: You have got to stop having those bad days.

Mark G.: Well, you know again. I definitely. Especially, now at this point in my life, it's more like an hour. A bad hour.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. And I actually do encourage you to refuse that term using that I have a bad day. That literally is like one of the main points I make in my whole book and one of the main thing I've learned. I, personally, have chosen to never have a bad day. I have not a bady day since December of 2011 even through all the hell that I went through. And it's a philosophical thing. We will get into it a whole lot of it here. I do think it's an important distinction though to make and the wording which is why I bring it up. But I know what you mean by that whey you say I had good days and bad days. You're saying I've had hard moments, it's not like I feel amazing all the time.

Mark G.: Yeah.

Aaron Kennard: I just like to make that distinction because I think when we say that we had a bad day, it's like we classify that day as bad. I think we're missing out on so much life by choosing to say that. And it's even a subconscious thing like most people don't even realize because that's just a common term.

Mark G.: It's the law of attraction. You're talking about the law of attraction. You say you have a bady day, guess what, you're attracting bad days to you. You're attracting that feeling to yourself. I agree with that 100%

Aaron Kennard: So I'm always like, if you're talking to me, anybody is talking to me they say they have a bad day, they're always going to like, "Are you sure that's waht you wanted to choose?".

Mark G.: Right.

Aaron Kennard: Anyway, we don't have to deep dive into that. Just bringing it as a side point. I totally get what you're saying, when I feel bad, when I'm having a hard day, the number one important thing to do is to get out of that feeling as fast as possible right?

Mark G.: Yes. To get out of that feeling as fast as possible. A lot of times, it's just blocking that whatever you perceive is the problem until the next day. Until you're rested up, or gotten some food in your stomach, or whatever. It maybe a go to the gym. For me, if I don't go to the gym, like exercising is like a drug to me nowadays. If I stop doing it, that's where things start to sweat.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah, you're body starts to feel crazy and you just stop feeling good. And so the main solution is hey, go out and move outside or go to the gym.

Mark G.: Yeah. Go to the gym. Go for a run. My life is almost conditioned to it. Did you not go to the gym today? You need to go to the gym.

Aaron Kennard: Because you can see you're not smiling as much.

Mark G.: Yeah. Or if I'm just talking about something that really isn't a problem at all. It's not important to even mention. But again, I do want to say though, you could probably be the right person to do this interview, in the sense that I don't have many bad moments or however you want me.

Aaron Kennard: Hard moments. You could run it however you want. I'm just giving you a hard time.

Mark G.: Yeah. But anyway..

Aaron Kennard: And that's why I want to dig into that. Because you stay on that positive place so much.And that's what people need to hear. People need to see, how do people live in this life of positivity? How do they stay out of negativity? Because it's the constant battle that we fight and face. And I went through this huge transition where I've always been super positive in my life but I would go through these valleys where I'd be in a funk for days at a time. And I hated that. I wanted to be able to say, "Get me out of this funk", let me figure out how I can stay positive more of the time. And you're doing a great job and I think it's just your discipline to your core values and coming back. And then focusing on. It sounds like, you're just really aware of how you feel and making sure that you feel good. And getting to the place that you feel good.

Mark G.: Yeah. Definitely. You summarized everything I said and much more clearer on it too. So yeah. What you just said is exactly what I was trying to articulate over the last few minutes. So yeah, absolutely.

Aaron Kennard: Well it's been cool to talk about this stuff. Let's wrap up with a couple of questions, just quickly. You've seen the 12 pillars of a truly amazing life post that I have. Of those, which of those 12 pillars maybe sticks out to you most right now and why? Briefly.

Mark G.: Yeah. I definitely love those, you call them pillars, I definitely like all of them. I probably can relate to all of them. But the one that just jumps out of me and it kind of goes with everything we kind of been just talking about. It's by far the one that I enjoy the most, is to enjoy every moment. You and I both seen a ton of this at the seminars we've gone to over the years, right? Where you got people that are always looking for happiness there.

Aaron Kennard: In something else right?

Mark G.: Yeah. In something else. They're looking for when I can retire finally, or when can I get a raise, when I start this business and I can leave the job that I hate so much. My younger brother is always telling our family how he just has to find a new job because they don't pay them enough.

Aaron Kennard: And then he'll be happy.

Mark G.: And then he'll be happy, right? And then somehow, that will make him happy and bring happiness to his life. And it's a myth. I don't know what you would call it. Conundrum, I don't know. It's an elusive. You're chasing something that's elusive.

Aaron Kennard: And it doen't exist because things don't bring you happiness.

Mark G.: Right. I mean right now, I would tell everybody out there listening to this. The one thing you get out of my interview with you is you have to fix yourself so you're happy where you're at right now. There's no goal that you're going to get to that's going to be all of a sudden, "Okay and now your happy!". I think there's a great book out there.

Aaron Kennard: Yeah tell us.

Mark G.: It's wouldn't say it's like a silver bullet book that's going to fix everything but it's called "Happy for No Reason".

Aaron Kennard: Is that by Marci Shimoff?

Mark G.: Yes. And that one was a great book to kind of knock that point home.

Aaron Kennard: Somebody else recommended that just recently actually on the show here so that must be a good one.

Mark G.: Yeah it is. And again, enjoy every moment. It's like enjoying them now. Just focusing in being happy today and not worrying about to trying to achieve some goal. I mean there's statistics out there that'll blow your mind about people entering retirement and dying. Literally dying shortly after. The death rate after retirement is ridiculous and there's definitely a corelation to it. That's not going to make you happy. I mean, you've got to find what makes you happy now and again, chip away everything else out of your life and try to build up the things that do make you happy.

Aaron Kennard: That's such good advice. I want to end then with one final thought on that which would be. Okay. So I've got of a lot of challenges right now. The person I'm in a relationship is mean. The person who's in a circumstance where their relationship is really challenging or their job. They really don't like their job and they're frustrated with it. Whatever it is. There are so many challenges poeple are going through. How do we be happy in those moments when we're faced with all these challenging or super painful sickness? Anything, okay. How do you do what you just said? How do you enjoy those moment when you're faced with such challenging circumstances?

Mark G.: So other than what we talked about, designing your life to be the way you want it to be.

Aaron Kennard: Well because you do all that. You design it and then all of a sudden a crap hits the fan and a flood hits you, or a sickness hits you. You didn't design that but what do you do to stay happy?

Mark G.: Right, And then again those are problems that you slip in. So we talked a little bit about all that but I just had a thought. I lost what I had thought on. Oh yeah, one of the things I guess, if something does hit the fan and really pushes you down low. That you somehow you can't isolate and fix right away. One of the best combatants to being unhappy that I've ever known, I don't have to do this as much I kindo of do it automatically, is just gratitude. Being grateful for things that you do have, that's probably one of the silver bullets that you can rely on always. Something even the worst case scenario happens to you, there's always something out there that you can be grateful for. And that sometimes in itself can pull you out of where you're at.

Aaron Kennard: That is so true. And I could not agree with you more. I love that. And when you say there's always something to be grateful for, like literally, there always is. No matter how bad things are. Guess what? You're still breathing. That's one thing.

Mark G.: Yeah. Like you just said, there's always something out there that you can draw on to inspire you and pull you up.

Aaron Kennard: And then what it does is when you do that, when you think of that thing. Whatever it is. If you say, "Thank you", it has to make you feel a little bit better. It moves you some direction closer to feeling better.

Mark G.: Yeah and I don't know the technical, psychological aspects of that, I just know it works.

Aaron Kennard: Exactly.

Mark G.: But it definitely. There is some sort of chemicals that is produced in your mind. That gratitude somehow triggers and it does work.

Aaron Kennard: That's awesome. That's a great way, a great advice to end on. Thanks for sharing that. And thank you so much for taking your time. It's been cool to dive in to this topic. I'm super impressed by how you live. I love that. And what you did today reminded me of just enjoying my little children right now, my family. Like right now and not getting myself to caught up. So I'm trying to start this new business and run my old one and there's a ton going on and I just love your example.

Mark G.: It's so easy to get lost. Believe me, it's so easy. To have those core values it really does help me. It grounds me. There's no exceptions because I've already predetermined on a mindsent. A clear mind without of any kind of interruptions that determined that these are my most valuable beliefs and attributes. I'm not going to break that committment no matter what. I definitely don't. I would sure hope, if you ever follow me around during the day, or during the week, or if you ask people around me. They'd probably say, "Yeah. He definitely does either go to the gym everyday or he spends every minute he can with his family.

Aaron Kennard: Alright. Thanks for tuning in today. Such a great call with Mark. I love that guy. And I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I hope you gained some valuable nuggets of wisdom for your life that you could use. I know that I did in just talking to him. When he discusses his core values like that, it's so clear to me to see how that blesses his life. So I encourage you all to take that advice and set core values for your life and know what they are. Be aware of them. And afterwards, I actually talked to him about setting core values for our businesses. And he agreed to that would actually be a really vauluable thing to do in business as well. I think I I've always tended to do that more for the business but I liked his approach to it in life. So very cool stuff. Thank you for listening to the Truly Amazing Life podcast. Hope it's a value to you. If you like it, please go over and leave us a review on iTunes. And join the converstation on trulyamazinglife.com/episode11. That's where we'll post all the notes and the information from this call, the book that Mark recommended, etc. Love to hear from you over there. Love to hear your thoughts. And that's all for today. Hope you have a fantastic day. This is Aaron Kennard signing off for the Truly Amazing Life podcast. Take care.